July 2021

Utawarerumono ZAN 2 for PS5 & PS4 Reveals First Gameplay Showing Action & Features

2 years 8 months ago

Today, Aquaplus hosted a livestream from Japan providing the first gameplay look of its upcoming action-JRPG Utawarerumono ZAN 2.

We take a look at Anju in action, the Warriors’ Stories feature, the home base, 3-player co-op multiplayer, a boss battle, and the Dream Dungeon.

Do keep in mind that all the gameplay showcased is from the PS4 version, so we’ll have to wait and see how the game will look on PS5.

You can check everything out below.

Utawarerumono Zan 2 will be released, at least in Japan, on July 22, 2021, for PS5 and PS4. You can check out the first trailer and screenshots and another trailer that showcased the cast and features, and more screenshots.

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

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Sekai Project Presents Upcoming Visual Novels at Anime Expo: Re;lord 3, Qualia, & More

2 years 8 months ago

Today, during a panel at Anime Expo Lite, visual novel publisher Sekai Project introduced upcoming games within its lineup.

First of all, we take a look at Slobbish Dragon Princess 2 by Whirlpool, which will be released “soon” on Steam.

“It’s been a few weeks since Judgement Day — when dragons covered the world’s skies. Humankind has been trying to adapt to a new daily life. But far beyond the skies above, the situation in the sea of stars has grown intense.

The dragons were split in half in their opinion on how to deal with humankind and in the confusion, Iris, dragon queen of the Sea and Water factions, descends to Earth, claiming the seas and barring all humans from entering them. With summer resorts and fishing shut down and even people in some countries unable to travel outside their borders, things looked bleak.

Days later, the dragon girl Dorami convinces Takeru, Haru and Suzuya to go to the beach for a vacation. What awaits Haru and the others as they approach the territory of the sea dragons? But for now, they’ll just have a barbecue. Maybe even split a watermelon.”

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

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Summer Games Done Quick starts tomorrow

2 years 8 months ago

Speedrun stream bonanza Summer Games Done Quick, or SGDQ, kicks off tomorrow. If you've not watched before, it's a days-long livestream in which different people complete games as rapidly as possible to aid charity. There are always some gems among the runs, as players find ways to complete games that would normally take dozens of hours in just a few dozen minutes.

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Author
Graham Smith

Netflix’s Masters of The Universe: Revelation Trailer Explained by Kevin Smith

2 years 8 months ago

Today Netflix released another video dedicated to the upcoming cartoon Masters of The Universe: Revelation, which is coming soon on Netflix.

The video focuses on the trailer released yesterday and has showrunner Kevin Smith breaking down the main scenes and providing hints on what we can expect from the cartoon.

You can check it out below, and judge for yourself.

Masters of the Universe: Revelation is a sequel of the popular animated series that debuted all the way back in 1981.

The official page of the cartoon on Netflix provides more hints to what we can expect.

“After a calamitous battle fractures Eternia, Teela and an unlikely alliance must prevent the end of the Universe in this sequel to the ’80s classic.”

“From Executive Producer Kevin Smith, comes an epic story that picks up where the 80’s series left off and brings the power of Grayskull back to the world. Part 1 of Masters of the Universe: Revelation premieres July 23, only on Netflix.”

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

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Guild Wars 2: End Of Dragons expansion delayed until 2022

2 years 8 months ago

Back when it first launched, Guild Wars 2 was exciting to everyone I knew. If you liked World Of Warcraft, it seemed like a game that intelligently built on some similar ideas; and if you didn't, it seemed like WoW but good.

Several years later, FFXIV seems to have earned that title in the MMO space, but Guild Wars 2 isn't done. While announcing the next expansion End Of Dragons had slipped into next year, ArenaNet also announced several new hires and changes designed to prepare the aged MMO for a long term future.

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Author
Graham Smith

The Community Spotlight 2021.07.03

2 years 8 months ago
The camo twins are back and they are going to be on Giant Bomb!
The camo twins are back and they are going to be on Giant Bomb!

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Giant Bomb Community Spotlight! I, @zombiepie, am once again honored to be your host as we look back at the best user-created works from the last week. Well, the first "generation" of new Giant Bomb shows have been revealed and some have even graced the site. Jeff Grubb's news in review show debuted and is available for everyone to watch and enjoy on the site. Danny is all set to debut two shows, and one of them will launch very soon. None of this is to say that these shows are all Giant Bomb has planned for the community. During July, keep an eye out for a new show from Tamoor Hussain, Lucy James, and Jeff Bakalar as well as a brand new series from Dan Ryckert and Jeff Bakalar.

Author
Marino - Brad Lynch

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Take a Look at Star Wars: Visions, the Star Wars Anime Project

2 years 8 months ago

Today Lucasfilm presented a look at Star Wars: Visions, a project announced in December 2020 that gathers some well-known anime creators and studios to create a series of Star Wars shorts.

We get to hear directly from the creators as we wait to watch the shorts on September 22, 2021, on Disney+.

You can check out the video below.

“As a first formal venture into anime, each “Star Wars: Visions” short bears a unique Japanese sensibility, which in many ways aligns with the tone and spirit of Star Wars storytelling. From the beginning, stories told in the Star Wars galaxy have counted Japanese mythology and the films of Akira Kurosawa among their many influences, and these new visions will further explore that cultural heritage through the unique animation style and perspective of each anime studio.”

Here’s a list of the shorts included in Star Wars: Visions and their creators:

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

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Nexus Mods' Decision About Collections Met With Instant Community Backlash Over Rights Of Removal

2 years 8 months ago

Nexus Mods is one of the largest modding sites in the world and it's one that we share quite a bit with our weekly Mod Corner column. The new Collections system is a way for members to garner a list of mods that they'd like, but there's a pretty heavy caveat that comes along that. The new system, which is set to go live in August, makes it impossible for mod creators to delete the files they've chosen to share if those mods are curated as part of a Collection. To say that the community backlash was immediate would be a massive understatement. 

In a substantial blog post over on the site, it was revealed that this new feature - a feature that has been in the works since 2019 - will be ready to fully deploy next month. The Collections "means that mod files are no longer deleted, but rather archive - which makes them inaccessible unless directly requested e.g. via the API," reads the post. "We understand that not everyone in the mod author community shares our convictions and our vision, and that is why we are granting a one-month grace period in which mod authors can request to have all their files deleted for good." 

Author
Liana Ruppert

Genshin Impact Gets New Trailer Focusing on Kaedehara Kazuha’s Backstory

2 years 8 months ago

Today Genshin Impact developer MiHoYo released another brand new and extensive trailer for the popular action RPG.

The trailer provides an additional look at Kaedehara Kazuha, the latest character that released for the game a few days ago.

It follows Kazuha’s original promotional video, the second, and the third, and this time it’s all about his backstory and the events that made him a fugitive.

You can check out the video below, both in English and Japanese depending on your voice-over language of choice.

Incidentally, if you want to learn more about the recent update 1.6, you can check out the original announcement, the first gameplay with plenty of additional info, and the new swimsuits.

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

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Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles Gets New PS5 Gameplay Showing Characters in Action

2 years 8 months ago

Today, during the Aniplex Online Fest 2021, the publisher revealed new gameplay of upcoming action game Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles, known in Japan as Kimetsu no Yaiba: Hinokami Keppu Tan.

We get to see a tag team battle including Tanjiro, Kyojuro, Shinobu, and Murata. Unfortunately, the gameplay screen is very small, but this is what we get today.

The game appears to be played on PS5, since the hosts were using DualSense controllers.

You can check it out below.

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

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Getting physical with Virtual Realms

2 years 8 months ago

In a dark room encircled by a 360-degree screen, Patrick Moran methodically leaps through a series of blue spotlights on the floor. The Barbican curator is showing me an internal cheat code to speed through a section of Book of Sand, a specially-commissioned work named for the Jorge Luis Borges short story about a book with infinite pages. The meditative scenes projected around us are from Tequila Works' 2017 puzzler RiME, reincarnated in a new form here at the ArtScience Museum in Singapore.

Book of Sand is one of six new installations at Virtual Realms, an exhibition co-curated by the Barbican and Sega alumnus Tetsuya Mizuguchi, who adapted elements of his own game Rez into a new piece for the show. Six game developers were paired with shortlisted media artists to create what Mizuguchi terms an "experiential new artform" for collaborative group play; onedotzero's Shane Walter jokingly describes the Barbican as a sort of marriage broker armed with lists of potential matches. The idea was to get visitors to think about games as art, and push some boundaries in the process.

Each realm is defined by a theme*:

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You can own this rare 1987 version of The Legend of Zelda for $110,000 (and rising)

2 years 8 months ago

A sealed, rare variant of Nintendo's 1987 classic The Legend of Zelda is currently for sale via auction. At the time of writing, with five days left to go on the auction, the lot has a current bid of $110,000 (£72,300).

This lot, called a "NES R" variant, is particularly significant because this version was "only produced for a few months in late 1987". Rev-A replaced it in early 1988.

The only version considered more valuable than this one is a "NES TM", and there's reportedly only one sealed copy in existence "and there is no telling whether or not that copy will ever come to market". Therefore, this cartridge is likely "the earliest sealed copy one could realistically hope to obtain" and sits at a grading - or wata rating - of 9.

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Blightbound Dungeon Crawls its Way to PC & Consoles on July 27

2 years 8 months ago

Ronimo Games’ and Devolver Digital’s upcoming multiplayer dungeon-crawler, Blightbound, has just received an official release date, and the good news is, it’s just around the corner.

Specifically, the dark and gritty action-RPG is set to launch for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on July 27. For those with next-gen consoles, however, you’ll be able to play the title via your respective console’s backward compatibility feature.

Along with the new release date confirmation, the studio and publisher has dropped a brand new trailer showcasing the moment-to-moment side-scrolling action players can look forward to in Blightbound. Go ahead and feast your eyes on said trailer down below:

As you can see, there are hints of Vanillaware’s acclaimed action-RPG Dragon’s Crown in there, but Blightbound clearly leans into a much darker and grizzlier aesthetic, feel, and tone. The beautiful hand-drawn art, in particular, is very reminiscent of the 2013 PlayStation 3 and PS Vita classic.

Author
Dylan Chaundy

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Dead by Daylight hits a new concurrent user milestone of 105,000+ players

2 years 8 months ago

Dead By Daylight has hit a new record of over 100,000 concurrent players on PC during its fifth anniversary celebrations.

The new record - which coincided with a 40 per cent off Steam sale and the recent release of a bunch of Resident Evil-themed goodies, including new skins and a new killer - saw 105,093 players jump on Steam at the same time, according to SteamDB.

The milestone also comes at the same time the asymmetric horror game, developed by Behaviour Interactive, is running an time-limited event from now until 15th July, during which there's a load of new content up for grabs, including anniversary crowns, community challenges, and enough Iridescent Shards for all players to purchase an "entire original character" of their choice.

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Watch Ian play two full levels of Sniper Elite VR on Oculus Rift S

2 years 8 months ago

I've had my sights firmly set on Sniper Elite VR ever since its initial announcement in 2019. As a big fan of both the flat Sniper Elite games, and open-world VR experiences, the thought of playing a combination of both of these things put my excitement into overdrive. But, after sniping and stealthing my way through the first half of the game, does Sniper Elite VR have a shot at living up to the hype in my head?

You can decide for yourself by watching this week's episode of Ian's VR Corner where you'll be able to follow me through two full levels of the PC VR version of Sniper Elite VR. Both levels are fairly short, but they'll give you a good idea about the mixture of gameplay styles that you'll encounter during the game.

The first level featured is basically a standard VR shooting gallery where, with the help a group of resistance fighters, I have to defend an oil refinery from waves of Wehrmacht. The second level feels much more like a classic Sniper Elite level though. That means there's a semi-open-world structure to the level which encourages you to use stealth, planning and patience in order to take out as many Nazis as possible before they spot you and set off an alarm.

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Doom Eternal's ray tracing upgrade delivers a dramatic improvement

2 years 8 months ago

The idTech 7 engine has evolved with the arrival of a brand new patch for Doom Eternal, adding ray tracing support for sufficiently equipped PCs - and of course, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, which also receive resolution and 120Hz updates. But it's the RT implementation that's the star of the show, adding beautiful reflections to surfaces like water, glass, metals, plastics and even polished wood. The PC also benefits from Nvidia DLSS support, meaning that even entry-level RT video cards like RTX 2060 can deliver an excellent experience with the next-gen features in play.

So, what's the actual attraction of incorporating RT reflections into a game like Doom Eternal? At default settings, it combines with the standard screen-space reflections to form a 'complete package' for an effect that can have a transformative effect on a game with the kind of materials Doom Eternal uses throughout - shiny metals and plastics - though even rougher materials can still benefit from the effect. Reflections more accurately map to surface types and are far more dynamic, to the point where surrounding, animated environments map perfectly onto the appropriate surfaces - something that standard cube maps can't do.

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Tales of Arise Teases Opening Anime Cutscene Reveal With First Screenshots

2 years 8 months ago

Bandai Namco is about to reveal the anime-style opening cutscene of its upcoming cross-generation JRPG Tales of Arise.

The publisher revealed six stills of the cutscene, which you can enjoy below (sources: 1, 2, 3, 4).

The reveal will be during a livestream tomorrow at 9:00 pm Japan time. Bandai Namco also teased that the livestream will reveal “that interaction” among characters, probably hinting at the iconic skits.

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

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A hacker has hacked Apex Legends to complain about Titanfall hackers

2 years 8 months ago

Titanfall fans have hacked Apex Legends in an effort to flag the attention of developer Respawn.

Log into Apex Legends on PC right now and instead of the usual playlists, you'll get the URL "savetitanfall.com" with the subheader, "[Titanfall 1] is being attacked so is Apex".

Players are also getting an "important message" at the end of each match that requests players "visit and repost savetitanfall.com", a website that's been online since at least March 2021. Affected players are seemingly unable to access other game modes, essentially blocking them from playing at all.

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Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt's PC system requirements have been updated

2 years 8 months ago

Sharkmob has updated the system requirements for its upcoming vampire-themed battle royale, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodhunt.

Confirmation comes following a closed alpha beta test for the free-to-play game which ended earlier today.

While previously it was recommended players used a GTX 970 or RX 590, now Sharkmob suggests players use either a GTX 1070, RX 5600 XT or better for graphics, and a SSD is "strongly recommended" even in the minimum spec. You'll need around 20GB of storage, too.

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Looks like Dark Pictures Anthology's next instalment will be called The Devil In Me

2 years 8 months ago

It looks like the next Dark Pictures instalment - the fourth part of Supermassive Games' The Dark Pictures Anthology - will be called The Devil in Me.

While not formally revealed by the developer, the information has seemingly been leaked by a trademark filing with Justia Trademarks. The new logo - which looks in keeping with past ones from the anthology - was filed on 1st July, 2021.

As described by the trademark organisation itself, The mark consists of the word "THE on top of the words DARK PICTURES, stacked on top of the words THE DEVIL IN ME".

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