On Thursday, we went over how PC gamers were clearly superior to their console ilk. Just kidding, that’s elitism. But now we’re back to talk about all the major consoles and their merits. Reliable, sturdy, and won’t break your bank for chasing the graphics, what’s not to love about picking a console?
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom cracks the history of Hyrule wide open, but for all the reveals and questions it answers, it does leave some hanging threads that’s got us speculating about this world’s past, present, and future. Here are some of the burning questions we have after all the vehicle building,…
Ubisoft is doubling down on its most popular franchises, including Assassin’s Creed. Kotaku has learned that strategy now includes a remake of Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag, the 18th-century pirate fantasy period piece, and one of the more fondly remembered entries in the series. It’s what many fans have asked for…
GameStop is a broken company that treats its employees like crap, but the meme stock phenonomon’s accruing losses can be your gain. A current “buy two, get one free” deal on used games can save you a lot on some of the biggest hits of 2023 so far including Diablo IV, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, and The Legend of Zelda:…
Diablo 4’s latest patch recently buffed every class, but it seems that at least one class is doing just fine without the helping hand, thanks.
Today in things I wish Square Enix was working on instead of terrible blockchain games and yet more Final Fantasy 7 mobile games: a remake of Final Fantasy 6 that uses the 3D positional combat of Final Fantasy Tactics.
Alright, sure, so we technically assassinated your leader, and detonated a populated planet, and wiped out the first clan we ever met. But that was all self defence and we're not here to cause trouble. We just... have a lot going on okay.
The Pegasus Expedition is one of my favourite kinds of game. I'm not sure if it quite comes together enough, but it's trying something so original that even its partial success is worth celebrating. You're leading a 4X-ish effort to establish a power base in an unfamiliar galaxy. But you're not doing it to conquer everyone or win victory points. You're doing it so you can go back home and save Earth from annihilation.
Daedalic Entertainment, the company behind this year's critically lambasted The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, is reportedly set to exit game development and has laid off around 25 employees as part of the move. Additionally, a second Lord of the Rings game in development at the studio is said to have been cancelled.
Daedalic's The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, which was announced in 2019 for release in 2021, finally arrived last month, following numerous setbacks and delays. Its reception was less-than-positive, however, with Eurogamer's Christian Donlan calling it a "well-intentioned mess" in his 1 out of 5 review. It was something of a surprise, then, when reports surfaced soon after that Daedalic was currently working on a second Lord of the Rings game.
According to German website Games Wirtschaft, however, that game - which has reportedly been in the works since mid-2022 - is no more, with development now cancelled as part of Daedalic's sudden decision to shift away from development and solely into publishing following Gollum's poor reception.
The release of Codemaster's F1 23 gives us the most complete version of the series to date, with an upgraded version of its in-house EGO Engine and the return of the fan-favourite Braking Point story mode. The game also includes more ray tracing features, as this year dynamic diffuse global illumination (DDGI) is added on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Series S and PC. DDGI extends an already deep list of RT technologies from last year's game, which included reflections, ambient occlusion and shadows. Going into the game, I was curious to see how much of an upgrade DDGI enables, how close PS5 and Series X can come to the maxed-out PC version, and what settings make sense for PC players.
Let's get to the basics first. Both PS5 and Xbox Series X target a full 3840x2160 during gameplay, with matching shadows, textures and draw distances. Interestingly, the game's many RT features are only active during menu sequences, pre-race buildup and replays. Once the race begins, traditional rasterised techniques like screen space reflections (SSR) and ambient occlusion (SSAO) replace the RT reflections, RT shadows, RTAO, and DDGI. These less demanding techniques allow these consoles to hit the full 4K, while with RT enabled you'll see scaling from lower resolutions - the lowest I spotted was 3072x1728 during replays (80 percent of 4K). Alongside the resolution drop, these RT-enabled areas also tend to run at an obviously sub-60fps frame-rate, including a 30fps cap in the menus.
This week on All Things Nintendo, we have a panel of four Game Informer editors to discuss The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. All four members – Brian Shea, Matt Miller, Kyle Hilliard, and Charles Harte – have beaten the game and are ready to break down all the biggest gameplay elements and story beats without fear of spoiling the experience. With that in mind, if you haven't finished The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, proceed with caution, as there are plentiful spoilers within this episode.
If you'd like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram @BrianPShea. You can follow Matt on Twitter: @MatthewRMiller. You can follow Kyle on Twitter: @KyleMHilliard. You can follow Charles on Twitter: @chuckduck365.
The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we can celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry's most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what's happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they'll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!
Square Enix announced a release date for Encyclopaedia Eorzea: The World of Final Fantasy XIV Volume III. The newest volume in the series of lore books will launch in both Japan and North America on December 19, 2023. It will cost 4,400円/$49.99, depending on your region.
Like all entries in this series, the third volume will go over the game's lore, art, and design. This entry specifically covers content from the two most recent expansions. So people will learn more about the development of Shadowbringers and Endwalker. They’ll also see more insight into the background of the world, races, locations, equipment, and history in those two areas.
Furyu Hobby Mall opened pre-orders for F:NEX Re:Zero Ram and Rem figures. However, they're a bit different than usual. While both characters are wearing their traditional maid uniforms, they're also armed with guns and military equipment. They both will ship out in March 2024. Each one is ¥23,650 (~$164), and they are made-to-order figures.
These Ram and Rem figures are designed to be posed alone or together. Each one is a 1/7th scale model. Ram is 200mm tall (almost 8 inches), while her twin sister is 160mm (just over 6 inches). Both are equipped with guns, wearing headsets, and have accessories to hold additional equipment. Both are static figures with no additional faceplates or parts for different poses.
This is how the two figures look alone:
[gallery columns="2" size="full" ids="971039,971038" link="file"]
And here's how the two look when posed together:
[caption id="attachment_971036" align="alignnone" width="750"]
Image via Furyu Hobby Mall[/caption]
The iconic Game Boy console that survived a bombing during the Gulf War is removed and no longer on display at the Nintendo New York store. Twitter user VideoGameArt&Tidbits shared this information online after asking a Nintendo NYC Store staff member about the console. It is unclear whether the scorched Game Boy unit will return to the store or not. [Thanks, Game Watch!]
When asked about the console, a staff member from the Nintendo NYC store informed Twitter user VideoGameArt&Tidbits that the burnt Game Boy was no longer at the store, as it had been returned to the Nintendo US headquarters in Redmond, Washington.
You can check out the original tweet by VideoGameArt&Tidbits (@VGArtAndTidbits on Twitter) here:
https://twitter.com/VGArtAndTidbits/status/1674357378790170624
The console originally belonged to Dr. Stephan Scoggins, a medic that was deployed during Operation Desert Storm in 1990–1991. While the front of the Game Boy was completely burnt during the Gulf War, it could still turn on. After returning from the war, the Game Boy unit was displayed at the Nintendo NYC store as a testament of the system’s durability. Nintendo gave Dr. Scoggins a replacement Game Boy “as a special ‘Desert Storm’ courtesy.”
Square Enix announced new merchandise and a sale in the Final Fantasy XIV Online Store. These items consist of cosmetics you can use in-game. Some of them appeared in past Make It Rain campaigns, like the Emote: Show Right and Left. There's also a Final Fantasy XIV Seigneur’s Attire outfit to buy alongside the emote.
The Seigneur’s Attire for Final Fantasy XIV is $18. That gets people the Seigneur’s Beret, Seigneur’s Breeches, Seigneur’s Gloves, Seigneur’s Jerkin, and Seigneur’s Longboots. These can be worn regardless of someone’s avatar’s gender, though Hrothgar and Viera characters won’t display the beret. It also can be dyed.
[gallery size="full" ids="971018,971019,971020" link="file"]
If you missed earning the Emote: Show Right and Left in Final Fantasy XIV, it costs $3. This gets you Ballroom Etiquette - Soliciting Applause. Square Enix shared a new trailer as a reminder of how it looks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5nwzP-XoYw&ab_channel=FINALFANTASYXIV
The new Genshin Impact calendar for July 2023 is live and features Klee. As usual, this is because she’s one of the characters in the game whose birthday falls in that month. It is available as a wallpaper for mobile devices. As a reminder, the June 2023 calendar featured Cyno.
Here’s how this month’s image looks:
Genshin Impact Calendar Display
Hello, Travelers! Here's the July calendar for you~ Feel free to save and use it as you like~#GenshinImpact #Klee pic.twitter.com/oo337ArwBP
— Genshin Impact (@GenshinImpact) June 30, 2023
July 2023 is actually a rather packed month for Genshin Impact character birthdays. Here’s the full list. As a reminder, if you play the game on that day and log in, you’ll find a gift in your inbox from the character with in-game items like food.
The Microsoft FTC trial is a wrap, and while we don't have a ruling yet, we learned a lot of inside industry information that's not usually available to the public.
From drama surrounding the exclusivity of Starfield and other Bethesda titles to the cost of producing huge AAA games like The Last of Us Part II, there were plenty of bombshell reveals from this week's court battle. Here are 12 big things we learned from the Xbox FTC hearing.
The entire Xbox/Activision Blizzard saga has been filled with both Microsoft and Sony downplaying their respective achievements to appear as meek as possible to regulators. The FTC hearing was no exception, as the week kicked off with news of Microsoft claiming Xbox has officially "lost the console wars".
Microsoft claimed its original Xbox was crushed by Sony and Nintendo when it entered the market in 2001, and the company said it's been "losing" the "console wars" ever since. Citing numbers from 2021, Microsoft said Xbox held a 16% share of the console video game market. Xbox's Phil Spencer also said a piece on the console wars, calling it a “social construct within the community” during his testimony.
Ubisoft is reportedly developing a remake of 2013’s Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. However, it's apparently in its early stages and won’t be complete for a few years.
According to Kotaku, a team at Ubisoft Singapore is heavily involved in the remake’s development. The Singapore studio is also helping out with evolving Assassin’s Creed’s ocean technology as it is currently working on Skull and Bones.
In an internal email viewed by Kotaku, the Singapore studio is reportedly forcing its developers to work on Skull and Bones in person at the office instead of remotely. While the studio is seemingly providing breakfast and dinner, it looks like the move is to pressure its developers to work longer hours in order to ship the closed beta that’s due in late August.
The team working on Skull and Bones also reportedly discussed if it was possible to pivot Skull and Bones into a game that’s more like Black Flag. That'd potentially mean adding elements of co-op exploration and hand-to-hand combat instead of just resource-gathering mechanics and PvP naval battles.
The bucket o' deals, Xûr, is now live in Destiny 2 for the weekend until next week's reset. If you're looking to get you some shiny new Exotic armor or weapons for your Guardian, look no further.
Each week, Xûr has a random assortment of Exotic armor, one for each Guardian class, as well as a random Exotic Weapon and an Exotic Engram available for purchase. In addition to his Exotic wares, he's got a random collection of Legendary weapons and armor to deck out your Guardians.
We've rounded up all the info on Xûr for the week including where to find Xûr, which Exotic weapons and armor are available, as well as which Legendary weapons you should pick up, either for PvE or PvP.
Xûr's location today can be found at Watcher's Grave on Nessus on June 30 through July 4. To reach him, travel to the landing point at Watcher's Grave. When you arrive, make for the red moss-covered tree straight ahead. Climb up the roots and you'll find Xûr waiting at the top to sell you exotic items and legendary weapons.
“I don't know if I've ever played a character that I've connected with more,” enthuses Meli Grant, voice actress for Apex Legend’s Catalyst, the game’s first trans character. It’s clear from the huge smile on her face that she loves playing the controller Legend, who was first introduced back in November 2022. “There are so many fun little parallels that we've discovered as we were recording the character, just crossover between the Venn diagram of Catalyst's sense of humor and her sort of wry, sort of snarky energy and things that I can relate to in my life.”
Catalyst has since become a hugely popular character in Apex and also an LGBTQ+ icon, joining an already-diverse roster list in the game – something that’s incredibly important to the development team at Respawn. “One of the things we strive for is to have a really diverse cast,” explains Ashley Reed, Narrative Lead on Apex. “We're always looking at, "What are the opportunities we have? What are things we want to do? What are different experiences and identities we want to add to the cast?" We've been interested in creating a trans woman character for a while, and we were seeing an opportunity to do just that with this character. So we thought very early on, we're like, "Hey, let's do this. Let's go for it. Now is the moment.
“Something that we on the Apex team really care about is creating this sense that this game takes place in the future of our world, and we want to represent the diversity of the world we see today and our hopes for what that could look like in the future,” says Reed. “And as creatives, it’s just more interesting to show characters with a lot of different experiences and identities and lives unique among the entire cast."
The Treasure Goblin is not meant to instill fear in the hearts and minds of Diablo 4 players. It is, after all, an enemy that spits out loot and cannot attack. And yet, players across Sanctuary have a newfound fear of the unassuming demon after it killed a raft of high-level Hardcore characters.
Let’s start with Diablo 4 player Killthuzad. Icy-Veins reported this Hardcore character unexpectedly died to a Treasure Goblin while running a tier 37 Nightmare Dungeon. Stunned into silence, Killthuzad has no option but to return to the character creation screen. They eventually get up from their gaming chair and put their head in their hands.
What happened here? Killthuzad had the Death Pulse affix enabled. This means "killing a monster releases a deadly lightning pulse after a short delay". Watch the clip carefully and you’ll see the Death Pulse emit from the dead Treasure Goblin, killing the character in one hit.
Let’s not forget, in Diablo 4, when a Hardcore character dies it is lost forever. IGN has reported on multiple instances of high-level Hardcore characters dying due to a disconnect or even while in a loading screen. Now, Treasure Goblins are getting in on the act.
Destiny 2 used to have very little downtime. Now, the sci-fi MMO goes offline at least once a week, sometimes more, as error codes and unplanned outages prevent players from logging on and completing their weekly quests, challenges, and loot drops. Now Bungie has finally provided some answers, and they’re about as…
Treasure goblins in Diablo IV aren’t particularly scary or dangerous. In fact, most players get excited when one of these little weirdos appears, because they can’t attack and drop good loot when killed. However, some high-level players are dying to treasure goblins due to what some players believe is a bug.
French President Emmanuel Macron has a few theories as to why riots have spread across France in the wake of the fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old delivery driver: TikTok, Snapchat, and video games, mostly.
Magic: The Gathering, the popular fantasy-themed collectable card game from Wizards of the Coast, has recently launched an official Lord of the Rings expansion. And in the midst of the millions of printed cards, the Frodos and Saurons and Aragorns and all the rest, the publisher included a special one-of-a-kind card…
Overwatch has been struggling to get its narrative off the ground since it launched, and while the story missions are finally coming to Overwatch 2 in August to move the plot forward, Blizzard is also taking a look at its past with a new animated mini-series.
Indie game developers decided to shatter one of the worst-kept secrets in gaming this week, after admitting that loading bar progress is faked. But, they insist, you really wouldn’t have it any other way.
Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi has unveiled his next game - and it’s about as charmingly offbeat as you’d expect.
Good immersive sims are hard to beat. Almost nothing matches the feeling of creatively using all of your abilities to find a scrappy and sometimes unintentionally hilarious solution. Enter Mosa Lina, a pixel platformer that calls itself a “hostile interpretation of the immersive sim, where nothing is planned, and everything works.” Unpredictability is what the game prides itself on and “hostile” is definitely not an understatement based on the embedded developer tweet below.
Ruinarch is based on a concept many of you have thought of at some point. What if, instead of building up villages and hunting down hostile monsters and evil overlords, you were playing as the Dark Lord?
It's been done most famously in Dungeon Keeper or Overlord, but those were quite conventional structurally. Sure, you were playing as the baddies, but still doing mostly the same things as in other games, twirling your moustache the whole time. Ruinarch feels not like one of those thematic remixes of an established structure, but an attempt to build a new subgenre. Now that it's reached a full release, it also, sadly, feels like a demonstration of how difficult that really is.
While it continues struggling to get one pirate adventure out the door - by which I mean its very long-in-the-works Skull and Bones - Ubisoft is reportedly prepping another: a remake of its rum-soaked high seas gem, Assassin's Creed: Black Flag.
News that Ubisoft has finally decided to give everyone what they more or less wanted in the first place comes via Kotaku, which claims, citing two sources familiar with the publisher's plans, that the remake is "still in its earliest stages".
Ubisoft Singapore - the same studio still trying to finish the embattled Skull and Bones - is "heavily involved" with the project, which isn't expected to complete "for at least a few years".
Square Enix revealed a new Bright Arts Gallery figure of the iconic Chocobo from the Final Fantasy series. The figure costs 3,960 JPY (or about $27.43), and it is now available for pre-order from the Japanese Square Enix online eStore. The figure is set to release in Japan on November 11, 2023. Square Enix’s Bright Arts Gallery line of figures includes die-cast metallic colored figures of a variety of popular Square Enix characters. We typically see them in the worldwide storefront as well, though this one hasn't appeared there yet.
The specific design chosen for this new figure is inspired by the art direction from the Chocobo subseries of games, which includes entries like Chocobo's Dungeon and the Final Fantasy Fables titles. The figure is made of zinc alloy, and the die-cast manufacturing gives it a shiny and colorful metallic finish.
You can check out the new Bright Arts Chocobo figure in more detail in the gallery below.
[gallery columns="4" size="medium" ids="971074,971075,971076,971077" link="file"]
Other Final Fantasy metallic figures from the Bright Arts Gallery series include Tonberry and a Cactuar figures, which came out earlier in January 2023.
The newest teaser trailer for Fate/strange Fake focuses on Rider and his Master Tsubaki Kuruoka. Like with Berserker, while we know that Tsubaki’s Servant is Rider, we do not actually see him in the teaser. This is due to the nature of this particular Rider’s appearance and personality when it manifests as a Servant.
In Fate/strange Fake, the messed up version of the Holy Grail War ritual means that it’s calling upon figures who would never appear in a normal War. Rider is one of these Servants. Though it’s unclear from Tsubaki’s trailer how she gets her Command Seals, they seem to manifest on her while she’s asleep. So her participation in the Grail War does not seem to be something of her own choosing.
We can watch the Fate/strange Fake Rider teaser here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2W5ZsMtHKg
Aoi Koga will voice Tsubaki Kuruoka in Fate/strange Fake. Koga has previously voiced Qiao Ling in the Japanese dub of Link Click, Paimon in Genshin Impact, and Kriemhild in Fate/Grand Order. Since Rider does not talk, he does not have a voice actor.
Fate/strange Fake premiered at Anime Expo on July 1, 2023. It will air on July 2, 2023. Other teasers in the past have shown off Assassin, Berserker, and Caster.
When the creative minds behind Danganronpa announced Master Detective Archives: Rain Code, it was hard not to notice the similarities between their previous Danganronpa trilogy and this upcoming standalone title. The assets all look very familiar, the genre is virtually the same, and the way you go about solving mysteries is even reminiscent of the minigames of yore. It's pretty much impossible to play this game if you're a Danganronpa veteran and not compare the two in your head. However, despite lots of callbacks to Too Kyo Games’, it still manages to develop its unique identity and voice.
The story of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code follows Yuma Kokohead, an amnesiac detective who is a trainee at the World Detective Organization (WDO). He doesn’t remember anything about who he was or why he wanted to be a detective. But he quickly discovers that his amnesia is the result of a contract with the death god Shinigami. Through his pact with her, he can access the Mystery Labyrinth. In the Labyrinth, he uses various clues he discovered in the real world, as well as Shinigami’s arsenal of bizarre powers, to solve the unsolved in Kanai Ward. Kanai Ward is under the authoritarian rule of Amaterasu Corporation, which is full of weird megalomaniacs. With the aid of his peers at the WDO, Yuma attempts to figure out the greatest mystery of Kanai Ward.
A new Halloween Pokemon event will be held at Osaka’s Universal Studios Japan in Fall 2023. This new Halloween party will feature a variety of Ghost type Pokemon, and will be hosted by DJ Pikachu and DJ Gengar. This will be the first ever Halloween event for USJ, as well as the second time that Pokemon characters are featured at the theme park. [Thanks, Famitsu!]
The USJ Pokemon Halloween event will be a daytime show and it will include live music and a dancing venue for people of all ages to enjoy. Additionally, USJ in collaboration with Nintendo shared a newly drawn illustration of DJ Pikachu and DJ Gengar alongside various Ghost Type Pokemon.
Pokemon characters appeared for the first time at Universal Studios Japan on March 2023, as part of the theme park’s “No Limit!” parade, alongside a variety of Mario Kart characters. Additionally, a new No Limit Summer event is set to appear at USJ between July and August 2023, and it will feature a variety of Mario characters.
The first ever Halloween event at Universal Studios Japan will be a Pokemon-themed music and dancing event, and it will be held in Fall 2023. More information on the event will come in the future.
Cocoon is a game not interested in explaining itself. The game opens in a desert, a beam of light rains down and activates some ancient circuitry in the cliffs. This awakens the titular cocoon, and out pops our protagonist, beginning the game. That’s about all you’re getting in the way of explanation, as I found upon playing the demo.
It’s not surprising, since the lead designer of Cocoon is Jeppe Carlsen, who is also responsible for Limbo and Inside. Those games were equally obtuse about their setting, featuring a young boy in either a dangerous monochrome forest or a dystopian city with little else to go on. Cocoon’s ambiguity is even more striking, as very little of this game resembles the real world.
You are a small bug person of some kind. You have wings, but you can’t even jump, let alone fly. The start of the game sees you wandering through the desert until you emerge from an orb that this world is contained in. Something angry and large wakes up and enters the orb you just left. You can now move this orb (and the world it contains) around.
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Image via Annapurna[/caption]
Daedalic Entertainment, the studio behind the long-delayed and poorly-reviewed The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, is shutting down its internal development arm.
In a new article by Games Wirtschaft, the outlet reported that Daedalic Entertainment will now focus on game publishing, sales, and marketing. The studio sent out a statement to Games Wirtschaft, stating that it was a "difficult turning point" for the company.
Daedalic Entertainment also told the studio that it is laying off people, with 25 individuals impacted by the layoffs. "We value each and every member of our team, and it is important to us that the transition goes as smoothly as possible," a Daedalic spokesperson told Games Wirtschaft. "Therefore, we will support our former employees in finding new opportunities within our network."
Additionally, the German-based game studio announced that it had halted the development of another Lord of the Rings game it was working on internally. The game has been in development since 2022 and was under the codename "It's Magic," with it supposedly launching next year.
Despite the studio no longer working on new games internally, it is still committed to improving The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, with another patch currently being worked on, according to Games Wirtschaft. A Nintendo Switch version is also in development and is aiming to release later this year.
Only Up!, a not-so-endless runner that recently took off on Twitch, has been inexplicably removed from Steam with no warning, but there’s reason to believe it might’ve been removed due to a copyright dispute with an artist claiming the game uses one of their assets.
Hey, do want to own a retro video game store in California? And (this is important) are you not Elon Musk? Well, good news, someone is selling a game store, its entire stock, and even its 15-foot-tall Mario effigy on Craigslist right now, all for a cool $1,000,000. Why? Because the current owner just wants to retire…
