July 2021

With the upcoming release of the Steam Deck, it looks like Valve is adding more quality of life improvements to Steam.

A new update has been released in the beta channel, bringing a new storage manager.

The new interface features a tabbed view listing all the drives in your system, a visual representation of what types of files are taking up storage (games, DLC, and other apps), and a list of all the games in each drive.

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BlueBox Game Studios can't seem to escape the rumors that the PS5 game Abandoned is actually a Silent Hill adventure in disguise. There have been many theories about what Abandoned would be, but one of the most prevalent rumors links it back to being a Silent Hill project that Hideo Kojima is keeping hidden. Studio head Hasan Kahraman has plainly stated in the past that Abandoned is its own game, in no way related to Kojima, Konami, or Silent Hill. However, that wasn't enough to assuage fan theories because an additional Konami link has been discovered, kicking the proverbial hornet nest once more. 

Heads up: I’m about to sound like a rich, privileged asshole. In real life, I write about video games for a living, so I’m lucky to have an apartment. But in Grand Theft Auto Online, I’m a rich prick who owns a piece of every criminal enterprise in Los Santos. So yes, I’m here to complain about having too much shit in …

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I’ve had a surprising amount of fun with the Nintendo Switch’s latest Pokémon spin-off, the free-to-play arena fighter Pokémon Unite. Coming from the dense and inconsolable world of Valve’s Dota 2, there’s plenty I could nitpick about Pokémon Unite’s controls, interface, and balance, but man if it ain’t a blast flying…

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To celebrate reaching a million Twitter followers, The Pokémon Company has now recreated the sweet bicycle from the first generation games, Red and Blue, and their remakes. Someone will actually get this thing!

In-game, the bicycle is priced at a cool one million Pokémon dollars. It wasn’t possible for players to earn…

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The Ascent is a straight twin-stick shooter for the most part, but there’s a huge difference between surviving and thriving in Veles.

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Good Smile Company announced its Harmonia humming Spice & Wolf Holo doll will come to both North America and Japan in 2022.

The post Spice & Wolf Holo Doll Will Have Fuzzy Ears and a Tail appeared first on Siliconera.

Legion and its many heads and tendrils will again show up in a Shin Megami Tensei game, as it is the star of the new SMT V trailer.

The post The Latest SMT V Trailer Looks at Legion appeared first on Siliconera.

Kiana is going to get a Herrscher of Flamescion battlesuit in Honkai Impact 3rd 5.0, and miHoYo talked about its creation in a new video.

The post Here’s How Honkai Impact 3rd’s Herrscher of Flamescion Was Made appeared first on Siliconera.

In the latest SMT V demon discussion, Character Designer Masayuki Doi said Fionn mac Cumhaill was designed to be a "demon heartthrob."

The post Fionn Design to be a ‘Demon Heartthrob’ in SMT V appeared first on Siliconera.

The extraterrestrial survival game Icarus may have just made RPS's list of top games in August but, oh dear. It's now delayed until November, actually. It will still be playable for some folks next month though, it turns out. RocketWerkz have announced that they'll be running a handful of beta weekends for pre-order players focused on different areas of the game beginning at the end of August.

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The next major update for viking craft 'em up Valheim is still being cooked up in the kitchen, but it's starting to smell just about done. Iron Gate have previously revealed several new foods and tasty cooking stations, but now they're taking us down into the cellar. That's right, iron cells, treasure chests, and giant piles of gold are also getting thrown in the Hearth & Home pot when the update lands this autumn.

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Take a look back at our chat with Final Fantasy XIV producer Naoki Yoshida about the successful relaunch of Final Fantasy XIV. ...

German developer Bytro Labs GmbH is looking for a Lead Game Designer. ...

Life Is Strange: True Colors is launching in just over a month, so new trailers are being released to show a little more of the game ahead of its Sept. 10 release on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PC. This video welcomes players to the True Colors’ setting, Haven Springs.

The welcome trailer is narrated by Steph, a resident of the small town. She goes through the many points of interest and notable locations found within Haven Springs, Colorado. You get to see the town’s bar, radio station, Spring Festival, and more.

You can check out the new Life Is Strange: True Colors trailer below to get your own little tour of Haven Springs with Steph before you get to enter it later this year.

If you can’t wait to get your hands on the game, you can pre-order it now on the official site. You can also get to the Life Is Strange Remastered Collection pre-order through the same link.

Today Microsoft revealed two brand new trailers of its upcoming strategy game Age of Empires IV.

The first trailer shows one of the factions of the game, the Abbasid Dynasty. The second focuses on one of its most anticipated features, naval warfare.

You can find both videos below.

If you’d like to see more, you can check out the previous reveal from E3 and another trailer showing the Hundred Years War campaign.

Today Bandai Namco released a new trailer and new videos of the upcoming cross-generation JRPG Tales of Arise.

The trailer focuses on one of the main characters of the game, the beautiful and cool guard Kisara, wielding a massive shield and mace combi. It showcases both story cutscenes and gameplay, providing a look at her devastating combos, which certainly focus on the shield.

You can check the trailer out below

Tales of Arise is coming on September 10 (September 9 in Japan) for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Square Enix will release a gorgeous vinyl LP box dedicated to its popular MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, and today they launched a new video to celebrate.

The video stars beloved composer Masayoshi Soken alongside Yasuji Maeda from Bernie Grundman Mastering as they talk about the vynils and what went into their production.

It’s actually a rather in-depth discussion, which is appropriate for such a charmingly niche product.

You can check the video below. Of course, make sure subtitles ae active with the “cc” button.

The set (and each individual vinyl) will be available on August 31, 2021.

Incidentally, the new Final Fantasy XIV expansion Endwalker will release on November 23, 2021, for PS5, PS4, and PC. A benchmark has been released for PC, including the male viera character creation.

Today Marvelous Entertainment and Nintendo released a new trailer of the upcoming action game No More Heroes 3.

The trailer focuses on the “galactic superheroes,” who are actually the villains of the game. How’s this for a twist?

You can check it out below.

No More Heroes 3 will release exclusively on Nintendo Switch on Aug. 27. If you’d like to see more, you can enjoy the previous trailer a lot of screenshots, and gameplay. You can also read an official description below.

“The legendary assassin Travis Touchdown makes his glorious return to the Madness!

Our hero, Travis Touchdown, must make it to the top of the Galactic Superhero Rankings in order to stop the evil Prince FU and his ten alien assassins from taking over the Earth.

Earn money to enter ranked battles!

It's Halo time, baby! The first Halo Infinite Flight Test is now live, and we've got that Spartan spirit! We are ready to rock out with our new Pulse Carbines out. To kick off the testing period for Master Chief's latest adventure, we here at Game Informer are diving all in to make the Halo community proud. Join us, won't you, for a special two-hour stream while we dive right into some multiplayer action. 

The Halo Infinite Flight Test is the first of several early access periods 343 is hosting before the game's launch later this year. This particular testing period offers a first look at multiplayer with just one map. Unfortunately, it's against bots, which would make us losing all the more embarrassing. Which, really, if you think about it, just gives you more reason to watch! Make fun of us, cheer us on, dealer's choice. 

Halo Infinite has been in the crosshairs of the gaming community since it was announced at E3 2018. Originally set to release last November alongside the launch of the Xbox Series X and S, growing concerns about the game following an extended look at the campaign caused 343 Industries and Microsoft to reconsider when Infinite was ready for prime time.

Originally published in July of 2021

Earlier this summer, the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise turned 30 years old. Sega marked the occasion by holding a Sonic Central stream that teased three new projects (Sonic Colors: Ultimate, Sonic Origins, and an untitled mainline Sonic game) in May, followed by a special 30th-anniversary concert featuring an orchestra playing classic Sonic music.

With the bulk of the celebrations in the rear-view mirror, we caught up with five longtime developers from Sonic Team. Ranging from directors and producers to composers and artists, we covered the spectrum to learn about each individual's unique experiences with the franchise, as well as what 30 years of Sonic means to them. 

Developer Two Point Studios' wonderful medical management sim Two Point Hospital is getting in on Sonic's 30th anniversary celebrations with a free selection of costumes and items for all platforms inspired by the hedgehog's video game adventures.

The snappily titled Sonic the Hedgehog Pack is available now on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and Steam as part of Two Point Hospital's latest update, bringing a total of four outfits for hospital staff to wear - based on Sonic, Tails, Amy, and Knuckles - as well as various theme-appropriate decorations. There's a massive Sonic statue, for instance, plus the likes of Sonic rugs and posters, stylised sunflowers and palm trees, totem poles, and even a big ol' spinning gold ring.

Sonic's Two Point Hospital intrusion comes as the management sim enjoys a variety of heavy discounts and promotional events across different platforms. There's a free trial on Switch until 8th August for Nintendo Switch Online subscribers in certain countries - as well as 30% off the game and all DLC - and it's currently free to play for all Steam users until 2nd August. Discounts there include 75% off the base game and up to 50% off all DLC until 5th August.

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A college senior has been arrested in Tokyo on suspicion of obstructing a business by force after sending death threats to an arcade in Tokyo’s Tachikawa City.

Between the 4th and the 25th of this month, Gou Kawasaki, a 21-year-old college senior, repeatedly mailed threats to the arcade. As reported on Yahoo! News…

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Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida really wants you to know he cares. Yoshida recently apologized to players for dramatically increased queue times brought on by a sudden and almost inexplicable explosion in the game’s popularity. Today, Yoshi-P announced his team is making a slight change to the sage class in…

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Sony has delayed Horizon Forbidden West until next year, Bloomberg reports. Originally scheduled to arrive this holiday season, the big PlayStation console exclusive will now come out sometime in the first quarter of 2022.

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Sega’s never-ending quest to put Sonic the Hedgehog in all the things continues today with a special 30th anniversary crossover event with Two Point Hospital, of all games. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy Rose as medical practitioners? Can’t be that much worse than normal American healthcare.

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What’s your favorite collector’s edition release? With cool bonuses and physical goodies, they can be a lot of fun. Here are ours.

The post What’s Your Favorite Collector’s Edition? appeared first on Siliconera.

People can now get the free Sonic the Hedgehog Pack for Two Point Hospital and dress up staff like Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy Rose.

The post Two Point Hospital Sonic the Hedgehog Pack Out Now appeared first on Siliconera.

The newest Tales of Arise character trailer focuses on Kisara, showing what she's like both inside and outside of battles.

The post See Kisara Fight in Her Tales of Arise Trailer appeared first on Siliconera.

More than likely, I'm not the only person whose first reaction to the Steam Deck was something along the lines of "didn't Valve already try this?" Valve's hardware products have really run the spectrum from the VR gold standard Valve Index to the less impressive console-like Steam Machine. Sure enough, Valve say that "Steam Deck feels like the culmination of a lot of that earlier work." They say that Proton has been the route to help them solve the "chicken and egg" problem that the Steam Machine fell victim to.

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Steam Machines? Is that you? ...

The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), and Game Boy Color (GBC) were three of Nintendo’s earliest and most popular gaming consoles. Though they’re now considered to be retro gaming systems, they each helped pave the way to the consoles we know and love today.

In fact, it’s easy to forget how far gaming has truly come until we look back at these older consoles. Unless you grew up with these older games, it can even be difficult to tell which belonged to each system. If you know the differences between each of the consoles’ graphic capabilities, you may have an easier time correctly identifying which system a game released on, even if you don’t recognize the game itself.

Think you’re truly a Nintendo retro gaming expert? See if you can ace this trivia quiz. We’re going to show you a screenshot from a video game, but we won’t tell you the name of the game or what year it released. You have to take a look at the image and decide if each game shown here was released on the NES, SNES, or GBC just from the screenshot alone. Can you correctly identify them all? Good luck!

It’s been a few days since the first three Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters hit Steam and mobile devices, and I’ve had a chance to play through the first title – and I’m absolutely going to be hitting the others. Yes, even 2. While they’re not perfect, they are vastly superior to most of the options that players had to go back and play these classics, and they may eventually be regarded as the definitive editions. Yes, the font is a little off-putting at first, but that can be swapped out in about three seconds, and I also found that I just got used to it after a few hours.

In the case of Final Fantasy 1, it’s quite faithful to the original game with some alterations here and there. Sure, you can get ethers so if you want to play a magic-centric party you won’t find yourself out of spells when you hit a critical boss or you’re tackling an extended dungeon crawl. Yeah, the big bad at the end is definitely not the NES version. And there are various tweaks and foibles throughout, but at the end of the day, it feels adherent to the original experience I had on a crummy TV decades ago, while at the same time serving up some minor quality of life upgrades. Perhaps the best thing about this entire series of remasters so far is the absolutely incredible music.

War for Wakanda is easily the most exciting expansion to hit Marvel’s Avengers, and we finally know when it’s coming. On August 17, players will get to take control of Black Panther to explore a brand new story serving as the game’s largest content update yet. 

In addition to adding a Christopher Judge-voiced T’Challa to the roster of heroes, the free expansion (yes expansion and not an Operation like with Kate Bishop and Hawkeye) introduces new enemy types and two supervillains, one of which is Klaw. Black Panther’s long-time nemesis has teamed up with AIM to invade Wakanda to steal its precious vibranium. 

Wakanda, with its futuristic Royal Palace and surrounding jungles, offer a vibrant new biome to explore that contains the Birnin Zana Outpost, the laboratory of T’Challa’s brilliant sister, Shuri, and other locations. There's also a new drop zone for solo or team play. In addition to the story quests, players can engage in new threat sector missions and other superheroic activities. Of course, you can also expect plenty of new hero outfits as well as a power level increase. 

Earlier this year, Sony shared an extensive look at Aloy's continued story with Horizon Forbidden West, but the lack of a release window had many wondering if we would see the sequel this year. Following the rumors that followed said speculation, Horizon Forbidden West has officially been delayed to 2022. 

According to a new report from Bloomberg, the open-world story of Aloy is set to continue some time in the first quarter of 2022, though an exact date has not been revealed at this time. The news broke via a "person familiar with the matter," according to the site following PlayStation's Hermen Hulst's previous statements that the game was still on track for a holiday release back in June. While Hulst sounded hopeful that the release progress would remain on course, he did mention that nothing was "quite certain" yet, leaving wiggle room in case a delay was inevitable. 

Game Informer has reached out to Sony, though no comment has been made at the time this article was written. 

Horizon Forbidden West, the highly anticipated follow-up to Guerrilla Games' acclaimed open-world action-adventure Horizon Zero Dawn, has reportedly been delayed into 2022.

Announced last summer, Horizon Forbidden West was originally set to launch for PlayStation 4 and PS5 toward the end of this year; however, Sony hinted a slip might be possible back it June, when it announced God of War: Ragnarok would now be a 2022 title. "We think we are on track to release [Horizon Forbidden West] this holiday season," said PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst at the time, "But that isn't quite certain yet, and we're working as hard as we can to confirm that to you as soon as we can."

Hints that Sony was now leaning toward delaying Horizon Forbidden West's release into next year first surfaced yesterday, courtesy of GameBeat journalist Jeff Grubb, who suggested the company was still "undecided" on the matter during his Giant Bomb show. However, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier has now weighed in with the more definite statement that "Sony has delayed the PlayStation exclusive... to the first quarter of 2022", according to his source.

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There’s a room in Linda Guillory’s house that could make any video game nerd fall to their knees in worship. Her walls are lined with sturdy shelving units and display cases, each stuffed with boxes upon boxes of handheld video games. But unlike most video game collections that are kept behind glass, in plastic…

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A cybersecurity company whose security researcher had once been harassed by Blizzard employees at a hacking conference charged the game developer a 50 percent “misogyny tax” when it sought a quote for security services, according to a new report from Waypoint.

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