May 2023

THQ Nordic has reached out to Remedy and offered to partner up to make Alan Wake 2 available as a physical release.

Reminding the developer that it had facilitated physical versions "back in the day" for the original game, THQ Nordic said it would "love to go at it again".

Remedy anticipated questions about its digital-only release, it seems, as it included the decision in an FAQ shared earlier this week.

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Square Enix revealed new details about Red XIII and his design in the Final Fantasy VII Remake through the game’s official Twitter account. The tweet also included concept art of Red XIII and information about the materia slots in the weapon he uses as a guest near the end of the game. His weapons in the original Final Fantasy VII were hair ornaments, such as combs and clips. However, the remake has him use collars instead.

You can take a better look at the weapon Red XIII uses as a guest in the FFVII Remake below.

https://twitter.com/FFVIIR_CLOUD/status/1662020752630075393

Red XIII only acts as a guest party member in Final Fantasy VII Remake, and as such players can’t see details of his equipment from the start screen. Square Enix revealed Red XIII’s weapon is the Mythril Collar. This is a re-imagining of the Mythril Clip, which was his default starting weapon in the original FFVII. Both the clip and the collar have two connected materia slots and an independent one, and it is a relatively powerful weapon by the time he joins the party.

The tweet also revealed that the Mythril Collar can be found in the Shinra Branch Office in Lower Junon. The purpose of the materia slots in the collar is so that non-human Shinra experiment samples like Red XIII could still use their properties. Professor Hojo had the collar especially crafted so that it would include materia slots.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is one of the most highly anticipated games coming to the PS5, and the gameplay trailer revealed during the May 2023 PlayStation Showcase fueled up the hype even more. Just like in the last game, we are very likely to see new depictions of iconic foes from the rogues’ gallery. Plenty haven't been confirmed yet, but there are a number of villains we could see make an appearance during Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

Green Goblin

The Green Goblin may be the the most recognizable villain from Spider-Man’s stories. There have been many individuals to take the mantle, but the best-known one has to be Norman Osborn. During the first game’s events, we saw Osborn as the New York City mayor with some dark secrets that led to the devil’s breath crisis. Moreover, the game’s revelations and details about Miles Morales could lead one to believe that the gears are set in motion for the appearance of the Goblin.

Sandman

If you watched 2007 Spider-Man 3 movie, you may have already thought of this character as a possible villain who could appear in Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Although in the comics it’s never stated that William Baker (a.k.a. Flint Marko) was Uncle Ben’s murderer, it wouldn’t be the first time we see characters repurposed for the game’s storyline. Moreover, it would be an interesting reference to Sam Raimi’s movie to make him a villain here.

Optimus Prime looks to be making his way to Fortnite.

That's according to a new report that backs up a recently-leaked image from the game's forthcoming season, suggesting a Transformer crossover event is on the way.

It's just one of a slew of rumours that are currently circulating, though, and gives credence to prior leaks that Chapter 4 Season 3 may include a tropical biome courtesy of the jungle-esque backdrop included in the screenshot.

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The cast of One Piece is massive, with hundreds of major and minor characters. From heroes to villains and even incidental folks who show up briefly in movies or spin-off games, there are lots of people to love. For this week's Siliconera Speaks Up, we decided to talk about the ones we like best, even if they might not be the strongest or most influentual.

Chopper is definitely the One Piece character I like best. Why? Well, because he is also one of the better mascot characters in the anime world. His character design is good. He's genuinely helpful both as a supporter and strong fighter. Plus he's got a story arc I enjoy. -- Jenni

I guess many people will choose a member of the Straw Hat pirates or the Warlords of the Sea for obvious reasons, but my favorite character must be Koby. I just love how much he grows throughout the series through his perseverance and arduous training. His journey kind of mirrors Luffy's, but shows what he is able to do without the power of a Devil Fruit. I think he encapsulates that sense of hope and personal growth that is such a key part of One Piece. -- Frank

My favorite One Piece character has to be Ace. He's a cool, fun dude with an awesome Devil Fruit power, but for as incredibly strong as he is, he only ever wants what's best for the people he cares about. He goes way above and beyond to help the people who need him and does it all with a smile. -- Adam

Valve removed the Steam listing for Dolphin, a popular emulator for the GameCube and Wii, after it received a cease and desist from Nintendo, developers behind the project claim. The company behind Mario and Zelda accuses the emulator of illegally circumventing its protections, and says it’s merely protecting the…

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Lena Raine's latest project is composing the score for Don't Nod's forthcoming narrative adventure Harmony: The Fall of Reverie.

Due out next month, it follows a young woman returning to her hometown to investigate the disappearance of her mother. Simultaneously, she's drawn into the parallel world of Reverie where she meets godlike Aspirations - Truth, Power, Bliss - and must balance the fates of each through narrative decision-making.

It's all presented in a colourful, animated style, but what really impressed me when I recently played the demo was Raine's score.

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AI is coming to games, whether we like it or not. Last night’s Nvidia keynote showed just how powerful—and devastating—that’s going to be. The company’s CEO, Jensen Huang, showed off how its freshly announced “Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine” (ACE) can create real-time interactive AI NPCs, complete with improvised…

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Everyone’s got a favorite Pokémon game. Whether it’s one of the mainline RPGs where you catch ‘em all and become champion, or one of the spin-offs that show new sides of the world and people’s relationship to the titular Pocket Monsters, the series has given people a lot of different ways to inhabit its huge world.…

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Sometime before SHODAN’s ethical constraints were removed and the rogue AI set about converting the people of Citadel Station into cyborgs, a researcher named Stacy Everson found a smoking gun hidden among the blinking servers of the spaceship’s library. Not an assault rifle or mini-pistol, but a decades-old email chain between her TriOptimum bosses and a psychologist named Jeffrey Hammer. In the early stages of Citadel’s construction, Hammer suggested that each level of the station be designed in such a way as to induce stress and anxiety, so that experts could study their impact on the human psyche during space travel.

“I always knew something was off about this place!”, wrote Stacy to a colleague. “We are just rats in a maze.”

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Final Fantasy XIV Patch 6.4 introduced another Extreme Trial, this in the form of The Voidcast Dias. Players will unlock the normal version of this Trial through completing Main Scenario Quests. It will be the last encounter of Patch 6.4 and will require players to be item level 615 at minimum. If players are not at the required level to complete The Voidcast Dias and unlock the Extreme Trial in FFXIV, they can either purchase weapons and armor from the market board or run The Aetherfront. The Aetherfront will be unlocked before The Voidcast Dias, so you can make up for any item level differences in a couple of runs.

After that, you can unlock The Voidcast Dias Extreme in FFXIV. Once you complete the Main Scenario Quests for Patch 6.4, go to Old Sharlayan and speak to The Wandering Minstrel at X:12.6,Y:14.2. You can teleport close to The Wandering Minstrel from the main Aetheryte to The Scholar's Harbor Aetheryte. Just head south and you'll see them.

[caption id="attachment_965395" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Screenshot by Siliconera[/caption]

There’s a certain je ne sais quoi about RPG Maker games--especially the horror ones--that make them incredibly memorable and impactful, and Pocket Mirror: GoldenerTraum is no exception. This is the definitive remaster of Pocket Mirror, which originally came out in 2016. Like its predecessors, such as The Witch’s House, its retro appearance belies a thoughtful and meaningful message. The execution of it can be hit or miss, depending on how open you are to indirect storytelling.

Pocket Mirror: GoldenerTraum follows the story of an amnesiac girl who wakes up in a bizarre castle. As she wanders through it in search of her name, she meets a plethora of strange and hostile girls and entities. All of them seem to know more about her than she does, though none are willing to explain anything. Through these encounters, the girl discovers more about herself, her past, and just how she came to be. The story very rarely spells things out for you. In fact, some endings and routes never unravel the mystery of the protagonist's past. This adds to the overall replay value of the game, even if you’re not trying to get all the endings. However, it can make the game a bizarre and surreal experience.

This time around, I'm looking at a gaming mouse that swaps the usual buttons for mechanical keyboard style keycaps, a Bluetooth speaker that has more RGB than my gaming PC, and a see-through keyboard. All three peripherals do something a bit different - but which of them are actually worth buying? That's what I'm here to find out, so after weeks of testing let's see the results.

Here's a question: why don't gaming mice have keycaps, like mechanical keyboards? This way, you could change how your mouse looks in a matter of seconds, letting you match your keyboard or just create a unique style. That's the weird idea behind the Lofree Touch EO909, a mouse that replaces the left and right buttons with unique PBT keycaps that sit atop Cherry MX-style stems.

With its beige body and curiously tall yet narrow design, the EO909 certainly stands out as a retro-inspired oddity even before you've popped on your choice of artsy keycaps ($84.99 with the mouse). Looking closer, you'll see another rare feature: a small OLED display with a DPI, battery and connection method readout (wired USB-C, Bluetooth and 2.4GHz with a USB dongle fitted on the underside of the mouse are your options here).

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If you don’t follow a game particularly closely, then the storms that occur within its communities can seem very bizarre. Take Final Fantasy XVI—obviously a game with a huge fanbase and a lot of people very excited for next month’s release—but one where you might have missed the furore over its UI. Or indeed the fuss…

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Hello, sit down, and welcome. It’s time for some Indiegeddon! This is where I distract the entire Kotaku crew with a barbecue-based holiday, and take over the site with indie games that otherwise struggle to get coverage on major gaming sites. You, in turn, wishlist then buy all these games, causing a total revolution…

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Final Fantasy XVI is the most action-forward game in the mainline series’ history, and while it’s been a point of contention between players excited for this and fans of the franchise who yearn for something turn-based, it’s hard to deny the combat looks flashy and fun. And as someone who’s played a few hours of the game, I can say it is. 

While I attribute most of that to how great it feels to control Clive, it turns out there might be some tricks developer Creative Business Unit III learned developing Final Fantasy XIV’s action to make FFXVI’s combat feel even more satisfying beyond the actual gameplay. 

“For example, in boss battles, when you have an attack and you may see certain areas on the ground that light up to show that’s where the attack’s going to be, that’s something you might recognize from Final Fantasy XIV,” Naoki Yoshida, the game’s producer, tells me. “Moving to this real-time action-based battle system, we wanted players not to be overwhelmed with what was going on on-screen because there’s a lot going on. We didn’t want any situations where players will be playing and think, ‘Okay, I just took damage. Why did I take damage? I don’t know why.’ They wanted to make it very understandable to players so they didn’t feel like they were being ripped off.”

Even with the most serious games, there will be all sorts of memes and jokes surrounding them. They can involve absurdity of situations, play with the disconnect between an exceptionally silly kind of joke and serious situation, and highlight unintended implications that can arise from certain sorts of characters. What’s wonderful about the Elden Ring: The Road to the Erdtree gag manga is that it keeps this loving tribute to the game and maintains a similar sort of dramatic artistic direction, while being completely bonkers and playing with what we know about characters. It hits these notes perfectly, without being too over-the-top.

For example, the Elden Ring manga stars a Tarnished named Aseo who would either be picked by an extremely skilled player or someone just going into the game for a laugh: The Wretch. Given the person’s intelligence is quite low, even after Melina dumps points into the stat, it seems like the latter is the case. For almost the entire first volume, he’s running around in a loincloth. Which means there’s a running gag about where he even keeps his potion vials. As some reactions involve dashing in headfirst into danger or just dropping and preparing to die, we’re definitely presented with one of the silliest protagonists who is failing upwards in the funniest ways.

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The final set of Pandaemonium raids in FFXIV arrived via Anabaseios tier with Patch 6.4. A collection of four different raids, this offers a series of new, challenging fights for player to engage in as the Pandaemonium story wraps up in Final Fantasy XIV. In order to unlock the Anabaseios Pandaemonium raids, players will need to make sure a few prerequisites are met. Among these are completed content and required item levels.

To unlock Pandaemonium Anabaseios in FFXIV, players must have completed the Pandaemonium Abyssos raid tier. Once they have done this and are item level 615, they can dive into the raids. In order to unlock the raid series itself, they will need to accept the "Eater of Souls" quest in Labyrinthos at X:8.6, Y:27.5. To unlock the entire raid series, players will need to complete each tier. They can obtain one drop per week, which is distributed through a "roll" system, where they will need to roll against other players for the item they want.

Since this is the final raid tier Pandaemonium, this will conclude the story. Eventually, players can unlock the Savage version of the raids to obtain higher item level gear. This will appear in a future update patch.

Final Fantasy XIV is available for PC, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5.

As a newcomer to System Shock, I'd like to take a moment and declare my undying love for SHODAN, aka Sentient Hyper-Optimised Data Access Network, aka the murderous AI villain who engulfs the entire remake. Literally. As a captured hacker onboard the Citadel space station, you've been asked to remove the "ethical constraints" from the station's artificial intelligence (that's SHODAN) in an obviously shady exchange. You get back your freedom plus a cool cybernetic implant, and the megacorp executive who's in charge of the operation gets to do evil things with the new ethically unconstrained station.

Things don't work out for either of you. Months pass by and you've woken up, still on the Citadel, but this time the humans have turned into bloodthirsty mutants, killer robots and cyborgs attack with a vengeance, and my beloved SHODAN runs the whole bleak party.

The System Shock remake begins in much the same way as 1994's original game. Exactly the same events take place, but they've been rejigged. The opening cutscene to the original System Shock has this noisy, head-bopping beat playing in the background. The retro animation was kind of surreal, almost like it was straight out of a fever dream. The remake blunts some of that energy in exchange for something more palatable.

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With the first volume of the Oshi no Ko manga, we saw Aka Akasaka setting the stage. Aqua and Ruby, Ai Hoshino’s children, definitely play major parts. But a lot of the focus is on ensuring we care as much about their idol mother Ai as they did, to help ensure we’re invested in the story and things to come. With volume 2 of the Oshi no Ko manga, the kids don’t need to share the spotlight anymore, and it especially starts setting the stage for Aqua to begin taking steps to find answers and work toward his new goal.

This isn’t to say that Ruby doesn’t also feature quite often in these chapters. Rather, it’s more that Aqua is a driving force for many of the actions in the second volume of the Oshi no Ko manga. After all, it begins with him working behind the scenes to make Ruby believe she didn’t make it through one idol audition. Only for it to show a page later that her brother faked it using the phone of his mentor, Director Taishi Gotanda. This moment is brief, but immediately pulls the attention away from her by showing exactly how the events of the first volume changed him irrevocably and that he’s already willing to do terrible things in the name of his plans for revenge.

Robosen Robotics has for some years fostered a fun partnership with Hasbro and its Transformers license, including an awesome fully transformable Generation 1 Optimus Prime that would change between robot and truck on its own.

In a similar spirit, the same team now has a new robotic collectible coming to market, this time emulating the Optimus Prime character as he appears in the new Rise of the Beasts live-action film. Instead of full transformation like the previous G1-style incarnation, this new collectible is built as a display piece that can shift between various aerial action poses, speak lines of dialogue, and respond to voice and app commands from your phone or other device.

The figure features 21 precision servo motors and 69 microchips. Even before mounting on his included stand, Prime stands at 16 inches tall.

The team even brought in legendary voice actor Peter Cullen to reprise his role and record brand-new lines for the character to spout.

The new Rise of the Beasts Optimus Prime limited edition collectible will put you back a hefty sum; it’s currently on a preorder sale of $699 (instead of the regular price of $899). If that's not too high a price for controlling an intergalactic hero, he's all yours. The vaunted Aubobot leader will be ready to head out on a mission to your home in the fourth quarter of 2023.

Today is another out of sync Bank Holiday for me. It's not one in Ireland, so I'm the only one rattling around in here at the moment. And it occurs to me that the vast, vast, vast majority of you will never have met me in real life. The evidence that I exist in physical space is comparatively minimal! How do you know I'm not an AI? An AI could probably replicate my writing style quite thoroughly, because there are at present many thousands of my - mine, my own - words on the internet, and they and everything else have and are being scraped by AI. This thought process is as a result of a few AI things intersecting with my workspace at once recently. Several of them are quite funny, and also not. If you think AI tools are actually good for writers then I have to assume you don't really think much about either.

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If you’re as sick of AAA development practices and staff treatment as you say you are, then you really ought to be looking a lot deeper into the world of indie development. And wouldn’t you know it, along with nine from earlier today, we’ve another 10 unknown or under-known indie games that are well-deserving of your…

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Ahead of the Alone in the Dark Spotlight event on May 26, 2023, publisher THQ Nordic and developer Pieces Interactive offered a hands-off early look at Edward Carnby and Emily Hartwood’s Southern Gothic horror adventure at Derceto manor. (David Harbour and Jodie Comer are the actors that will be giving life to Edward and Emily, respectively.) The new Alone in the Dark takes cues from modern industry standards established by games such as the recent Resident Evil remakes, and even seems to model its own two-protagonist structure in a similar manner to the recent Resident Evil 2 remake.

Creative Director and Writer Mikael Hedberg said that they used the original 1992 Alone in the Dark as foundation for this new entry in the series. Publisher THQ Nordic added that the re-imagination of the 1992 classic will include many callbacks and references to it, while also serving as a post-modern reflection on the nature of remakes. This could be seen during the presentation in the interactions between Emily and Edward when arriving to Derceto. Emily remarks that she dreamt about seeing her uncle Jeremy die in the same way as he did in the original game, but that the manor looked different. Meanwhile, Carnby feels like he’s been at Derceto before.

Final Fantasy XVI’s combat is fast, chaotic, and, most importantly, fun. There are plenty of combos to pull off, and in just the small taste of the action during my cover story trip to Square Enix’s Tokyo, Japan, office, I saw so much variance in setting up Clive’s combative abilities that I can’t wait to see what others do in-game. 

I also watched combat director Ryota Suzuki play through some of the most challenging encounters in the game, and unsurprisingly, he excelled, taking maybe one or two hits in the 20 minutes he played. He used combos I didn’t really comprehend – admittedly, he was playing at a much later portion of the game than I had hands-on access with – and it got me thinking: is he excited to see what players do with FFXVI’s combat, much like I was sitting there watching him pull off intricate combos against myriad enemies? 

“I’ve always tried to give players a lot of freedom when it comes to the controls and the action in the game, and give them lots of options that they can take and then do their own thing with,” Suzuki tells me. “So I’m expecting that there’s going to be a lot of weird things that they’re going to do with certain abilities. I can’t say what those abilities are, but I already have a few ideas because I’ve left a lot of things open-ended in that way. 

On May 27, the development team behind Wii and GameCube emulator Dolphin announced a massive roadblock: Nintendo's legal team was moving to prevent the software from launching on Steam. While the Dolphin team is investigating its options, the project is currently "indefinitely postponed." Here's the full quote from their blog post:

It is with much disappointment that we have to announce that the Dolphin on Steam release has been indefinitely postponed. We were notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a cease and desist citing the DMCA against Dolphin's Steam page, and have removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is settled. We are currently investigating our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future.

We appreciate your patience in the meantime.

Originally reported by PCGamer, this is not actually a DMCA takedown, just the warning of one. Kellen Voyer, an attorney who specializes in intellectual property and technology law spoke with PCGamer and said, "Here, there is no allegation that Valve is currently hosting anything that infringes Nintendo’s copyright or, more broadly, violates the DMCA.  Rather, Nintendo is sending clear notice to Valve that it considers Dolphin to violate the DMCA and should it be released on Steam, Nintendo will likely take further action."

Next month sees the release of Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond expansion for Lord of the Rings. The Tales of Middle-Earth card game will, say creators Wizards of the Coast, introduce a diversity to the endlessly reworked franchise that hasn’t been seen before.

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Noctua's fans are legendary in the PC space, offering exceptional performance and reliability in a love-it-or-hate-it brown and beige colourway. Their premier 120mm fan is the NF-P12, and this model has now been discounted to £12.95 at Amazon UK. That's a lot to pay for a single fan, but these fans normally cost double - think upwards of £22 for a single fan! - so this is actually a heck of a bargain.

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Samsung's T7 Portable SSD is one of the best performing options on the market, offering 1050MB/s reads and 1000MB/s writes in a portable USB-attached form factor. It normally costs around £130 for a 2TB size, but today you can pick up this model for £104.96 - a great deal for an external SSD of this calibre!

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Mods have for decades been a way for fans to create content for their favourite games, and for decades have been seen as a community pursuit, something free, something people do for the love of it. Over the last few years, though, that stance has begun to change.

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Timur Kvasov is a veteran concept artist based in Serbia who has done work for companies like Tencent and 5518 Studios.

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Last week a video was released featuring two senior developers working on Diablo IV: Associate Game Director Joseph Piepiora and Art Director John Mueller. In the clip the pair were presented with a series of questions from “fans”, which they answer at length, but it didn’t take long for some digging to find that the…

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Reviewed on: PC
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PC
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Release: June 2, 2023
Rating: Teen

It’s no secret that Street Fighter V got off to a disastrous start, and despite years of course correction, its flawed foundation made a comeback difficult. By contrast, Street Fighter 6 is a thorough response to its predecessor’s failings, defined by well-considered central mechanics, formidable single-player offerings, and a plethora of smart decisions that make for a powerful opening punch.