March 2021

The Nintendo Switch port for Apex Legends has been a long time coming. It suffered from delays last year, but it’s finally set to launch next week, on Mar. 9. A gameplay trailer has just been released to build some excitement ahead of Apex Legends’ Switch debut.

Switch players will be joining the fight in the middle of Season 8. Plenty of players on other platforms have had a significant head start when it comes to leveling up the Battle Pass, so Respawn is providing a few boosts and rewards for newcomers.

All new Switch players will get the first 30 levels of the Battle Pass for free in Season 8, and they’ll also be earning double XP for the first two weeks after launch.

It’s also important to note that the game features crossplay between all platforms, but that can be turned off or adjusted in the menus.

Check out the gameplay trailer below to see what you have to look forward to with Apex Legends on the Nintendo Switch:

Valorant’s next Act is finally upon us, and there’s a new trailer to build the hype as servers begin to go live over the next few hours. As you’d expect, the montage recaps all the new content coming to the game, from Astra the new Agent to some sexy skins with its latest battle pass.

The official patch notes for this latest update haven’t yet been released, though they should be coming in the next few hours. Of course, the big news is the arrival of Astra — check out her character introduction trailer if you haven’t yet already.

A new battle pass is also on the way with 50 new tiers to grind for, offering weapon skins, gun buddies, player cards, sprays, and Radianite points.

The big balancing changes we’re aware of ahead of the patch notes include changes to competitive play that allow a wider range of ranks to play together. There’s also a new system that punishes players for queue dodging and going AFK, too, but we’ll write a separate article recapping the full list of patch notes as and when we see them.

For now, here’s the new trailer:

Finally, the Aliens franchise is getting another video game. Called Fireteam, the upcoming third-person shooter is a PvE experience developed for next-generation consoles and PC by Cold Iron Studios.

It faces a tough act to follow after Creative Assembly’s critically acclaimed Alien: Isolation, though to be fair it’s an entirely different sort of game. Where Isolation was inspired by the original Alien horror film, Fireteam is inspired by the more action-oriented Aliens sequel.

Set 23 years after the original Alien trilogy, Aliens: Fireteam drops players into the role of a Colonial Marine aboard the USS Endeavor, recently tasked with answering a distress call from the outer colonies.

Players will deploy to overrun facilities, abandoned ruins and strange alien landscapes as they battle xenomorphs across four different campaigns with two friends or AI teammates.

The game will feature 20 different Alien types, from Xenomorphs to Weyland-Yutani Synthetics, which is designed to challenge players into mastering teamwork and co-ordination.

There are five different character classes, an expansive arsenal of customizable weapons and mods, and a character progression system. Also, a unique Challenge Card system also lets players mutate each mission, offering a new experience with every playthrough.

Craig Zinkievich, head of Cold Iron Studios explains the concept of the game in a press release:

“With Aliens: Fireteam, you and your friends will experience stepping into the boots of a squad of hardened Colonial Marines fighting in the ultimate battle for survival.

Today Square Enix released a large batch of screenshots and details about the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade.

Intergrade will include two modes, Graphics Mode will focus on high resolution, displaying the game in 4K. Performance Mode will focus on smooth framerate, targeting 60 frames-per-second. You can see the dedicated menu in the gallery.

Improvements, that you can see in the screenshots, include lighting, fog effects, and upgraded texture resolution showing more details.

The photo mode also showcased in the gallery, lets you take screenshots from different angles, adjust color correction, exposure, and more.

The story of the new episode focuses on Sonon and Yuffie after the Mako Reactor is blown up. Their aim is the Ultimate Materia developed by Shinra Electric Power Company. With the cooperation of Avalanche, Sonon infiltrates enemy territory alongside his moogle-caped companion as they seek retribution for their hometown. Guided by the crying of the stars, a new gear of fate starts spinning.

Yumi Kakazu reprises her role as Yuffie Kisaragi. She wields a huge shuriken and she has many self-proclaimed titles like “Ninja Beauty” and “World-Class Materia Hunter.” She infiltrates Midgar to save her hometown after Wutai lost a war against Shinra.

Sonon Kusakabe is voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya (who voiced Belial in Granblue Fantasy, Reiner Braun in Attack on Titan, Male Robin in Fire Emblem, & many more relevant roles). He studied under Yuffie’s father Godo Kisaragi who taught him Kenpo and Bojutsu (the art of the staff). He took part in the war while very young and grew to hate Shinra. He has a serious personality and looks after his senpai Yuffie, who tends to be more impulsive.

The new episode includes two chapters focusing on the infiltration of Midgar with the collaboration of Avalanche and the mission to steal the Ultimate Materia from Shinra.

Right around when Zelda: Skyward Sword came out so many years ago, folks were trying to figure out ways that they could emulate it with traditional controls.

I mean, I had that exact same thought. Given that motion was used for pretty much everything from shimmying around vines, to flight, to rolling bombs; deadzoning (even with the new Gold Wiimote and several other MotionPlus remotes I owned) was a problem for me. I longed for a traditional control method, and finally, we're getting one with Skyward Sword HD.

Will it work well? Nintendo thinks so, despite touting that motion was the only way to play way back when. A new tweet sheds some light on things already discussed in the presentation, most notably how sword strokes will work. The tweet showcases how sword motions are triggered by tilting the right analog stick, which allows players to enjoy Skyward Sword even in portable form (or on the Switch Lite, where traditional controls are their only option).

Truth be told, the mere existence of the Lite is a huge boon for me. I'm enjoying mine, to be sure, but I also like how it now forces Nintendo to try and support traditional controls as an option. Skyward Sword was occasionally fun with motion, but after that 1000th waggle to do a basic movement a button would have sufficed for, I was ready to swap to another control option; even for just a little while.

Nintendo of America [Twitter]

Video-game-loving restaurant Arby's has announced a fun new collaboration with Shovel Knight, bringing a range of cheeky themed DLC to Yacht Club Game's indie platforming hit.

For a limited time, customers who purchase Arby's Kids Meals at participating locations will receive a special Shovel Knight launcher token, complete with a Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove code. The codes - which can be redeemed on the platformer's Steam and Switch ports - will unlock one of seven exclusive in-game item, such as a sandwich erm... familiar, or the classic Arby's stetson. Check out the items on offer in the video below.

We don't have Arby's here in the UK. We almost got it in the early '90s, but plans fell through. Hell, we only got Taco Bell in the last decade. As such, I've personally not experienced an Arby's menu, I just know the sandwiches feature rolls of meat stacked in a bun. Is Arby's any good? I can't tell you. I can tell you that Shovel Knight is great, and well worth your time and money - whether accompanied by a tasty (checks notes) "Reuben" or otherwise.

[Update: And it's gone! It took roughly two weeks, but Bungie has put an end to the fun, as evidenced by the latest patch notes. Here's the rub: "Fixed an issue where players were able to cram 12 people into activity that clearly couldn’t handle the might of that many Guardians." It makes sense, but it was cool while it lasted!]

Interestingly, people are breaking Destiny again to make it more fun. Expect the police to arrive any day now!

As spotted by PC Gamer, folks have been forcing 12 players into Destiny 2 raids, which are normally six-player affairs. The gist? You form two fireteams (groups), one with five players on it, another with seven. Then you do some trickery with the invite/chat system and launch an activity; right as the timer hits two, you load both in at once.

So there's a bit of history around this. Scrub, the YouTube channel embedded below, perhaps showcases the effect the best in a very short video. But the trick was allegedly discovered by ChildCelebrity on Twitter, then popularized by this group in the Last Wish raid on February 26. Before that, it was only whispered about in some circles. It's gone viral now.

So it's been nearly a week since the playerbase has been engaging in these "extra player" raids, and the development team is aware of it. There has been no formal announcement on what a fix might entail or when it's coming.

The next Aliens game will be Aliens: Fireteam, a squad-based, third-person shooter with lots of Xenomorphs and Synthetics to fight.

The post Aliens: Fireteam Will Be a Third-Person, Team-based Shooter appeared first on Siliconera.

Create your own Chiral Network!

The post Death Stranding Capsule Toys Put BBs and Q-pids in Your Hand appeared first on Siliconera.

While the FFVII Remake is 18 chapters long, the Yuffie episode add-on will only contain two chapters.

The post The FFVII Remake Yuffie Episode Length Revealed appeared first on Siliconera.

Preorder Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade

• Get it at Amazon - $69.99
• Get it at Best Buy - $69.99
• Get it at GameStop - $69.99
• Get it at Newegg - $69.99
• Get it at Walmart - $69.99
• Get it at PS Store (digital) - $69.99

Cooperative video games have always been a bit of a tough nut to crack, with many developers coming up with their own distinct methods of cracking them. Some games don’t separate single player from coop at all and just let multiple players go through the same campaign. Others craft a separate and typically smaller experience meant for coop play exclusively. And others still are massively multiplayer and generally expect players to group up into large parties.

But Josef Fares and the team and Hazelight Studio have a very different view of what a cooperative game should be like, and their latest, It Takes Two, is shaping up to continue pioneering this new breed of coop-only adventure games, and maybe even in the process, bring a pair of former lovers back together.

[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=it-takes-two-screenshots-and-art&captions=true"]

It Takes Two is a cooperative-only action adventure platformer, but even to leave it at just that wordy description is doing the game a disservice. Much like Hazelight’s previous game, A Way Out, It Takes Two largely adopts the genre of whatever the story calls for. In the first level of my demo that I got to play with Josef Fares himself, things began very traditionally with the two characters, Cody and May — a divorced couple that get transformed into dolls by a magical book of love — awakening in a workshop shed. With Josef taking control of May and me guiding Cody, we had to make our way through the shed, hopping over boxes and chasing after a runaway fuse using all the familiar 3D platformer fundamentals: Double jumps, wall jumps, butt stomps, and so on.

In this 2019 GDC session, Heli Salomaa discusses the design process of creating costumes for the characters in Remedy Entertainment's Control. ...

Learn how the Monster Prom developers ignited their passionate fanbase at GDC Showcase! ...

Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has outlined plans for an in-person trial that will require witnesses to travel to Northern California to answer questions before the court. ...

Epic Games has bought Mediatonic, maker of last year’s hit battle royale Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, the company announced today.

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I started this new generation of game consoles with the expectation that I would be playing most games on the PS5, like how I played most stuff on PS4 last gen. But nearly five months later, I’m spending most of my time on the Xbox Series X and now I feel bad, like I’m ignoring my PS5.

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The Sinking City developer Frogwares has publicly accused former publisher Nacon of pirating the Lovecraftian adventure game for its recent re-release on Steam, the arrival of which put the Ukrainian studio in the weird position of asking potential customers not to purchase its own game last week.

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Upcoming Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy will feature some customization options related to gender, according to a report by Bloomberg. It’s a step toward trans inclusion in a game mired in controversy, even if it still shows the limitations of video games’ handling of trans people.

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Humble, that purveyor of assorted gaming grab bags, has just launched its latest Choice bundle and it's headlined by a pair of excellent PC games: supernatural shooter Control and sci-fi strategy spin-off XCOM: Chimera Squad.

It's worth pointing out that Remedy's Control is already available through Xbox Game Pass on PC, but picking it up through Humble Choice means you'll own it forever and not be at the mercy of Microsoft pulling it from the service on a whim. It looks stunning on PC, too.

Next to these two leading stars, the March Humble Choice bundle is rounded out with ten other games. This includes the likes of side-scrolling strategy gem Kingdom Two Crowns, pyrokinetic stealth platformer Wildfire and tech-infused fantasy RPG Elex. I've popped the full list below:

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Switch players will get a Pathfinder skin and 30 battle pass levels for free

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On Webtoons, lower-stakes stories are more than capable of keeping up with the big dogs of drama

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Fantasian’s miniature dioramas give the game a distinct visual style

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Meet the Trickster and a new Survivor

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Valheim is a charming survival game that allows players to transform themselves into Vikings as they explore a vast and beautiful open-world. While the game is deceptively simple when looking at aspects like character creation and building, this adventure has so much more to offer than what meets the eye. It also gives players a chance to flex those creative skills and one Skyrim fan did just that when they embarked on a multi-thread journey of recreating Whiterun within the world of Valheim. 

Reddit u/Djchieu has uploaded a few different parts of their journey into recreating Whiterun and honestly? I just thought it was really neat. I've been playing the game myself since launch and while I thought my humble abode right on the water's edge was spiffy, seeing other player creations out there suddenly has me feeling like I have a lot of catching up to do. 

The first update shows off the bare bones of making Whiterun crossover into the land of Vikings. Fellow Redditors were quick to reply with a request for constant updates as the work on this continues, and it's easy to see why! Check it out: 

Epic Games has announced it has acquired the development company behind the gameshow-style battle-royale hit, Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout. Tonic Games, the parent company of developer Mediatonic, joins Epic Games less than seven months following the launch of Fall Guys on PlayStation 4 and PC via Steam. The title is currently slated to arrive this summer on Xbox and Switch.

According to both Epic Games and Mediatonic, the gameplay of Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout isn't changing and the company will continue to invest in the title across all platforms. Fall Guys will still be available for purchase on all currently existing and announced platforms (yes, including Steam), and all versions will continue to receive future updates. 

"At Tonic Games Group we often say that 'everyone deserves a game that feels like it was made for them,'" Tonic Games Group co-founder and CEO Dave Bailey said in an Epic Games blog post. "With Epic, we feel like we have found a home that was made for us. They share our mission to build and support games that have a positive impact, empower others, and stand the test of time and we couldn't be more excited to be joining forces with them."

When Pokémon Go first released back in 2016, the world was unanimously happy for about two weeks as fans of the pocket monster franchise took to the real world to "catch 'em all" with the geocaching game. Eventually, the hype died down and the game evolved quite a bit to keep players invested by including things like raids, trading, and even more highly desirable features. Now, the mobile adventure is making its way to the world of HoloLens and if this demo from Microsoft and Niantic is anything to go by – it's a good move to make. 

HoloLends is a pair of mixed reality smartglasses from Microsoft that aims to take reality as we know it and make it even more integrated with the tech all around us. In this demo, Microsoft shows off how the mixed reality peripheral pairs with Pokémon Go to take the caching game to an entirely new level for dedicated players. 

Last month, Paradox Entertainment announced that it fired Hardsuit Labs from continuing to work on the upcoming Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 game. This month, that studio is now facing mass layoffs. 

The studio in Seattle has downsized tremendously following the news that Hardsuit will no longer be heading Bloodlines 2. A variety of roles were impacted, including the entire narrative team (as confirmed by Hardsuit's Samantha Wallschlaeger and Nicole Standford). 

MLB The Show 21 is establishing several firsts for the franchise. Not only is it the first game in the Sony-developed baseball franchise to appear on Xbox platforms, but it is also the first game in the series to make the leap to the new-gen hardware. Today, the development team at Sony's San Diego Studio released a trailer showcasing the list of upgraded features that new-gen players will enjoy.

We already knew that MLB The Show 21 is coming to both current and last-gen consoles with cross-platform play, but the new trailer also gives us additional details of what to expect from the newer hardware. Those who have a compatible headset on PS5 can enjoy 3D Audio, while all PS5 owners will experience special DualSense controller features. Regardless of which new-gen console you play on, you'll experience 60 frames-per-second performance. But that's not all; in addition to the performance and fidelity boosts, players on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S also get to quite literally build a home for their dynasty in the new stadium creator. 

If you'd like to see the new-gen version in action (plus see a couple of puppets, including one voiced by cover athlete Fernando Tatis Jr., in a very silly skit), check out the trailer below.

Sony has pivoted quite a bit going into this generation, including going backwards compatible, more PC jumps for exclusives, and changes made to the ecosystem as a whole. Part of that change going forward includes the removal of movie and TV purchases and rentals from the PlayStation Store. 

Vanessa Lee, head of video business at Sony Interactive Entertainment, took to the PlayStation Blog to provide the latest update on what's new. In an effort to "strive to provide the best entertainment experience for PlayStation fans," the team has decided that the continued evolution of the PlayStation Store has outgrown both film and television experiences. With so many subscription options available now, including the much-talked about Disney Plus service, the consumer need for movies and TV just isn't there like it has been in the past on PlayStation. 

The post continues by saying that the store has seen immense growth through the years thanks to subscriptions and ad-based entertainment services but that Sony wants to focus its efforts on what players want the most: games. Because of this, movie and TV purchases, as well as the ability to rent, will be going away on August 31, 2021.

Today Square Enix released a new trailer of its mobile game NieR: Re[in]carnation showing upcoming new content.

The new content is tiled “Flame Sand Chapter” and it’s coming to the game on March 9.

Of course, this is exclusively related to the Japanese version of the game, since the western localization isn’t available yet.

The game has already achieved over five million downloads in Japan in a few days, which is rather impressive, but perhaps unsurprising.

We already know that Nier Re[in]carnation is coming west, but unlike Japan, we don’t have a release date just yet. It’s currently being localized and voices are being recorded in English.

The Fall Guys official Twitter account has just announced that the studio behind the game, Mediatonic, has just joined the Epic Games family. The game grew rapidly in popularity shortly after its launch, and this is the next step in that growth for Mediatonic.

Epic Games has posted a blog post discussing the move on their official site. In it, Tonic Games Group Co-Founder and CEO Dave Bailey had this to say:

At Tonic Games Group we often say that ‘everyone deserves a game that feels like it was made for them.’ With Epic, we feel like we have found a home that was made for us. They share our mission to build and support games that have a positive impact, empower others and stand the test of time and we couldn’t be more excited to be joining forces with their team.

Fall Guys recently had the biggest PC launch since Overwatch, netting $185 million on release. The game’s insane success probably factored into Epic’s decision to purchase the studio.

With that being said, Fall Guys isn’t actually currently available on the Epic Games Store. But it would come as a surprise if that didn’t change soon after this announcement.

The post Epic Games Acquires Fall Guys Creator Mediatonic appeared first on Twinfinite.