July 2022

Final Fantasy 7 fans were on cloud nine after the recent 25th anniversary showcase. Not only did Square Enix reveal the second part of the Remake trilogy - named Rebirth - but it also announced a remaster of the PSP spin-off Crisis Core.

Since then, fans have been speculating that Crisis Core's story will have increased significance in the wake of Remake. The release of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7 - Reunion between Remake games surely offers a chance to recontextualise its story and characters.

Of course, the team at Square Enix are keen not to spoil any forthcoming plans, but it's a fair assumption that Zack - the star of Crisis Core - may have a bigger role to play in the trilogy's future.

Read more

Staff at Activision Blizzard are planning a walkout next month, in light of the "recent attacks on the civil liberties of [its] employees".

"We are calling for protection of several communities of marginalised workers. Employees are actively facing state legislation that is putting women, LGBTQ+ employees, and their families at risk, with other vulnerable groups on the horizon," wrote works group ABetterABK via Twitter.

"Our walk-out demands focus on the protections of ABK employees from external threats like the recent overturn of Roe v Wade, and internal threats such as retaliation and harassment while in the workplace."

Read more

Mike Ybarra, the head of Blizzard, has spoken out about the controversial microtransactions found in Diablo Immortal.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Ybarra implied that complaints surrounding Diablo Immortal's in-game purchases were limited to a small minority, and indeed, that Blizzard had specifically designed its free-to-play experience so the majority of players would still enjoy the bulk of the game.

Ybarra pointed to the game's high rating and number of positive reviews on the App Store, and suggested these contrasted with some of the negative headlines and complaints which have been reported.

Read more

Films from Studio Canal purchased through the PlayStation store will be completely removed in Austria and Germany.

A notice has been posted on the PlayStation website in those regions, shared by flatpanelshd, that reads:

"As of August 31, 2022, due to our evolving licensing agreements with content providers, you will no longer be able to view your previously purchased Studio Canal content and it will be removed from your video library."

Read more

PlayStation 5 users, we now have another update. This one, with the ever-catchy title of Version: 22.01-05.50.00, went live today.

This update is for the system software and includes the following (via Sony):

• If you're using a TV that supports ALLM (auto low latency mode), you can adjust ALLM settings in Settings > Screen and Video > Video Output > ALLM.

Read more

Xenoblade Chronicles 3, out for the Nintendo Switch later this month, is an anticipated tentpole release for the hybrid console. And thanks to some schedule shuffling, it's sooner than ever! We’ve spent time with the game’s opening areas, which set a foundation for what should be another long, sweeping adventure.

Combat will feel similar to players of earlier Xenoblade games. You probably know at this point if you like it! It feels a lot like MMO combat. Characters auto-attack, and the strategy comes through selection and timing of special skills. The Xenoblade Chronicles 3 version is all about combos that trigger Break, Topple and Daze statuses. Attacks have special effects if you attack from certain directions, and a handy arrow on the UI lets you know your current angle designation.

The early tutorial sequences of a JRPG can be something of a slog, as the game's long running time means a couple of hours getting you settled isn't entirely unreasonable. Still, Xenoblade 3 breaks down elements and rolls them out in bits! This helps with a battle interface that otherwise might overwhelm.

Witch Strandings is the second official “strand-type” game, a genre (but more like an ideal) first introduced by Hideo Kojima’s transportation-focused Death Stranding. Like that other game, Witch Strandings makes you traverse a ruined, perilous landscape in order to deliver things. Unlike that other game, Witch…

Read more...

Today, 2K has officially unveiled the cover athlete for the next iteration of its hit NBA 2K basketball series. The news came by way of an official press release, which revealed there will actually be three different athletes gracing the cover, all depending on which version of the game you get.

Who Is the NBA 2K23 Cover Athelete?

This time around, it was revealed that Phoenix Suns’ shooting guard, three-time NBA All-Star, and 2022 NBA All-NBA 1st Team member, Devin Booker, will be featured on this year’s Standard Edition and cross-gen Digital Deluxe Edition.

Alongside Booker, the iconic Michael Jordan – a six-time NBA Champion and five-time Kia NBA Most Valuable Player and known as one of the greatest basketball players of all time – will also be appearing on the NBA 2K23 Michael Jordan Edition and the brand-new NBA 2K23 Championship Editions of the game.

Stardew Valley is a country life RPG where you’ll be farming, harvesting, fishing, and generally doing a lot of nature stuff. Within the game, there are many resources that you can use for crafting various items. Some are just aesthetic, others actually can help you to grow your farm in certain ways with tools. Clay is one such resource that you’ll often need, so here’s how to get clay in Stardew Valley.

It’s not easily found within the world, however.

How to Get Clay in Stardew Valley

In order to easily get clay, you’ll need to till the ground with a hoe. You can till anywhere from your farm to the beach (and it’s advised that you do this at the beach a lot because it’s found most while tilling there).

Bandai Namco released one more character trailer of its upcoming fighting game JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R.

This time around, it’s time to see 8th Arc protagonist Josuke Higashikata alongside his stand.

Of course, the real protagonist is Josuke’s hair, which plays a prominent role in his introduction.

You can watch the trailer below.

You read that right, the usually multiplayer card game Gwent is has now been turned into a single player deckbuilding roguelike. Gwent: Rogue Mage is out today and considered a “single-player expansion” to Gwent: The Witcher Card Game. Rogue Mage is fully standalone and doesn’t require owning the original game.

The press release cites this reason as “due to its extensive scope and single-player nature, Rogue Mage is distributed separately from Gwent: The Witcher Card Game.” Seeing as Rogue Mage does offer a fully single-player experience, it doesn’t require an internet connection. For those who would like to play Rogue Mage on differently platforms, “players can also utilize cross-saves, allowing them to transfer their progress across all supported platforms when logged in via a GOG account.”

As for setting, Rogue Mage takes place “hundreds of years” before the Witcher games, when there were deadly monsters everywhere but not yet any Witchers. Players will control the mage Alzur, and his companion Lily as they “embark on a dangerous quest to create a living weapon that will eradicate the monster threat once and for all.”

Gwent: Rogue Mage is available for PC on Steam and GOG as well as iOS and Android devices. The game is $9.99 on all platforms, but Steam and GOG offer a digital deluxe edition for $19.99 that includes:

Stardew Valley features a ton of different supplies and resources that you’ll need in order to craft things within the game. Not to mention they’re how you can make some extra coins. You’ll find an abundance of wood wherever you chop, but what about that red wood known as Hardwood? What gives with that? It seems you’ll need a small amount of them for crafting certain things, so it must not be very common.

How to Get Hardwood in Stardew Valley

You’re right in those assumptions. In order to get Hardwood, you need to chop up those fallen tree logs, giant stumps or the large Mahogany Trees.

The best place to find these is the Secret Woods in the northwest corner of Cindersap Forest. Six of the large stumps spawn here every day, even if they’re cut down the day before, meaning you’ve got a never-ending supply of Hardwood in Stardew Valley.

To reach here, though, you’ll need to cut through the log lying in the way just above the Wizard’s Tower, shown in the image below, which requires you to have a Steel Axe to cut through.

Valorant Masters Copenhagen is just around the corner, and if you’re a fan of the game’s esports scene and want to attend the event then you’re in luck: for the first time ever, there’s going to be a live crowd at a VCT LAN. Here’s everything you need to know about how to get Valorant Masters Copenhagen tickets.

Between July 10-24, 12 teams are set to compete for their share of what is expected to be around $500,000, as well as valuable circuit points to compete at the big end-of-year event, Champions. Masters Copenhagen is the second event of the 2022 Valorant Champions Tour, which kicked off earlier this year with Masters Reykjavik and was won by Optic Gaming.

How to Get VCT Copenhagen Tickets

Tickets to Masters Copenhagen can only be purchased from the event’s official website, which you can find here. There is a maximum of four tickets that can be bought per person for each day of the event. Do keep in mind that only the finals will see live crowds in attendance. There are three games: the Upper Final, Lower Final, and Grand Final.

The event is not age-restricted.

How Much Is a Valorant Masters Copenhagen Ticket?

Ticket prices vary depending on your preferred choice of seats. Obviously, the closer you are to the action, the more expensive the tickets are. There are two tiers:

Developer FYQD-Studio and Playism announced the release date of the console versions of the “lightning-fast fusion of FPS and action” Bright Memory: Infinite.

The game, which is already available on PC, will launch on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and Nintendo Switch on July 21, 2022.

The Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 versions will have support for 4K resolution with ray tracing, while running at a locked 60 frames per second.

If you have a 120 FPS screen, you can activate 120 FPS mode for higher FPS and less input lag. Speaking of input, the PS5 version has DualSense adaptive trigger support. 

The Nintendo Switch port makes do with TAA anti-aliasing and gyroscopic aiming support.

Those who have already purchased Bright Memory on Xbox Series X|S can get a 20% discount on Infinite.

The press release included a comment by Zeng from FYQD, promising great gameplay regardless of platform.

“My partners and I took the time to ensure that Bright Memory Infinite plays great no matter which system you choose. We know that Bright Memory: Infinite will set a new benchmark for what indies can do on console hardware.”

Below you can check out not one, but three trailers dedicated to the different consoles.

With the recent Nintendo Direct and just under three weeks to go until the launch of Xenoblade Chronicles 3, the hype for this game is approaching its climax. Even though Nintendo has been happy to share tons of information with the public, there’s plenty more that’s new and familiar for fans of the franchise to dig into.

First off, the battle system in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 will look unsurprisingly familiar to those who have played past titles. You can run around with the left stick, approach an enemy to start auto-attacking it, and use special attacks called Arts with the face buttons. But it’s the additions to this system that help to keep the experience feeling fresh.

Attack canceling returns from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to help give a relatively passive battle system a bit more interactivity. Canceling auto attacks with Arts can boost the efficacy of these special moves. The margin of error for timing the attack cancel isn’t massive, but it’s narrow enough to assure that the player is actually paying attention instead of just spamming Arts as soon as their cooldown ends.

After what feels like eons, God of War Ragnarok will finally be releasing later this year on Nov. 9 as Kratos and Atreus embark on their next big adventure and most likely decimate a few Norse gods along the way. Alongside the release date, we received a quick cinematic hype trailer full of interesting little tidbits of what to expect in the full game. The trailer is only 30 seconds long, but it holds enough information to cause Ragnarok itself and, in case you missed them, here are 3 things you might have missed in God of War Ragnarök’s Father & Son trailer.

SPOILER WARNING: The following post will feature story spoilers for 2018’s God of War. If you have not played it yet, stop reading!

With Destiny 2‘s brand new Season of the Haunted now live, it’s time to prep your Fireteam for planetfall. With each new Season comes new events, gear and challenges to overcome. The Strike playlist is as good a place as any to start, which leads us to an important question: just what is the Nightfall weapon in Destiny 2 this week?

Lego and Nintendo have collaborated for years, from sets for the famous plumber’s brother Luigi to this excellent Super Mario 64 set. Now, the two have teamed up once more to give Lego fans the largest Super Mario build yet, and it’s the most infamous villain in the entire Mushroom Kingdom: Bowser. 

Revealed today, this is the biggest Lego Bowser to date, according to Lego, clocking in at 2807 pieces. Dubbed Lego Super Mario: The Mighty Bowser, this build is a “highly detailed recreation of the King of the Koopas, complete with controllable movements and the ability to launch a fireball, reflective of Bowser’s huge and powerful features.” 

Come with us now on a journey to our childhoods, as we on the Electronic Wireless Show podcast talk about the games that make us feel the most nostalgic. The games we played as kids, or spent all-nighters on as teens. It's a surprisingly diverse list, and Matthew has one anecdote in particular involving the music of Danny Elfman that I think makes this a genuine must-listen episode. Do you have the same nostalgia games? Which ones instantly transport you to the past?

Read more

As we reported last month, E3 will be back as a digital and in-person event for 2023 - and today we can announce that it will be produced by our corporate dad ReedPop, in partnership with the Entertainment Software Association. Let the tidal wave of disclosures commence.

Read more

A modder working to overhaul GTA V, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Mafia: Definitive Edition with VR support says he’s received an unexplained DMCA takedown notice from publisher Take-Two Interactive. Known as LukeRoss, he says the DMCA will force him to remove all content relating to games produced by Take-Two's subsidiaries such as Rockstar and 2K, including his VR mods. However, he also states the notice provides no clarification from Take-Two about how he's actually breaching their copyright.

Read more

It's a big day for 2023 video game convention news. That's right, Blizzard has said it is looking to bring back its BlizzCon event in 2023.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Blizzard boss Mike Ybarra said his company wanted "to return to a live event that enables us to celebrate the community" and was "committed to bringing back BlizzCon" next year.

The annual BlizzCon event held in Anaheim has recently been pushed online due to Covid, and was then scrapped completely this year as Blizzard faced various allegations of staff misconduct and a toxic company culture.

Read more

Halo veteran and former Bungie director Paul Bertone has joined 343 Industries as studio technical design director.

Bertone worked on Bungie's five Halo games before leaving the studio ahead of its work on Destiny, but will now return to the series.

The news was shared on Twitter by Joseph Staten, head of creative for Halo Infinite.

Read more

Nintendo and Lego are partnering again, this time on a large Bowser set.

The 2807-piece design stars the king of the Koopas standing upright on a stone platform, between flaming stone plinths.

Lego says The Mighty Bowser will be the largest Lego Mario adult set released to date when it becomes available on 1st October, priced £230/$270.

Read more

New details from the recent playtest for Skate 4 have leaked online.

The leak was shared on reddit and pertains to an early alpha test - meaning details may well not be representative of the final game.

Here, a new map from the Skate 4 playtest called Fun City was shown. This was likely only a small section of the full map.

Read more

Like the video game with three endings, or the final boss fight that never ends, E3 refuses to die. Now the video game events world is doubling-down on it. ReedPop—organizers of PAX, New York Comic Con, and Star Wars Celebration—announced Thursday it will take over planning the annual summer gaming showcase, and…

Read more...

Elden Ring took the world by storm earlier this year, but of the millions of players, one rose above the rest: Klein Tsuboi, AKA “Let Me Solo Her.” Weidling nothing but dual katanas and a pot on his head, he helped other players kill one of the game’s toughest bosses thousands of times. Now publisher Bandai Namco has…

Read more...

The teams for the Minecraft Championship 23 have just been announced, and this year looks as competitive as ever. While there are still more teams that are being teased out over the coming days, we’ve got a good chunk of them for you already. Let’s go over all of the Minecraft Championship (MCC) 23 teams that will be competing this season.

Just like last season, a total of 50 content creators will be split into 10 different teams, competing in different games with the goal of getting as many coins as possible. Once every game has been played, the two teams with the most coins across all games will then face off in a final championship for first place.

Now that you’ve got an idea of what to expect from the competition, here are all the MC Championship 23 teams, each of which has some kind of Legends of the Hidden Temple kind of vibe to them.

Inscryption made its way onto many PC players’ radars in 2021 thanks to its blending of different genres. Part deck-builder card game, part escape room, and with many twists and turns along the way, Inscryption cemented itself as one of the most unique and best games of 2021 by pushing the boundaries of what genres a game can adopt. If you’re looking to see what all the fuss is about, but don’t have a PC, you may be wondering whether or not an Inscryption console release on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch is possible. Here’s everything we know so far.

Is Inscryption Coming to PS4 & PS5?

Currently, developer Daniel Mullins Games has announced the game for PS4 and PS5, but Xbox and Nintendo Switch releases have yet to be confirmed.

The PS4 and PS5 announcement came on July 7 via a trailer and blog post, but there has been no word of an official release date at the time of writing. You can check out the trailer below.

Apex Legends Mobile has taken the mobile platform by storm. Since its worldwide launch in May, the developers have been consistently pumping out new content for mobile gamers to sink their teeth in. The newest season is launching very soon and with it comes a new map and a new legend by the name of Rhapsody. Excited to play her? Here’s what you need to know about when Rhapsody comes to Apex Legends Mobile.

When Does Rhapsody Come Out on Apex Legends Mobile? Answered

Rhapsody, along with the newest Apex Legends Mobile season, Distortion, launches on July 12, 2022. Not much is known about the character as far as her abilities go, but the trailer did give us a few hints as to what to expect.

Following the return of The Tomorrow Children’s IP to Q-Games from Sony, today the Kyoto-based developer announced the game’s release date.

The Tomorrow Children: Phoenix Edition will hit PS5 and PS4 on September 6 in Europe and North America and September 7 in Japan.

It will also come with the features like offline single-player, the new Comrade AI system that complements co-op gameplay, new items including Grappling Hooks and EV charging points, new villagers, and Monoliths.

Monoliths are structures found within the Void that, once interacted with, can alter the existing state of emerging islands. They work in both single-player and multiplayer modes and create new ways to explore by revealing hidden areas, secret treasures, and branching paths.

You can check out the trailer below and also check out the previous video.

The press release included a comment from Dylan Cuthbert, game director and founder of Q-Games.