April 2023

Like Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail will allow players to add friends to their in-game friendlist. There are some benefits to having a sufficiently filled friendlist. For example, players can accrue a total of 60,000 credits (which is one of Honkai: Star Rail's in-game currencies) when friends use their support character. Credits are used to level up characters and Light Cones, and they are an invaluable material since you'll need a lot of this going forward to fully upgrade both. Don't worry, as adding players to your friendlist is extremely simple.

In order to add friends to your friendlist in Honkai: Star Rail, you will need to progress the story. Once you are able to fully access your menu, click on the "Friends" option. This is indicated by the icon of two silhouettes attached to a heart. From there, you can add suggested players to your friendlist or through the use of your friend's UID. You can check any incoming friend requests through the first tab in the "Friends" option.

Your UID is found at the very top of your menu and at the very bottom of the lefthand side of your screen. Thankfully, you can easily copy and paste your UID if you tap the little paper icon next to your UID in the menu.

Square Enix released backstage footage of the Final Fantasy XIV Eorzean Symphony 2022 concert on the company's official music channel. While the video is mostly in Japanese, English subtitles are available.

The video features a lot of rehearsal footage, as well as backstage footage of the concert from places we wouldn't normally see. This is mixed in with footage of the musicians joking around backstage in dressing rooms, as well as Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida personally meeting with the conductor and other members of the orchestra.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThMK6lAUA0Y

The Final Fantasy XIV Eorzean Symphony 2022 concert was held on December 17-18, 2022 at the Tokyo Garden Theater in Japan. A Blu-Ray release of the concert was open for pre-orders shortly after the concert. That is now available to buy. The Blu-Ray includes bonus codes for two in-game Orchestrion Rolls from the concert. These bring the songs “To the Edge” and “Flow” into the game.

Square Enix previously released performances from the concert on the official Final Fantasy XIV YouTube channel. Some of those included the songs “Close in the Distance” and “Endcaller”.

Final Fantasy XIV is available for PC, PS4 and PS5. The Blu-Ray of the Final Fantasy XIV Eorzean Symphony 2022 is available now from Square Enix’s site.

Confession time, everyone: I'm still only about 2.5 hours into Disco Elysium. Games journalism sin or what? Somehow, despite being primed by the excellent time I had with its demo five years ago, I just bounced off this one. I very quickly got stuck in a frustrating loop of fatally ballsing up no matter what I did - presumably I badly biffed my stats right out the gate to get soft-locked in the first area - and despite deciding I'd restart in a day or two, several years later my play-time hasn't extended past that first session. Sad times all round, I'm sure you'll agree, but what's it got to do with Betrayal At Club Low?

Well, when I picked up Betrayal At Club Low for the RPS Game Club this month, I was transported back to my abortive run at Disco Elysium. It's not that I've never played a stat-check-heavy RPG before. Far from it. But somehow, each game's presentation resonated together in my weird brain mush. It must have been something to do with the combination of a surreal, seedy, not-quite-our-world-but-still-very-recognisable setting, and the constant presence of numbers reminding me of my character's strengths stacked up against their many, many weaknesses.

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Back in March, legendary Elden Ring player Let Me Solo Her took on a challenge of unthinkable proportions: finishing a run in which every single enemy was Malenia. We’ve seen him slay this fearsome boss countless times, but surely this would be too much Malenia to overcome, even for him. Oh, who am I kidding? Of…

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The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a bona fide hit. In its first five days in theaters, the new animated film brought in over $375 million globally. And despite a lot of negative and meh reviews from critics, it’s expected to cross a billion dollars at the box office soon. In fact, according to Shigeru Miyamoto—Mario’s…

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We are now a couple of weeks away from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom’s release, Nintendo’s long-awaited follow-up to its seminal adventure, Breath of the Wild. While the Japanese company has showcased its final trailer for Link’s upcoming romp, it’s certainly not done marketing the Switch exclusive.…

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We’re only four months into the calendar year and the incel community, an insular corner of the internet composed of dudes who lack romantic and sexual relationships “despite trying,” has lost one of its strongest soldiers because…well…he’s finally done the deed.

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NetEase has announced the creation of new studio Anchor Point, which will be lead by Control lead designer Paul Ehreth with a focus on building "action-adventure experiences that take risks and journey deep into uncharted territory".

Ehreth - who also served as campaign designer on Halo 4 and 5 - will be joined by head of operations Pere Torrents, as well as "colleagues with decades of combined experience in the industry" and credits on Halo, Ghost of Tsushima, Red Dead Redemption 2, and The Division.

Anchor Point, which will have offices in Barcelona and Seattle, is currently hiring "up to 100 people across Europe and North America" - with roles including developers, technical artists, and designers - to work either on-site, remotely, or in a hybrid capacity.

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Naughty Dog has released a fourth update for its widely lambasted PC port of The Last of Us Part 1, promising "framerate optimisation" and more among its various bug fixes and tweaks.

As you may recall, The Last of Us Part 1 finally launched for PC at the end of March after a 25-day delay designed to ensure it would debut "in the best shape possible." Unfortunately, the reality of the release didn't live up to that promise, and PC purchasers on Steam quickly began reporting a host of technical issues, including inconsistent frame rates, regular crashes, stuttering, long load times, and poor optimisation - earning the port a Mostly Negative rating.

Since then, Naughty Dog has released three patches aimed at addressing the PC port's various problems, and those fixes have slowly helped nudge The Last of Us Part 1's Steam rating up to a marginally less disastrous Mixed. And today's 1.0.4 update aims to improve matters further, bringing an extensive list of changes focused around "framerate optimisation, graphical and texture fidelity, crash fixes, and more".

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Synthesizing objects in Honkai: Star Rail will be important for upgrading characters, and this guide will walk you through how to unlock the Omni-Synthesizer. It will grant you access to this invaluable feature. The Omni-Synthesizer is an item obtained after doing a specific side-quest in the Herta Space Station. Head to the Storage Zone and speak to Hinkel at the designated location shown on the map below.

[caption id="attachment_960927" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot via Siliconera[/caption]

Her quest is relatively simple and will have you defeating a very small and manageable group of enemies to unlock the Omni-Synthesizer in Honkai: Star Rail. Once you've done this, head back to Hinkel, and the game will have you run through a few mandatory tutorials. These will elaborate on how to synthesize items that include upgrade items and consumables. Consumables can be used to increase the stats of your party or even revive and restore the energy for characters. The synthesizing menu will show you what recipes you have and what you can craft.

Graniph is collaborating with Yoshitaka Amano on various pieces of clothing and items. Pre-orders will open from April 27, 2023 to May 8, 2023. Afterwards, people will be able to purchase them from Graniph stores both offline and online from May 9, 2023. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

Yoshitaka Amano is a character designer and illustrator for the Final Fantasy series. He has worked on virtually all of the numbered titles and designed the logos for each one. Amano has also worked on Vampire Hunter D, Ayakashi, and Fairy Fencer F. The items that he has designed for Graniph all incorporate his signature watercolor style. The artwork are all original pieces, meaning that these have nothing to do with the Final Fantasy series or anything else that Amano worked on for a company.

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Graniph does offer international shipping, which means overseas customers can also purchase these Yoshitaka Amano items. They cost from 2,500 JPY ($18.70) to 7,900 JPY ($59.10). Aside from T-shirts, there are dresses, long skirts, tote bags, mugs, and fans. Pre-orders are already open, which means that you can start putting items into your cart. However, as of the time of writing, the mugs are already sold out.

In an interview with Famitsu, Capcom Representative Director Haruhiro Tsujimoto stated that future titles will have cross-play support. According to Tsujimoto, Exoprimal’s development was partially fueled by the desire to gain that experience and expertise. He believes that Capcom will need to make more games like Exoprimal, which will serve as testing grounds for the company’s future. [Thanks, ryokutya2089!]

Exporimal is a multiplayer dinosaur-hunting game that has crossplay and cross-platform compatibility. No matter what your friends play on, you will be able to play with them. The development team that worked on Exoprimal likely learned a lot in regards to making sure the game can support cross-play. Cross-play can be an important factor in whether a person decides to start a game or not.

Other tidbits of information Tsujimoto offered in the Famitsu interview include Capcom’s opinion on Ghost Trick Remaster, Street Fighter 6, and digital sales. First of all, it decided to release Ghost Trick Remaster specifically because of Ace Attorney’s international success. It knew that it would receive attention. Tsujimoto also stated that since Street Fighter 5 sold over 7 million copies, then Street Fighter 6 could sell over 10 million units in its lifetime. So it put everything it wanted to do with Street Fighter into 6, including more eSports focus and genre expansion.

Silvervale and Veibae will no longer be VTubers under VShojo. It seems that this is effective immediately. This is because the two of them have decided not to renew their contracts with the company. However, they will be able to continue streaming under their current identities.

Due to the way that contracts can be with such companies, VTubers who leave that company might not be able to continue using their avatar or name. After Kiryu Coco left Hololive, for example, she could not continue her streaming activities as Kiryu Coco. She had to take on a new identity. However, this is likely because companies like Hololive debut its talents under new identities that it has created. Meanwhile, VTubers with VShojo continue using the avatars they had used when still independent and, as such, may not need to graduate.

Silvervale is an English VTuber who debuted in 2019 as an independent streamer. She joined VShojo in 2020. As of the time of writing, she has over 356,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel. Veibae, or Vei, has a similar background. She debuted as an independent VTuber in 2020 and then joined VShojo in 2021. She currently has 625,000 subscribers on her channel.

Silvervale and Veibae will continue to stream under their current identities but will no longer be a part of VShojo.

It's been possible to find tiny SSDs for the Steam Deck for a little while, but yesterday Corsair launched its 1TB MP600 Mini SSDs which ought to offer better performance than other options. Here are the cheapest places to find it in the US and UK!

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Crime Boss: Rockay City, a game announced last year with a trailer that seemed like the world’s most ill-timed April Fool’s Joke (it was December), is out! You may not know this, though, because nobody is talking about it.

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Sony took to Twitter to announced that there will be a Final Fantasy XVI PlayStation 5 bundle. It will appear on the same day the title launches: June 22, 2023. It didn't note a price yet. However, it did state that people will find it via the PlayStation Direct storefront. Pre-orders open on May 4, 2023. However, it only includes a digital code for the game.

Here's the official announcement, which shows off the box and a link to PlayStation Direct. This will be the model with a disc drive. However, on the front of the Final Fantasy XVI PlayStation 5 bundle box, it reads, “Includes voucher code. No disc included.”

The PS5 Console Final Fantasy XVI Bundle launches June 22. Pre-order from https://t.co/y9oEB5aBse starting May 4 pic.twitter.com/Poez24d1HU

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) April 26, 2023

Following the announcement that Veibae and Silvervale left the company VShojo, the VTuber took to Twitter with an explanation. She simply put, "I left cuz new contracts didn't make any financial sense to me." She didn't offer any additional details on the numbers in the potential agreement, noting she "can't say much else."

Here's her full statement on Twitter. It also came with the recommendation that any independent VTuber should meet with their own lawyer before agreeing to any contracts.

since this post got so much traction and people are speculating as to why i have left and blaming other talent for it -- it's nothing like that at all. i left cuz new contracts didnt make any financial sense to me https://t.co/4VyzGMPvU1

— vei 🌥 (@Veibae) April 26, 2023

and for all indies, ALWAYS hire a lawyer to read through any contract, however minor it may seem. i know it's a scary process to think about but you'll be so fuckin thankful down the line. HIRE LAWYERS THAT KNOW WHAT THE INDUSTRY STANDARDS ARE. ok have a nice day u fkers

Following Silvervale and Veibae deciding to leave VShojo and go independent, Ironside announced sales of its two PC cases of both VTubers will end. They will only be available until April 30, 2023. After that date, only cases for Apricot, Haruka, Hime, Ironmouse, Kson, Nazuna, Projekt Melody, Nyanners, and Zentreya will be available as options.

As a reminder, Silvervale's design was available from the moment the collaboration was announced. The Veibae one only appeared later in February 2023. Each case is $219 alone. The current expected ship date for each model would be July 2023. However, it is also possible to buy an actual PC built by Ironside using the VShojo cases, with possibilities starting at a $1,217 Bronze tier and going up to a $3,521 Platinum one.

As a reminder, here is how the two PC cases for Silvervale and Veibae would look.
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I am all thumbs, so I'm pretty sure it's my fault that I found Dungeon Drafters a bit fiddly at first. I had trouble selecting things and unselecting things and I made a lot of moves when I thought I was just exploring the UI. Anyway, I stuck with it because the game is so beautiful, with such a lovely pastel colour scheme for its pixelly doll's house landscapes. I'm glad I did. A few hours in, I'm finding it much less fiddly, and I'm also pretty much hooked.

Dungeon Drafters is a dungeon crawler and a card game. It takes place in a world in which magic is real, and real magic is card-based. So I have three action points per turn as I explore this lovely pixel-art fantasy land. I can spend those points on cards, which will conjure various spells for me, but I can also spend them on moving around each room's snug grid, and by physically attacking any enemies I am close to.

Complexity and depth tumbles away in which ever direction you look, from the classes on offer, each of which comes with their own combination of spell decks to wield, to the way that the game handles status effects, which turn up in your hand as a card you then have to play - possibly even to your advantage. All of this is great, but to tell you about Dungeon Drafters I really just want to talk about the dungeon I just crawled, as it were. It was a glacier, and it was also a library.

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After a few weeks in time limbo, Quantum Break has returned to storefronts on PC and Xbox. Publisher Microsoft had said “some licences that expired” were to blame for its removal from Game Pass (for consoles), which was probably the same reason it was pulled from storefronts too. It’s now rewound the clocks, available to buy, and as a nice bonus, it’s joined PC Game Pass for the first time since it was previously only available on the console version of the service.

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The number of people playing Activision Blizzard games each month has dropped back down to levels previously seen last summer, before a brief boost bestowed by big releases such as Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty in the back half of last year.

Monthly active users for Activision games - primarily its Call of Duty series - fell to 98 million as of the 31st March, down from 111 million at the end of December 2022.

It's a figure roughly equal to that seen at the end of September last year, before the arrival of Modern Warfare 2 and the big 2.0 relaunch of live service Warzone in November.

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Microsoft has hit out at the Competition and Markets Authority's shock decision to block Microsoft's $68.7bn Activision Blizzard takeover, declaring it "bad for Britain".

In an interview with the BBC, Microsoft president Brad Smith said yesterday was "probably the darkest day in our four decades in Britain".

"It does more than shake our confidence in the future of the opportunity to grow a technology business in Britain than we've ever confronted before."

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Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is releasing tomorrow across PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. Along with a now customary day one patch, the team at EA has additionally stated it will be releasing several more patches for the game in the "weeks ahead", begging the question - is Star Wars Jedi: Survivor actually ready for launch?

In a brief update, EA said players can expect patches that will fix bugs, improve the game's performance and add more accessibility features in the weeks following Star Wars Jedi: Survivor's launch.

The language used by EA and early reports from some reviewers have left some fans wondering whether the game needed longer before launch, rather than arriving with issues that need to be subsequently ironed out.

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The final expansion for Cities: Skylines has been officially unveiled by publisher Paradox Interactive.

Hotels and Retreats, which was previously teased under the title Vacation With Us, will allow players to build hotels and tourist attractions to help boost their city's economy.

Developer Colossal Order announced this expansion would be the last for Cities: Skylines, after eight years of post-launch content, as it continues to work on a sequel set for release later this year.

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Sony has announced a Final Fantasy 16 themed PlayStation 5 bundle, but it's only available in Japan.

The limited edition bundle includes the console with special face plates - themed with the game's logo of Eikons Phoenix and Ifrit in battle - as well as a specially designed controller. Of course, it comes with a code for the game too.

However, outside of Japan there's simply a bundle with the game, minus the fancy themed hardware.

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Creating a new IP is a lot of work. However, when certain developers are involved and a project leans on certain sorts of gameplay staples and inspirations, it can make it a welcoming property. This is basically what happened with Three Rings' Trinity Trigger. It pulls ideas from older action-RPGs, like Legend of Mana, to tell a new story. To help learn more about Trinity Trigger and what went into it, as well as how its characters were developed and past games influenced it, Siliconera spoke with Director Takumi Isobe about the project.

Jenni Lada: When did development on Trinity Trigger begin?

Takumi Isobe: We first started planning Trinity Trigger around the start of 2019. From there, we contacted the key staff we wanted involved and got to work. Unfortunately, the Covid pandemic wreaked havoc partway through our process, so development ended up taking longer than we initially planned.

Which 1990s RPGs most influenced the game and its development?

Isobe: I used Secret of Mana as a benchmark title during development, so you could call it a significant influence. Speaking personally, I think the Final Fantasy series is my biggest inspiration. I’ll never forget the surprise I felt when I first exited the Floating Continent in Final Fantasy III to find an even larger area
to explore.

“Why am I so slow”, complains my partner, minutes into being cajoled into playing Dota 2 for the very first time. “Ah, you’ll need to buy boots,” I say, with the hard earned wisdom of someone who’s spent over 4,000 hours clicking on wizards. “I have boots,” she says, somewhat indignantly. “Those are slippers,” I reply. “What?” she asks, somewhat more indignantly. “They don’t give you move speed,” I respond. I see a flicker of anger in her eyes, as well as maybe, just maybe, a spark of interest.

A new Dota patch came out last week, and it’s a biggun. Is it a good time for lapsed players to jump back in? Yes! Is it a good time for entirely new players to dip their toes in, while experienced players are still befuddled by a map that’s 40% bigger, featuring dual Roshan pits, new minibosses and a host of other changes? Perhaps! It’s certainly a good opportunity to test your relationship.

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When I meet Jake Solomon at GDC, it's his third day of unemployment. The XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns director and designer announced he was leaving Firaxis back in February, but his final day at the studio where he made his name and worked for more than twenty years was still very fresh in his memory. "It's surreal," he says. "For probably the next ten years, I'll refer to it as 'we' when we talk about Firaxis, and it's sad to think it's not the right pronoun anymore. It's exciting, but a little terrifying."

On the face of it, that panic might seem unfounded. Over the last decade, Solomon has become one of the most revered names in turn-based strategy games. Having cut his teeth on many of Sid Meier's Civilization games in his early years at Firaxis, he went on to become the designer who spearheaded the revival of XCOM with Enemy Unknown in 2012, before going on to direct its even more beloved sequel XCOM 2 and its War Of The Chosen expansion a few years later. Most recently, he was creative director on Marvel's Midnight Suns, which allowed him to marry his life-long love of Marvel comic books with the thrilling tactical combat he's so well known for.

Long-running sci-fi MMO Warframe has just released its biggest update yet, The Duviri Paradox, for free. Jumping into any 10-year-old game can be intimidating, especially an MMO, but developer Digital Extremes say this is the first story-driven update that’s not progression-locked based on skill level or experience with the game. In other words, this is a new experience within Warframe that’s immediately available to newcomers, while also adding weird cool stuff for old-timers.

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Forgive me, I'm someone who's recently got a Steam Deck and I'm going through the honeymoon phase. Except it's a phase which is unlikely to end? Anyway, it's proven to be an excellent way to rinse Vampire Survivors, a game I wouldn't - I have nothing against those who do - play upright on a monitor. Survival is best served on the couch, curled up like a shrimp with the blood draining from my arms as I hold the TV slab at some atrocious angle.

Anyway, I've come to realise that Vampire Survivors might be a game about running away, but actually peaks when you come to a standstill. There's a special kind of joy to be had when you're able to stop and idle.

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FromSoftware president and Dark Souls creator Hidetaka Miyazaki loves a poison swamp.

They're everywhere in the Soulsborne games: loved by Miyazaki and hated by players. We even rated them all.

But I'm afraid to tell you, swamp fans, that the studio's forthcoming mech battle game Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon will not have a poison swamp - or equivalent - area.

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Forget the number in the title. Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon may be a return to FromSoftware's mech combat series, but it's also a new beginning, on a new planet, with a new story.

Yet the studio's legacy is impossible to ignore. There's not only the past Armored Core games, which went on hiatus after 2013's Armored Core 5, there's the more recent success of the Soulsborne games - Elden Ring in particular. How to bring back a cult series with a fervent following, but make it relevant to fans of more recent games and brand new players?

It's a delicate balance, but one Armored Core 6 is poised to attempt when it releases in August.

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FromSoftware has revealed the release date for its forthcoming mech action game Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, alongside a new gameplay trailer.

The game will release on 25th August this year across PlayStation and Xbox consoles, plus PC.

You can check out the explosive gameplay trailer below.

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Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes gets a surprise Definitive Edition on PC via Steam and Ubisoft stores, PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch this summer. Inexplicably, there is no Xbox version.

The puzzle RPG classic - much loved here at Eurogamer - is revived by Dotemu, the studio behind the excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge.

The announcement trailer, below, shows a first look at gameplay in the campaign and multiplayer.

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Amazon Prime has announced the next set of games which will be available to Prime Gaming members.

As well as free games to claim, members will also be able to claim in-game loot for titles including Destiny 2, FIFA 23 and Genshin Impact.

The first titles, which include space combat simulator Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D, will be available from 4th May - that's Star Wars Day!

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Tactical deck builder Ash of Gods: The Way is out today across PC and Nintendo Switch.

From developer AurumDust, this is the second game in the Ash of Gods universe following Redemption. The Way isn't a direct sequel, instead it follows a different story and has distinct game mechanics.

Check out the launch trailer below to see its strategic battles in action.

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