May 2023

Dark Horse Comics announced that the original manga run of Trigun and Trigun Maximum will return in North America with a new deluxe hardcover edition. The Trigun Deluxe Edition hardcover costs $49.99 USD, and it will appear in bookstores and comic stores on December 5 and 6, 2023 respectively. This edition will collect the first two volumes of the original 1995 Trigun run in 672 pages.

The Trigun Maximum deluxe hardcover will appear in five volumes, or roughly 600 pages each one. Each volume will also cost $49.99 USD. The first volume of the Trigun Maximum Deluxe Edition will release on April 2, 2024 and April 3, 2024 in bookstores and comic stores, respectively.

https://twitter.com/darkhorsecomics/status/1658548076200484916

Trigun Maximum is a direct continuation of the original two-volume Trigun manga. The difference in name comes from a change of publishing magazine that Yasuhiro Nightow had to go through back in 1997. The artist had to add the Maximum title to the manga to continue publishing the story.

This very anticipated reprint comes after the wide success of the new Trigun Stampede anime adaptation, and makes it much easier for new and old Trigun fans to read the original work.

Lucy Mutimer is a 2D artist from Melbourne who has worked on games like Lumi’s Kinder World and MMORPG Tycoon 2.

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The Five Nights at Freddy’s series of horror games may be coming up on its tenth birthday, but for a huge market—mostly kids, even if they were never the original, intended audience—it’s still a huge deal. Which, alongside nostalgia for older players, might explain why only now is FNaF getting a movie.

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If you played Diablo 4 during any of the various playtests Blizzard has held ahead of the game's early June launch, you'll probably have run into another player or two.

I saw players running around Kyovashad, the city in the Fractured Peaks region, popping into and out of portals, visiting vendors and milling about. It's the kind of thing you'd expect from an MMO - perhaps in a city set within Blizzard's own World of Warcraft.

Outside settlements, most of my impromptu encounters with other players revolved around public events either in progress or just finished (annoying).

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Have you ever come across an arcade boxing machine?

It's very simplistic. There are no analog sticks or directional buttons. There is simply a small punching bag that folds in and out; you hit it with as much power as you can muster, and a score appears on the screen. That's the entire game. There is a compelling element to such simplicity, so it's unsurprising that a crowd was gathered around the machine when I strolled around the WASD game event recently in London. I was at WASD to interview Ash Habib, the founder of Steel City Interactive, about his new game, Undisputed, the most promising traditional boxing game since EA's Fight Night Champion.

People may have been excited over the boxing machine - and indeed, I gave it a try too, which unfortunately sent my glasses flying out of my front pocket - but actual boxing represents much more than the simplicity of hitting something as hard as possible. It requires far more strategy, footwork, polished skill, and timing, along with various other elements. Undisputed (which is now in early access via PC, with console versions planned) is trying to capture much of this complexity and break new ground in the realm of boxing games.

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Premico announced the production of a silver necklace based on the upcoming Sailor Moon Cosmos movie, created as collaboration, and using Hirado traditional Japanese jewelry craftsmanship. The necklace costs 54,780 JPY (or roughly $400). The expected release date for the item is mid-June 2023. The new Sailor Moon Cosmos silver necklace is now available for pre-order from the Premico online store. [Thanks, Natalie!]

The part of the pendant that connects to the chain is modeled after the Eternal Moon Article brooch that Usagi Tsukino wears in Sailor Moon. Additionally, the pendant is decorated heart-shaped cubic zirconia stone. The inner flower in the pendant is also adorned with a cubic zirconia stone.

You can take a better look at the new Sailor Moon Cosmos silver pendant in the gallery below.

[gallery columns="5" ids="963700,963714,963701,963703,963702" link="file"]

Hirado craftsmanship is a silver filigree technique that aims to produce lace-like patterns on the jewelry by attaching thin silver threads together. This technique was introduced from the Netherlands to the Japanese city of Hirado in Nagasaki, during the Edo period (17-19th century.)

In other Sailor Moon Cosmos news, the theatrical release of the first part of the movie series will released a new trailer in April 2023 highlighting Mercury and Jupiter.

Whoooo we’re officially in the double-digits gang! We’ve somehow managed to make it to episode 10 of Indiescovery without going completely feral and wrecking the joint. I say that, but this week’s episode is a little, shall we say, unhinged? Rebecca, Liam, and Rachel hadn’t really had a proper chat all week so there’s a lot of Friday energy and catching up, and the energy levels only increase when we start to talk about our main topic of this episode: Eurovision! And indie games, of course.

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When Overwatch 2 was first announced at Blizzcon 2019, Blizzard promised an ambitious "highly replayable" PvE component that somewhat justified the '2' at the end of the title. Last night, the Overwatch 2 development team announced that they've scrapped most of their ideas including the Hero Missions mode which had skill trees, levelling up, and other light RPG elements shown off in the trailer below. Instead, they'll be gradually releasing co-op story missions and integrating them into their ongoing seasons, similar to how PvE operated in the first Overwatch.

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Sony has updated its list of PlayStation 5 and PS4 games leaving PS Plus soon.

These titles include the Descenders and the cute looking co-op game KeyWe (pictured above).

Here's the full list of the PlayStation Plus games leaving the service soon, as found in the console's Last Chance To Play section:

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Humanity is a puzzle game and, at times, quite a taxing one. At times like this, I like to dip into the menus and watch the video walkthrough for the particular level I'm stuck on. This is a lovely feature, but watching these videos is almost always a terrible mistake. That's because, laid bare in such a manner, the sheer amount of stuff you're doing in Humanity to solve a puzzle can quickly seem overwhelming. I have to do all that?! Instant brain freeze.

So at times like this, I shut off the walkthrough video more stumped than I was at the start. But then something magical happens. I return to the puzzle that has defeated me, and just start to tinker a bit. What if I did this, then that? What if I started by heading south instead of north? Now this is more like it. Suddenly I start to see where I'm going wrong, and I start to see, beyond that, what I will have to come to understand if I want to start going right. Humanity doesn't yield to tinkering, exactly, but I think the game wants you to be in a sort of playful state where all possibilities are valid. It's happy, even delighted, to let you solve puzzles by engaging with its mechanics for the sheer pleasure they hold in and of themselves. Through playfulness comes understanding. That's Humanity.

Let's go back a bit actually. Tetris Effect, the last Enhance published game I played, had a killer opening screen. Load it up and what do you get? A gold-tinged wind-blown feather of some kind, fluttering across the cosmos. Look closer and it might seem familiar. This, right, is Laniakea, Immeasurable Heaven, the galactic supercluster in which I'm typing this and you're reading, as we're all drawn, steadily, towards the Great Attractor.

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Today brings the first trailer for Five Nights at Freddy's, the upcoming movie based on the enormously-popular horror game series of the same name.

This trailer first leaked online earlier in the month - though legal notices and a fairly successful community boycott stemmed its spread.

Here we get our first look at The Hunger Games' Josh Hutcherson, cast as a new security guard for creepy pizza chain Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. An evil-looking Matthew Lillard (Scream, Scooby-Doo) can also be seen.

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Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters. It's a series about highlighting some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also a series about you having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!

Oh and you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.

What do I mean by "unkillable enemies"? I mean exactly that! But also, unkillable enemies who chase you. Enemies who will try to catch you and who you can't kill, meaning your only course of action with them is to run away or hide. Prime examples include the creature in Alien: Isolation or Mr X in Resident Evil 2. Run! But it's not always a creature or character that serves this purpose: games have found other ways of hurrying or harrying over the years - ways of keeping the pressure on. Question is, which of these are the best?

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Sony has not appealed the Austrian loot box verdict which ordered it to refund a number of Austrian FIFA players, after a court ruled that FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) packs constituted a form of gambling.

Earlier this year, a court in Hermagor ruled that the football game's FUT packs violated the country's gambling laws. At this time, lawyer Ulrich Salburg stated the plaintiffs - which included one minor - had allegedly "gambled away" hundreds of euros on FUT packs when the uncertain monetary value of the packs purportedly violated the Austrian Gaming Act.

Consequently, the court alleged that the controversial loot boxes could be classified as "illegal gambling".

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Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom players have been busy making some weird and wonderful contraptions to get around Hyrule, defeat enemies, and torture koroks.

But have you wondered: how do they do that?

One Zelda fan has put together a Zelda DIY site to help you build your own versions of these creations.

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Hatsune Miku and other Vocaloid characters will hang out with capybara in new line of merchandise. The line-up includes tin badges, acrylic keychains, acrylic character plates, a premium postcard holder, an acrylic art book, acrylic stickers, a leather sticky note book, an acrylic diorama, and a tote bag. The estimated release date of the items is June 16, 2023. Pre-orders are now available from the eeo online store, and they will close on May 22, 2023. The characters that appear in this collection are Hatsune Miku, Rin and Len Kagamine, Megurine Luka, Meiko, and Kaito.

There are two different available sets of pin badges. Each individual badge costs 550 JPY (~$4), and the entire set is available on sale for 3,300 JPY (~$24). Likewise, each keyholder in the collection costs 880 JPY (~$6), and the entire set costs 5280 JPY (~$39). Each acrylic character plate costs 1,760 JPY (~$13). The premium postcard holder also costs 1,760 JPY (~$13).

Meanwhile, the acrylic art book costs 2,750 JPY (~$20). Each acrylic sticker costs 900 JPY (~$7), and the entire set costs 5400 JPY (~$40). Each leather sticky notes book costs 605 JPY (~$4) and there are three available. One is pairing up Miku and Luka, another one pairing Rin and Len Kagamine, and a third one with Meiko and Kaito. The acrylic diorama costs 3,850 JPY (~$28), and the tote bag costs 2,200 JPY (~$16).

You can take a better look at the new Hatsune Miku and Vocaloid character and capybara merchandise here:

Movic revealed two new Pochita-themed merchandise items from hit manga and anime Chainsaw Man. The new merchandise goods see Pochita turn into a silicone light, and a mini rug pad. The Pochita silicon light costs 6,600 JPY (or roughly $48), while the rug pad costs 7,700 JPY (or roughly $56). Pre-orders for the Pochita light and mini rug mat are now open from the Anime online store, and they close on June 4, 2023.

The new Chainsaw Man merchandise goods are interior design goods modeled after Pochita, the mascot of the show and Denji’s sidekick. The silicone light is scheduled to release in late August 2023, and the mini rug mat releases mid-September 2023.

You can take a better look at the new Chainsaw Man Pochita merchandise in the gallery below.

[gallery ids="963674,963673,963672,963671,963670,963669" link="file"]

Believe it or not, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is off to a fantastic start. In addition to garnering an overwhelmingly positive critical reception, over 10 million copies of the hotly anticipated sequel have already been sold within its first three days of release.

That number makes Tears of the Kingdom the fastest-selling entry in franchise history. A press release states that 4 million of those sales have been in the Americas, which not only makes it the fastest-selling Switch game in this territory but the fastest-selling Nintendo game period. This achievement is even more impressive when you consider that Tears of the Kingdom is also the first $70 Nintendo first-party title, showing fans are willing to shell out the extra dough for a tentpole Switch release. 

For more on The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, check out our review. We also have some spoiler-free beginner’s tips and an amiibo guide, plus an interview with Zelda producer Eiji Aonuma and director Hidemaro Fujibayashi.

Strategy sequel Jagged Alliance 3 is coming out on July 14th, publisher THQ Nordic have announced. The last numbered entry in the series was released almost 25 years ago, and Jagged Alliance 3 continues the tradition of eccentric mercenaries who politely wait for their turn before shooting people. Take a look at the latest trailer below to see what the game is and is not, plus some pumped-up voicework ripped straight from an early 2000s MTV reality show:

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Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has had an incredible debut. Earlier today, Nintendo announced the Breath of the Wild sequel sold over 10m units worldwide in just three days. This makes it the fastest selling Zelda release to date.

Along with these figures, Nintendo also revealed it is Europe's fastest-selling game for Nintendo Switch.

And, the speedy records don't stop there. Tears of the Kingdom is also the fastest-selling Nintendo game for any system in Europe. Phew!

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Nintendo is shutting down online services for Pac-Man 99 - its online battle royale game - later this year.

"On 08/10/2023, the online service for Pac-Man 99 will end and the game will no longer be available as part of a Nintendo Switch Online membership," the company announced earlier today.

Ahead of this date, the game will see its features gradually shut down, starting in August when the option to buy custom themes will be removed from Pac-Man 99.

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ARC Raiders, the forthcoming shooter from Embark Studios, has had a genre change.

Originally a co-operative third-person shooter, the free-to-play game is now being described as a "PvPvE extraction shooter".

The change has been updated on the game's Steam page, along with a new blog post from executive producer Aleksander Grøndal giving more details.

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Players have discovered a new duplication glitch in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, that lets you infinitely duplicate almost all of the items in your inventory, from diamonds to star fragments. It completely breaks the game’s economy. Here’s how to do it.

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VTuber agency Hololive Production released a new set of supporter guidelines intended to establish a "common language" for its fans. The guidelines cite an increase in communication "across borders, genders, and generations" leading to "natural" friction between thoughts and values. Hololive Production and its parent company Cover previously took steps to protect their streamers from defamation, including cooperating with fellow VTuber agency Nijisanji.

The supporter guidelines for Hololive fans have three sections, titled "Support them," "Watch Over Them," and "Respect them." The first section asks supporters to encourage streamers through difficulties and failures and to congratulate them when they succeed. The second asks fans to appreciate the difficulty of trying new activities or directions, and to support them through their ventures. Finally, the third section implores supporters to accept and respect differences of opinion between them, streamers, and other members of the community.

[embed]https://twitter.com/hololive_En/status/1658759662865637376?s=20[/embed]

Nintendo revealed more information about the new Splatoon 3 weapon – the S-BLAST '92. Revealed as part of the Sizzle Season anouncement, the new weapon is a Blaster based on the Super Scope peripheral released for the SNES.

This new Splatoon 3 weapon has been confirmed to have two different firing modes. On the ground, the S-BLAST '92 has a long-range shot with a small blast. If you jump, however, the shot will be much shorter, but have a much larger blast. The video released on the official Splatoon account also confirmed that the weapon’s kit will also include the Sprinkler sub-weapon and the Reefslider special.

https://twitter.com/SplatoonNA/status/1658819757884297217

The S-BLAST ’92 is notable for taking its design from the Super Scope, originally released for the SNES. As the Splatoon 3 weapon's name suggests, it released in 1992 in North America and Europe. It was supported by games such as Yoshi’s Safari and Battle Clash. The Super Scope was most recently seen in the Super Smash Bros series as a random item drop.

It’s not the first time Splatoon has used a real-world light gun peripheral as a basis for a weapon either. Past Splatoon games have featured the N-ZAP weapons, which were based on the NES Zapper, used for games such as Duck Hunt.

Splatoon 3 is out now for the Nintendo Switch. Sizzle Season kicks off on June 1, 2023.

Rumors suggested Sony would announce its next livestream presentation soon. Now, it’s confirmed that a new series of announcements is on the way. The PlayStation Showcase will be held on May 24, 2023 and discuss new PS5 and PlayStation VR 2 games. People will be able to tune in online at 1pm PT/4pm ET/9pm BST. We'll be able to check it out on its Twitch and YouTube channels.

Here's the official announcement:

See you soon!

PlayStation Showcase broadcasts live next Wednesday, May 24 at 1pm Pacific Time: https://t.co/GZVl6Du3Mu pic.twitter.com/mdvIlLq3Ph

— PlayStation (@PlayStation) May 17, 2023

The announcement only focused on the fact that the showcase will be happening. It didn't tease any titles coming up. We do know that games like Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth are coming, with the former supposedly getting a demo in the near future. There have also been teases from Netherrealm about a new Mortal Kombat game.

HoYoVerse announced its Honkai: Star Rail Amazon Prime Gaming bundle is now available. It is listed as the first one on the official site. People who subscribe to the service and play the game can claim a code for a pack of in-game currency, then use it. However, this is a one-time use item.

Here’s the full list of everything in the Honkai: Star Rail Prime Gaming bundle:

• 5 Refined Aether: This can be used to level up a Light Cone, with each one being equivalent to 6,000 EXP.
• 60 Stellar Jade: This is the “real money” currency. 160 of them can be used for one pull on an Event Warp banner.
• 40,000 Credits: This is the in-game currency that can be used at shops or when leveling up characters and equipment

The official announcement noted that this bundle is being offered to celebrate Jing Yuan's debut. He's the latest five-star character to join the game. His banner goes live on May 17, 2023 and, when it does, it will also feature March 7th, Sushang, and Tingyun as focus units.

Nintendo already announced its first sales figures for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The game already hit a major milestone. It launched on May 12, 2023. In its first three days on the market, the game hit 10 million copies sold worldwide.

Here's the official announcement.

The Legend of #Zelda: #TearsOfTheKingdom has sold over 10 million copies worldwide in its first three days, becoming the fastest-selling game in the history of the Legend of Zelda series.

Thanks to those already enjoying Link’s latest adventure! pic.twitter.com/XxRSLaiWrO

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) May 17, 2023

As for buying The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, there haven't been major sales yet. However, there are some ways to get it for $69 or less, rather than $69.99. The standard price of the game is $79.99.

Embark Studios has shifted the scope of its upcoming shooter, Arc Raiders. The game was first announced in 2021 as a co-op PvE-focused experience about working together to battle invading alien machines. Now, the game will have a PvP element thrown into the mix.

In an update, Embark reveals that since delaying Arc Raiders to focus on finishing its other upcoming title, The Finals, it’s added competitive play as well as an extraction element. The game still unfolds on a far future Earth ravaged by sentient machines, but now teams must compete with other human players in addition to the in-game enemies. Furthermore, the game adopts extraction-based objectives by tasking players to locate and retrieve resources scattered across the world for their squad. Here’s Embark's pitch for what Arc Raiders now entails:

My ever-growing backlog of farmlife sims gives me a judgemental side-eye every week, as I crawl back to my scarily silent husband in Stardew Valley. That list of Stardew-likes is becoming harder and harder to ignore, though. I’m very much looking forward to Grave Seasons (aka Stardew meets murder mysteries). I was looking forward to Roots Of Pacha (aka Stardew meets the Stone Age) before its publisher woes. And now, I’m incredibly excited about Mirthwood (aka Stardew meets Fable). Check out its announcement trailer below:

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A most peculiar quandary has befallen Atomic Heart players on the Steam Deck, though mayhaps not to the extent that it’s worth writing like a knockoff Sherlock Holmes for any more of this article. Basically, the display and graphics settings have gone missing, leaving the Sovietpunk FPS without any means of resolution or visual quality adjustments.

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It's been an extremely long wait for Jagged Alliance 3 - series fans have been patiently twiddling their thumbs for almost 20 years at this point - but finally, the turn-based tactical RPG threequel has a release date and will be launching for PC on 14th July.

Jagged Alliance 3 was initially announced all the way back in 2004, when televisions still had dials and text messages were conveyed by pigeons. At the time, Russian studio MiST Land South was attached as its developer, but after that arrangement failed to reach fruition, original publisher Strategy First went through a succession of studios with similarly unsuccessful results before the Jagged Alliance rights changed hands in 2010.

Five years later, the rights pinballed again, this time to Nordic Games, and six years after that, THQ Nordic revealed that finally, finally, development on a third entry in the Jagged Alliance series would resume, this time under the watch of Tropico developer Haemimont Games.

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Nicolas Cage - yes, the Hollywood actor - is set to feature in horror multiplayer game Dead by Daylight.

"It's the performance of a lifetime," reads the announcement on Twitter.

If you're wondering what he'll look like, well... he looks a bit like Nicolas Cage!

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Episode one of The Expanse: A Telltale Series now has a firm release date of 27th July, from its previous summer release window.

Following the launch of this first episode, the game's following four episodes will then be released every two weeks, with the developer promising an Expanse experience "like never before".

The Expanse: A Telltale Series has been developed by Telltale and Deck Nine (Life is Strange: True Colors) and serves as a prequel to the popular sci-fi TV show. It features Camina Drummer as the main protagonist. Drummer works on The Artemis spaceship and, as you'd expect from a Telltale game, players will be tasked with making some tough decisions as she and her scavenger crew negotiate their way through the edges of The Belt.

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Valve's Steam Deck is a very capable handheld, capable of PS4-class visuals in a compact form factor. Packing a 1.6-teraflop GPU, modern quad-core CPU and plenty of memory bandwidth, the Deck can keep pace with a surprising array of current and last-gen software. Modern PC games get more demanding by the day though and 2023 releases in particular have suffered major performance woes - even on powerful machines. So can the Steam Deck still deliver playable performance in this year's most challenging software?

We're going to start off our exploration of 2023 titles with the Dead Space remake, a survival horror title that delivered impressive visuals when it launched back in January. But how does it hold up on Steam Deck?

As with so many games on Steam Deck, dialling in the right settings is key to a playable experience - but here the choices are at least straightforward, with the medium preset and low volumetrics producing 45-60fps when paired with FSR2 Ultra Performance mode, which scales from a 240p (!) internal resolution to a Deck-friendly 720p output resolution.

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