May 2023

Uniqlo announced a line of shirts based on the Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War anime. Placeholder pages are already live on the official site. They will launch sometime at the beginning of August 2023. Five designs are available, with all of them being unisex t-shirts. They will be ¥1,500 (~$10) each. Only the Japanese debut is confirmed for now, though these sorts of releases do tend to appear in Uniqlo stores worldwide. (We did see this happen with the UT Archive One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach collection.)

Many of these new designs feature multiple characters from Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War. Only one features a single character, and that involves Ichigo posed in front of the series’ logo. Also, a number of designs feature images on the front and back. For example, the Sternritter and Thirteen Court Guards ones have the series’ logo on the front and image on the full back of the shirt.

Here's a closer look at all the designs:
[gallery columns="2" size="full" ids="965703,965704,965705,965706,965707,965708,965709,965710" link="file"]

Square Enix and Final Fantasy XVI developer Creative Business Unit III have been open about the game spanning decades of protagonist Clive Rosfield’s life for years. It’s an interesting aspect of this story because it speaks to how broad its horizons might be. What starts as a revenge story will grow into one of war, its effects on people, and ultimately, Valisthea’s place in a fight between Eikons, Dominants, and more over crystals. 

It also means we’ll be seeing a lot of Clive’s life. During my cover story trip, I played a few of FFXVI’s opening hours, much of which took place in the past, when Clive is just 15 and his younger brother Joshua even younger. I learned a lot about their relationship with each other as well as with their parents, and more I won’t spoil here. But I also flashed forward to a 28-year-old Clive to catch up with him years after a deeply traumatic childhood event, and CBUIII and Square Enix say we’ll go even further into Clive’s life, into his 30s. 

I asked FFXVI creative director Kazutoyo Maehiro about the decision to have the game span decades of the protagonist’s life and the challenges that come with it. To my surprise, he said there weren’t many. 

For a licensed racing game, 2021’s Hot Wheels Unleashed was a fun and respectable debut, and now we’ll get to see how developer Milestone builds on that foundation with an upcoming sequel. 

Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged arrives on October 19 and retains the fun “little toy car in a big world” presentation with new additions under the hood. Players can now get behind the wheel of motorcycles and ATVs, and the game has over 130 vehicles total at launch.

Players race across five diverse environments using new skills: double jumping and lateral dashing. The double jump can be performed at any time to leap over rivals and obstacles, while dashing is great for sideswiping nearby opponents or dodging hazards. Milestone touts increased interactivity between vehicles and objects on and off the track, and playstyles can be customized using perks earned by earning skill points. 

It’s Wednesday, May 31, and that means it’s another day where I tell you about something you might not’ve known you could do in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. While many of us are already aware that you can fuse all sorts of regular items to arrows to increase their efficiency, as some are revealing on…

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Ecumene Azted is a newly announced survival action RPG where you play as an indigenous warrior in 16th century Mesoamerica trying to fight off Spanish conquistador invaders. The first trailer looks rough in places but is already drawing attention for showing off a game that’s trying something a little different.

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I cannot imagine how daunting it must be to begin making a Diablo-like action-RPG. Not only are there so very few of them, but those that are known are behemoths. Diablo, obviously, then Titan Quest, Torchlight, Grim Dawn… Who’d want to deliberately step into their shadows, especially with Diablo IV coming out next…

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After a decade-long wait, the next chapter in Diablo is finally upon us. With it come dozens of dungeons and a sizable open world filled with legions of demons to slaughter. Millions will no doubt answer the call and take up arms, but Blizzard has now issued a special challenge for those willing to brave the game’s…

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Sony has revealed June's line-up of PlayStation Plus Essential titles, which this time around look an awful lot like Jurassic World Evolution 2, Trek to Yomi, and NBA 2K23.

Starting with Jurassic World Evolution 2 (PS4, PS5), it's the sequel to Frontier Development's decent if unremarkable 2018 theme park management sim, in which the genre's usual selection of rides and amusements are switched out in favour of rather more deadly attractions. It's a bit of an underwhelming follow-up, but it does offer a couple of improvements, including larger maps, more diverse biomes, and a new Chaos Theory mode revisiting key movie moments.

Trek to Yomi (PS4, PS5), meanwhile, comes from Shadow Warrior studio Flying Wild Hog, and takes players on an striking black-and-white adventure inspired by cinema's classic samurai tales. In more practical terms, it blends side-scrolling platforming with sword combat - a mixture that didn't quite grab Eurogamer's Robert Purchese when he took a look last year.

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Activision CEO Bobby Kotick has stated the company has never had a "systemic issue with harassment" in a new interview with Variety.

His comments are in response to a lawsuit against the company by the State of California in 2021, claiming it had a "frat boy" culture. In the years since, a number of sexual harassment lawsuits have been filed and Kotick himself has been accused of turning a blind eye.

"We've had every possible form of investigation done. And we did not have a systemic issue with harassment - ever. We didn't have any of what were mischaracterisations reported in the media," Kotick told Variety. "But what we did have was a very aggressive labour movement working hard to try and destabilise the company."

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Horror scenes weaved from the circuits of analog technology, such as VHS tapes, old cameras and FM radios, are often presented as if they weren't meant to be discovered. They're the likes of snuff films and lost-and-found video footage, their brand of gurgled speech and degraded images as unsettling as it is illicit. Then there's the recent surge of PS1 horror games. These can be just as disconcerting, given their cast of characters' uncannily angular faces, distorted environments and cracking textures - almost as if these are bootleg or unreleased games warped by an unknown, malevolent force.

The Tartarus Key wants to conjure the same dreadful eeriness of these games, but without resorting to cheap jump scares. To that effect it's cloaked in the coarse, aliased graphics of a PS1 game, while its story is delivered within a tantalisingly spooky setting and a hefty dose of puzzles to crack. As a gig worker named Alex Young, you have woken up in an excessively baroque mansion, furnished with musky books and dusty furniture, rather than the familiar comforts of home. You spy a radio on a table, a postcard tucked away in the crevices of a sofa, a locked safe, and a door that's jammed shut. Amidst the radio static, a disembodied voice would tell you that they are in the same predicament, and your first step is to find a way out of the room. A security camera watches your every move, its lens fixed on you as you gather scraps and clues, unravel their meaning, and unlock the door.

Only when you do, you'll find yourself in yet another locked room. And another. And another.

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Controversial military shooter Six Days in Fallujah will be released in Steam Early Access on 22nd June.

The game was previously delayed in 2021 into 2022, but now will launch with four co-operative four-player missions specifically focusing on "the experiences of US Marine fireteams on the first day of the battle".

The game has been controversial since its first announcement due to its focus on realistically depicting the battle of Fallujah, one of the bloodiest battles in the US-led invasion of Iraq.

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There's an EGX pub quiz in London next week and you can come! It's taking place at the snazzy Platform gaming bar in Shoreditch on Thursday, 8th June from 7pm. There will be a prize for the quiz winner plus loads of opportunities to play other games and drink game-themed drinks and eat pizza. Tickets will be £5 and the money will go to charity - to the wonderful GamesAid.

Tickets are now on sale for everyone. Eurogamer supporters get a little extra in the shape of a free drink included in the ticket price, which, given London beer prices, isn't bad at all. You'll need to enter a special code to enable this, which as visible in the supporter-gated version of this article yesterday, but you'll have to now ask for below. I'll keep an eye on the comments and respond to you there.

The pub quiz is being organised as part of the '15 years of EGX' anniversary celebrations. Incidentally, tickets for this year's EGX London event go on sale on the same day as the quiz - 8th June. If you didn't know, EGX is run by our parent company ReedPop and, once upon a time, it was even called the Eurogamer Expo. That was before everyone realised "EGX" sounded cooler and the event grew into its own thing but still, we've retained close ties and if you go to the event, you'll often see many of us there, on stage or milling around.

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As part of its MegaHobby Plus 2023 Early Summer announcements, MegaHouse revealed some of its Oshi no Ko figures and keychains. We already knew about the Look Up figures of Aqua and Kana, though this is our first official peek at their unpainted prototypes. Painted prototypes of Ai and Ruby also showed up. There's no set release date for the finished figures yet. As for the keychains and Chokorin Mascot toys, we’ll see those in October 2023 and January 2024.

First, here are the Look Up Aqua and Kana Oshi no Ko figures. Both are in their school uniforms. While the prototypes are unpainted, their eyes are for the example photo. They’ll be 110mm tall, like all entries in the line. These figures also tend to cost around ¥4,180 (~$30) each.

【#megahobbyplus】
Looking up figure series#Lookup #Oshinoko

It is the first time showing prototypes for…

Lookup 【Oshi no ko】 Aqua / Kana Arima

Follow us for updates!https://t.co/y4OatAtSBS#Lifewithlookup pic.twitter.com/jqMAcli9Th

Though My Hero Academia returned from a sudden hiatus in Issue #26 of Weekly Shonen Jump, it will take another break next week. We will be able to start reading it from Issue #29 so long as there is not another delay. Weekly Shonen Jump cited production issues for why My Hero Academia will go on a brief hiatus. [Thanks, Shonen Jump News!]

Since 2023, the My Hero Academia mangaka Kohei Horikoshi went on several brief breaks. In March 2023, he took a break due to health reasons. The story is close to the end and this is an intensely popular series (it is one of the best-selling manga in the first half of 2023).

Horikoshi’s apology and his promise to “push through to the end” seem to mean that he does plan on putting in my work and hours in order to finish the series. Fans have Tweeted their worries, with several asking him to take it easy. As of the time of writing, it’s unclear if My Hero Academia will continue to have a schedule slip or if Horikoshi really will push through.

Square Enix sent out the alert that FFXIV players on Chaos or Light Worlds should be ready for automatic housing demolition to begin again. On June 21, 2023, the process will resume. How this works is if players don’t visit their estate in 30 days, the timer for automatic demolition will begin. People who did visit between February 9, 2023 and June 21, 2023 will see the count restart on June 21, 2023. People who didn’t will have the timer pick up from where it was on February 9, 2023.

Here’s the full list of FFXIV Worlds that will be affected:

• Alpha
• Cerberus
• Lich
• Louisoix
• Moogle
• Odin
• Omega
• Phantom
• Phoenix
• Ragnarok
• Raiden
• Sagittarius
• Shiva
• Spriggan
• Twintania
• Zodiark

As a reminder, the pause on FFXIV automatic housing demolition on the Chaos and Light Worlds happened in response to the February 6, 2023 earthquake in Turkey. Those are both European Data Centers, with the worlds on them being inhabited by people in those regions. Square Enix instituted the pause so people in the region affected by the disaster wouldn’t have to worry about getting online to ensure their virtual homes would be safe.

Bandai Namco revealed Diego Brando will be the last JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R DLC character. However, this is a different version than the one already available in the game. It is the alternate/parallel world one who will also show up in the game. There will be an official announcement on June 11, 2023, but for the moment only a teaser trailer appeared.

The alternate Diego Brando from a parallel world is a spoiler character from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run. We don’t get to see any of his moves in the teaser. There’s only the confirmation that he’ll appear. However, since this will follow along with what we know about the character from the original manga series, we know he’ll have The World as his Stand.

Try not to lose your head…in excitement!

Alternate World Diego is ready to unleash The World in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R!

More information on June 11th! pic.twitter.com/O2FHJ9VGCs

— JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R (@jojo_games) May 31, 2023

We now know the Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons release date. The follow-up to the series from Secret Base originally had a Summer 2023 release window. That’s been pinned down to July 27, 2023. There’s also a confirmation that only local co-op will be available at launch and a new trailer to see.

Here’s how the new Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons release date trailer. It begins by focusing on specific characters. First, we get to see Billy Lee. After that, we get to see some of Jimmy Lee’s moves. It shows how they can switch between defensive and offensive positions to tag in and out of the fight. From there, we get to see the additional playable characters, who are Marian and Uncle Matin. It closes out by looking at general gameplay, such as what happens when a mission is cleared and the four gang leaders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c0ff_uZQrY&ab_channel=ModusGames

As for the co-op options, people will be able to play with a friend in the same room at launch. Two people will be able to take part, with each one using a pair of characters. However, it seems that online multiplayer will be added before 2023 ends.

The Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons release date is July 27, 2023. It will appear on the PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.

When the first few sounds of a video game’s loading screen music are glinting synth starbursts, disintegrating into airy jazz chords like they got splashed with warm water, I know I’m about to play something cozy.

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It’s nearly June 2023, and if you’re a PlayStation Plus Subscriber, that means you’ve another shot at adding some more free games to your library. While May 2023 saw GRID Legends, Chivalry 2, and Descenders (which you can still grab if you’re reading this before June 6) added to Sony’s subscription service, June’s got…

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Last week, Nintendo mistakenly blocked and rejected the release of a cutesy animal game, after it took a jokey TikTok from the developer at face value and pulled its release in North America.

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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has plenty of tough bosses, but the Frost Gleeok in Tabantha Tundra is one of the game’s hardest encounters. Fighting it will require some preparation and careful planning, but if you know what to look for, you can slay it and rid Hyrule of this icy menace once and for all (or…

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If you woke up in a mysterious mansion, with no memory of how you got there and only a walkie-talkie and a bunch of security cameras for company, how d'you reckon you'd handle it? Personally I know, sure as eggs is eggs, that I would absolutely go to pieces. I'm not hitting the end credits of The Tartarus Key in real life, but fortunately, it's a nails thriller puzzle game that fuses PS1-style retro graphics with Saw-esque murder traps. Plus, you know, it's only about six hours end to end, which isn't bad for a semi-magical kidnap plot.

In this situation I am not me, of course, but Alex Young, and Alex upon escaping a locked study (an easy warm-up puzzle involving postcards) she finds and frees Torres, an ex-cop turned private detective, who sets up a base of operations around the mysterious mansions main fireplace. From there game's rhythm is clearing the different wings of the house by completing increasingly difficult puzzle rooms, each eventually culminating in finding a new person to save from a new death trap - concocting the antidote for poison or following the instructions to get through an electrocuted floor maze.

I feel like claymation has always been a bit creepy, you know? Yeah, sure the Aardman films are whimsical and fun, but have you seen those early Wallace and Gromit shorts? There’s something kind of unsettling about the odd shape of Wallace’s uneven head and I've always deeply hated that you can sometimes see the subtle lines of a thumb imprint on parts of his face, like he’s been smothered inbetween the pads of two giant fingers. It’s so uncomfortable - and don’t even get me started on that monster Morph.

Ever since I first spotted the creepy Twitter gifs of claymation game Elation For The Wonder Box 6000, I’ve felt that same discomfort in the pit of my stomach. It’s not out yet, or even has a confirmed release date, but I just need people to witness this game. Like, just clicking through the screenshots make the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s awful, and wonderful. You can watch the trailer below. The bit where the lumps of clay wriggle inside the gun's bullet chambers goes through me.

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One of my absolute favourite elements of Citizen Sleeper is how you essentially play as a nobody. When we first meet the Sleeper they've had their memories completely erased; the last thing they remember is stuffing themselves into a cargo container and shooting off into the depths of space - a last resort in wanting to escape the clutches of a scary corporation. They now find themselves on a dishevelled space station called Erlin's Eye, desperate and alone. They're essentially an empty shell, and one which you can etch your own story onto.

But it’s not their lack of personal identity that makes the Sleeper a nobody (after all, you essentially forge an identity for them as you make decisions throughout the game). It’s the realisation that, in this vast universe that developer Gareth Damian Martin has written, you’re no one. A single grain of sand in a vast desert. No one knows who you are, no one cares about you, and you’re stuck on a lawless space station, helpless, scared, and dying.

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Poly Bridge 3 offers up more puzzles about building bridges with goofy physics, and it's out now. The third entry follows a similar formula to the previous ones, asking you to help vehicles cross gaps from one side of the map to the other, all while constructing normal bridges, loop-de-loop bridges, drawbridges, and bridges that break everything I thought I knew about physics. All sorts of bridges; it’s in the name.

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Ssssh, listen, I know today's the last day of May and I've scheduled this month's RPS Game Club liveblog for a day in June, of all things, but I'm away travelling at the moment and won't be back until late tomorrow. There's a chance I could be back tomorrow afternoon, but my flight was delayed coming out and I want to be absolutely sure I'm near a desk with a solid internet connection rather than trying to chat to you all on my phone, so Friday it is. Anyway! Enough about my travel woes. Come and join us for the next RPS Game Club on Friday June 2nd at 4pm BST / 8am PDT to come and chat all things Citizen Sleeper with us.

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“Oh yeah, we’ve got the System Shock IP,” said the insurance company. “What do you want to do with it? Do you want to make a sequel?”

It’s a question you could imagine being posed to Ken Levine, or Warren Spector, or several other notable designers who could reasonably lay claim to the legacy of Looking Glass and Irrational’s legendary immersive sims. Instead, it was asked of Stephen Kick - at the time, a recently unemployed videogame artist holidaying in a Guatemalan hostel. Up until that point, Kick had dedicated his life to creative pursuits. He had no business background, and none of the acumen required to understand contracts or negotiate licensing fees. More to the point, he had no more than $5,000 to his name. Hardly the foundation for a follow-up to two of the most acclaimed PC games of all time.

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You didn’t hear it from me, but games look different now to how they did in 1994. Mmm. Nonetheless, Nightdive Studio’s System Shock remake stays resolutely faithful to the Looking Glass original even when giving it a modern 3D makeover, with a retro flourish in its intentionally pixellated textures.

As a snappy little After Eight to the main course of Jeremy Peel’s review and OG System Shock oral history (both great, do go read those first), here’s a look at how the 2023 remake’s visuals compare to the trailblazing immsim’s previous iterations. In other words, the 2015 System Shock: Enhanced Edition, also by Nightdive, and the original. Well, System Shock Classic, which is basically the original except it runs on my PC.

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Xbox’s official social media channels seem to be teasing something to do with Fable. The main Xbox channel posted a clip to Twitter that moves through a house, following a glittery trail from a controller to a monitor displaying the Xbox Games Showcase art. The Fable games used sparkly breadcrumb trails as a waypoint of sorts and the clip also had some jolly fairytale music on top, leading many to guess that the long-dormant series would finally rear its head again.

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Raf Grassetti, who departed Sony's Santa Monica Studio earlier this month after serving as art direcor on the acclaimed God of War Ragnarök, has joined Netflix Games to work with former Halo Infinite creative head Joseph Staten on a still-unnamed new AAA project.

Grassetti joined Santa Monica Studio in 2013, following stints at BioWare as a character artist and at PlayStation as an art supervisor on a number of first-party games, eventually moving to a principal artist role on 2018's God of War and, later, art director on its acclaimed sequel.

Grassetti confirmed his departure from Santa Monica Studio earlier this month, promising to reveal his next role soon. That day has now arrived, with Grassetti announcing he's joined Netflix Games to work on a new AAA title alongside Staten (who left Microsoft in April), former Overwatch executive producer Chacko Sonny, and ex-Coalition technical director Jerry Edsall.

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World II World service will end on July 31, 2023. The game started on February 22, 2023, which means that it will only have lasted a little over five months. The development team apologized for how sudden it is. However, it decided to shut down the game because it felt like it couldn’t provide entertaining and enjoyable content to its player base.

The premium Gravity Stones currency is no longer be available effective immediately. You will still be able to use any Stones that you have until the game ends. The development team plans to start refunding Gravity Stones from July 31, 2023 as well.

World II World is a mobile RPG from Aniplex and Deskworks!. The story focuses on divided worlds, which the Girl on the Boundary, Weave, can observe. Each world is split into two sides, such as the Gunman x Samurai World and the Fantasy x Reality World. Gameplay seems to hearken back to the Nintendo DS and 3DS era, with a top screen and a bottom screen you have to simultaneously control.

Sony revealed the latest selection of PlayStation Plus games for June 2023. The free monthly games available as part of the Essential Tier will be Trek to Yomi, Jurassic World Evolution 2 and NBA 2K23. All three games will be available for both the PS4 and PS5 from June 6, 2023.

Trek to Yomi is a side-scrolling action game inspired by classic Japanese cinema. You play as a young samurai named Hiroki as he fights to protect his town. It features highly stylised visuals and intense sword fights in ancient Japan. It originally released in 2022, and is normally priced at $19.99.

Jurassic World Evolution 2 is a park management sim where you can build your own dinosaur theme park. You can genetically modify your own dinosaurs, build their enclosures and develop safety measures to prevent them rampaging through your guests. Jeff Goldblum reprises his role as Dr Ian Malcolm. It originally released in 2021, and is normally priced at $59.99.

NBA 2K23 is the most recent instalment of 2K’s annual basketball sim series, released in 2022. You can build yourself up to being a star player in MyCareer or play against basketball greats in MyTeam. PlayStation Plus members also get access to exclusive reward packs. It's usually priced at $59.99 for the PS4 version and $69.99 for the PS5 version.

The latest legendary hero to join Fire Emblem Heroes is Hinoka from Fire Emblem Fates. This version of Hinoka, titled "Thundering Wings," will be available via a banner in-game starting from May 31, 2023 to June 13, 2023. Several previous legendary characters will also be available from the banner.

You can catch her character trailer below. Note that it confirms someone can only "spark" on the banner and get one of the focus characters for free after 40 pulls if they are a Feh Pass subscriber.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp5Rh3FxEFQ[/embed]

Hinoka: Thundering Wings hails from a timeline where her older brothers, Ryoma and Takumi, died in battle against the kingdom of Nohr. This left Hinoka to pick up their legendary weapons, Fujin-yumi and Raijinto, and become queen of the kingdom of Hoshido. She appears to fight as a Kinshi Knight, an advanced class from Fire Emblem Fates that rides a sacred bird-like creature.

Also available on the banner are the following focus heroes.

Capcom announced a new Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Digital Event will air on June 7, 2023 at 7am PT/10am ET/3pm BST, and it will be the final one. It will feature new information on the content coming in the Bonus Update. In addition, there will also be a few interviews with the developers that discuss the game’s development.

Check out the official announcement for the final Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak Digital event. It includes a brief teaser trailer for the last update. The stream will be presented by Series Producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and Directors Yasunori Ichinose and Yoshitake Suzuki.

https://twitter.com/monsterhunter/status/1663832692876804096?s=20

The last Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak digital event aired in April 2023. It showed off much of the new content coming to the game, such as the Risen Shagaru Magala and Amatsu. Both appeared when the free Title Update 5 debuted. Since then, many new Event Quests added rewards like the Buff Body layered armor and a cat-inspired armor set.

We now know the entire cast of voice actors for Shadow Galactica in the Sailor Moon Cosmos movies. For reference, Shadow Galactica is the antagonistic group of the Stars arc. This announcement reveals nine voice actors in total. They'll be joining veteran voice actresses such as Marina Inoue and Saori Hayami. [Thanks, Oricon!]

Here are the new voice actors who will be in Sailor Moon Cosmos:

• Sailor Aluminum Siren: Ayumu Murase (Venti in Genshin Impact)
• Sailor Chi: Fumie Mizusawa (Ayako Mitsuzuri in Fate/stay Night)
• Sailor Heavy Metal Papillon: Haruka Kudo (Hagumi Hanamoto in Honey and Clover)
• Sailor Iron Mouse: Sena Koizumi (First major anime role)
• Sailor Lethe: Shiori Mikami (Melissabelle in Granblue Fantasy)
• Sailor Mnemosyne: Kanae Ito (Crestia Bell/Suzuno Kamazuki in The Devil is a Part-Timer)
• Sailor Phi: Yuka Komatsu (Scanty in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt)
• Sailor Red Crow: Yoko Hikasa (Madam M in Final Fantasy VII Remake)
• Sailor Tin Nyanko: Mariya Ise (Killua in Hunter x Hunter 2011)

All of the characters above have the word “Sailor” before their title, much like how the Sailor Senshi do.

Final Fantasy XVI will be the first mainline-numbered Final Fantasy game with a Mature rating. The presumption might be that developer Creative Business Unit III wanted this game to have more violence to accompany its new action-heavy combat, but that’s not the case. The team put little thought into the rating – it just came naturally, according to various members of CBUIII I spoke to for our FFXVI cover story. 

“We actually get this question kind of a lot – people ask us if the rating went up because [we] wanted to make a more violent game, and the answer to that is no,” producer Naoki Yoshida says. “On the outside, it doesn’t appear [the rating system] has changed. You still have your E, you still have your Teen, and you still have your Mature. The problem is that over the years, as more games have come out and as we move forward, the regulations within those have actually changed a lot.”

Ahead of the two-year anniversary of Activision Blizzard being on the receiving end of an unprecedented video game industry lawsuit accusing the publisher of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination, CEO Bobby Kotick has appeared on the cover of Variety to loudly proclaim the innocence of both himself and his…

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Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon have just released a new trailer for the upcoming animated film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, finally giving fans a hint at what the movie’s story is going to be about.

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What’s the most you’ve ever won in a single hand of poker with some friends? Maybe $50? $60? Perhaps you got really lucky at a casino and walked away with a few hundred. A pleasant evening, but that’s nothing compared to what one player won last night during a livestreamed poker tournament. When all was said and done,…

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A new study has uncovered a not-so-surprising truth about gender bias in video games: Across 50 role-playing games, male characters have about twice as much dialogue as female characters. Shocking, I know.

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