August 2022

Here’s a bit of a strange one. The Junk Rift has been unvaulted in Fortnite, bringing another game changing throwable into the mix.

For those who maybe don’t remember the Junk Rift, it’s similar to a Rift-to-Go in that it opens a portal, but instead of giving you escape, it brings an object down like a meteor. This object acts almost like a bunker buster and can put something like a porta-potty through an opponents buildings doing impact and shockwave damage. It can do 200 damage on a direct hit, with 100 extra from an impact shockwave.

The Fortnite Wiki explains this a little better, writing:

The Junk Rift is thrown at a surface, and a random object will be rifted from several meters up, and fall down onto the ground. The random model of the object does not affect damage and is purely visual. When the object falls, it will destroy all structures in its path. This will deal damage to players with both impact and shockwave damage, with the latter dealing only half.

The Junk Rift was first introduced in Season X and was part of the game until being vaulted in Chapter 2 Season 1.

Just as the Junk Rift has been unvaulted, a couple items have now been slipped back in. Seeing as the No Sweat Summer event has now ended, both the Ice Cream Cones and Firework Flare Gun have been vaulted once more. While this isn’t a surprise, the Firework Flare Gun was an excellent tool for keeping an eye on enemy placements.

A few days ago, the Taiwanese arm of Sony Interactive Entertainment revealed a spectacular sand sculpture dedicated to God of War Ragnarok. Today, they followed up with a video.

The video showcases how the statue was created from the sands of Fulong Beach, in the New Taipei City municipality, about 40 km from downtown Taipei in Taiwan.

The statue showcases Kratos and Atreus reproducing the cover art of the game, alongside the release date, and it appears to be rather large.

It’s being exhibited as part of the 2022 edition of the Fulong International Sand Sculpture Arts Festival.

If you happen to drop by Taiwan over the next few months, it will be on show until the festival ends on October 10, acting as a reminder that the game is just around the corner.

You can check out the video below.

God of War Ragnarok will release for PS4 and PS5 on November 9, 2022. It will continue the adventures of Kratos and Atreus following the previous God of War game released in 2018 for PS4 and earlier this year for PC.

2022 Has been a fantastic year for PC gamers. Total War Warhammer 3 firmly filled a niche for both Warhammer fans and Total War fans alike, Monster Hunter Rise released on PC early this year and was followed by the fantastic and glorious Sunbreak expansion, and of course Elden Ring stunned the industry with its beautiful landscapes and challenging combat. Gamers are always looking for more though and of course as the year begins to float towards the holidays can we expect the same quality we’ve had year round so far? Well we can only hope as we show you our picks for the top 10 best PC games releasing before the end of 2022.

Overwatch 2

Overwatch took the gaming world by storm 6 years ago. Promising to be the e-sport that brings casual players and hardcore players together. This unfortunately had mixed results and the game had many ups and downs. However, Overwatch was full of charm and potential and Blizzard saw that.

Developer FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco have treated Elden Ring players to a hefty update including alterations to several mechanics alongside a plethora of bug fixes.

Adjustments to combat balance have been made, with particular attention going to larger weapons and certain Ashes of War, like Bloodhound Step. Perhaps the largest change made affects the game’s summoning pool system, which now lets players place their summon signs down in multiple areas regardless of their current location.

The full patch notes are included below:

Patch 1.06

Additional elements

• Added the function to send summoning signs to summoning pools in multiple areas, including distant areas.
• When sending a co-op sign to distant areas with this function, summoning pools in “Mohgwyn Palace” will be excluded
• Added the function to invade a larger area, including distant areas
• Added a new way to advance White Mask Varre’s questline other than participating in multiplayer invasion by defeating a new NPC

Balance Changes

The Pokemon franchise keeps getting bigger with every new installment. The upcoming Scarlet and Violet will mark the 21st pair of games being added to the series, and the first to make the transition to full open-world. We’re hedging out bets that they’ll perform exceptionally well in terms of sales, and so to offer some interesting comparison, today we’ll be going over the 10 most popular Pokemon games of all time ranked by their total number of sales.

Editor’s note: the figures cited in this article come from several sources, including Nintendo’s official software listings, statista, and Serebii Joe Merrick.

The Chamber nerfs that were last week trial-run on the Public Beta Environment server (PBE) are now official as Valorant’s Patch 5.03 notes have been revealed. All the changes to his kit, which include increased teleport cooldown, decreased teleport radius, more expensive Headhunter bullets, and more are now official.

In addition, there are some buffs/nerfs to Agent ultimates as they are related to damage multipliers. Neon, in particular, is one Agent who has benefitted from this change, assuming you’re able to keep your crosshair accurately fixed on an enemy’s head. Now, Overdrive damages x3 more for headshots, while hitting other areas of enemy bodies is less powerful.

Here’s the full overview from Riot Games:

GENERAL UPDATES 

Engine update to Unreal Engine 4.26 

• This update improves the toolset available to our developers in many ways; however, this change will likely go unnoticed by you, as the goal of any Engine update is to happen under the radar. 
• There are some known issues this time around though, mostly the UI is misbehaving. We’re fixing these as quickly as we can, but expect some funkiness in the game and in the Main Menu. If anything interrupts your gameplay, please submit a bug report. 

Agent Browser visual design refresh 

• Just thought we should leverage some of the cool Agent art and lean more into our VALORANT style. 

AGENT UPDATES 

CHAMBER 

With the upcoming release on several new platforms of Persona 5 Royal, Atlus hosted a dedicated livestream from Japan.

The livestream featured a brand new trailer providing a good look at the game, including cutscenes and gameplay.

Even more interesting is the gameplay showcased during the livestream, in which Joker’s voice actor Jun Fukuyama went hands-on with the game running on Xbox Series X.

In the second video below you can see how it runs, also featuring the Persona 4 costume DLC, which will be included out of the box alongside over 40 DLC originally released for PS4.

Join host Wesley LeBlanc as he rides solo today to showcase a quick glimpse of You Suck At Parking, an upcoming racer with a very unique twist. Instead of racing to a finish line, your objective is stop...in the marked parking stop.  

Stopping in a parking spot might sound easy but as you'll soon find out, it's anything but because each track is littered with obstacles such as barriers that immediately destroy your car, magnets aiming to pull you off the track, boosters, jump pads, and more. You must survive through it all in order to reach the coveted parking spot at the end of the road. 

Check it out for yourself in the New Gameplay Today below: 

Enjoy this first look at You Suck At Parking as Wesley briefly introduces you to the world of the game before taking a back seat to let you enjoy some uninterrupted gameplay (that's harder than it looks so when you see me die a bunch of times, no you didn't). You Suck At Parking is slated to launch sometime this year on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC. 

The Sonic the Hedgehog franchise may have turned 30 years old last year, but the party is still going for some. We already knew additional Sonic-themed costumes were planned for Fall Guys this month, but developer Mediatonic this morning announced the details of the collaboration event with Sega's iconic brand. The event is meant to celebrate over 30 years of Sonic the Hedgehog and includes a new Sonic-themed level and new outfits. 

The new level is called "Bean Hill Zone" and tasks the Fall Guys beans with collecting as many rings as possible to win special rewards. If players earn 200 points, they get a "Bean Hill Zone" nameplate. Earning 400 points yields 200 kudos, 600 points get a Bonus Rings Pattern outfit, 800 points gives 400 kudos, and 1,000 points gives you access to Sonic's iconic sneakers.

Those aren't the only rewards you can snatch up during this event, though. New costumes for Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Super Sonic, and Dr. Robotnik are all available in the store during the event. You can also buy the Sonic Foot Tap emote.

Not content with playing through Elden Ring with a banana (no, really), streamer Super Louis 64 has now been playing Final Fantasy 14 using an actual book and pencil.

The streamer played as the book-wielding Scholar healer, complete with a matching graduation gown.

Spells are cast by literally scribbling in a giant book. Fantasy becomes reality!

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Bulkhead, the Derby-based developer of old-school WW2 shooter Battalion 1944, has announced a "formal end" to its relationship with Square Enix.

The Final Fantasy publisher purchased a 20 percent stake of Bulkhead back in 2018, and announced plans for a fresh project at the studio.

Today also brings a long-awaited update on Battalion itself, which will get an "overhauled, final update" and name change to Battalion: Legacy on 16th August, when it will also be made available for free via Steam.

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New footage showing off a white version of the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller has made its way online.

This footage shared by YouTuber Nicholas Lugo and spotted by Twitter user Rebs Gaming (via VGC), shows Lugo unboxing what they claim to be the "only white Xbox Elite in the United States".

While the video doesn't go into any more details, such as how Lugo happens to have this mythical controller in their possession, it does all seem to be genuine. It even has the controller's soft shell case.

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The most innovative aspect of Lord of the Rings game Shadow of Mordor was its Nemesis system that had enemies being promoted after killing you.

Now it's in Skyrim, thanks to modder Syclonix (via PC Gamer).

The Nemesis and Alternative Death System mod is available on NexusMods and makes "every enemy that defeats you into a unique Nemesis" to create "emergent stories of revenge".

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Square Enix has shared new gameplay details of the upcoming Dragon Quest Treasures, the upcoming role-playing game spin-off headed to Nintendo Switch.

Throughout the game, and as the name suggests, there will be a variety of treasures for players to uncover. This includes smaller items, known as "bric-a-brac", which will glow with a silvery aura when you come up to them.

You will also see your monster companions getting excited, and little speech bubbles will appear above their heads when they know you are in the vicinity of some goodies.

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An NFT minter using the GameStop marketplace has admitted to minting developers' games without their consent or knowledge. The games, which are freely available on itch.io, were sold several hundred times before GameStop delisted them, and continue to exist on GameStop's servers regardless of the wishes of the original creators.

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Hot off the heels of Sonic 2's release, Paramount has revealed more details about the upcoming Sonic 3 sequel. The company revealed that the release date for the Sonic 3 movie will be December 20, 2024. This means that fans will have to wait over two years for the next movie to appear in theatres.

Paramount took to Twitter to announce the next movie's release date, just four months after the debut of Sonic 2 in April 2022. The latest film is also set to release this month in Japan, on August 19, 2022. Since then, the film has become the highest-grossing video game film adaptation in the US, making a total of $162.74 million. This beat out other popular video game film adaptations such as Uncharted as well as the first Sonic movie.

https://twitter.com/SonicMovie/status/1556795919688798208?s=20&t=g70HeLrQxfuTicA68FHYVg

The announcement places the release of Sonic 3 over two years into the future, during the 2024 holiday season. While this may seem odd at first glance, it is essentially the same time frame that Sonic 2's release followed. For reference, Sonic 2 was announced in July 2020 and released in April 2022.

After a delay in February 2022, Square Enix has locked down the end date for the story of Kingdom Hearts Dark Road: August 26, 2022. On that date, the final chapter launches. It'll appear as a free update to the Kingdom Hearts Union χ Dark Road app.

Kingdom Hearts Dark Road focuses on the story of series villain Xehanort. Xehanort is the pivotal character of the "Dark Seeker Saga" the storyline that runs through all the main Kingdom Hearts titles up to KHIII. It begins in Xehanort's boyhood, and follows his rise as a Keyblade master. It's an addition to Kingdom Hearts Union χ, the mobile and browser game that takes place long before the main series and is in turn a sequel to Kingdom Hearts χ. In essence, the games and Dark Road set up the background of events that lead to Xehanort becoming the seeker of darkness, such as the Keyblade War and the origin of the world as it's seen in the main games.

In Dark Road, Xehanort is a Keyblade wielder in training, tasked by his master Odin to seek out fellow students that went missing. He and his classmates Eraqus, Baldr, Vor, Urd, and Bragi must scour the many worlds that exist after the Keyblade War to find the missing students. The final chapter was originally supposed to launch in Winter 2021, but needed more time in development.

It’s come back with a vengeance. Yes, Shadow of Mordor’s brilliant Nemesis system has languished for half a decade. But one enterprising modder recently resurrected the tech (kinda) by adding it to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bethesda’s decade-old fantasy RPG.

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Cursed items already have a long and storied history in Elden Ring. Players have been soft-banned for collecting illicit panties hidden in the game files, for example. And some have tried to get others banned by forcing unauthorized items on one another. The whole thing has created a swirl of confusion around whether…

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With Netflix’s big push into the gaming sphere, the company is now offering a bunch of games to all subscribers free of charge. The new initiative kicked off last month and has since added some really top-notch titles to its roster.

Award-winning, turn-based mecha game Into the Breach arrived last month along with tile-based strategy game Mahjong Solitaire, for example. In addition to these games, though, was a rather underrated indie title that flew under a lot of folks radars called Before Your Eyes.

Released last year on PC, Before Your Eyes is an artistic adventure game that features a really cool and innovative concept at the heart of it. You see, instead of using a mouse and keyboard to interact with the game, players use their eyes to blink in real-life in order to control the action onscreen. I say “action” very loosely, as Before Your Eyes is more of a narrative-rich experience, rather than a traditional action game.

Developed by GoodbyeWorld Games, the story centers on a deceased character called Benjamin Bryn who has made his way to the afterlife. Here, Bryn must reflect on his life and interact with his memories in a bid to piece together the meaning behind his existence. In short: it sounds like pretty deep stuff, right?

Not only does Before Your Eyes boast a 77 percent “Generally Favorable” Metascore on review aggregator Metacritic, but it also was one of Twinfinite’s Most innovative Games of 2021. In addition, this will mark the first time the game is available on a different platform.

Since there can’t be enough Soul Hackers 2 trailers, another has been released by the western arm of Atlus.

This time around the trailer is in English, and it introduces the main protagonists Ringo, Figue, Arrow, Milady, and Saizo.

We also take a look at the Soul Matrix feature, which will allow Apple to get closer to her allies and the party to acquire new skills.

You can check out the trailer below.

Soul Hackers 2 launches for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC ( both on Steam and on the Windows Store) on August 26, just one day after the Japanese release on August 25.

It was announced this morning that a brand new Pokemon special will be coming to Netflix next month. It’s called The Arceus Chronicles, and it’s loosely based on the most recently released game in the series, Pokemon Legends: Arceus.

The special follows Ash along with friends Goh, Dawn, and Brock as they try to save the Sinnoh region. The team receives a message from the Mythical Pokemon Arceus itself, and they travel to Mount Coronet to investigate what is going on with a Legendary Pokemon that has begun a rampage.

Of course, the ones responsible for the mess are none other than Team Galactic members, the foes that Ash and friends had previously taken down. It’s up to Ash and his crew to help save Sinnoh from Team Galactic’s nefarious plans once again.

It looks like many of the ancient Sinnoh Pokemon from the region Hisui make an appearance, such as Hisuian Growlithe, Hisuian Braviary, Wyrdeer, and Basculegion. It’s possible that even more of the new Pokemon from Pokemon Legends: Arceus will appear.

Here is the full description of the special from the official Pokemon website:

The MP5 SMG remained strong on its way into Season 4 of Warzone, and continues that trend as we near the start of Season 5. It’s still a fantastic, competitive SMG and is certainly a favorite among the Warzone community. Of course, its reputation for having a very low TTK helps. To ensure this particular SMG stays relative, here is the best MP5 loadout in Warzone.

Warzone – Best MP5 Loadout

The MP5’s strengths in Warzone lie with its power and accuracy. It’s important that the best MP5 loadout not only retains its greatest aspects, but strengthens them even further. Give this build a shot:

With No Sweat Summer just ending, it seems like the devs aren’t giving any sort of breathing room for players. According to dataminer @iFireMonkey, the Rocket League Live event will be hitting Fortnite at 11:30 EST this morning.

This is the first Fortnite and Rocket League there has been since the launch of the Rocket League Sideswipe mobile game let players earn cosmetics for the battle royale by competing several in game tasks.

There will be four challenges to complete as well as four Rocket League themed items to earn. The items consist of a Spray, an Emoticon, a Glider, and a Back Bling.

These challenges will require players enter a specific creative map (code 8205-6994-2065) to be able to partake in the event. This isn’t something that can be done in normal battle royale modes.

Seeing as Chapter 3 Season 3 is set to end only a little over a month from now on Sept. 17, it is highly likely things are going to slow down now.

There wasn’t any time wasted in vaulting up a couple of the No Sweat Summer items like the Firework Flare Gun or the Ice Cream Cones, either. Though, players can now find the Junk Rift throwable that has been vaulted since Chapter 2 Season 1.

Stick around as we are sure to be bringing you more information from this (and any future events) as we know more.

Mutants and the X-Men are coming to the MCU, that much is clear; in fact, with projects like Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Ms. Marvel, they are already here. However, who will be taking on these iconic roles is a central question going forward, with Wolverine being arguably the most talked about and argued about when it comes to who should play the character in the MCU.

Hugh Jackman gave an iconic performance as Wolverine, which leads some to wonder if Marvel will want to have someone whose portrayal is more akin to Jackman’s portrayal or someone who is different. Both have merits, as people could not be open to having a different kind of Wolverine, while others may find a copy stale and unoriginal; only time will tell. It is also entirely possible that they will want to go with a lesser-known actor, which isn’t something that will be taken into account here as this is a fan cast.

It should also be noted that, unlike other X-Men members, age is much more integral to the character. While the other X-Men are often much more up in the air in terms of whether or not they will be younger or older in an upcoming Mutants project, Wolverine is likely one of the characters who will always be somewhat on the older side. Going alongside this, a lot of fans want a shorter actor to play the character, as Logan is 5’3 in the comics, so if Marvel wants to have Logan be more comics accurate in the MCU, then this may need to be taken into account.

To say that Sonic the Hedgehog 2 was successful would be an understatement. The highest-grossing video game film in U.S. history already had a confirmed threequel in the works, but today we found out exactly when we'll see Sonic and friends return to the big screen, and it’ll be chillier than usual.

The official movie Twitter account announced the unofficially titled Sonic the Hedgehog 3 will premiere in theaters on December 20, 2024. This marks a big seasonal shift for the franchise as Sonic 1 and 2 arrived during the first halves of their respective years, with the first movie premiering on Valentine's Day and the second arriving in April. 

Running faster, flying higher, and punching harder. #SonicMovie3 hits theatres on December 20, 2024. pic.twitter.com/DcFGbaKUao

— Sonic the Hedgehog (@SonicMovie) August 9, 2022

The tweet doesn’t reveal anything else about the film, but if you’ve seen the post-credits scene for Sonic 2, you already have a good inkling of where the series is headed. 

Its beta may have only gone live recently, but Warner Bros' MultiVersus brawler is bringing in some impressive numbers.

In fact, at the time of writing, 10,292,969 players have already flocked to the IP riddled smash fest (via tracker.gg).

Meanwhile, there are currently 42,133 players thrashing and crashing their way through the game on Steam.

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UPDATE 15/08/22: Unity has rejected the offer from AppLovin, that saw the gaming software company seek to aquire Unity in a $17.54bn all-stock deal.

Per GamesIndustry.biz, Unity's board of directors decided to reject AppLovin's offer in order to go ahead with a previously announced deal with IronSource. Here, the board stated that AppLovin's proposal was "not in the best interests of Unity shareholders."

Meanwhile, on the IronSource deal, Unity CEO John Riccitiello said: "The board continues to believe that the IronSource transaction is compelling and will deliver an opportunity to generate long-term value through the creation of a unique end-to-end platform that allows creators to develop, publish, run, monetise, and grow live games and real-time 3D content seamlessly."

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Arcueid Brunestud from Type-Moon's Tsukihime will appear as a Nendoroid. Good Smile Company has opened pre-orders for the new Nendoroid on its North American and international web stores. The chibi figure will be available at $46.99.

The package will contain several accessories and face plates to change the chibi character's expressions. The different face plates will let the user change her facial expression to a smiling one, a blushing one, or combat-ready. The set will also include a pair of glasses and cat ears. A purple attack effect will complete the pack.

[gallery columns="5" ids="933441,933442,933443,933444,933445" link="file"]

Good Smile Company will close pre-orders for the Nendoroid figure of Arcueid Brunestud on September 22, 2022. It will ship the finished packages to Japan in January 2023 and North America in March 2023.

Arcueid was one of the three Tsukihime characters that Good Smile would make Nendoroids of, as it announced at WonHobby 35 in February 2022. The other two characters will be Akiha Tohno and Ciel. The company then revealed an unpainted prototype of Arcueid's Nendoroid at WonHobby G Spring 2022 in late May.

Capcom unveiled two more characters for the Street Fighter 6 playable roster. Juri Han returns for her third appearance since Street Fighter 4. Kimberly is an SF6 newcomer. She's also connected to Guy, who appeared in Final Fight and Street Fighter Alpha. Both characters were present in a leak of the game's full roster back in June 2022. Juri and Kimberly were not confirmed in SF6 prior to this reveal, though.

Check out the Juri and Kimberly Street Fighter 6 teaser below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGuVJXwENQk

Unknown Worlds, the creators of Subnautica, and Krafton, the studio behind PUBG, have announced that they'll be showing something at Gamescom later this month. What exactly? That I couldn't tell you, but it's apparently a turn-based game and an entirely new IP.

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Peter is a guy with his head in the clouds. Literally. Well, sort of. A climate science lecturer at Cambridge University, Peter's great passion in life is cloud research. All he wants to do is study clouds: their different formations, their flight paths, their properties, everything. He finds them so fascinating that they're the subject of his 100-page PhD thesis. It’s a poetic subject and one that matches his temperament as a boyish and awkward researcher. But around him the world is spiralling from the political tensions of the Cold War, and as much as Peter wishes to escape to in the clouds, current events are keeping him firmly tethered to the realities of an impending war.

It’s this tension that makes South Of The Circle such an engrossing story. With player choices that subtly tug the game’s narrative needle in ways you might not expect, it's clear skies and fair winds for the game’s three-hour journey. But with an abrupt ending after a calculated slow-burn drama, it's a rough landing.

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More monsters and expanded Anomaly Quests are coming to Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak tomorrow, August 10th, in the free version 11 update.

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I started reading Akane-banashi because I didn’t want to start a manga that was hundreds of chapters long. I thought that I’d be able to briefly sample a new series, cancel my Shonen Jump sub, and then go back to chipping away at my games backlog. But Akane-banashi caught me completely flat-footed with its expressive…

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Yes, Netflix has some excellent games, but no one’s playing them. According to a recent report, less than 1 percent of people who subscribe to the streaming service actually avail themselves of its free games. That stat surely isn’t helped by the process you’ve gotta go through to play, which, while not totally…

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Curious about how to earn valuable items for Tower of Fantasy’s Twitch Drop event? We’ll explain how to sign up for this streaming activity and the tier system of gift packs to help you gain rewards for the game. Additionally, we’ll provide information about more opportunities you can do for the exciting release of TOF.

How To Get Tower of Fantasy Twitch Drops

Tower of Fantasy has introduced a new Twitch Drops Challenge that rewards players with various packs. Moreover, this event will last until Aug. 14 at midnight PDT, and you can participate in this challenge by going on Twitch and clicking the ‘Drops’ tab.

All you have to do after this is find Tower of Fantasy in ‘All Campaigns’ and connect it, as shown here:

Bee and PuppyCat has finally received a new trailer showing off how the series is shaping up for its Netflix debut later this year. The show has garnered a cult following, and fans have been anxiously awaiting new episodes following the first season that was released on YouTube and VRV back in 2014. The new trailer looks to be a soft reboot of the series shows off some classic moments from the first season, which can be found on YouTube.

Bee and PuppyCat follows the story of a girl named Bee and her intergalactic cat-puppy named PuppyCat. Down on her luck, Bee has just gotten fired and is looking for meaning in her life when PuppyCat falls out of the sky and hits her in the face. The trailer shows them taking odd jobs with the Space Temp agency and facing loads of enemy entities along the way.

When Does Bee and PuppyCat Coming Out?

Bee and PuppyCat initially premiered on YouTube via Frederator Studios‘ YouTube channel, Cartoon Hangover, in 2013 with a two-part episode. After that, it received a full season on YouTube and VRV in 2014, so fans have been waiting for new episodes for eight years.