December 2021

Not only has the Umbrella Skullgirls release date been narrowed down to the beginning of 2022, but Black Dahlia's been confirmed as DLC too.

The post Skullgirls Umbrella Release Date Set for 2022, Black Dahlia Will Follow appeared first on Siliconera.

A number of new details have emerged regarding additions to the upcoming 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim Nintendo Switch port.

The post 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim on Switch Gets New Weapons appeared first on Siliconera.

The Fantasy Life Online English version release date is set, and people will be able to head into the mobile game later this week.

The post Fantasy Life Online English Release Date Set appeared first on Siliconera.

I love Dead Cells. The side-scrolling combat and platforming are tight, the art is impeccable, and its progression system and unlock curve are among the best I’ve ever seen. It feels like a near-perfectly designed game. In the three years since its release, it has become even better—and a more interesting indicator of…

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It’s not every day that you hear about a VTubing bartender whose goal is not to encourage people to get shitfaced but rather to help them avoid overindulging their vices. But, then, Twitch streamer Takahata101 isn’t your average VTuber. Previously a gaming streamer, on New Year’s Eve of 2020 he debuted a new format,…

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The first game from Embark Studios, a veteran team led by former EA and Dice head Patrick Söderlund, is set to be revealed this week. The game is called Arc Raiders, and we got a glimpse of what to expect in a cryptic teaser video.

The video is one of those “trailer for the trailer” as it states a full reveal is slated for Thursday, December 9. Hey, that’s the same day as The Game Awards — what a funny coincidence. The video shows some third-person shooting, a woman calling for volunteers, and an “Enlist. Resist” tagline. You can watch the teaser in the tweet below.

pic.twitter.com/JPsq7mL4hP

With the world's return to The Matrix franchise a couple of weeks away (the time it would take to download a movie on Limewire in the early 2000s), Epic Games is releasing a new experience built on its new engine. Partnering with the cast and crew from the upcoming film, The Matrix Awakens: An Unreal Engine 5 Experience will show off what the new software can do.

The Matrix Resurrections director Lana Wachowski is involved in bringing this tech showcase to life, and so are the film's stars, Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss, who provide performances for Awakens. The trailer for the Unreal experience is exceptionally short, only providing a couple of seconds of Reeves doing what's demanded of him in a bright white void: questioning existence, asking, "How do we know what is real," which is a question that's probably pointed at his own physical being in the trailer, a near-lifelike recreation of the well-known actor. Or else he's messing with us, and that is actually Keanu on film. To that, I say, kudos for making me question three seconds of footage all day.

The Matrix Awakens is available now to pre-load on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Stay tuned for more info on the experience at The Game Awards this Thursday. 

If you want nothing more than stuffing your fantasy face with a big slice of pizza, Final Fantasy XIV will be happy to provide… for a price.

A grubhub collaboration just announced via press release will let you earn an in-game “eat-pizza” emote so that your in-game character can look delighted while stuffing their face.

In order to do receive the emote, you need to live in the United States and order $15 in food (before taxes, fees, and tips) at Grubhub using the “ENDWALKER” promo code starting when The Game Awards air on Thursday, December 9 at 4:30 p.m. PST. You have time until Wednesday, December 15 at 8:59 p.m. PST.

On top of that, if you’re one of the first 20,000 ordering food during The Game Awards (on December 9 between 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. PST) your delivery will be free as long as it’s under $6.

If you satisfy the condition above, you’ll get your code for the “Eat Pizza” emote in your mail associated with your Grubhub account on December 17, and you’ll be able to redeem it in the Mog Station.

You can see it in action below.

Anno 1800 has surely been very successful among city building and simulation fans, so it’s getting even more DLC.

Today Ubisoft has announced that the game will receive a fourth season pass in 2022. It’ll include three new DLC packages.

We know that the new season pass will focus on the new world and might address the issues with building space. Scenarios will also make a comeback and each DLC will include at least one.

Each DLC will also be accompanied by a free game update further improving the game as a whole.

While no further details have been provided, a teaser trailer was showcased, and you can find it below. Perhaps you can glean a few hints. The developers will reveal more in March 2022.

Anno 1800 is available exclusively for PC. If you want to know more, you can read our review and an official description below.

Earlier today on the Pokemon GO official site, a new event and the debut of Druddigon were announced for the mobile game. The Dragonspiral Descent event will begin on Tuesday, Dec. 7 at 10 AM local time and run until Dec. 12 at 8 PM local time. On top of that, Druddigon will be debuting in raids and as a reward for completing Field Research or a Collection Challenge at the start of this event.

Dragonspiral Descent will feature Pokemon from the Dragonspiral Tower located in the Unova region. The Pokemon in the table below will be available in the wild during the event. An asterisk (*) indicates the Pokemon is a rare spawn and the three stars next to the image of the Pokemon means that you may find a shiny version of that ‘mon.

Following yesterday’s reveal of the Porsche Vision Gran Turismo for Gran Turismo 7, Sony Interactive Entertainment shared a press release with a gallery of images.

In the first gallery below, you can see images labeled “In-game” the first is a detail shot, the second appears to be in a race, while the last three have been shot until the “Scapes” photo mode.

It’s certainly a beautiful ride.

There will be a FFXIV Endwalker Grubhub promotion that will give people a free pizza-eating emote for their avatars to use in-game.

The post FFXIV Grubhub Promotion Involves Emote appeared first on Siliconera.

All of the relationships in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean help us see who Jolyne really is and propel the story forward.

The post In JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean Jolyne’s Relationships Define Her appeared first on Siliconera.

One of the joys of Halo is its replayability. Ask any devotee and you’ll get some story about endlessly rerunning “The Library” in Halo: Combat Evolved, or replaying Halo 2’s “Delta Halo” to get out of bounds and explore that uncannily Canada-looking mountain range. Sadly, at least at launch, you can’t do any of that…

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Last week, following a lengthy appeal process, the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (VZBV) successfully argued that Nintendo’s current eShop pre-order return policies are insufficiently flexible, and the console maker may now have to further loosen its heavily criticized digital pre-order refund rules to be…

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Solar Ash is a great game that cherry-picks ideas from Jet Set Radio, Shadow of the Colossus, and Super Mario Galaxy. However, only one series came to mind as I skated across its teal clouds: Sonic the Hedgehog. More specifically, the 3D entries, which are the oft-maligned titles responsible for decades of headaches for the Blue Blur. 

I’ll admit that I’m a Sonic traditionalist. My love of Sonic, like many other 30-somethings, began on the Sega Genesis, so I firmly believe the character is at his best in 2D. Sonic 2 is my favorite in the series and Sonic Mania, the 2017 throwback developed by a team of fans rather than Sonic Team proper, is the best entry in years. 

This is a conversation that I’m sure has played out countless times across kitchens and living rooms around the world as children, friends and partners patiently try and explain the difference between a video game universe and a tabletop wargaming universe. I just don’t know if it’s ever been done so smoothly.

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I finally got to see Dune over the weekend (its release was delayed in Australia due to pandemic lockdowns), and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since.

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Epic waited until its big Fortnite Chapter 3 launch to finally give fans the Spider-Man skin they've waited years for, but it seems the developer-publisher is already gearing up to introduce even more characters from the Spider-Verse this season. In an official blog post, Epic promised more allies and enemies would make their debuts in Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 1. Meanwhile, some in-game assets may already be telling us exactly who to expect.

"Look out for new Spideys (plus a few friends and foes) dropping into the Item Shop this season!" said Epic in its Chapter 3 introductory blog. It's easy enough to try and guess who this might mean--after all, Epic's multi-year deal with Marvel sort of guarantees most, if not all, major characters from the brand will come to Fortnite eventually. But in-game teases seem to be pointing to a few of the biggest characters Spider-Man fans could hope for, including Miles Morales and Spidey's arch-nemesis, Green Goblin.

It's a new day in the Fortnite Item Shop, and that means a slew of returning cosmetic items are here for your perusal. In the shop today are some older skins, newer skins, holiday skins, and more. While some players may be holding onto their V-Bucks for the upcoming Gears of War skins, your new favorite might be in the shop today. Here's everything in the Fortnite Item Shop for December 7, 2021.

The marquee item today is the Frost Legends Pack, a triple pack of icy cool skins just in time for the wintry Fortnite Chapter 3 map. The full bundle sells for 2,500 V-Bucks, or about $20. It includes the following reimaginings of classic characters and their cosmetics:

Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 1 is here, and like always, we’re breaking down the new map changes in Fortnite’s latest season. This time, however, it’s a bit different. You see, what’s changed is, well, everything. After the previous island was flipped end over end, we discovered a new island was underneath all along. Fortnite’s third-ever island, Artemis, is now in the game and introduces players to a whole new world to discover. Artemis sports 12 new named locations, dozens of new landmarks, plus lots of hidden lore around the island; here are all the map changes in Fortnite Chapter 3.

Fortnite Chapter 3, Season 1 is tied together thematically by The Seven, the mysterious super-group led by The Foundation who plan on breaking The Loop once and for all. Scattered around the island are seven vaults--literally named Seven Vaults--and each one houses a cache of loot, just like the vaults from Chapter 2, Seasons 2-4. These vaults are guarded by non-hostile NPCs, but they’ll grow hostile in a flash if you harm them, so be careful.

If you want to learn a heck of a lot more about The Seven, you can travel to Sanctuary, their true homebase. It features a massive statue of The Foundation as well as several “Device” quests, which help tell more of the story surrounding The Seven versus the Imagined Order. Lore-wise, this is the most important portion of the island this season.

In the northeastern region, you’ll find The Daily Bugle, which seems to have arrived via a meteor much like Stark Industries last year. Spider-Man’s stomping grounds are full of webby trampolines, giving the area a unique traversal mechanic. The apartments surrounding the newspaper’s headquarters are loaded with loot.

Xbox has revealed that four games will be coming to Xbox Game Pass on PC in the future, and they will be announced at The Game Awards 2021. The announcement notes that these four games are day one releases, which means they'll launch on Game Pass the same day that they are released.

On top of the four unannounced titles, there are several that are already confirmed to be coming to Xbox Game Pass PC day one too:

Black Ops Cold War may be last year's Call of Duty, but the game received an update on December 6 to synchronise Military Ranks and Prestige Levels ahead of Vanguard's Season 1. The patch notes also detail nerfs for the Marshal pistol and include new unlock challenges for past DLC weapons.

Synchronized Leveling With Vanguard

Starting on December 8 with the launch of Vanguard's Season 1, Military Rank and Prestige progression will be synchronized with Vanguard across titles. This means players will begin the season at the Military Rank or Prestige Level they've currently reached in Vanguard, or Military Rank 1 if they haven't played Vanguard yet. From there, players will be able to progress through Vanguard Military Ranks across Black Ops Cold War, Warzone, and Modern Warfare to unlock weapons, equipment, killstreaks, and other seasonal content for use in Vanguard and Warzone.

Additionally, each new Prestige Level will award players with a Prestige key, tier skip, emblem, and sticker in Black Ops Cold War, and once they’ve reached Season Level 50 in Season 1, they’ll unlock the exclusive "Duck Hunt" Shotgun Weapon Blueprint to use in Vanguard and Warzone.

Lifetime Prestige And Master Ribbons

This update adds the new "Lifetime Prestige" display to Black Ops Cold War and Warzone at the start of Season 1. This immortalizes a player's total number of Prestige Levels earned across previous seasons and in Vanguard, meaning players can display how many times they have Prestiged across titles.

Keanu Reeves always seems busy. If it's not tearing up the streets as a dead AI in Cyberpunk 2077, he's saving puppies as John Wick or breaking realities in The Matrix. We've seen him around video games for a long time, and he's only become more detailed with each entry.

One of the first times Keanu Reeves appeared in a game was in The Matrix: Path of Neo, the second game based on the events of the film trilogy that this time actually let you play as its main protagonist. It took a much longer time for him to appear again, with his likeness used in Bithell Games' John Wick Hex and appearing as the assassin in Fortnite as a skin.

Cyberpunk 2077 featured Keanu Reeves in a big way, with the actor voicing Johnny Silverhand (which also used his likeness). But more than 16 years later, Reeves is back in a game as Neo, this time looking unbelievably realistic thanks to Unreal Engine 5.

Activision has revealed the Call of Duty Season 1 roadmap for both Vanguard and Warzone Pacific, and players can expect plenty of new content for this first season. Season 1 will arrive on December 8 packed with new operators, weapons, perks, battle pass, and the brand-new Caldera map for Warzone.

Following updates to Vanguard and Warzone, Season 1 will start on December 8. Vanguard’s update is scheduled for December 6 at 9 PM PT / 12 AM ET. Warzone's update is scheduled to happen during the server shutdown from December 7 at 9 PM PT / 12 AM ET to December 8 at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET to prepare for Warzone Pacific.

New Seasonal Battle Pass

Season 1's battle pass will include 100 tiers, with over 30 items offered in the free tiers. Free items will also include the important bits of the battle pass, which are the three DLC weapons, two new perks, and added equipment. The premium paid pass will include the new seasonal operator, Francis "Kai" Lanakila.

Battle pass weapons:

• Cooper Carbine is an assault rifle unlocked at tier 15
• Gorenko Anti-Tank Rifle is a sniper rifle unlocked at tier 31
• Sawtooth is a melee weapon unlocked at tier 37

In addition to the three free weapons in the battle pass, the Katana melee weapon and the Welgun submachine gun will become available later in the season. These new weapons will be available either through an unlock challenge for free or with purchase of a store bundle.

Embark Studios, the game studio run by former Electronic Arts boss Patrick Soderlund, is gearing up to share more details on its debut project, Arc Raiders, very soon. A teaser for the game points to a reveal on December 9, which matches up with The Game Awards. The event's Twitter page quote-tweeted the trailer, all but confirming its presence at the showcase on Thursday.

There isn't much to go on, but at about seven seconds into the teaser, a soldier with a machine gun is firing at a giant ball before the screen cuts to black. The trailer invites players to "enlist" and "resist."

Embark Studios, which is owned by Nexon, is a Stockholm-based game studio that is trying to "blur the line between playing and making." As of November 2020, the studio had around 200 employees.

Call of Duty: Vanguard will get Warzone integration with the new Caldera map on December 8, but players have one final event to bid farewell to the Verdansk map. The Last Hours of Verdansk is now live in Warzone, bringing a limited-time playlist that sends players searching World War II bomber crashes.

The Last Hours of Verdansk was originally scheduled for November 30, but was quietly postponed for December 6. In this final goodbye to Verdansk, matches are played in trios with similar rules to Rebirth Island's Resurgence mode, which allows for fallen sqaudmates to respawn on each other as long as at least one member of the squad is still alive. This also means the Gulag is closed, and each player starts with one self-revive item. Otherwise, this plays out mostly like a regular match of battle royale on Verdansk, with players looting for weapons and fighting to survive the circle collapses.

In addition to survival, World War II bomber planes fill the skies above Verdansk, and planes will periodically crash and need to be searched. Searching a plane crash gives a marked intel point on the map, and players must successfully collect four pieces of intel. Near the final circle, players must avoid missile barrages and secure a marked underground bunker location to get the win. The last trio or player standing can win by being the last survivor or by securing the bunker.

The role-playing genre isn’t just one of the oldest in the gaming industry, it’s one of the most enduring as well. From turn-based JRPGs to Western RPGs with an action-based approach, great RPGs come in all different stripes. They can devour hours of your time, transport you to another land, and make all your in-game effort pay off when the day is eventually saved. Which RPGs are the best of 2021 though? We've put together a list using data gleaned from GameSpot's sister site Metacritic, and it includes PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC games.

Some of the entries likely won't surprise you, but the list below is a wonderful example of how the RPG genre remains magical with its ability to constantly reinvent itself.

Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights

A good Metroidvania is its own reward, and Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights certainly hits all the right notes for a game that gives you a massive world to explore, new abilities to unlock, and challenging enemies to vanquish. That's part of the standard package in this genre, but what sets Ender Lilies apart from its contemporaries in the field is that it doesn't feel like it's merely ticking off boxes on a Metroidvania checklist, but it's genuinely attempting to push the genre forward.

All Final Fantasy XIV players who own the game's latest Endwalker expansion and have an active subscription will receive seven days of free game time in the wake of ongoing server issues, Square Enix has announced.

The game's servers have been slammed following the early access release of Endwalker on December 3, resulting in long login queues and error messages that are causing players to disconnect entirely. Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida apologized for the situation in an official post while outlining steps the team is taking to improve things ahead of Endwalker's official launch on December 7.

Part of making things right is offering free game time to players, which will be offered to players starting on December 7. Yoshida states that more free game time could come "depending on further developments" in regard to ongoing server congestion.

Yoshida goes on to outline peak player hours for various timezones in an effort to help players choose times in which they might more easily be able to log in and play. He also responds to player-complaints of being automatically logged out of the game after being AFK for 30 minutes during the credits of earlier Final Fantasy XIV expansions, for which he is "truly sorry." Yoshida states that players will not be logged out for inactivity during the end credits of Endwalker, but asks that players press buttons or click with the mouse during other end credit scenes to avoid being booted back to the main menu.

Microsoft is rolling out a new feature in Windows' Xbox app, which should make it easier to determine if a game will run well on your PC.

This info will come in a label with the words, "Should play great on this PC," located underneath the blue install button on a game's storefront page. The feature is limited to a few games and is still under development. To see it for yourself, you can download the Xbox Insider Hub app and agree to receive Xbox app store's preview versions.

It's unknown what benchmarks Microsoft is using when defining a game playing "great" on a PC, or if there will be any tiers in-between "great" and the other end of "not working at all." It could be the case that a game will run well at a lower FPS on a PC with certain specs, and it's unclear if Microsoft will also incorporate such info into its "how this game runs" tag. From a quick perusal of the preview version, it looks like games currently either have the "play great" tag or do not have one at all. We'll need to wait until Microsoft says more in order to understand the details of how this new feature will work.

Every game in the Xbox app store already includes minimum specs and recommended requirements, so in the meantime, that's still the solidly reliable way of estimating how a game will run on your PC.

Call of Duty: Warzone is finally getting its long-awaited new Pacific-themed map, Caldera, this week, with a new launch trailer showing off the serene sights and sounds of the island before it's lit up with gunfire.

As part of the integration with Call of Duty: Vanguard, Caldera will take players back in time to the sunny shores and crystal-clear waters of the Pacific, right before everyone is airdropped in for some chaos. Caldera looks lovely and makes for a welcome change over Verdansk. Better still, you won't be limited to playing exclusively with Vanguard's weaponry either, with the launch trailer making a clear distinction between "Vanguard Royale" and "Battle Royale" modes that you can choose between. Check it out below.

Call of Duty: Warzone is hosting its Last Hours of Verdansk today, kicking off at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET. The event will last until 9 PM PT / 11:59 PM ET, after which Warzone servers will be offline until the new Caldera map launches. If you own Vanguard, you'll get 24 hours of early access starting on Wednesday, December 8. All other Warzone players will get access to the new map for free the following day.

The release of Caldera also shepherds in the first season of Vanguard, bringing with it new operators, weapons, upgrades, and, of course, a new battle pass to work towards. It's a big release for Call of Duty: Vanguard, but one that will take place amid a walk out at developer Raven Software over Activision's decision to dismiss QA testers late last week.

Most employees would want job security, unfortunately for some quality assurance contractors over at Call of Duty: Warzone developer Raven Software, Activision Blizzard dropped a bomb with sudden layoffs of over a dozen employees without warning. Now, the remaining members of the QA team have initiated a protest via a walkout.

The statement of this protest is as follows:

“In response to the events of Friday, the Raven QA team and other members of Raven’s staff will be walking out with a singular demand: Every member of the QA team, including those terminated on Friday, must be offered full-time positions.”

Further elaboration was given via Twitter by ABetterABK, the employee group that is advocating for all Activision Blizzard employees, with the group explaining that those affected by these Call of Duty: Warzone layoffs were not underperforming, but were in fact “high-performing testers.” The 30% reduction of staff will also adversely affect the day-to-day operations of the Raven QA team.

It remains to be seen how the company will handle this latest fiasco, following recent grievances of gender discrimination and workplace misconduct.

The post Call of Duty: Warzone Developers Protest With Walkout Following Layoffs appeared first on Twinfinite.

This month’s PS Plus offerings are already looking pretty solid, but Sony is upping its game even further by adding a few new games to its PS Now lineup as well. Four new games have been added to the library: Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD Remaster, GTA III: The Definitive Edition, Spitlings, and John Wick Hex.

FFX needs no introduction at this point; it was originally released for the PS2 back in 2000, and has since been remastered for modern consoles. It continues to be one of the best entry points in the series, and it still holds up pretty damn well even today.

GTA III is an enhanced version of the classic Rockstar game, featuring improved graphics and lighting, and more textures and details to add life to the world. John Wick Hex is a strategic time-based action game, while Spitlings is a co-op multiplayer game that tasks you with getting rid of a bunch of bubbles on your screen.

You can check out the full details of all the new PS Now games here.

The post PS Now’s December Lineup Includes Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD, GTA III & More appeared first on Twinfinite.

The Matrix Resurrections is set to make its debut in theaters later this month, and Warner Brothers has released one final trailer to get fans hyped up before its release. You can check out the trailer for yourself down below:

From the previously released trailers, it was obvious that we were going to see a reboot of some sort where Neo is forced to relive the events of the first movie. That’s even more evident in this latest trailer, and we get more glimpses of the various changes and deviations from the original timeline.

Whether or not the payoff will actually be good remains to be seen, but it’s safe to say that the nostalgia is real with this one.

The Matrix Resurrections is set to air in theaters on Dec. 22.

The post The Matrix Resurrections Gets One More Epic Trailer Ahead of its Premiere appeared first on Twinfinite.

Game Workers Unite Australia, a body that had previously been an advisory and support organisation, announced today that early next year it will be transitioning to becoming a full-blown union.

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Just when I thought I'd seen everything Star Wars had to offer, Zynga introduces one of the strangest ideas yet: a Jawa standing on his brother's shoulders to create a tall fighter named Utooni. This puzzling creation is just one of the many combatants in Zynga's Star Wars: Hunters, a Switch and mobile game that is slated to release next year.

Star Wars: Hunters is a free-to-play multiplayer game that takes some real chances with its roster. You won't see recognizable characters like Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, or Boba Fett battling to the death. Zynga is instead making its own lineup of warriors from the Outer Rim. Another odd one is named Slingshot, which just happens to be a droideka piloted by an Ugnaught. There's also a droid named J-3DI, which thinks it controls the force and wields a lightsaber.

A couple of the characters fall in line with what you would expect from the Star Wars universe. Sentinel would appear to be a fairly ordinary stormtrooper who just happens to love heavy weapons. There's also a Sith Lord named Rieve, who is decked out in black and red garments.