March 2022

After a relatively quiet period of updates since the launch of Episode 4, Valorant’s latest update, Patch 4.04, is a doozy. Today’s patch notes reveal a buff for Brimstone and Omen, while Astra and Viper have been nerfed, which should bring more balance to the game’s pool of controller Agents. Elsewhere, the much-anticipated Yoru rework is finally here, and Icebox, a map that has been loathed for sometime for its one-dimensional design, has undergone a big overhaul.

Here is the full list of patch notes:

Agent Changes

General

● Improved the system used to place abilities at targeted ground locations. This update should make it easier to find valid placement locations in tight spaces. These are the abilities affected:

• Omen’s Shrouded Step
• Viper’s pit
• Chamber’s Trademark and Rendez-vous
• Every Killjoy ability
• Yoru’s Gatecrash
• Sage’s Barrier Orb

Omen

Dark Cover

• Cooldown decreased 40s >>> 30s
• Cost increased 100 >>> 150
• Projectile Speed increased 2800 >>> 6400

Shrouded Step

• Cost decreased 150 >>> 100
• Pre teleport delay decreased 1s >>> 0.7s

Paranoia

• Added forward spawn offset, so players adjacent to Omen are not hit

Brimstone

Sky Smoke

Today Sony Interactive Entertainment and Polyphony Digital released a new trailer of the upcoming racing game Gran Turismo 7.

We get to see a few “automotive experts” talking about the game. To be precise, we hear car collector and actor Sung Kang (remember Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift?), NASCAR racer Toni Breidinger, artist and designer Jon Sibal, photographer Tim Mcgurr, and tuner Adam LZ.

Of course, we get to see more of the game, which is always a good thing if you’re not particularly interested in the opinions.

You can check the video out below.

Gran Turismo 7 will be released for PS4 and PS5 on March 4, 2022. You can check out the announcement trailer and the video that shared the release date.

Elden Ring is arguably the most highly anticipated video game releases of the year, and it’s finally available on PC and consoles. It features a massive open-world and an overarching mythos penned by George R.R. Martin, best known for writing the A Song of Ice and Fire book series. While it can take quite a bit of time to get through the game’s critical path, there are still things you can do after wrapping up the story. Here are five things to do after beating Elden Ring.

Elden Ring has arrived and offers up an enthralling adventure for FromSoft veterans and newcomers alike. As the most accessible entry in the developer’s series of grueling RPGs, Elden Ring has been praised for bringing punishing boss battles and lore-drenched world into the open-world format. But in doing so, FromSoftware faced significant challenges.

Open-world games, by design, often have Quality of Life problems that make completing quests, traversing the world, or simply obtaining the various items and resources you need a chore, especially over the 10s or hundreds of hours they take to complete. But, miraculously, Elden Ring manages to avoid all of these pitfalls, delivering one of the most immersive and freeing worlds we’ve ever had the joy of exploring.

FromSoftware’s latest RPG, Elden Ring, has received a hot critical reception since its launch last week, with special praise lauded on its compelling open-world sandbox called The Lands Between, and the lore that binds it together. While the developer has a storied history of creating such locations for its iconic Souls franchise, this time around it employed the expertise of fantasy author George R.R Martin, the creator of A Song of Fire and Ice (Game of Thrones), and today Martin has celebrated Elden Ring’s success in his latest blog post.

The post reads in part:

“Once in a generation… masterpiece… beautiful and brutal… a sumptuous open world… ”

Music to the ears.

Of course, almost all the credit should go to Hidetaka Miyazaki and his astonishing team of games designers who have been laboring on this game for half a decade or more, determined to create the best videogame ever.   I am honored to have met them and worked with them, and to have have played a part, however small, in creating this fantastic world and making ELDEN RING the landmark megahit that it is.

The extent of Martin’s involvement seems to have been in helping to create the narrative backbone of The Lands Between’s lore, which presumably helped FromSoftware in guiding the conceptualization of its design. Speaking to Martin’s involvement in the game’s development, FromSoftware game director Hideo Miyazaki told the New Yorker in a recent interview:

Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC, iOS, Android
Publisher: Rockstar Games
Developer: Rockstar Games
Release: November 11, 2021 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC), 2022 (iOS, Android)
Rating: Mature

Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: From Software
Release: February 25, 2022

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Elden Ring is clearly going down well, but it also has bigger problems than unexplained rolling goats. Even with a day-one patch, problems with frame rate drops, crashes, and visual glitches have been widely reported by players; I myself encountered some suttering while putting together our performance and settings guide. However, if you’re lucky enough to get a Steam Deck in the first round of order fulfilments, you could see improvements that have yet to materialise on Windows.

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Hello folks. I'm sorry this month's Letter From The Editor is a bit late. February sure has been one of those months, what with two of the biggest games of the year so far, not to mention a whole new piece of hardware launching in the space of two measly weeks. If I'd had my act together, I could have used this letter to give you a glimpse of all the exciting things we've just done - things like our freshly-concluded Souls Week, or all the neat Steam Next Fest bits we had planned, and (maybe) even a sneaky peek at all the excellent Steam Deck stuff we've written about as well. Alas, my time management skills have been a bit of a dumpster fire this month - although if you haven't checked out everything I've just mentioned, please do go and have a read. The RPS team have been very busy bees this month, and it would be a shame to miss out on all the great stuff going on.

Of course, the question now becomes, how do we carry on this kind of momentum when literally nothing has a confirmed release date past the end of March? The answer is... complicated.

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Co-op roguelite Conan Chop Chop brings its barbarian action to Steam today. Die a lot, alone or with friends or strangers, on the couch or online. (Probably don't invite strangers to your house to play though). Then get stronger, improve your equipment, and hopefully die less until you can triumph over an evil wizard and prove once and for all that brawn is better than brains.

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UPDATE 29/3/22: The Kickstarter for the official Dead by Daylight board game is now live.

The campaign has two tiers of pledge reflecting the standard and collector's edition, the latter featuring over twice the content of the base game.

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I am of an age where most of my school memories are a jumbled haze, except for the occasional trauma nugget that likes to surface at inopportune times. (Everyone has those, right? Right?) Anyway, one of the few concrete recollections I have is that of a music lesson on tone (or symphonic, for the big word fanciers) poems. The concept fascinated me, the idea of using music to not just set tone and mood, but to tell a story, to conjure specific images in the mind of the listener.

Playing A Musical Story made me think of tone poems. One glance at any of the screenshots accompanying this review will make it obvious to all but the most unobservant that the game does have actual images alongside the music, but they're intimately entwined. There's no dialogue and the animated scenes lean on the side of being vignettes, so the music isn't just background noise, it's doing the heavy lifting.

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Back 4 Blood has passed the 10 million player mark, developer Turtle Rock Studios trumpeted today.

The spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead released back in October last year for PC, PlayStation and Xbox. By the end of that month, it had six million players already - no doubt boosted by its arrival via Xbox Game Pass.

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A streamer is playing through Elden Ring with a Ring Fit Adventure controller.

YouTuber Super Louis 64 hooked up the controller from Nintendo's fitness RPG to his PlayStation 5 and began a fresh playthrough of FromSoftware's latest epic on stream.

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UPDATE 2/3/22: Ezio Auditore da Firenze will come to Fortnite as a freebie for owners of Assassin's Creed Valhalla and its upcoming Dawn of Ragnarök expansion on the Epic Game Store.

Of course, the famed Assassin will also be available to purchase separately within Fortnite as well. It's a similar promotion to the kinds which Epic Games has before for Borderlands and Star Wars titles sold via its storefront.

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Today's planned launch of Little Orpheus for PC and consoles has been postponed, publisher Secret Mode has confirmed.

Developed by The Chinese Room, the studio behind Dear Esther and Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Little Orpheus featured a Russian rocket pilot in a humorous adventure.

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Bleach is coming back to the Arena of Valor MOBA. Timi Studio announced the characters from the series will appear again as skins. The event is immediately available, with five total customization options available.

The skins basically fall into two categories. One involves making existing characters look exactly like ones from Bleach. The other puts them in outfits inspired by the series. As part of this collaboration, Lu Bu can look like Ichigo Kurosaki, Murad can become like Byakuya Kuchiki, and Bright can turn into Toshiro Hitsugaya. The other two outfits are for Annette and Lindis. Annette gets a school uniform that looks like Orihime Inoue’s. It is called Karakura First High School. Lindis gets a basic Shinigami/Soul Reaper that resembles Rukia Kuchiki’s. It is called Shihakusho.

Here's a video looking at the skins.

There’s also a new video looking only at the Lu Bu Bleach skin. It shows off its general appearance and how it changes the appearance of attacks.

Ahead of launch, Square Enix confirmed Cloud would be racing in Chocobo GP. People can earn him through the Season 1 Pass. Now there are more details about his special ability, as the company shared a brief trailer showing him in-game.

Cloud rides Fenrir, one of his FFVII motorcycles, in the game. He’ll also wield his Buster Sword. This will actually be used during Spinning Slash. As people race, they can trigger this special ability. This allows them an opportunity to speed up and potentially attack.

Here’s the new video. It begins by showing him racing as normal. Then, he uses Spinning Slash to attack some people around him. The video closes with him winning the race. His victory pose has him stand on the bike seat while twirling the Buster Sword.

Ride on Fenrir when playing as Cloud from @FinalFantasyVII in #ChocoboGP!

Use his ability Spinning Slash to swing the Buster Sword dealing damage in the area when close to other racers. You can also uses it to defend against all attacks, but his speed decreases when defending. pic.twitter.com/VL307c09Nt

— FINAL FANTASY (@FinalFantasy) March 1, 2022

There is a Square Enix shuffle going on with Xbox Game Pass. The March 2022 update arrived to detail things joining and leaving the service by March 15, 2022. Another Final Fantasy game is coming, but a staple is leaving. On March 3, 2022, Lightning Returns: FFXIII will show up on the service. On March 15, 2022, NieR Automata will leave Xbox Game Pass.

For those unfamiliar, Lightning Returns: FFXIII closes out the trilogy of games. It proceeds a bit differently than most Final Fantasy games. In it, Lightning has seven days before the world will end. She is tasked with completing various goals before that happens. (It is possible to earn a little more time.)

As for NieR Automata, it’s been part of Xbox Game Pass for years. The Xbox One version showed up back in April 2020. In March 2021, the PC version debuted on the service.

Here’s the full list of the games that will be joining Xbox Game Pass alongside Lightning Returns: FFXIII in March 2022.

Back in August 2021, Sony’s acquisition of the Crunchyroll anime streaming service went through. Now it means that Funimation and Crunchyroll are merging, with Crunchyroll and its subscription service being the surviving entity. This means past Funimation and Wakanim subscription holders will need to migrate to the other service.

The announcement offered details about how the merger will work. Things are taking effect immediately. Crunchyroll will get 80% of the Funimation/Wakanim shows by the end of March 2022. It will still offer the same three subscription plans. That means people can pay $7.99, $9.99, or $14.99 per. month for various service tiers. Rather than being Funimation Global Group, LLC, it will now be Crunchyroll, LLC.

If someone is a Funimation or Wakanim subscriber, they will need to cancel their current subscription, make a Crunchyroll account, and purchase a new subscription. Funimation and Wakanim will only continue to add and air existing series on their services and get new episodes from previously announced series. Funimation members’ digital copies of items, gift cards, saved show queues, and watch histories aren’t available on Crunchyroll. The announcement did confirm that digital copies, gift cards, queues, and watch histories support is in the works on Crunchyroll.

In entertainment, there are just some songs that fit into every situation perfectly, like My Hero Academia’s You Say Run, which literally goes with everything. Thanks to this, people tend to get pretty creative when mixing things around, especially when it comes to video games. Just check out what one DOOM fan has done to Skyrim.

As you can see in the video below, which was posted to the Skyrim subreddit, user LuX_Lukas_18 showed off just how perfectly the DOOM music fit into burning down the Dark Brotherhood in Skyrim.

The song, The Only Thing They Fear Is You by Mick Gordon, just works so perfectly in the scenario, as it feels satisfying to hear it played as you take down Skyrim’s shady assassin organization. Honestly, the music is so good that it could probably go with anything.

Earlier this week, there was a rumor going around that Gabe Newell was personally hand-delivering Steam Decks to customers who ordered an early copy. This rumor was confirmed with, which showed off the Valve co-founder and president making the deliveries to a bunch of confused customers.

As you can see in the video below, there are a lot of funny exchanges between Newell and customers, as they’re shocked to see a camera crew and a man that looks like the godfather of Steam delivering their new console.

The co-founder and president was even nice enough to sign the Steam Deck units, bashfully stating, “Hopefully people won’t get mad that I’m signing them.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the Steam Deck, you can read the official description below.

Portability meets power

Today Square Enix released two new commercials for the upcoming action game Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.

Both commercials basically focus on killing monsters in the most violent way possible, which I guess is what you’ll do in the game most of the time.

You can check both out below.

Platform: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, Stadia, PC
Publisher: The Arcade Crew
Developer: 1P2P
Release: August 17, 2021 (Stadia), March 10, 2022 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC)

Platform: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Developer: From Software
Release: February 25, 2022

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Valve haven’t changed their collective minds on DIY Steam Deck upgrades and repairs; although the portable PC is finally on its way to the earliest reservers, it’s still the company’s stance that you shouldn’t open it up and make hardware changes yourself. That’s according to Valve engineer Pierre-Loup Griffais, who spoke to us at length on the making of the Deck and its future prospects.

Valve have previously made the peculiar move of showing exactly how to open a Steam Deck and remove individual parts, complete with video, while simultaneously declaring it something owners should refrain from. On pain of borking components, personal injury, and even death, apparently.

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FixFox is a delighful name to say. I keep calling it Fikfok, once by mistake and then the rest of the time on purpose. You are Vix (vikfikfok), an fox wot fixes things in a distant future, where humans started to gene-splice themselves with animals for the convenience of having, for example, lovely warm fur. This is a step I would 100% take; even as I write this in the office I am wrapped in a blanket I brought in from home, and my fingers are still cold. I would be less able to repair things using bits of tape and coins I found in holes in the ground, but then I am not a mechanic.

Vix is a mechanic, although they are laughed at by their compatriots for being quite a bad one. They have a sentient tool box called Tin, but misadventure means all Vix's conventional tools are lost. In the course of a pretty meaty preview build I got to explore a strange, cuboid planet, top-down stylee, and repair things for a buncha robots. But there are loads of other aspects to FixFox - a preoccupation with food, a kind of space-sokoban game, a story that hints at mystery and evolution and time. Part puzzle game, part sci-fi adventure, part fok.

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There surely can't be many that haven't been seduced by Flight Simulator's promise of a whole, beautiful world to explore whenever and wherever they choose. Developer Asobo's astonishing work at recreating the planet on a 1:1 scale has transcended the usual simming niche to present a proposition - a sort of virtual holiday on a harddrive - with genuine mass appeal. But there remains a key sticking point: hardware. Flight Simulator on PC is an absolute hog, even at its more modest settings, and the secondary route - namely Xbox Series X/S - has its own cost and availability barriers to contend with. There is, then, a whole untapped audience Asobo believes is eager to take to the skies - and that's where Flight Simulator's newly released Xbox Cloud Gaming edition comes in, making the experience available to anyone with an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription and an internet connection.

Another Vtuber is getting a Good Smile Company figure. This time it is a Hiiro Vtuber Nendoroid from Good Smile Company Shanghai. She's expected to come to Japan in October 2022. Her North American debut is tentatively set for December 2022. (However, shipping delays could push that back.) She will cost $68.99/¥6,800.

Hiiro Vtuber is a Chinese Vtuber. She streams on BiliBili. She is a cat girl. As you might expect, this means that her Nendoroid features a number of accessories referencing cats. Her face plates show her smiling, drooling over food, and looking smug. In addition to her phone, you can pose her holding a carton of milk or lusting over a piece of salmon. There is also an additional sheet making it look like she’s streaming.

Here's a full look at how the Nendoroid will look. All of her accessories and face plates are shown. There are also examples of some of her possible poses.
[gallery columns="7" ids="918444,918445,918446,918447,918448,918449,918450" link="file"]

While the Hololive Vtuber Nendoroids are most prevalent, Good Smile Company does create figures of other performers. For example, there is also a Kagura Nana one on the way as well.

The next Genkai Tokki game is about to appear outside Japan. To prepare people, Eastasiasoft showed how the English version of Seven Pirates H. It was the first game to show up at the Spring 2022 Eastasiasoft Showcase. While brief, it offered an idea of what people can expect.

Seven Pirates H’s English version kicked everything off. So right away in the video below, it appears. It begins with bullet points about what to expect. First, it showed off the turn-based battle system. After that, it shows what it is like to move around different areas and explore. There’s also a brief bit of exposition, in which Saqra talks about the villainous Four Heavenly Kings players will have to face. The portion after that shows how characters’ chests develop by playing minigames. (As such, this early portion of the video might be not safe to view at work or school.)

Genkai Tokki: Seven Pirates H will appear worldwide in English in Spring 2022. Play-Asia will carry standard and limited edition copies. The limited edition versions come with a soundtrack, art book, and stickers. Its website is now open, and it is age-gated. The game is immediately available in Japan.

Matt Walker is no longer with Capcom, as Camouflaj announced he joined the developer's new Japanese studio. He is now one of the two people running Camouflaj Holdings. He and the company's founder Ryan Payton are in charge at the new branch. The announcement didn't include any details about potential projects in development at the studio.

So here's some news - I've graduated from Capcom and am now working with the good people of @Camouflaj ! https://t.co/fnCRBlud28

— Matt Walker (@retroOtoko) March 1, 2022

In his time at Capcom, Matt Walker worked on a number of longstanding series. For example, he worked as a producer on both the Devil May Cry 3 Switch port and Devil May Cry 5. He also produced Resident Evil 3's Resident Evil: Resistance multiplayer element. He also acted as a production manager on games like Resident Evil Revelations 2.

Today Sega revealed the upcoming updates and content planned for March and the beginning of April in its MMO Phantasy Star Online 2 New Genesis.

Mach 2 will see the release of nostalgic revival AC Scratch tickets, followed by the Spring ’22 event on March 9.

Central City will be decorated with blooming flowers, a new NPC named Xitre from ARKS Supply Support will appear, alongside new seasonal enemies, and more.

A new Urgent Quest will be added alongside a special scratch ticket. Speaking of tickets, a new AC Scratch and a new SG Scratch ticket will also come.

The second half of the spring event will launch on March 23 with new daily and weekly tasks, a new lineup in the Exchange Shop, a new AC Scratch ticket, and more.

More revival AC Scratch tickets will also come on March 30.

A major update will release on April 6, including the increase of the level cap to 45, new Photon Arts, new Compound Techniques, and new ranks for all Retem quests.

New features will include a recruit party members menu, the ability to set up your own photo room, Mag jukebox playlists, the ability to easily find color-changeable outfits and to show or hide your innerwear with outfits that show a lot of skin, and more.

A recent update to the Nintendo Switch has brought a new feature called Missions and Rewards. While not quite achievements, these little tasks encourage Switch owners to use and explore the Switch Online service.

With the update now available, anyone subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online has access to Missions and Rewards. This feature adds tasks that, when completed, will shell out a handful of My Nintendo Platinum Points upon completion. Missions to complete include backing up a save to the cloud or booting up Super Mario Bros. in the Switch Online NES collection or other ways to make sure you're exploring everything you can do with your online subscription. To view these missions, simply head to the Nintendo Switch Online app on the Switch's home screen.

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