April 2021

Attack on Titan‘s final season has just ended… well, at least for the time being anyway. Fans of the series were thrilled to hear that the show will be extending its final season with a part 2 that is set to air next Winter, 2022.

This seems like the most logical choice for the series as the first half of the season ended on a huge cliffhanger. If you’re caught up on the manga then odds are you understand how much content is left to be covered, and while the show’s studio, MAPPA, could have elected to cram it all into a movie, a lot of content would have had to be cut in order to do so.

Now that we know part 2 is coming and while we have a whole year to wait around for it, we decided to list a few of the biggest questions we have that need to be answered by the time the series fully comes to an end next Winter.

(All Images credited to Wit Studio/Mappa)

Here are four questions we need answered in part 2 of Attack on Titan’s final season.

Spoilers incoming.

D3 Publisher announced the western release of its upcoming action game Earth Defense Force: World Brothers.

The game is coming to North America, Europe, and Asia on May 27, 2021.

It’ll include English voice acting and will come with the voxel graphics that we have already seen before its Japanese release last winter.

Below you can check out the announcement trailer and a bunch of screenshots.

Probably the biggest point of controversy with the reveal of Attack on Titan’s final season was that Wit Studio wasn’t going to be handling the animation for the show. In its place, the animation studio MAPPA would take over instead, and we got our first glimpse of what the final season would look like when the teaser trailer dropped.

It looked decent, then the first episode aired. And it wasn’t long before comparison videos started popping up to show the difference in animation between the studios’ titans.

Here’s the thing, though: after watching the entirety of the first part of the final season, the animation work by MAPPA wasn’t that bad at all. In fact, it was still pretty darn good.

If there are any complaints to be had, it’s that the final season’s use of CGI seems to be more widespread than before. And if you’ve hung around the anime community long enough, you’ll know that CGI in anime is generally not very well-received. CGI fight scenes can make the titans look awkward when they move around, or somewhat disproportionate and out of place.

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Gameplay capture platform Lowkey has raised $7 million through a Series A funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz. ...

April Fool’s Day is terrible. Things you wish were real are fake. And things you wish were fake are real, like this Fortnite stonks meme skin.

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Outriders (PS4) | $50 | Walmart

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Christopher Eccleston transformed Doctor Who forever. Sixteen years ago, the actor—headlining a bold reboot of the beloved British sci-fi classic that had been off screens for nearly a decade—presented a tortured, compassionate take on a Time Traveler without a home. Then, as quickly as we met him, he vanished,…

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Chris Parnell reprises his role as investigative journalist Trip Westhaven and players reprise their role as Big Honkin’ Shark in Maneater: Truth Quest, a fresh batch of conspiracy-driven downloadable content coming to PlayStations, Xboxen, and PC this summer.

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An English version of Atelier Online: Alchemist of Bressisle will appear worldwide. There's even a trailer to show off its general atmosphere. #url#

The post Atelier Online English Version Trailer Appears appeared first on Siliconera.

A Pokemon Sword & Shield Magikarp April Fools' Day event is in effect, giving you a chance to fight Magikarp you can't catch for rewards.

The post Pokemon Sword & Shield April Fools’ Day Magikarps Can’t Be Caught appeared first on Siliconera.

Nanami will reunite with Misaki after she gets invited to visit the Venus Islands.

The post Dead or Alive Xtreme: Venus Vacation Adds Misaki’s Classmate Nanami appeared first on Siliconera.

The first-person view minigame tasks you to clear a city from zombies and resurrected enemies.

The post Celebrate April Fools With Dragon Ball Z: Dokkan of the Dead appeared first on Siliconera.

Publisher Bethesda Softworks has announced that the next-gen console edition of The Elder Scrolls Online will launch on June 8, offering an enhanced edition of the fantasy MMO for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S players. This new edition will be offered as a free update within the same console family to anybody who currently owns ESO.

The Elder Scrolls Online: Console Enhanced will remain the same title from a gameplay standpoint, but will be gifted a wide selection of visual and technical updates. These include full 60 FPS gameplay while in "performance mode," higher resolution textures, improved anti-aliasing, improved shadow and reflective effects, an increased draw distance, more realistic Ambient Occlusion, and improved load times across the board. All of these visual upgrades will allow Tamriel to shine better than ever before, offering console players a smoother and more immersive experience.

The time has finally come for Outriders' launch, and all of us can stop farming gear in the demo and jump into the real thing.

It's been...interesting so far! While some of the core loop has the potential to get stale, it's fun jumping into games with random people and seeing how class synergy works. The moment to moment gunplay is fun, and I'm actually experimenting with different builds without feeling overwhelmed. Oh, and the lack of live service nonsense or loot boxes helps. It has a baked-in season pass type system to ramp up and unlock cosmetics, but it is not monetized. Praise be.

One big thing I've been messing with during my playthrough is the world tier system, and I think a lot of people are going to like it. In short, it's a sliding difficulty scale that also dictates the quality of your loot. Now, this isn't new. Even the term is old hat. But typically, a lot of games ask you to set your world tier before you do a mission, or in certain zones. Outriders lets you do it whenever.

Remember that! You can pause the game whenever you want, solo, and set your tier. The game even clearly and cleverly labels their difficulty, starting with "story," then ramping to "easy, normal, hard, expert, master, legend..." and so on.

The thing is, the penalties for ramping down aren't that massive early on (the difference between loot rarity is only 10 percentage points in the first three levels), and you can dynamically swap as needed. Having trouble with a boss? Roll down and best them. You won't get as good of a loot table, but hey, you won't be banging your head against the wall for an hour straight.

Monster Hunter Rise wallpapers? Don't mind if I do!

In classic My Nintendo fashion, the site has put up a very small, all-digital promo for Monster Hunter Rise. Although some games have gotten the physical item treatment, other big titles kind of come and go without it.

I mean, we could get a physical Rise reward at some point! But for now, there's digital wallpapers. Just head on over to the My Nintendo landing page for them, and you can download three wallpapers that fit both a PC desktop and a mobile device. As a heads-up, you can find all of the resolutions you'll get below.

Weird promo aside, I love these, especially the first two that employ a unique chibi style (the third uses the same classic Ukiyo-e motif that the game employs for monster images).

The catch is they're 50 Platinum Points each, if you're down for that. If you need some scratch, you can head to our ultimate guide for My Nintendo points and you'll be good to go in minutes.

It's April Fools' Day, and aside from being a living nightmare for journalists around the world, it's also an opportunity for game developers to put out some very silly stuff. This year it seems PUBG Corp has taken up the gauntlet, releasing an arcade-style minigame for PUBG where you fight chickens. And it's called POBG (short for Playeromnomnom's Battlegrounds) - although that doesn't exactly solve the debate on how to pronounce the acronym. I'm going with pob-guh.

The minigame can be accessed through PUBG's main menu, where it appears as a little arcade cabinet. POBG is based on a pixel art version of PUBG maps (inspired by the work of artist Alexey "Gas13" Garkushin). Having played it for a couple of levels, I have to say, it's a surprisingly high-quality April fool. Players must shoot their way through "rooms" full of chickens, who parachute from the sky and immediately start firing semi-automatics in your general direction. (The choice of chickens is a reference to what happens when you win a regular PUBG game, which gives you the famous message "winner winner chicken dinner".) You can pick up ammo, health and different weapons along the way, and find cover behind various crates and pieces of debris. Once you've cleared a stage, you can also acquire various bonus abilities to help you collect some chicken dinners.

We've been massively enthusiastic about Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2 in the past - Vicarious Visions revamped and modernised a brilliant game for PC, PS4 and Xbox One consoles while retaining the core genius of its original incarnations. It's one of John Linneman's top games of 2020 and I'm happy to report that the next generation update for the game is highly impressive - though the upgrade process itself could be better, and if you've already bought it, Activision wants more of your money for the latest rendition of the code. The good news is that the upgrades themselves are excellent - at least in our experience.

With that said, it seems that some users have had issues and we're not entirely sure why, as we didn't encounter any problems with the game during testing. Maybe the fact that we were given specific Xbox Series and PlayStation 5 review codes allowed us to side-step some of the problems others are facing - no upgrade was needed, no existing code was sat on our hard drives - but the fact is that the game just worked with no problems in the time we spent with it. Your mileage may vary of course, but fingers crossed that any outstanding issues will be resolved sooner rather than later because whether you're gaming on PS5, Series X or Series S, the improvements are palpable.

Stonks man is now in Fortnite.

The CGI creation - a cross between Jeff Bezos and a crash test dummy - is known online for his presence on memes to do with the stock market.

His popularity has only risen further this year - like the soaring stonks he illustrates - because of last month's GameStop stock market shenanigans.

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Microsoft has signed a contract with the US Army, worth up to $21.88bn, to deliver 120,000 custom Hololens augmented reality headsets.

The deal comes after a previous $480m contract in 2018 to develop prototype versions for the army, CNBC News reported. The IVAS (Integrated Visual Augmented System) concept used the headset's display to show map and thermal imaging systems, as well as the aim for a weapon.

That agreement was criticised by Microsoft employees in an open letter, in which staff said they "did not sign up to develop weapons, and we demand a say in how our work is used". These concerns were dismissed by Microsoft boss CEO Satya Nadella, and the contract went ahead.

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Remember when two Earth Defense Force games were announced last June? One of them was World Brothers, a more cartoony take on what’s already an absurd, over-the-top franchise. Developer Yuke’s and D3 Publisher has dropped a new trailer revealing the summer release date and showcases more of the game's blockier take on bug-slaying. 

World Brother’s launches May 27 and is now coming to PC in addition to PS4 and Switch. The game is still all about blasting giant bugs as well as robots and aliens, but that action is rendered in more lighthearted voxel graphics. Personally, I think the look works for the series, and it’s especially nice if you’re sensitive to looking at giant, realistic bugs (including spiders). Take a look at the new release date trailer below to see if you agree.

Hank Jarvis, 24, spent much of Saturday morning complaining to his roommate about Bloodborne. His latest complaint centered on the fact that he couldn’t see the characters behind various doors and windows, and he had to interact with disembodied voices instead. “[From Software] are so freaking lazy!” he shouted before pausing the game to watch a video on how to kill the Maneater Boar after encountering the beast and immediately getting trampled to death.

“This is such lazy game design,” he exclaimed after finally felling the creature, thanks to the help from a tutorial video that showed how to roll away from the big pig’s attacks. “It’s not even really that hard. They just make bosses do unfair stuff to make the game seem longer. Lazy.”

Jarvis' anger increased when he encountered the Shadow of Yharnam boss. “Oh my god,” he yelled. “This is just three of the same guys! They couldn’t even be bothered to make three different guys. Unbelievable.”

His roommate, Patricia Jarvis, 49, pointed out that each of the three Shadows appeared to have different weapons and attack patterns, which elicited more ranting from Jarvis. “This sucks. I’m not wasting my time with this garbage,” Jarvis said, before watching several additional tutorial videos. Hours later, after being repeatedly burned, stabbed, and killed by snakes, Jarvis finally defeated the trio. “After all that hard work, there wasn’t even a cool death animation or anything. How hard could that be?!”

It's April Fool's Day, which means nothing is sacred and everything is a lie. While we're celebrating with the return of Game Infarcer, Remedy Entertainment decided to celebrate by joking that you can now play Control on PlayStation 1. When the studio shared a trailer of what could Control would look like on PS1, they accidentally made us all really want it. 

The team behind Control took to Twitter to share their own contribution to April 1 and the replies show that I am very much not alone in being interested in this demake: 

Okay, you kid, but I'd definitely take a short demake.

— Ryan Brown 🎮 (@Toadsanime) April 1, 2021

This is the cruelest April Fools of them all.

— Prince Tybalt (@FrontlineGamer) April 1, 2021

April Fools be damned, I'll absolutely take a Control demake.

Resident Evil Village looks cool and all, but what we all can't stop talking about is the Big Tall Vampire Lady, also known as Lady Dimitrescu. This massively tall character took the gaming world by storm – it even took over the KFC Dating Sim game – and now one Resident Evil cosplayer is upping the ante when it comes to Lady Dimitrescu cosplay (not that cosplay is a competition, as long as you're having fun!). 

The cosplayer in question is Candy with the wonderful photography and makeup done by @MilliganVick. The result from this pairing? A cosplay so good it could be in a movie: 

When Sony and Microsoft launched their next-gen consoles last fall, you foolishly assumed they were better. As you waited in online purchase queues, you said, “Oh, it’s totally okay that there are basically no new or exclusive games for these systems I am trying to pay hundreds of dollars for!” But as a gaming journalist, my standards are a bit higher than yours, and this so-called “next generation” is a colossal disappointment.

Look, I don’t care if all the new and old games on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S have better graphics, performance, and gameplay. That’s not what being a gamer is about! We all know that new experiences trump good ones. Sony and Microsoft’s failure to immediately deliver breathtaking new IP and surprising exclusives has already doomed the new systems.

I’ve already played every good game from the last generation (like most people), so I don’t care about optimized versions of them. So what if God of War, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, or Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are amazing games made better by the use of the next-gen technology? They are ancient history now! And don’t even get me started on the lack of console exclusives; if a title releases on multiple platforms, my excitement level plummets. Games are art, and by definition, art is better and more important when it is accessible only to a limited audience. Letting everyone experience a piece of art only cheapens it.

Maneater, a game that in itself feels like an April Fool’s joke (in a good way), is getting its first story expansion this summer. Truth Quest picks up where the original game’s story left off and sees players unravel a dark military conspiracy. 

Your bull shark hero protagonist returns as does journalist Trip Westhaven, who has been driven a bit mad since the events of the base campaign. He's on a mission to prove to his fans that the wacky shark abilities players put on display are the result of a massive government cover-up and falls down rabbit hole of conspiracies to do it. Truth Quest opens a new region of Port Clovis for players to explore and gives them a new bag of tricks as players once again eat and evolve their way through the plot.

After what's becoming a chillingly regular meditation on the concept of Matthew extinguishing the lives of astronauts, this week's podcast waded into some staunch reminiscence about classic co-op games on PC. Indeed, with Alice away this week, the boys were really method-acting the theme: two extraorfinarily buff soldiers, grimacing with war-weary determination against a horde of meandering, half-on-topic anecdotes.

Nate got way too excited about his idea for a Dance Dance Revolution mod based on Pacific Rim, Matthew got to show some love for the adorably brutish Gears Of War series, and stern warnings were given on the damage that Overcooked can do to relationships. The Cavern of Lies featured a short and utterly brutal RPG adaptation of the first level of Halo 2.

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Chip shortage and shipping problems are having ripple effects

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From Star Wars to anime to Back to the Future: The Ride, his latest film is the director’s every obsession rolled into one

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It’s back to the Cold War for Call of Duty’s battle royale

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April Fools’ Day gag is apparently real, coming in 2021

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Today is another big day for airport developers for Microsoft Flight Simulator, with plenty of announcements and releases.

A spin-off group from Metropolitan Airport Development Brothers (who recently released Chofu) is working on one of my favorite airports, Osaka Itami (RJOO) in Japan.

While in recent years it has lost traffic to Osaka Kansai airport, it still hosts a lot of scheduled flights, and features a very scenic approach over the city.

Earlier today, the Nvidia GeForce YouTube channel released the official launch trailer for Outriders from the studio People Can Fly. This combination of third-person shooter and RPG is out now on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.

There’s very little that they could have shown to surprise those anticipating the launch of this game. The last Square Enix Presents already had a major blowout of info that took up around 22% of the 38-minute-long presentation.

But it’s hard to complain about seeing more of this game. The Outriders launch trailer featured about half and half cinematics and gameplay. It’s very clear which is which, but the gameplay still looks fantastic.

The glowing enemy creatures all look equally intimidating and terrifying. And the towering beasts you see in the trailer look like they’ll give you a rough time. You’ll surely need a few friends to topple these massive enemies.

The skills of the different classes are also shown off throughout the Outriders launch trailer. The Techromancer, Pyromancer, Devastator, and Trickster are all featured along with their unique skills. And of course, there’s plenty of gunplay.

You can check out the Outriders official launch trailer down below.

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Quick analysis and predictions about Magic Legends, the latest MMORPG by Cryptic Studios & Perfect World Entertainment based on the Magic: The Gathering universe. ...

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Outriders is finally out today for all of the things (save for the Switch). But some players have reportedly found themselves unable to play, seemingly stuck on an infinite loading screen. Pro tip: Just stay in line. They have to count your login.

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Samsung Galaxy Buds Live and Outriders lead Thursday’s best deals.

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Following a delay and a month-long demo period, looter-shooter Outriders is out today for basically every platform but the Switch. If you played the demo, you can carry your progress over to the main game if on the same platform, something developer People Can Fly made clear from the jump. But it’s astonishing how…

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