June 2021

Microsoft have announced the next handful of games coming to Xbox Game Pass For PC, and one of my absolute faves is on the list. The gloomy turn-based roguelike Darkest Dungeon will be available on the subscription service on June 10th; an excellent chance for players who might've missed it to give it a go before the sequel launches later this year. On June 8th, the raccoon detective game Backbone is hitting the service too.

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"I've worked at a bunch of different places over the last 15 years, and pretty much every single game I worked on was about killing things," Robert Tatnell tells me. He's the sole developer behind Hokko Life, the cosy Animal Crossing-eque life sim that launched in early access today. Tatnell has worked on games including Killzone 2, Heavenly Sword and Fable 3. But four years ago, he left those big games behind, "with the goal to make something friendly, cosy, and with a creative side in there as well."

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I have discovered that I am quite bad at getting away with murder, which must come as a relief to those closest to me. This revelation has come courtesy of Inkle, the studio behind 80 Days, Heaven's Vault and Pendragon, as they have today simultaneously released and revealed a new puzzle game called Overboard. As ambitious starlet Veronica Villensey who has just shoved husband over the side a luxury transatlantic ship, the aim is to not get arrested for murder.

It's rather fabulous - part Agatha Christie-esque farce, part intricate 2D puzzle game where you spin a lot of plates. To partly correct myself, it's actually quite easy to get away with murder in Overboard. I did that my very first try. But if you want to make off with all the money, you need to actually pin the crime on someone else, and that's way harder.

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Amazon have confirmed the dates of this year's Amazon Prime Day sale today, slating the annual deals fest for June 21st-22nd later this month. This puts Amazon Prime Day back in its usual mid-year spot, after last year's event ended up being delayed to October due to Covid-19. With just a few weeks to go before Prime Day kicks off, here's what you can expect to see from this year's Prime Day sale, as well as our top recommendations on what kind of deals you should be looking out for if you want to give your PC some great value upgrades.

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Interior design is great fun. It can be expensive and an awful lot of effort to do in real life, however, so I think I'll stick to doing it virtually for now. The latest Sims 4 pack should help with that, because it adds interior decorator as a new in-game career. Out now, the Dream Home Decorator expansion will have you picking out cool furniture for other sims, and prettying up their homes to satisfy their requests.

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We've learned quite a bit about Far Cry 6 recently, including new characters, the blood of rebellion, and what the next step for the Ubisoft franchise has to offer longtime fans. For those that were curious as to whether the beloved Arcade Mode and map editor would be making a comeback, we've got some bad news. 

Several Far Cry 6 devs took to Reddit to answer some fan questions, including one specifically asking about whether or not the map editor would be coming back for the latest game. When confirming that no, it would not be in Far Cry 6, the creative team also confirmed that Arcade Mode would not be returning in future titles in the series. According to game director Alexandre Letendre, "No, Arcade will not come back. Removing this mode from our plan was a difficult decision, but allowed us to focus our efforts on the main campaign, transporting players into the heart of a modern-day guerrilla revolution."

In January 2022, Square Enix announced it will release NieR Automata 2B and 2B 2P figures and a NieR Replicant statuette of adult Nier.

The post NieR Automata 2B and 2B 2P Figures Will Appear Next Year appeared first on Siliconera.

Maggie Robertson, the Lady Dimitrescu voice actress, confirmed in a new interview that she didn't realize she'd be in a Resident Evil game until the table read.

The post Lady Dimitrescu Voice Actress Didn’t Realize She’d Been Cast in Resident Evil Village appeared first on Siliconera.

A Street Fighter crossover will come to the mobile battle royale game Free Fire and add both Chun-Li and Ryu to the game.

The post Street Fighter Free Fire Collab Will Add Chun-Li and Ryu appeared first on Siliconera.

Along with a generous donation to LGBTQIA+ nonprofits, clothing featuring flag designs, and various digital rewards, Microsoft is offering a Pride 2021 Xbox wireless controller, a lovely rainbow-sporting custom gamepad that’ll only be available to select influencers and members of the media.

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The next God of War game will miss its original 2021 release window and instead come out some time next year, Sony’s Santa Monica Studio announced today.

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Mark Grayson’s biracial heritage is a major theme of the story — and now it isn’t just subtext

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A relic from a golden age of video game tie-ins

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PlayStation 5 sequel was planned for 2021

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More realistic tires and handling support new co-operative/competitive modes and a deeper narrative

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If you're planning to build a new PC or upgrade an old one to run AMD's latest Ryzen processors, this deal is for you. The MSI MAG B550M Bazooka is one of the best recent AMD motherboards, and it's been heavily discounted at Amazon today. It normally retails for £120 and up, but today it's reduced to £70 - an incredible price for a quality B550 motherboard that pairs perfectly with AMD's latest Ryzen 5000 processors.

B550 is AMD's latest budget motherboard series, but it doesn't really sacrifice much to hit a much lower price point than premium X570 alternatives. You still get the three most important features: compatibility with the latest Ryzen 5000 processors, support for PCIe 4.0 graphics cards and SSDs, and the ability to overclock your RAM.

This means you get a very future-proof package, with the ability to start with entry-level components (like a Ryzen 3000-series processor, 3200MHz RAM and a SATA or PCIe 3.0 SSD) and still have the ability to make serious upgrades down the line, including up to 16 core Ryzen 5000 processors, 4400MHz RAM, PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSDs and the latest Nvidia or AMD graphics cards. The VRM - the part of the board that deals with power, essentially - is really good for a motherboard at this price point, which allows you to have options for overclocking if you want them.

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EPOS, the company that used to be Sennheiser's gaming headset division, have announced their first USB microphone, the B20. Priced at £179 / $199, the B20 is a broadcast quality USB mic that's been designed primarily with streamers in mind, although you could probably also use it for any budding podcast projects you've got in your backpocket thanks to its four different pick-up patterns.

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God of War: Ragnarok, which was originally announced for a PlayStation 5 release in 2021, has been delayed into next year, and will now also launch on PS4 .

Confirming the news on Twitter, developer Sony Santa Monica Studio explained it had made the decision to push God of War: Ragnarok's release back into 2022 in order to maintain the "safety and wellbeing" of its team.

"Since the release of the next God of War teaser last year," the full statement reads, "we've been humbled by the amount of love our community has show us. We're incredibly grateful so see so many people excited to experience the next chapter of Kratos and Atreus' journey".

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When I was active duty, I was taught more efficient ways of self-defense. Those lessons gave me confidence that bordered on too confident in certain situations. Assault is something I'm intimately familiar with, both within my family life in the past and growing up homeless off and on. However, protecting yourself can be hard to do when the injury comes from someone you thought you could trust and as I replay through the Mass Effect trilogy for the billionth time with the Legendary Edition, it finally clicked with me why the Conrad Verner story arc made me uncomfortable in a way that it never has before. 

At launch, dice rolls in Baldur's Gate 3 were played straight with pure RNG and no additional smoke and mirrors. Here's Larian Studios first lessons from developing a D& D game with honest-to-goodness random rolls. ...

Mario maker Nintendo has blocked off a portion of E3 week for its own Nintendo Direct showcase, joining other members of the industry in timing announcements around the annual game expo. ...

It feels like the first Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town DLC involved extra effort to make Neil a more interesting love interest.

The post Pioneers of Olive Town’s Neil is a Better Written Bachelor appeared first on Siliconera.

Turns out, people like butts.

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When last week’s Horizon Forbidden West gameplay preview came and went without a refining of its 2021 release window, folks were rightfully curious why a concrete launch date hasn’t been set. According to PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst, it’s because things are still in flux behind the scenes after the events of…

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It’s hard to believe it’s been almost nine months since Nvidia unveiled their first Ampere graphics card, the GeForce RTX 3080. Though I suppose it might also have felt like an eternity for those of you who have been trying to buy one for the past nine months.

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You shouldn’t take a call while driving, you shouldn’t text while driving, and you certainly shouldn’t game while driving. And yet, that’s exactly what you might be able to do with the Tesla Models X and S. As spotted by The Gamer, bazillionaire Tesla CEO and failed Deus Ex cosplayer Elon Musk all but said as much…

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We need more games about husband murder, if you ask me

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Some of the most popular games in the world are expected to be on sale

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Turned down for a Days Gone sequel, Bend Studio moves on to new ideas

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The list of PS5 exclusives becomes thinner

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How to survive this Warhammer first-person shooter

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Minecraft's big new Caves & Cliffs update is just around the corner—or part of it is, anyway. Mojang announced previously that they'd decided to split Caves & Cliffs in two, rolling out a summer and winter release this year. The first part of that major update 1.17 is arriving next week on June 8th. It's got neither caves nor cliffs in it, though. Most of the world generation stuff is coming this winter. Starting next week you can start officially playing with goats and axolotls and glow squid, oh my!

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Scrolling through oodles of videos of in progress indie games is always a treat. I hope everyone else has as big a sweet tooth as me because there are a heck of a lot of indie game goodies to check out thanks to the recent PitchYaGame awards. Indie developers have served up the freshest looks at their games for us to drool over and there's everything from optical illusion puzzles, to stealthy slimes, to city builders, to skateboarding.

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June is Pride Month, and a new bundle which launched yesterday aims to give you a huge number of games and things from queer developers - and give those indie devs money. The Queer Games Bundle 2021 is a real mix of stuff on Itch.io, everything from RPGs and turn-based tactical action to poetry and dating sims. Plus at least one game about a buff Baywatch babe making seagulls kiss.

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When you think of the original Psychonauts, what comes to mind? The wacky characters? The bonkers story? For many, the 2005 title is so beloved because of its use of colorful and distinct brain levels to keep the world feeling fresh and interesting. Everything we've seen thus far of Psychonauts 2 paints a familiar picture for fans of the franchise, with developer Double Fine putting Raz smack-dab into some of the wildest minds we’ve seen yet. Here’s an exclusive look at one of the new levels fans will be playing through when we finally get our hands on the game later this year!

In Psychonauts 2, Raz enters the mind of Hollis Forsythe, second-in-command of the Psychonauts, to fix a mistake he created in his professor’s mind. The psychic organization is starting to go bankrupt and Forsythe believes gambling could be the way to save them all after Raz inadvertently uses his Mental Connection ability to connect the two ideas.

After a terrible storm hits Whit Anderson's farmstead a massive sinkhole opens up in his backyard. Unfortunately for Whit, his dog gets trapped in the hole. How does Whit rescue his hapless pup? He straps a bathtub to a winch and takes it for a ride down the massive hole. Unfortunately, Whit eventually falls into the hole and becomes transported to a strange world that seems to be constantly shifting like some kind of dream. Where The Heart Leads is a new game from Armature studios, a studio formed by ex-Metroid Prime developers, and the project takes classic adventure game elements then combines them with modern action game sensibilities to create something that looks truly special.

After the fall, Whit finds himself with a strange new power: the power to revisit memories. Each memory is haunting and dreamlike, but ultimately shows Whit the power (and consequences) of the billions of choices he's made throughout his life. Of course, the choices that Whit makes during this new adventure will also shape the narrative you experience.

Join Alex Van Aken and Ben Reeves as they sit down with studio founder and director Todd Keller to talk about his vision for this surreal experience, how he's aiming to tell a personal story through fantastical elements, and what he learned while working on Metroid that still helps him makes games today. We have a good time and hope you enjoy the show.

When Sony Santa Monica first revealed the sequel to the PlayStation 4 hit God of War, fans were eager to crack the code of what Ragnarok would have to offer. The studio originally had a specific release window in mind, but after a global pandemic and being realistic about the state of the game, the team has decided to shift the expected release window from 2021 to 2022 instead. 

The news of the release window delay first broke buried within a recent PlayStation Blog post, but Santa Monica further elaborated with a dedicated post of its own. In a tweet from the California-based studio, it was confirmed that the God of War sequel is expected to drop sometime next year.

pic.twitter.com/LLXnEof2Lg

The Atari VCS is a name that has been floating around the games industry for years now. We first saw a model of the Atari VCS at the Game Developers Conference in 2018, but the console/PC hybrid system has still not hit store shelves. However, Atari has now announced that the VCS is launching sooner than we think, as the system that is set as the reentry of one of gaming's most iconic companies into the console market comes out June 15.

With a design inspired by the Atari 2600 system, the Atari VCS very intentionally calls back to the history of the fabled game company. However, Atari hopes the VCS delivers a modern and fully featured multimedia experience across gaming, entertainment, and productivity that will draw the affection of creators and gamers alike. 

If you're a fan of NBA 2K and Puma apparel, you may be happy to hear about a new collaboration between the two brands. The companies are partnering up to launch the Puma x 2K Collection, a new clothing line that makes its way into NBA 2K21 beginning today.  The collection includes new top options and, for sneakerheads, the latest addition to Puma's Court Rider sneaker line.

The collection, which you can view in the gallery below, includes short and long-sleeved t-shirts as well as a dual-colored hoodie. The centerpiece of the collection is the new Puma Court Rider 2K basketball sneaker, which your MyPlayer character can now rock on the court. You can purchase the items from the in-game store using VC at the following prices:

• Short sleeve and long sleeve - 6,500 VC each
• Shoe - 9,000 VC
• Hoodie - 10,000 VC

Click image thumbnails to view larger version

Riot Games is bringing its free-to-play competitive FPS Vaolrant to mobile and joining a growing list major developers taking their shooters from consoles and PC to iOS and Android. ...