April 2021

Freezy survival-ish battle royaler Scavengers launches today in early access. Although we've got more than enough squad-based royale 'em ups in every flavor right now, Scavengers seems to lean into the "environment" bit of PvPvE enough to have caught my attention. It's caught plenty of other folks' attention too, it seems. Scavengers is entertaining over 100,000 viewers on Twitch at the moment, though it surely owes a good chunk of that to the fact that it's currently handing out early access keys exclusively through Twitch Drops. It will be openly available free to play in early access "in the near future".

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Failbetter Games' superb interstellar narrative adventure Sunless Skies is finally coming to consoles next month, on 19th May, in the guise of the much-enhanced Sovereign Edition - which will arrive as a free update for existing PC players at the same time.

Sunless Skies is, of course, the follow-up to Failbetter's Sunless Sea and, as its name suggests, trades the nautical adventuring of its forebear for a rocket-powered jaunt across a "universe steeped in celestial horror and ravaged by Victorian ambition".

The end result once again offers a blend of rogue-like exploration and strikingly evocative storytelling - albeit with a much greater focus on more fulsome narrative arcs this time around - with enough finessing to the formula that Eurogamer slapped an Essential badge on Sunless Skies when it released on PC in 2019.

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The ideal candidate is driven to create a fun and cohesive gameplay experience, able to empathize with both new players and with experts of the genre. ...

Stadia is rolling out a handful of changes to its interface, including an updated library IO, sorting options, and a search bar on Stadia for Web. ...

Take a look behind the scenes of Double Fine Production's Psychonauts in this 2005 postmortem covering what went right (and what went wrong!) during the iconic platformer's development. ...

‘We know that our initial test was not perfect’

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Read through the start of Tanjiro’s journey

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Too many sea monsters and not enough Nazi punching

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One of the best parts about anime is getting to see a bunch of powerful characters pull off moves and abilities that are way too exaggerated to ever happen in the real world. Yet, even then, there are some anime characters that exist in the genre that are so overpowered for their respective worlds that it’s kind of unfair.

Below, we’ve compiled a list of six anime characters who are way too OP for their universes. Be sure to leave any of the ones we didn’t cover, as well as any feedback, in the comments section at the bottom.

Saitama – One Punch Man

Anime Characters Who Are Way Too OP

When One Punch Man’s anime debuted in 2015, it was all anyone could talk about, even attracting a lot of mainstream attention from non-anime fans. All of that was thanks to its interesting and heavily satirical premise. 

Doesn't matter which medium you're working with, sequels can be pretty bad. From low-budget cash-grabs to a follow-up that ruins the original work entirely, there are plenty of ways that they can disappoint. Video games have certainly had their fair share of duds, but there have also been plenty of sequels that were so good, they've gone on to become more famous than their predecessors.

All through this list, these games were groundbreaking for their genre, and provided something players had never seen before. With the sequel, the developers took the opportunity to improve upon the foundation they had already built, refining and honing the pre-existing mechanics of the original game to make for an even better experience than before. We wish this is how things could always be, but hey, at least they got these ones right, huh?

Just a note: we're only dealing with direct sequels here, so we'll have to leave titles like Fallout: New Vegas and GTA V for another day. Now, let's check out the list of the ten best video game sequels that were even better than the originals.

Google, a tech company well-known for its search engine Google, has announced that its cloud streaming service Google Stadia is getting a search bar.

In a community update today, the Stadia team says the search bar on Stadia for Web is rolling out now and should reach all players this week, and will make finding your favorite games much easier.

Good news - a search bar is now rolling out to the #Stadia store. Get a sneak peek into the next features coming to Stadia in today's blog.https://t.co/G5njP5PZFm pic.twitter.com/2UZRzniY4G

— Stadia (@GoogleStadia) April 28, 2021

The Stadia team also showed off some new features it's working on, like an activity feed. The screenshot in the above tweet also seems to hint at some new Assassin's Creed titles coming to the service, which Stadia users will now be able to Google when and if they hit the store.

The DC FanDome will return for a 2nd edition this October. The celebration all things DC Comics provides looks at upcoming comics, movies, TV shows, and, potentially, video games. What can fans expect to see this year? 

This year’s FanDome takes place on October 16. DC announced the event with a teaser video on its Twitter account but hasn’t yet shared any news beyond that. Last year’s show was presented as an hours-long virtual convention with various panels and trailers airing at designated times. That’s likely to be the case again but there's no confirmation either way. 

The epic global event is back!
Return to #DCFanDome 10.16.21 pic.twitter.com/ZifZGCPOig

— DC (@DCComics) April 28, 2021

So what does this mean for video games? Last year’s FanDome featured the debut of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the next title by Batman: Arkham developer Rocksteady Games. We haven’t seen or heard anything about the game since it was revealed, which is fair since it’s not launching until 2022. Could it reemerge during this year’s show, perhaps with a first look at gameplay? We hope so. 

Frogwares has released an enhanced Xbox Series X/S version of its Lovecraft-inspired open-world detective adventure The Sinking City, although ongoing legal tussles mean there's no free upgrade for existing owners on Xbox One.

The Sinking City, if it's so far managed to pass you by, is set in the 1920s and tells the story of Charles Reed, a private investigator plagued by hellish visions. Reed travels to the supernaturally flooded city of Oakmont, Massachusetts, in order to escape "the creeping insanity that afflicts him" - but, would you believe it, cosmic horrors ensue.

Much like Frogwares' well-received Sherlock Holmes titles, The Sinking City is primarily focussed on exploration and investigation, with the game unfolding as a series of open-ended cases requiring deductive smarts (and a smattering of gunplay) to solve.

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The increasing popularity of the Persona series in the West has been a wonderful if slow-burning thing to behold, ramping up over the last decade to the point where Persona 5 was a Very Big Video Game Release, and re-releases of older games are now headline news.

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As it has managed every year since 2005, even through global pandemics, Japanese game store Meteor is once again holding its annual Famicase exhibit where it asks artists from around the world to submit their original designs for Famicom cases. Cases for games that don’t actually exist.

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Leviathan, the latest expansion for classic strategy game Europa Universalis IV, has had a rocky launch. So rocky that, uh, it has become the worst-rated product available on Steam.

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The latest Survivor Pass and 11.2 update are out now on PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) with new rewards and several changes.

The Pajama Party Survivor Pass is different from previous passes as it is not linked to the start of a new season or theme, but still offers similar rewards and missions. The new pass offers 30 rewards including several stylish pajama outfits alongside daily, weekly, and challenge missions.

The Pajama Party Survivor Pass begins today and runs until June 8 at 10 p.m. ET, though players will need to claim their rewards before the patch ends as “there is no-longer an additional grace period” to claim after it ends.

The 11.2 update changes the East and West bridges on the Erangel map by making the bridges wider, contain additional cover on the bridge itself, and added catwalks underneath so players will have additional means of traveling on the bridges.

The update also makes adjustments to drive-by shooting and the reputation system alongside improvements to the match history menus and overall performance. Check out the official patch notes for full details.

The Pajama Party Survivor Pass and 11.2 update are live now on the PC version of PUBG and will come to consoles on May 6.

The post PUBG Latest Survivor Pass Kicks Off With a Pajama Party appeared first on Twinfinite.

Google Stadia players will now be able to search for games on the streaming service with the new search bar function, Google announced in a blog post on Wednesday.

The company, which launched its web search engine 24 years ago and became the epitome of search on the internet, has finally added a search bar to the Stadia platform 17 months after the service launched. It will be rolling out to all players during this week, and “will make finding your favorite games much easier,” according to the post.

This would be true considering the current way to find games or add-ons on the store page is to scroll down and click on a predefined category such as shooter or new releases, and the “all games” option for a giant list of games.

The UI will be updated this week with a sorting option for players’ libraries to track games by free, purchased, or claimed through Stadia Pro.

The company also announced two features that would be coming in the future. The first is an activity feed for sharing video captures and access friends’ game states through State Share, and allowing Android users to access Google Stadia directly from the web browser instead of the dedicated app.

The post Google Stadia Finally Adds a Search Bar; Activity Feed Coming Soon appeared first on Twinfinite.

Artyom's exodus from the Metro is getting a pretty big overhaul next week. 4A Games has confirmed that the PC Enhanced Edition of Metro Exodus will launch on May 6, 2021.

The upgrade is free for all owners of the original game, whether it's on Steam, the Epic Games Store, GOG, or the Microsoft Store. It also requires Windows, so Linux users and Google Stadia or Amazon Luna players won't be able to check this out just yet. (4A notes that Mac users can play the PC version via GeForce Now in its blog.)

The PC Enhanced Edition will also require Ray Tracing capable hardware, and you cannot run it without Ray Tracing on. It's estimated the install size, including the base game and its two DLC packages (The Two Colonels and Sam's Story) will come in around 80 GB. So what are you getting for all that heft and storage?

Well, according to Digital Foundry, who got an exclusive first look at the upgraded PC version, it's a "phenomenal improvement" over the 2019 game. And just watching the video, that's pretty easy to see.

The original Dark Forces might be our Best Star Wars Game Ever, but its sequel is also great. It is, however, a little dated in 2021, so game developer and artist Acke Hallgren decided to see what it could look like with a modern coat of paint.

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PlayStation State of Play Start Time

Where to Watch the PlayStation State of Play (April 2021)

Today SNK released a brand new trailer and screenshots showcasing another of the characters that will be playable in its upcoming fighting game The King of Fighters XV.

This time around, we see the return of Chris after quite a few years of absence from the franchise. We also get the reveal of Team Orochi alongside Yashiro Nanakase and Shermie.

We also get a second trailer featuring the music of Team Fatal Fury including Terry Bogard, Andy Bogard, and Joe Higashi.

You can check all the assets out below.

Originally set to release alongside Resident Evil Village when it launches in early May, Re:Verse is the brand new multiplayer mode that features iconic characters and villains from all over the series. The idea was that you’d be able to take control of any of these characters and fight other players in deadly deathmatches, set in maps that were taken from popular locations in the series as well.

However, it looks like Capcom is pushing back the release of Re:Verse. According to the official site, the release date for Re:Verse is now set for a window of summer 2021, instead of being released along with Resident Evil Village.

Players will still be able to enjoy extra game modes in Village, though, as it was recently announced that the beloved Mercenaries mode will be making a return.

Resident Evil Village is set to be released for PC and consoles on May 7.

The post Re:Verse, RE Village’s Multiplayer Mode, Gets Delayed to Summer 2021 appeared first on Twinfinite.

Chris, Shermie, and Yashiro are getting the band back together, as the three will appear as Team Orochi in KOF XV.

The post Chris Joins KOF XV as Part of Team Orochi appeared first on Siliconera.

Sony Interactive Entertainment and Ultizero Games revealed a new platform for the upcoming action RPG Lost Soul Aside during the PlayStation China press conference.

Creator Yang Bing announced in a video that the game is coming for PS5, also mentioning that the launch of the PS5 in China will open up more possibilities for local game developers.

We also learn the release date for China of the PS5 itself. It’ll launch on May 15, 2021. It’ll cost 3,899 yuan for the standard version with the Blu Ray drive and 3,099 for the Digital Edition without the disk drive.

You can check the video out below alongside another extensive look at Lost Soul Aside running on PS5 shared a few days ago.

If you’re unfamiliar with Lost Soul Aside, it was revealed back in 2016 as a solo project by Yang Bing himself, and it immediately drew attention from the industry due to its impressive visuals and animation.

In my day it was called Rome: Total War, and I poured hours into it. My favourite moment was the time I hid a tiny Celt army in the woods and baited a much larger Romano-British army there, then sprung a trap to break their morale so I could chop them up. For a moment, it was very Braveheart, until their reinforcements arrived and trampled me, but we don't talk about that. It was the height of my war-mongering hubris, the sort of outrageous odds one attempts after spending many a happy weekend waging war across Europe in pleated Roman skirts. I really loved that game.

And now it's back! Back as Total War: Rome - Remastered, and smartened up for 2021, with some new graphical effects, higher definition this and that, bigger resolutions, gameplay improvements, and (probably most importantly) more factions than ever to try and win as. But it's still unmistakably what it once was, that game I remember, and there's something so unbelievably comforting in going back.

It's really nice not to have to figure out the winning formula again. These kinds of games seem much more complicated today. They've had years to get their audiences used to more features, more nuance, more depth. And whenever I'm confronted with one of them, I wither. But Rome Remastered: it even has a warning when you begin, saying sorry but it does some things differently to what you're used to now. How I clucked with excitement when I read that! "Oh this is the proper stuff!" I snorted. They don't make them like this any more!"

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Domina is a game about managing a stable of gladiators during the last days of Rome. It’s pretty great, once you realise that winning isn’t really the point of it. Winning is possible, of course, but doing so is an uphill struggle against wild balance issues, hellish RNG, and a rigid approach to permadeath. Honestly, it’s much better (in my opinion), just to enjoy it as an ultra-brutal, vaguely historical software toy about the horrendous cheapness of human life.

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Ever wanted to see Accelerator as NieR? Or Oriana Thomson as Kaine? Nows your chance!

The post A Certain Magical Index: Imaginary Fest Nier Collaboration Coming in May appeared first on Siliconera.

Fans of the excellent Outer Wilds, take note: publisher Annapurna Interactive has teased its first slice of extra content.

Last night, fans spotted an unannounced Outer Wilds DLC named Echoes of the Eye pop up on Steam's backend. Shortly after, Annapurna picked up on the speculation and retweeted it, with a teasing eye emoji. Writer Kelsey Beachum then retweeted that, this time with four eye emojis.

The Eye of the Universe is an object in the Outer Wilds which we won't get into here - it's pretty spoilery, though you can read the game's Wiki entry on it for a nice recap. Suffice to say, any DLC focusing on this will likely expand on the larger mysteries set up by the main game.

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After Call of Duty: Warzone's nuke event blew up current-day Verdansk, players were transported back in time to 1984.

This time travel has so far gone unexplained. Why are we all of a sudden fighting on the map circa 1984? Well, players reckon they've worked it out.

During the deployment cutscene that plays at the start of a game of Warzone, you see the word "Flashback" on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.

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Fortnite maker Epic Games has said it doesn't want to make its blockbuster battle royale available via Xbox Cloud Gaming.

In comments made as part of Epic's ongoing court case against Apple, and reported by The Verge, Epic business boss Joe Kreiner said xCloud was seen as a competitor.

"We viewed Microsoft's efforts with xCloud to be competitive with our PC offerings," Kreiner said. Follow-up questioning on the subject has not been made public.

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PlayStation 5-exclusive action driving game Destruction AllStars launches Season One on 5th May, and it adds a new character called Alba.

In a post on the PlayStation Blog, developer Lucid revealed Alba, who is described as "a fierce competitor hailing from Scotland who brings a clear sense of determination to the arena, along with a high-tech armoured battle suit".

Alba's character breaker summons blockers out of the ground in front of her. Her hero vehicle, Claymore, deploys a laser beam that sweeps and damages in an area of effect. Alba has a challenge series, which launches alongside Season One. The Season One trailer is below:

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More than six weeks after PlayStation first acknowledged issues with LittleBigPlanet servers, community content for various games in the series remains largely inaccessible.

This week, the official LittleBigPlanet Twitter noted what some fans had already spotted: some connectivity had briefly been possible over the past few days, as PlayStation tested "new security updates". But there's clearly still work to do.

PlayStation has not acknowledged the issue behind LittleBigPlanet's ongoing server downtime, though community members speaking to Eurogamer for our report back in March pinned the blame on a sustained DDOS campaign orchestrated by a particular individual unhappy with Sony's treatment of the franchise.

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The Mortal Kombat movie launches in the UK on Thursday, 6th May, Warner Bros. has announced.

It'll be a rent-from-home launch. If it's anything like how Warner's Godzilla vs. Kong launched on these shores, Mortal Kombat will cost £15.99 to rent, and it will be available from Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play, iTunes and the Sky Store.

The UK release comes two weeks after Mortal Kombat launched in the US on 23rd April. In the US, the film launched in select cinemas and via streaming service HBO Max.

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Monster Hunter World: The Board Game has seen massive success on Kickstarter, and developer Steamforged Games is adding a limited edition Poogie miniature for some Kickstarter backers to celebrate.

IGN can exclusively reveal that a Kickstarter-exclusive, limited-edition figure of Poogie – the well-known little pig present throughout Monster Hunter’s history – will be included in rewards for all Core Pledge and All-In Pledge backers of Monster Hunter World: The Board Game “to say thanks to those who’ve backed the project so it can come to life,” said Charlotte Cloud, Steamforged Games' PR manager.

See an exclusive image of the Poogie miniature and other beautiful, exclusive renders of Monster Hunter World: The Board Game figures in the slideshow below! 

[widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=exclusive-monster-hunter-world-the-board-game-images&captions=true"]

The official tabletop adaptation of Capcom’s Monster Hunter: World is being crowdfunded on Kickstarter until Friday, April 30 with a goal of $208,120, which was met in just ten minutes. Monster Hunter World: The Board Game currently has over $4 million pledged from more than 16,000 backers at time of writing.

Monster Hunter World: The Board Game is a cooperative arena combat board game with an open world, and includes figures for different hunters wielding a variety of weapons from Bow to Great Sword, as well as figures and stats for a variety of well-known monsters straight from the video game. You can download a work-in-progress version of Monster Hunter World: The Board Game’s ruleset here.

https://t.co/p3ZanK7Pp9