March 2021

This March is easily the most important month Disney+ will have since it was introduced in late 2019. Big new television series and movies alike are set to take center stage, allowing viewers to grab some popcorn and enjoy the exciting entertainment they’ve been missing and craving throughout 2020. 

To celebrate the platform’s big month, we’ve sorted through the releases and picked out the shows and movies we know you won’t want to miss. Check out the line-up down below. 

Yesterday, we learned that Forever Entertainment, the developer behind Panzer Dragoon: Remake, would be given the opportunity to remake a franchise within the Square Enix Japan library.

Forever Entertainment proved that they have the chops to take a beloved but graphically-dated game and bring it lovingly into the 21st century. This got us thinking, what series, realistically, could Forever Entertainment be working on. Let’s take a few guesses, shall we?

Parasite Eve

To me, this one has the best chance. Parasite Eve is a series that Square Enix hasn’t shown a ton of interest in working on. In spite of that, it’s beloved by older fans that got to experience the series on the PS1.

Earlier today, the MLB The Show Twitter account dropped some big news for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S owners who plan to pick up the latest edition of Sony’s baseball sim next month. MLB The Show 21 will run in 4K at 60fps on the latest Sony and Microsoft consoles.

But that’s not all they revealed today. A new trailer released by Sony San Diego this morning also detailed a few other features coming to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game.

Of course, this Sony-developed game will include all of the little PS5 bells and whistles that you might expect from a first-party title. That means MLB The Show 21 will have 3D Audio and DualSense support.

It’s not entirely clear what they mean by DualSense support, but this typically refers to the special features of the PS5 controller like haptic feedback and adaptive triggers.

The big reveal at the end of the trailer shows off the addition of a stadium creator in MLB The Show 21. However, the text at the bottom of the video seems to indicate that this mode will only be available on the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions of the game.

You can check out the full MLB The Show 21 next-gen trailer down below.

Ever since Animal Crossing New Horizons released its Super Mario-themed items last month, fans of both franchises have been flocking back to their islands to deck out their characters and homes with plenty of Mario décor. The crossover has resulted in some super cute and creative creations, including a user that completely re-created Rainbow Road on their island.

Today Mistwalker released two new trailers of its upcoming JRPG Fantasian.

The game is a fairly classic turn-based JRPG with some twists set in a world creates with charming dioramas. Perhaps its most exciting selling point is that its creator is Hironobu Sakaguchi, the father of the Final Fantasy franchise.

The music has also been composed by Nobuo Uematsu.

It’s coming at some point this year to Apple Arcade, and you can watch the trailers below alongside a few screenshots.

It’s been over 18 months since Riot Games launched its superb tactical shooter Valorant. Several major updates since not only shifted and changed the Agent meta but have also added all-new Agents that have, at times, turned the meta on its head. With the launch of Episode 4, Act II, we’re back again to re-rank Valorant’s Agents into Tiers, according to the big recent meta shift. Without further ado, here’s who we consider the best Agents in Valorant Patch 4.04.

The Yakuza: Like a Dragon PS5 version is experiencing some growing pains that block the free upgrade, but the developer's aware.

The post Yakuza: Like a Dragon PS5 Issues Are Being Investigated appeared first on Siliconera.

There are two new Fantasian trailers to watch, and each one shows off different elements of Mistwalker's upcoming Apple Arcade game.

The post Mistwalker Fantasian Trailers Look at Its Gameplay and Story appeared first on Siliconera.

A Dead by Daylight K-pop chapter with a new killer and survivor is on the way, with both characters now available to test in the PTB.

The post New Dead by Daylight Killer Is a K-pop Singer appeared first on Siliconera.

In a huge but not exactly surprising move, Epic Games is buying Tonic Games Group, which means developer Mediatonic and Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout are "joining the Epic Games family."

"With our publisher Devolver Digital supporting and championing us along the way with Fall Guys, Foul Play, and Hatoful Boyfriend, we've been able to bring some truly unique experiences to players as an independent studio," said Mediatonic. "Joining forces with Epic will accelerate our plans to improve the game and bring Fall Guys to as many players as possible, while continuing to support the community."

For now, I wouldn't expect any drastic changes to the game, and current Fall Guys owners should be in the clear – at least for a while – if Epic's Psyonix and Rocket League pickup is anything to go by. (As a reminder, Rocket League is now "unlisted" on the Steam store but it's still playable for owners.)

Mediatonic has "nothing to announce right now" for free-to-play plans, but yeah.

Well, what a thing to wake up to!

Don't worry, it's not an exciting thing to wake up to. It's just a thing. Nintendo updated the Wii U again, for the first time in a while.

Nintendo stealth-dropped a March 1, 2021 update, which adds the classic "stability" verbiage into the mix. Here's the full rundown, the same as updates from 2016, 2017, and 2018: "Further improvements to overall system stability and other minor adjustments have been made to enhance the user experience." As a note, the last time the Wii U was updated, even tangentially, was September 3, 2018.

When something like this happens out of nowhere, usually it's Nintendo patching up an exploit. Although the Wii U is dead and buried at this point (and frankly erased from existence on several official Nintendo sites), Nintendo is always looking for ways to fight piracy.

I still use my Wii U! Not only can you earn My Nintendo points by signing into the Wii U eShop once a week (as well as the 3DS), but there's still some gems left on it that either aren't ported over to Switch, or cannot be replicated as easily (Nintendo Land).

Ver. 5.5.5 U (March 1st, 2021) [Nintendo] [Thanks John!]

Chinese video game developer miHoYo has suggested that it raked in close to $800 million USD in revenue over the course of 2020, almost entirely driven by the overnight success of its fantasy gacha title Genshin Impact, which launches on PS4, PC, and mobile platforms last September.

In a behind-closed-doors speech given at the Shanghai Jiaotong University, miHoYo President and co-founder Cai Haoyu reportedly stated that the company's revenue had essentially doubled in a single year, with miHoYo rounding out 2020 with a total figure in the region of ¥5 billion, or roughly $774 million USD. According to the number-crunchers over at Sensor Tower, around $400 million of this enormous figure came directly from the sale of Genshin Impact (and its ensuing microtransactions) a mere two months into the title's launch period.

Genshin Impact is an anime-themed fantasy adventure in which players build a party of charming and likeable characters before seeking open-world adventure in the seven regions of fictional universe Teyvat. Players visit new locations and engage in battle with monsters and other characters, while managing their skills and abilities - purchasing new party members and weapons via in-game/real-world currency. Like many games of the gacha genre, Genshin Impact's rare item and character pull rates feature very low odds.

Genshin Impact's newest banner event begins today, and sees the arrival of spooky gal Hu Tao. Available now on PS4, PC, and iOS and Android devices, ports of Genshin Impact are currently in the works for PS5 and Nintendo Switch with release tentatively scheduled for 2021.

Nintendo has a rep for being conservative with their IP. You don't say! The publisher has always been ready to give third parties a shot at crafting first party experiences. Just look at Minish Cap and several other Zelda games, which were handled by Capcom: and are often celebrated.

But in recent years, they have started lending some of their bigger properties to smaller studios more and more, perhaps best shown through Cadence of Hyrule; which was heavily promoted by Nintendo. Either way, Nintendo is always aware of the damage they could do to their own brand. That mantra hasn't changed, even in 2021.

Speaking to Nikkei (as translated by Nintendo Everything), Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa is smart enough to recognize how easy it would be to tarnish a franchise. Furukawa explains: "We must keep in mind that the origins of the characters are in the games. These are characters that fans have grown attached to through countless hours of playtime. We must develop those characters in a way that won’t destroy fans’ memories of the characters in their worlds."

Furukawa goes on to say that "proceeding with caution" is key, and that they don't want to "damage the value of the brand." He explains that although short term sales could be easy to create with a short-sighted strategy, "there are other ways" to do this. Instead, Furukawa is focused on "keeping Nintendo a beloved brand in the long run."

Those of you still reeling from the inclusion of Ellen Ripley and a Xenomorph in Epic Games' Fortnite might take a little comfort in the news that a new, more "on-brand" game is also in the works. Aliens: Fireteam is currently in development at Cold Iron Studios and is expected to launch this summer on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC platforms.

Described as a co-op, third-person, survival shooter, Aliens: Fireteam will see your band of hoo-rah marines arrive on the outer colonies in response to a sudden distress signal. Surprise, surprise, it's fucking aliens. Players will squad up in teams of three to investigate LV-895, battling waves of Xenomorphs, Face-Huggers, and synthetic foes provided by everyone's favorite scumbag corporation, Weyland-Yutani. Check out the first trailer below.

A new patch is available now for the hit Norse multiplayer game Valheim. Among a handful of smaller changes, it makes a big change for dedicated servers and also tweaks the game balance so wolves are less horny.

Starting with the dedicated servers, this new update makes it so dedicated servers now always use direct connections instead of using the Steam Datagram Relay (SDR) system.

"This should result in much lower latency for most players," developer Iron Gate said. "I really hope this patch solves a lot of connection issues introduced in last weeks patches (due to switching socket backend)," the studio said.

Elsewhere, the March 2 update for Valheim contains a change that makes wolves less likely to mate. The patch notes state that the update "lowered wolf procreation slightly." The developers apparently thought there was something wrong with wolves making cubs more than they should, so wolves are slightly less horny now, to borrow a phrase from PCGamer.

The Valheim patch notes also mention some localization updates, while the Bonemass enemy's puke effect should not work properly, thank goodness. You can see the full patch notes below, as posted by Iron Gate on Steam.

Microsoft has revealed a brand-new platform for its future of augmented and mixed reality development named Mesh. Microsoft Mesh will enable users to truly experience shared virtual spaces with holograms.

At Microsoft Ignite, the company unveiled its vision of the future for HoloLens 2 and the devices that succeed it, where users will be able to occupy shared virtual spaces and interact with holograms that are persistent between users. This means being able to toss a key, for example, from your hand to that of another participant, something which was demonstrated by guest James Cameron (director of Avatar) and Cirque du Soleil co-founder Guy Laliberté.

The Yakuza series has become increasingly popular in recent years, especially Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but the franchise hasn't offered much in the way of playable women. Thanks for the modder who goes by the handle "RyuHachii," however, you can now play as a femme version of the series' longtime protagonist Kazuma Kiryu in Yakuza Kiwami 2.

As first spotted by TheGamer, RyuHachii first caught onto the idea when she was experimenting with Kiryu's character model in graphic design programs like Blender. Inspired by the women party members in Yakuza: Like a Dragon like Saeko, RyuHachii eventually created an entirely new "genderbent" version of Kiryu that you can play as. RyuHachii told TheGamer that the idea was also influenced by existing fanart of Kiryu, which popularized the genderbent concept.

If you'd like to check out the mod, check it out at NexusMods. Certain cutscenes may stutter a bit due to the new character model, but overall, it's a playable woman in a Yakuza game, and that's something a lot of fans are likely to want as the franchise grows more popular.

Nintendo is holding another event in Tetris 99 event this week. The online puzzler's 20th Maximus Cup kicks off at 11 PM PT on March 4, and it gives players a chance to unlock a new theme based on Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury, complete with Fury Bowser's awesome theme music.

Like previous Tetris 99 events, this week's Maximus Cup is a point competition. You'll receive a number of points depending on how well you place each round, with the Mario 3D World theme unlocking once you've amassed at least 100 points. Nintendo shared a preview of the theme in action below.

The Maximus Cup event runs until 10:59 PM PT on March 8 (1:59 AM ET on March 9), so you'll have until then to earn enough points and unlock the Mario 3D World theme.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is quite possibly the best deal in games today. For $15 per month, Game Pass Ultimate grants you access to more than 400 games on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One as well as hundreds of games for PC as well. With so many games to choose from and a limited number of hours in the day, it can be challenging to pick what to play from the Game Pass library. And if you wait too long, a game you might've liked could leave the service. We've rounded up the 30 best Game Pass games available now. New games arrive on the service just about every week, and old games leave the service, too. We'll continue to update this list as the Game Pass library rotates.

More Xbox best lists

A new Dead by Daylight update is now live on Steam via the game’s Player Test Build (PTB), developer Behaviour Interactive announced. The full patch notes for the update, dubbed 4.6.0, are outlined below. The update makes some changes to the game, including adding two new characters, implementing quality-of-life improvements, and putting in more chat features.

At the top of update 4.6.0 are the two new characters: the killer The Trickster and the survivor Yun-Jin Lee. The Trickster is a K-pop star who now enjoys making music with the bones of his enemies. Yun-Jin, meanwhile, is The Trickster’s former producer. They both come with their own set of abilities and weapons, as well as a unique special. For example, The Trickster can activate his Main Event special once his Event Meter is full. This ability gives him unlimited access to his throwing knives, increases his throw rate, and boosts his movement speed.

There are also adjustments for two other killers: The Blight and The Wraith. The Blight's point of view has been better positioned to reflect where his eyes are looking and the collision detection for his abilities has been reworked. On the other side, The Wraith's movement speed while cloaked has been increased but he now moves much slower when uncloaked.

Update 4.6.0 adds some quality-of-life improvements as well. The game now has a new chat filter feature, which should help cut some of the inappropriate language that populates the in-game chat. There are also colorblind modes that let players switch between various visual capabilities, like deuteranope and tritanope filters.

Fall Guys developer Mediatonic has been acquired by Fortnite studio Epic Games, expanding the North Carolina developer's battle royale empire even further.

"Huge news! Mediatonic are pleased to announce that we've joined the Epic Games family," the UK studio said on Twitter.

Separately, Epic Games confirmed in a blog post that it acquired the entire Tonic Games Group, which is the parent company of Mediatonic.

What does this all mean for Fall Guys? "Your gameplay isn't changing and Epic will continue to invest in making the game a great experience for players across platforms," Epic said. "Your favorite colorful beans will still stumble through the chaos on PC, PlayStation, and soon Nintendo Switch and Xbox."

After Epic Games bought Rocket League studio Psyonix, the game went free-to-play and was removed from Steam in favor of the Epic Games Store. For now at least, Fall Guys remains a paid game and continues to be available for purchase on Steam.

Pokemon Sword and Shield players can claim another free item bundle for a limited time. As a reward for defeating a ton of Gigantamax Pikachu during the games' recent Max Raid event, The Pokemon Company is giving away a bundle of free Armorite and Dynite Ore, which are normally hard to get in the games.

The overarching goal of the event was to defeat 1 million Pikachu. If players could collectively hit that total, The Pokemon Company promised to give away 100 Armorite Ore and 100 Dynite Ore. Unfortunately, players fell a little short; only 874,808 Pikachu were ultimately defeated during the event. Although the goal wasn't met, The Pokemon Company is still distributing 87 of each ore to all players as a reward.

To claim the free items, simply open the Mystery Gift menu and select the Receive via Internet option. The free ore will be available until 11:59 PM UTC on March 14, so you'll need to claim it before then. Armorite and Dynite Ore can be used as currency for certain items and services in the Isle of Armor and Crown Tundra, respectively.

That isn't the only freebie available right now. In celebration of the Pokemon series' 25th anniversary, Sword and Shield players can claim a free Pikachu for a limited time. What makes this Pikachu special is that it knows Sing, a move that it can't normally learn in the series. Players can also claim a free code for a Shiny Toxtricity at GameStop (US) and EB Games (Canada) stores.

A new hotfix has hit Destiny 2 to fix a number of bugs, including incorrect rewards dropping from the Presage Exotic mission. Update 3.1.0.2 also undoes a previous nerf to Warlocks' Penumbral Blast and fixes a few issues with rewards from the Battlegrounds seasonal activity.

Bungie shared the complete patch notes for Update 3.1.0.2 on its blog, which mostly fix a lot of minor irritations. Players who dove into the Harbinger Exotic mission last season have been annoyed that several Triumphs associated with it were bugged, but this hotfix knocks out those issues--so you can now get Triumphs like "The Lightbringer" for finding all of a week's Penumbral Feathers in the mission, and "Birds of a Feather" for completing the mission with a fireteam of players using Hawkmoon.

Other fixed problems include players launching the Presage mission without its associated quests, which hampered their ability to make progress on them, and rewards not dropping from the mission when it was completed. Bungie also caught some problems with armor ornaments for various Exotic armor and weapons, and fixed the Ticuu's Divination Exotic catalyst, which wasn't progressing properly for some players.

Check out the full patch notes below.

Update 3.1.0.2 Patch Notes

ACTIVITIES

Battlegrounds

Xbox has picked up a new hire: a former journalist at the New York Times. Seth Schiesel, the video game critic for the newspaper's Culture section, is leaving his post there and at the new media company Protocol to join Xbox as the company's director of executive communications.

Schiesel had been a contributing New York Times writer for almost two decades, first joining the paper in 1996 as a business reporter. He transitioned to the Culture department in 2005, where he primarily wrote critiques and commentary about video games and their culture. He more recently was a contributing editor for Protocol, where he focused again on video games and their related industries. But before all of this, Schiesel wrote for The Boston Globe.

He now joins Xbox as its director of executive communications, believing "gamers are a force for good." On Twitter, where Schiesel announced the news, he said that he will "continue to extend the joy and community of gaming to people everywhere" in his new position at Xbox.

Xbox has been on a bit of a hiring spree. Across multiple of the company's studios in 2020, Xbox hired talents like former Crystal Dynamics and Naughty Dog alumni, a developer who worked on Battlefield V and Uncharted 4, and others.

Death Stranding's PC publisher 505 Games has announced a new arcade-style hunting game that adds in some survival elements for a new twist on the genre.

Open Country is in development at Funlabs, the Romanian studio that has been making hunting video games under the Cabela's license for 20 years.

Open Country puts you in the shoes of a "corporate worker drone" who wants to escape their mundane life and head out for a journey into the ... open country. Together with your dog, you trek into the wilderness and must hunt for food, and also use your weapons to defend yourself from the likes of bears and wolves.

The third-person open-world game has more than 30 missions to take part in to help level up your character to unlock better weapons and equipment.

The $15 game launches on the Epic Games Store and Steam for PC on May 18.

Hironobu Sakaguchi told me that three years ago, he had the chance to replay Final Fantasy VI with some of his peers who worked on the game with him. He was the lead producer on that 27-year-old classic, which is often regarded as the best entry in the storied series. "It really brought me back and reminded me why I love the RPG genre so much," he said, thus, inspiring his latest project, Fantasian.

It's been almost two decades since Sakaguchi had been involved with Final Fantasy, but as the creator of the illustrious franchise, he's still trying to capture the spirit. "I went back to my roots into the pixel art era of RPGs and paid a lot of attention to that nostalgia element in the game's overall construction," Sakaguchi said when I asked him about how the past work of his development studio Mistwalker influenced Fantasian. However, he and the team aren't simply resting on the laurels and relying on our love of old-school RPGs.

When Fantasian was first revealed during the Apple Arcade premiere in March 2019, Sakaguchi was shown working with handmade dioramas--this is how in-game environments are made for Fantasian. The game boasts over 150 dioramas used for scenes, backdrops, interiors, and overworlds to explore, and even the objects and props in these environments were physically created.

Fortnite is one of the biggest games in the world, and it appears that the game's Season 5 is set to end explosively. Leakers have uncovered evidence that suggests that Fortnite's Zero Point is about to go kaput.

In the below tweet, Fortnite leaker Mang0e says that it appears that the Zero Point will send out waves of destabilization over the next few weeks, as part of the buildup to Season 6. Apparently, the Zero Point will also disrupt in-game voice chat with strange sound effects, and it's possible that NPCs might even be teleported by the flickering Zero Point.

PlayStation Studios has shared some new details on MLB The Show 21, confirming that the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X editions are capable of running at 4K/60fps and that they will have a new mode in the form of a stadium-creator.

These details were confirmed as part of the latest in PlayStation's bizarre Muppets-style video series featuring a puppet version of cover star Fernando Tatis Jr. and the "Coach."

The video also confirms that MLB The Show 21 will feature 3D audio and support for the DualSense controller's unique capabilities on PS5. It also states that to experience MLB The Show 21 at 60fps you will need a next-gen console.

The video caps off by providing a sneak peek at the stadium-creator mode that will only be available on next-gen consoles. The video doesn't provide any details, but it showcases how you can create a variety of different-looking stadiums with the mode. Presumably a deeper dive into the stadium-creator is coming later.

MLB The Show 21 launches on April 20 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, as well as PS4 and Xbox One, though people who buy a more expensive edition can start playing four days early.