August 2022

Riot Games’ biggest Valorant tournament to date is kicking off today, and if you’re tuning in to check out the action then there are some cool rewards you can redeem at the same time. Here’s how to get Valorant Champions drops if you’re unsure how the process works.

There are three different drops — a title, spray, and card. Each item will be available during a different week of the tournament:

• ‘Fire’ title – Aug. 31 to Sept. 13
• VCT Champions Curse spray – Sept. 16 to 17
• VCT Champions Hero card – Sept. 18.

How to Get Valorant Champions Drops

Drops are available to those who tune into Champions on Twitch or YouTube, which can be earned by simply linking your Valorant and Twitch/Youtube account. Here’s how to link your account for each platform:

It’s hard to believe two whole years have passed since Valorant’s release, though I can’t quite put my finger on why — perhaps it’s because mid-2020 was peak COVID-19 when time seemed to stand still as we were all sat at home twiddling our thumbs or maybe due to the lightning-fast pace of Riot Games’ quest for world esports domination ever since. In any case, we’ve gone from CS:GO copycat to the next big thing in a flash, and now Valorant is about to deliver one of the biggest esports events on the annual calendar.

The tournament is called Champions, and it’s the second of its kind — the major climax of a schedule that starts at a domestic, regional level and builds toward three international tournaments over the course of six months. This is the grand final, featuring teams from all over the world, and the winner will be crowned the best Valorant team of the year. A prize pool of $1 million is up for grabs, too.

Now, given that I’ve just mentioned this year’s Champions is the second of its kind, if you’re unfamiliar with the game or its esports circuit then you might be asking yourself why this year’s event is so special. Well, remember how I also mentioned Valorant launching during COVID-19? Valorant’s esports rise has been notable for its speed, which is especially impressive due to the timing of its launch and the challenges brought about by the pandemic. This year is the first in which Valorant’s esports tournaments have seen live crowds, and Champions will be the largest by far.

Held in Istanbul, Turkey, where Valorant, surprisingly, has an enormous fanbase, the Turkish crowd is expected to add a pretty spectacular ambiance to the event. In many ways, it feels like the big arrival of Valorant has a “proper” esport, in the traditional sense, where live crowds have always introduced an element of authenticity to the experience. They’ll feature later in the tournament as it reaches its playoff stages.

Few genres in gaming bring together thousands of players like MMORPGs do, promising interesting lore and oodles of content across massive worlds. Most importantly, these games are an excellent source for social interaction, which can continue on outside the game. Whether you’re looking for something light and easily accessible or a hardcore experience, here are the 10 best MMORPGs to play in 2022.

10 Best MMORPGs to Play in 2022

Everquest

Several years before World of Warcraft hit the market, there was Everquest, a high-fantasy universe where players inhabited Norrath. The success of future MMORPGs can be traced all the way back to Everquest, and yet it’s still going strong with 28 expansions under its belt.

I remember the release of The Last of Us better than any other video game – which is to say I remember it at all. 

In 2013, I was 19 and still practicing the unfortunate act of pre-ordering video games before I knew if they were good or not. As misfortune had it, it came out while I was out of town, but my Dad went and picked it up from our local GameStop for me. Like an absolute dork, I remember spending weeks looking at the picture of the box he sent me, practically counting the nanoseconds until I could play it myself. 

Raphaël Colantonio has revealed that nobody at Arkane Austin wanted Prey (2017) to be titled Prey, and how it felt "gross" to have release something under someone else's IP.

Colantonio, known as the founder of Arkane Studios, served as the game's director and writer. He announced his departure from the studio shortly after the game's release, citing burnout and a desire to spend time with his son.

The fact that the game was never envisioned to be a part of the Prey IP isn't new for fans of the game or Arkane. It was documented by NoClip last year, in which Colantonio and other leads on the game explained that Bethesda was insistent that Arkane's next project had to be called Prey. Colantonio described the decision as a "non-negotiable compromise".

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Sony has revealed all the games hitting PlayStation Plus in September.

As leaked earlier today, Need for Speed Heat, Toem, and Granblue Fantasy Versus will all be available as free monthly games for PS Plus Essential subscribers.

However, there's even more coming to the PS Plus Catalogue for Extra and Premium subscribers.

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Square Enix will showcase a number of games at Tokyo Game Show 2022, including Crisis Core Final Fantasy 7 Reunion, Forspoken, Harvestella and more.

The full list of exhibitors for the show has been released, as well as the games being shown.

Sadly, that does mean it seems Final Fantasy 16 is not set to be shown.

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Nine years ago, The Last of Us was first released for the PlayStation 3. Here, we met Joel, Ellie and a whole cast of characters making their way in a world riddled with danger and aggression. The game tells a sad story, but also a multi-faceted one. Back in 2013, The Last of Us left its players with a message that hope, humour and unconditional love could still exist, even in a world divided by fear.

Now, the game is being released once more, remade from the ground up for the PlayStation 5. Ahead of this release, I sat down with developers Matthew Gallant and Shaun Escayg to talk about the new accessibility features coming to The Last of Us Part 1, and the business of making what they openly describe as "a love letter" to the game's fans.

Please note, there will be spoilers for The Last of Us Part 1 in what follows.

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When Naughty Dog revealed The Last of Us Part 1 earlier this year, a complete visual remake of the original The Last of Us from 2013, we were a little surprised. There's always a debate to be had about the timing of a re-release, and we wondered whether the new version would be different enough from the 2014 PS4 remaster and 2016 PS4 Pro patch to justify a purchase from newcomers to the seasons and series veterans alike. After spending some time with the final release, we have some answers - including comparisons between the new PS5 release and the prior PS3 and PS4 versions, the video modes available and the gameplay changes included.

First, let's rewind. The Last of Us was the PS3's swan song, a showpiece title released just months before the arrival of the PS4. The mix of storytelling, survival horror and action resonated with fans, becoming one of Naughty Dog's most successful games ever. The technical challenge Naughty Dog created for itself was the creation of a world almost entirely devoid of electric lights - The Last of Us relies heavily on indirect lighting which, in 2013, was still very difficult to achieve even when leaning on pre-calculated techniques. Against the odds, Naughty Dog did manage to come up with a suitable solution to this problem - it's far from perfect, mind you, but the world was convincingly lit and designed. The problem was that on PS3, the performance just didn't hold up and many larger areas exhibited severe frame-rate issues that detracted from the experience.

CESA has published a timetable for the official Tokyo Game Show 2022 live streams. As with previous years, these streams will be available to watch on the Tokyo Game Show channel on YouTube. PC users with Steam will be able to find a page dedicated to TGS 2022 when the event runs in mid-September 2022 and watch the stream there.

The schedule confirmed that Bandai Namco, Square Enix, and HoYoverse will also have a live stream at TGS 2022. As of this writing, neither of those companies has published details about its stream.

You can check the full Tokyo Game Show 2022 stream schedule right below. All times listed are in Japan Standard Time (UTC+9).

Gamer salt over preorder bonuses is nothing new. But this time, the Pokémon community’s salt feels partially justified. Amazon recently showed an infographic that details what fans can get by ordering Scarlet and Violet digitally ahead of launch: A set that includes 10 potions, 10 antidotes, and three revives. The…

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The map-oriented YouTuber Trevor Rainbolt, a self-described “magician” when it comes to pinpointing obscure locations in Google Maps-based browser game GeoGuessr, found a fan’s long-forgotten proposal site after 13 years. The fan had emailed Ludwig Ahgren, another popular YouTuber that makes gaming-related content,…

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Shimamura will start selling new Yu-Gi-Oh and Yu-Gi-Oh Go Rush goods from August 31, 2022. The line-up consists of acrylic stands of various Yu-Gi-Oh characters, as well as cushions that look like the Millennium Puzzle or duel disk In particular, you will be able to put the duel disk cushion on your hand. These items will be available from pre-order from August 31 to September 4, 2022. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

The line-up of goods is as follows:

While SNK is mostly known for its popular fighting games, its legacy includes different games, including the iconic Metal Slug series.

At Gamescom 2022 in Cologne, Twinfinite interviewed chief producer Yasuyuki Oda, and you know I had to ask whether the studio has any plans for the Metal Slug series.

Oda-san mentioned that, while they can’t reveal anything specific, they’re “definitely going to do something in the future” also adding that they “have ideas.”

I actually asked Oda-san the same question at Tokyo Game Show 2019, and back then he told me that the studio was talking about it internally.

Since then, Tencent announced the mobile game Metal Slug Code: J by Pokemon Unite and Call of Duty Mobile studio TiMi, while Metal Slug Tactics has been revealed by Dotemu last year and has recently been delayed to 2023.

Yet, we’re still waiting for SNK to return to the franchise directly, and Oda-san’s words are definitely encouraging (especially since I asked him to promise, and he did).

While there have been semi-recent remakes and spinoffs, the latest full-fledged mainline Metal Slug game dates all the way to 2008, with the release of Metal Slug 7 for Nintendo DS. 

In the meanwhile, you can read what Oda-san told me about the upcoming Fatal Fury game, while you wait for the full interview to be published here on Twinfinite.

2022 has given us no shortage of amazing games. From major AAA releases like Elden Ring, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and Horizon Forbidden West, to even smaller games like OlliOlli World and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, it feels like there’s something to play no matter what kind of gamer you are.

That said, there are a fair amount of games that we haven’t heard anything from. The lack of information or showcases of these anticipated titles has us worried. Here are 10 such games that are missing in action, leaving us to err on the nervous side.

After almost a decade of playing Grand Theft Auto 5 and its many re-releases, the hype for the next entry is at a fever pitch. When GTA VI releases the game will likely become one of the biggest entertainment launches in history, just like previous entries. However, if Rockstar intends to impress gamers once again, they’ll need to make these 10 big improvements to avoid letting down gamers the same way that recent triple-A titles have.

The success of the joint Kickstarter campaign for Armed Fantasia and Penny Blood by the creators of Wild Arms & Shadow Hearts continues, and now they’re officially coming to consoles.

The campaign, which was fully funded in less than a day, has now reached its first combined stretch goal at $1,000,000 and that unlocks console versions.

This means that the game will come to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and a possible next-generation console by Nintendo on top of PC.

That being said, no one knows whether Nintendo will launch a new console in time, so the developers have a cautionary note about it.

“Should no new hardware be released/announced during this time and/or we discover that we are unable to port both games to the Nintendo hardware available at the time, then we will reach out to backers who requested Nintendo as their platform of choice to discuss alternatives.”

In case you’ve missed the news, Armed fantasia is a “western punk” JRPG developed by Wild Bunch Production. At the helm is Wild Arms creator Akifumi Kaneko, alongside Wild Arms 5 and XF character designer Tomomi Sasaki, and composers Michiko Naruke (who created the music for Wild Arms) and Noriyasu Agematsu.

Penny Blood is a noir JRPG set in the 1920s developed by Yukikaze and Studio Wildrose. Shadow Hearts creator Matsuzo Machida, character designer Miyako Kato, and composer Yoshitaka Hirota will also return together.

After leaking in advance yet again, Sony confirmed September’s line-up of PlayStation Plus monthly downloadable games. It also revealed the new titles arriving to the Extra and Premium subscription game catalog as well as its Premium Classics.  

PlayStation Plus Monthly Games (September 6) 

Available to every subscription tier, you can download these three titles beginning next week. Clicking the game link will take you to our review of it. 

Granblue Fantasy Versus

Need For Speed Heat

Toem

Remember that you have until September 5 to download August’s monthly games before they make their exit.

PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium Game Catalog (September 20)

Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX 

Assassin’s Creed Origins 

Depending on how you look at it, The Last of Us Part I is either a from-the-ground-up remake or a very involved remaster. Either way, it packs many enhancements over the base game. While I didn't care much for Part I, if you're interested in checking it out yourself, here are some of the biggest changes you can expect. 

Accessibility Options

The Last of Us Part I comes with Naughty Dog's full suite of accessibility options. And that's something worth commending. This comes in the shape of fully customizable controls, a host of visual aids, options to alleviate motion sickness, help with navigating levels, options for the deaf or hard-of-hearing, and combat accessibility. Within each are dozens of sliders and toggleable options, allowing players to customize the game experience completely, hopefully allowing as many people as possible to enjoy the game in a way that's best for them. 

Following July's announcement that Ubisoft would be "decommissioning" the online portions of some of its older titles on 1st September, the publisher has said it's postponing the move to 1st October in many cases, and that Anno 2070 will now escape unscathed.

Ubisoft originally announced that 15 titles that would be affected by the move: Anno 2070, Assassin's Creed 2, Assassin's Creed 3, Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Assassin's Creed Liberation HD, Assassin's Creed Revelations, Driver San Francisco, Far Cry 3, Ghost Recon Future Soldier, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands, Rayman Legends, Silent Hunter 5, Space Junkies, Splinter Cell: Blacklist, and ZombiU.

The precise effects of decommissioning depend on the game, but ranged from the removal of multiplayer modes, online features, and DLC to being unable to access the game at all.

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Sam & Max: Save the World and its follow-up season Beyond Time and Space will be making their way to Playstation in remastered form on 29th September.

Sam & Max: Save the World and Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space were, if you're unfamiliar, some of the earliest titles from The Walking Dead studio Telltale Games (releasing in 2006 and 2007 respectively), each serving up a six-episode arc of point-and-click mayhem starring Steve Purcell's anarchic comic book crime-fighting dog and bunny duo.

While never quite living up to the lofty heights of LucasArts' 1993 classic Sam & Max: Hit the Road, both games bought their own wonderfully chaotic charms - Save the World's story starting with former child stars running amok before taking increasingly bizarre turns, and Beyond Time and Space going even weirder with everything from vampires to Santa Claus.

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Nightdive's remake of 1994 classic System Shock hasn't had the smoothest development run, first having some money issues in its Kickstarter a while back, then having to reboot itself with twenty-twenty-something release dates chucked out there more as hopeful concepts than assurances.

Having gone hands-on with a short 20-minute-ish demo of the game at this year's Gamescom, I can confirm that the remake is real and seems faithful to the original despite some heavy tinkers in the modernisation station. For nostalgic fans it should make for an exciting revisit to cyberspace, but I'm unsure whether it'll land quite as well for newcomers seeking a showdown with Shodan.

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We've got a pretty good line in interesting folk traditions here at RPS. I grew up in a county where staying up all night at the stone circle to welcome the Summer Solstice was an annual tradition (later augmented by a woman wearing antlers offering a selection of downers and hallucinogens), and as a child I had an unnecessary encounter with the Salisbury Hob-Nob. For the past few years Alice0 has gone to the Burryman's Parade, gracing us with pictures of that most wholesome gentleman. Rural traditions are fun if you're part of them, but to outsiders they can be unsettling at best.

This is relevant to my thinking about Saturnalia, an upcoming survival horror game by Italian studio Santa Ragione, where a small group of outsiders try to escape a village on the night of an ancient ritual. I've been playing a preview build of Saturnalia for the last week or so, and also got to talk about it with the studio director Pietro Righi Riva. "I usually tell people, 'Oh, you should make a game in like six months', and I have tried to do that in the past," he tells me. "This one just kind of got out of hand. I found an email yesterday, as I was looking for finishing the credits, about me discussing some story items in April 2017." And, while I am sure that most developers don't wish they'd been making a video game in the middle of the pandemic, I think the extra time may have allowed Santa Ragione to make something excellent.

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Sony Interactive Entertainment and Chinese conglomerate Tencent have bought a combined 30% of stock in Elden Ring and Souls series developers FromSoftware, parent company Kadokawa Corporation have announced today. The transaction leaves Sony with a 14% stake in FromSoft, and Tencent acquiring 16% of the company’s shares. Kadokawa remain the largest shareholders, holding almost a 70% stake in FromSoft.

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Stranded: Alien Dawn is Haemimont Games’ second sci-fi sim on the trot, and despite being set on a planet that actually has air this time, it could well make Surviving Mars’ well-funded colony building feel like an afternoon playing with Lego. In Stranded, as I saw from a hands-off preview at Gamescom 2022, you’re certainly not planetside by choice, having crash-landed on an uncharted world with just four surviving astronauts left to scavenge, hunt and build their way towards something resembling a life.

“Like RimWorld”, I thought to myself upon hearing the pre-demo pitch, and subsequently wrote in my notes four separate times before ceasing to bother. If only mere words could convey just how much “like RimWorld” Stranded: Alien Dawn is – other 3D-ified clones exist, like last year’s Going Medieval, but here, even the exact spaceship-wrecking premise matches that of Ludeon Studios' seminal survival sim.

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Team RPS are off once again and this time we'll be stomping all over PAX West! Katharine and Liam had a great time poking around PAX East back in April and we’re now making our way over to the west coast to make more exclusive videos for RPS premium supporters.

This time, Liam will be joined by myself (hello!) as we cover the show floor from top to bottom, from when the doors open on Friday, September 2nd until they boot everyone out the evening of Monday, September 25th. We’ll be interviewing developers, attending panels, and sharing our thoughts on the best upcoming games on the show floor. If you fancy joining us on our tour through PAX, you can sign up to the RPS supporter program today for just £6 / $8 monthly.

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@FNLeaksAndInfo, a Twitter account dedicated to posting leaked information about the online battle royale Fortnite, discovered on August 30 what might be an even more huge cultural event than the making of the hydrogen bomb: Lady Gaga will have a virtual concert.

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The PS2-era of video games was defined by wacky and original titles, especially compared to what we see in the gaming industry today. It was a wonderful time, and during that period of time is when the Destroy All Humans franchise appeared. Now, after remaking the first game in the series back in 2020, Black Forest is…

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PUBG Mobile will be holding a crossover with the Dragon Ball series. First revealed on the game's official Twitter account, little information about the crossover was given other than that it is "coming soon." By "soon", that means Dragon Ball will make its way to PUBG Mobile in 2023. The announcement included art from the Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero film, hinting that some of the crossover content could be specific to the movie.

You can check out the PUBG Mobile x Dragon Ball announcement tweet below.

https://twitter.com/PUBGMOBILE/status/1564417670346412033

The second Dragon Ball Super movie, titled Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, was released in Japan on June 11, 2022. The movie is currently airing in theaters in North America and other regions worldwide, with even more regions and territories getting theatrical releases throughout September. It is already one of the top-grossing anime movies of all time.

As for PUBG Mobile, though it's also run by PUBG Corporation, it operates as a separate title with unique content compared with the console- and PC-based PUBG: Battlegrounds. Both titles were early popular pioneers of the battle royal subgenre. They spun off of mods created by Brendan "PlayerUnknown" Greene for the military sim game Arma II.

The Last of Us is back, although, in all honesty, it feels like it never left. In fact, now that I've had a chance to play The Last of Us Part I, it feels like this nine-year-old story's just arrived. Naughty Dog's 2013 post-apocalyptic saga comes to the PS5 looking like it was originally developed for that console instead of the one released two generations back. That's because it has been, effectively. Naughty Dog trumpets that the game is "rebuilt" for the PS5 (and eventually for the PC), and having played the thing, I believe them.

That leaves one question: Is it worth it?

The Season 5 Battle Pass has just launched an exciting new pack for Call of Duty: Warzone and Vanguard called The Umbrella Academy: Cha-Cha Bundle, which is a collaboration with the hit Netflix’s original television show.

By acquiring this latest release, you’ll receive the Operator Skin of the time-traveling assassin, Cha-Cha, from the hit Netflix show and comic book series.

The Umbrella Academy: Cha-Cha Bundle is currently on the Call of Duty store for 2400 CP, which includes:

• Legendary “Cha-Cha” Operator Skin
• Two Legendary Weapon Blueprints
• “Cut the Crap” Finishing Move
• “Hold Still” MVP Highlight
• The Animated “Idiot Box” Emblem
• The “Bone Shredder” Charm
• The “Sugary Support” Calling Card

As for the upcoming Umbrella Academy Hazel Tracer Pack, players can get the following materials:

The latest phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe showcases many characters that are currently off-world with their own missions and reasonings. So, to understand what’s going on with each member of the franchise, we’ve compiled this list to explain who is in space and why they are there.

Sony and a subsidiary of Tencent called Sixjoy have announced an investment in Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, purchasing 30% of the company; Sony has 14.09%, Tencent 16.25%. FromSoftware’s majority stakeholder, Kadokawa, said of the news in a statement:

“FromSoftware decided to conduct the Third-Party Allotment to Sixjoy within the Tencent Group, which has strength in its capabilities to develop and deploy mobile games and other network technologies in the global market including China, and SIE within the Sony Group, which has strength in its capabilities to deploy IP in games, videos and various other media in the global market, concurrently and separately.”

The success of Elden Ring is likely a driving factor in Sony and Tencent’s investment in the developer, and by all accounts parent company Kadokawa is set to deliver more content for the game moving forward. Back in March, Bandai Namco boss Yasuo Miyakawa explained said in a joint statement with FromSoftware that “Much effort was placed into creating Elden Ring so that we could exceed the expectations of our fans worldwide… In like manner, we will continue our efforts in expanding the brand beyond the game itself, and into everyone’s daily life.”

That doesn’t mean, however, that FromSoftware is committed to only Elden Ring development moving forward; Kadokawa also mentions that investment will go towards creating a new IP, too:

“FromSoftware will aim to proactively invest in the development of more powerful game IP for itself to strengthen FromSoftware’s development capabilities and will seek to establish a framework that allows the expansion of the scope of its own publishing in the significantly growing global market.”