June 2023

Vtuber agency Hololive Production is shutting down one of its English language Twitter accounts, @hololivepro_EN. It will be merging it with another account, @hololive_En. Previously, the Hololive Pro account tweeted exclusively concerning the English branch of Hololive and Holostars, whereas the Hololive En account tweeted news about the various different branches. This included translated tweets.

The Hololive agency has branches for its English, Indonesian and Japanese talents. There are also English and Japanese branches for Holostars, the company's male talent group. The branches are mostly managerial rather than strict separations, as their members interact frequently and branches like EN or ID also cover areas that may not necessarily speak that language primarily.

You can read the official Twitter statement below:

[embed]https://twitter.com/hololivepro_EN/status/1664127130433916930?s=20[/embed]

Anycolor, the parent company behind Nijisanji, announced new rules for sending fan letters and gifts to Vtubers. Starting on June 5, 2023, new regulations will only allow up to five items per envelope, with those consisting of photographs, message boards or cards, and postcards. Restrictions also prevent people from providing their social media IDs, personal information, or items that aren’t a part of the approved “gifts.” Also, the company said it will dispose of letters not given to its Vtubers from its Japanese and English branches.

While postcards, photos, and message boards are allowed, there are specific restrictions for how many can be included. People can only include their original art or stories on the message card, and up to three can be in a single letter. You can also include up to five photos. Only one postcard is allowed. You can also include five pieces of paper. However, the limit on total items is five. So you could include one photo, two message cards, and two pieces of paper with writing. You can include your name, but not your ID. Also, in the event you draw on the envelope, you can place that in a second envelope to protect it.

Here is the exact address for a Nijisanji Vtuber fan letter:

ANYCOLOR Inc., (Name of the talent)
Midtown East 11F, 9-7-2
Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052 Japan

Anycolor also noted that it won’t take digital fan letters for Nijisanji Vtubers. It also didn’t note if someone about to graduate will get any letters just yet.

With June now here and Pride Month upon us once again, the Queer Games Bundle has returned to Itch.io for the third year in a row, bringing a fresh selection of over 450 games, artworks, and other entertainments from queer creators around the world.

This year's Queer Games Bundle - an ongoing initiative to "collaboratively support queer indie, microindie, art, and experimental developers" - will be available from 1st June to 7th July.

It features an absolutely enormous amount of queer art, including visual novels, soundtracks, manifestos, essays, comics, erotic stories about orcs, table-top RPGs, kink, a Gameboy-inspired RPG about a lovesick emo kid, platformers, a generative photography simulator, interactive fiction, turn-based tactics, an existential desktop friend, and plenty more.

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If you've squeezed every last drop of spade-based fun from developer Vine and Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight spin-off Pocket Dungeon, help is at hand! The extremely enjoyable adventure is poised to receive its "gigantic" free Puzzler's Pack DLC next Tuesday, 6th June.

Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon, if you're unfamiliar, sees the titular spade-wielding hero try his hand at block-falling puzzle-action. Across a procession of single-screen dungeons, players must dodge perpetually tumbling enemies and obstacles then smack chains of them into oblivion, keeping things clear long enough to eventually escape. It's a lot more nuanced than that, though, and clever enough that Eurogamer's Christian Donlan slapped its "lovely balance of precision and chaos" with a Recommended badge in 2022.

Anyway, the already surprisingly ample package is set to expand again on Tuesday, when Pocket Dungeon's Puzzler's Pack DLC arrives on PlayStation, Switch, PC, and mobile via Netflix. It adds Puzzle Knight and Mona as playable chracters - the first able to rotate surrounding foes clockwise to create new combos, the latter armed with alchemist abilities that can explode nearby potions - plus new battles, boons, bosses, feats, and a "ton" of relics.

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Diablo IV’s microtransactions won’t affect gameplay but they will cost you a ton. Our first look at the dungeon-crawler’s cosmetic shop shows special mounts priced at as much as $15, while armor for classes like the Necromancer will run as high as $25.

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Something unexpected happened in a simulated test of an AI-powered military drone. The robot, tasked with taking out specific targets on approval of a human operator, decided to just take out the human so it could take out all the targets that the human might say no to. And somehow, this wild story that sounds…

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Over the last decade many of the biggest video game publishers (and some smaller ones too!) have decided that we can’t just launch our PC games straight from Steam or the desktop. Instead, we need to fire up their own desktop app first and then start our games.

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As a lot of studios do these days, the team at Respawn have waited a few weeks after the launch of Star Wars: Jedi Survivor then decided to share some statistics on how the players have been playing. And I am shocked.

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Good news, everyone! Futurama is back (again), with new episodes currently airing on Hulu every Monday. I’m very happy to have more Zoidberg in my life. And the other characters, too, I guess. But as we find ourselves in this strange new world of “More Futurama Episodes,” let’s figure out the best episodes of the…

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Redfall suffered from a tumultuous development cycle where developers from Arkane Austin hoped that Microsoft would either reboot or cancel the project, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The co-op shooter launched to mostly negative reviews last month, which was uncharacteristic of Arkane’s usually excellent pedigree.

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We’re long enough into the Nintendo Switch’s lifespan to have seen a lot of different colours for the console’s controllers, but these news ones just announced by the company may be the nicest yet. If you’re into soft pastels.

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Diablo IV is out, at least in Early Access, and while things seem to be going smoothly so far on PC—fingers crossed—loads of PS5 players have run into a wall and can’t access the game.

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At the end of May 2023, the Square Enix Store opened up pre-orders for the Final Fantasy XVI Steelbook, with the listing suggesting it was $0, plus about $10 shipping. Now those that placed the order are getting cancellation emails noting the listing went up in error. As a refund for the cost of shipping, those who ordered one of the cases will instead get a $10 coupon code. That can be used until November 30, 2023 on "any in-stock game." [Thanks, Wario64 and SharkerTeeth!]

Here's the email one customer received mentioning the error.

They’re canceling the steelbook orders and giving a $10 store voucher in place of a refund? pic.twitter.com/7kNBqBq4uJ

— sean (LadyDevimon Respecter) (@sharkerteeth) June 1, 2023

Another Twitter user by the name of Dashey10 noted the code could be used on a digital game, rather than a physical one.

Back in June 2022, Fanbyte noted that Nintendo worked on a 1-2 Switch sequel that never saw the light of day. Now, the company announced that Everybody 1-2 Switch will release both digitally and physically on June 30, 2023. On that same day, Nintendo will also release four new pastel Joy-Con variants.

There’s no preliminary trailer for it. However, as with the original Switch launch game, it involves using Joy-Cons in an active way to play minigames with minimalistic graphics. It will also be sold both digitally and physically, with copies costing $29.99. There are no details about what sorts of minigames will appear or how many. The announcement only cited “a mix of games and modes.” It also noted that players could use either Joy-Cons or phones to play the games on teams, with the eShop listing saying someone would need internet access and a Nintendo Account on a phone.

Street Fighter 6 has a lot of modes to check out and knobs to turn, to the point where it might seem overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. The sickest of fighting game sickos will likely head straight for the training room to discover the finer points of their preferred fighter and figure out the matchups,…

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What would otherwise have been a fairly minor announcement, the news that some old Duke Nukem games were coming to an Evercade handheld, has blown up after the rapid discovery that the bundle’s promotion included a bunch of terrible machine-generated imagery.

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Back in April we brought you the very sad news that Waypoint, VICE’s video game website, was being shut down. Now, only a few weeks later, we get to bring you the excellent news that the site—and its podcast—will live on at a new home.

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Ahead of Street Fighter 6's debut, Chun-Li is showing up on Twitch with a special emote. The company revealed a new global emote that anyone can use. All someone needs to do is type "NiceTry" into the chat box. (You can also put in :NiceTry, if you want to bring up a list and pick it out.) This will prompt the new emoji of the Street Fighter icon to appear.

Here's a trailer announcing the Chun-Li global Twitch emote, showing how it looks alongside footage of her fighting in Street Fighter 6.

Got something for you.

Chun-Li is coming to chat with a new global emote, NiceTry, available right now. #SF6 pic.twitter.com/puExAaDbze

— Twitch (@Twitch) June 2, 2023

This isn’t the only piece of Street Fighter 6 “art” appearing alongside the game’s launch. The official Capcom Artworks Twitter account shared a clean copy of the Famitsu issue 1800 cover art. Moyuku Kamimoku drew the image for the commemorative issue, which also featured a special feature on the game.

#SF6… pic.twitter.com/Qfr7xJjAYc

Final Fantasy 16 almost didn't include moogles due to the game's realistic style.

Not only was the team concerned the cute characters wouldn't fit in the world, they also impacted the game's performance mode.

"Probably the greatest challenge, on a fundamental level, was the moogle," said producer Naoki Yoshida, in a new interview on the Square Enix blog.

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Hello! Welcome back to our regular feature where we write a little bit about some of the games we've found ourselves playing over the last few days. This time: Die, gobble holes and cough syrup.

If you fancy catching up on some of the older editions of What We've Been Playing, here's our archive.

I'm breaking the rules slightly in that I haven't actually played this yet, but it is a game I want to play, and it is a game I've been reading - or rather a game-book I've been reading in the interests of playing it.

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World Tour Mode is a sprawling, free-roaming, fighting game RPG in Street Fighter 6. You're able to wander the streets of Metro City and the world beyond, picking fights, growing stronger, and meeting main characters who'll teach you their movesets. What moves should you use, though? When things get tough, what should you do? What should you have been doing to avoid getting in those rough spots to begin with? We've got a few strategies to help you make you an unstoppable force in your global search for strength.

Make Smart Decisions When Designing a Street Fighter 6 World Tour Character

You'll start this mode off by making a character. This character creator will let you make some wild creatures that you can style after favorite characters, beloved fighters, or even yourself. Then again, you can also make some hulking monstrosity with massive arms and legs. It's wide open, but this is one of the first important decisions you'll be making for your character. Your leg and arm length dictate your reach in the mode's fighting matches. If your character is massive, they'll be a massive target. As soon as you start making your character, you can build advantages and disadvantages into them based on how you create. It's something you should keep in mind right from the start.

The Meta Quest 3 is very much real and releasing this autumn, according to apparently of-this-world executive Mark Zuckerberg. The followup to the Oculus/Meta Quest 2, which despite its advanced age is still one of the best VR gaming headsets, is a full-on mixed reality kit, taking advantage of its new all-colour passthrough to enable AR gaming as well as 'traditional' VR play.

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The season of big video game announcements - otherwise known as NotE3 season - is in full swing and Ubisoft have decided to join the trailer festivities by teasing their own showcase. The Ubisoft Forward show will be broadcast live from Los Angeles on June 12th at 6pm BST/10am PDT, with a pre-show starting 15 minutes earlier. The publisher also released a small clip to confirm that AssCreed, Avatar, and The Crew: Motorfest will all make an appearance, alongside a non-descript mystery game. Take a peek below.

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Is there a more tantalising genre name than "immersive sim"? It's not just a genre, it's an invitation. Get into this! It's deep and rewarding and filled with systems to understand and - perhaps - subvert. It's brainy and difficult but the attendant highs are as high as you can make them.

Anyway, System Shock is our game of the week this Friday, and with good reason. This is, to many eyes, where the genre began, a genre that, as Kaan put it beautifully in his review, inspires "consistent creative problem solving." Four words to live by, I reckon.

System Shock has aged pretty well, I gather, partly because the remake has been handled with real delicacy, based on an understanding of what needs to be updated for modern tastes and what would be cutting into the bone a little too deeply. It's also aged pretty well, though, because the genre itself has aged well. We ask a lot of games these days, and one of the things we ask most willingly is that they ask more of us. This is the kind of request that makes an immersive sim shine.

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Diablo 4 is suffering launch issues on PlayStation, due to an invalid licence error.

Numerous PlayStation users have reported the issue, in which they're unable to access the game and instead are met with the error message: "Unable to find a valid licence for Diablo 4".

Blizzard acknowledged the issue overnight via its official forum, writing: "We are seeing reports regarding PlayStation users experiencing Invalid Licence errors. The team is looking into this right now and will update once we have more information."

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Final Fantasy 16 fans have spotted its demo on the PlayStation Store, though it's not available to download yet.

The listing, shared on reddit, suggests the demo is on the PSN and ready to go, but has only been seen by those who have pre-ordered the game in advance and when browsing on mobile. I've seen no mention of a demo on the console PSN myself.

Square Enix stated a demo was on the way, but no release date was given. So when might it arrive?

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Nintendo looks to be evoking the colour palette of the upcoming Barbie movie with a series of stylish pastel Switch Joy-Con colours.

The four new looks will come as two new pairs: Pastel Pink/Pastel Yellow and Pastel Purple/Pastel Green.

Both sets will launch on 30th June - which if you haven't already seen, is also the release date of Nintendo's quickly-announced 1-2-Switch sequel.

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Nintendo's next game release after The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is a sequel to Switch launch title 1-2-Switch.

Everybody 1-2-Switch will cost just £25 - less than half the price of Zelda - and launch later this month on 30th June as a physical and digital release. Pre-orders are open now.

Artwork for the game shows you'll be able to play its mini-games using your Joy-Con controller or your smartphone. But details are thin on the ground as to what these mini-games will actually be.

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You've got eighteen fighters to choose from in Street Fighter 6. Who should you pick, though? Long-time players might have a good idea, but if you're fairly new to fighting games or the series, are there some solid first choices. I feel these five Street Fighter 6 characters are ones you can pick up fairly easily and start seeing some success with early on in this excellent fighting game. Keep in mind that these have been chosen by someone who's competent at fighters and not a high-level competitor, though. There's likely a lot of depth to these characters that highly skilled players can make use of. If you're looking for some straightforward and fun characters to start your journey with as a beginner, though, you'll still find you can get a lot of use out of the following fighters.

[caption id="attachment_966166" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Capcom[/caption]

Marisa

Ever start trying to attack your opponent and just get blown up by an incoming strike? I guarantee you have, and I guarantee it will happen a lot in this game. If you want to get around that a little bit, Marisa is a character that will serve you best in Street Fighter 6.

Nintendo has revealed four new Switch Joy-Con releasing this month and they look great. 

More specifically, Nintendo is releasing the Pastel Pink Joy-Con, Pastel Yellow Joy-Con, Pastel Purple Joy-Con, and Pastel Green Joy-Con on June 30, which is the same day Nintendo's newly announced sequel to 2017's 1-2-Switch hits the console.  The Joy-Con will be sold in standard pairs. The Pastel Pink and Pastel Yellow Joy-Con are packaged together and the Pastel Purple and Pastle Green Joy-Con are packaged together. 

Each set of Joy-Con will include two black Joy-Con wrist straps as well. The Joy-Con are currently showing as sold out on Nintendo's online store. If they were available, you could pre-purchase them now so that you receive them quickly when they start shipping on June 30. Nonetheless, the store makes it clear these Pastel Joy-Con will cost $79.99 for a set, which is in line with other previously released sets of Joy-Con. 

Are you picking up these new pastel Joy-Con? Let us know in the comments below!

Nintendo has revealed a sequel to 2017's Switch launch title 1-2-Switch, and it's out this month. 

Titled Everybody 1-2-Switch!, this sequel features team-based games that can be played using Switch console Joy-Con and mobile devices. Nintendo's description of the game says players can split into teams "and see which group can win a certain number of games first," while also noting that many of the games have several variations that change the rules or add extra challenge. 

Everybody 1-2-Switch hits Switch on June 30. Both the physical and digital edition will cost $29.99. 

While this is a surprise official announcement from Nintendo, this isn't the first time we've heard of Everybody 1-2-Switch. Former Game Informer and Fanbyte editor Imran Khan wrote a report while at Fanbyte about this sequel. In that report, Khan spoke to several sources who said the game was complete but unannounced because of how badly it was testing. Nintendo didn't know what to do with the game, with many fearing releasing it in its current state could harm the company's reputation for releasing great games. 

David Brevik, now the president of Skystone Games, did not expect to encounter a doppelganger when he arrived at Chicago’s Consumer Electronic Show in the summer of 1994. He’d come to the tech expo with Condor, a studio he’d co-founded only a few months prior, to show off Justice League: Task Force. A humble fighting game in the vein of Street Fighter, it was given a small demo booth and placed next to another game that featured a cast of superheroes, a strikingly similar visual style and, much to Brevik’s surprise, the very same name.

Without their knowing, Condor were one of two studios hired to develop the DC Comics tie-in: their Sega Mega Drive/Genesis version set to release alongside a SNES title made by another recently formed team, Silicon & Synapse. “We'd never talked to them,” Brevik says. “We'd never interacted with them. We didn't know there was even another version, and then we show up at the booth and they're side by side, and we're like, this is really weird.” They didn't know it yet, but these Justice League sort-of clones were the first paving stones on the road to the Diablo series.

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The Ukrainian studio working on S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2: Heart Of Chernobyl, GSC Game World, have confirmed that early development materials from the game have been leaked online, following “about a year and a half” worth of attacks from a Russian hacking group. GSC say that the materials aren’t “release-ready,” but looking at the leaked clips may “ruin your experience of exploring the Zone.”

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Square Enix has issued a small update on Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth - the upcoming second chapter of its FF7 Remake trilogy. It's the first we've heard about the game officially since its name reveal last year.

In a statement issued via Twitter today, Rebirth producer Yoshinori Kitase confirmed development is progressing smoothly and a firm release date is now being considered. So that's nice.

Square Enix has Rebirth listed for a "winter 2023" release. Up next from the publisher is the all-new Final Fantasy 16, which is released later this month.

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