June 2023

Sony Picture’s hotly-anticipated animated film, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse, includes never-before-seen gameplay footage of the upcoming Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 game.

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Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse came out on June 2 to rave reviews and a box office weekend that trailed only The Super Mario Bros. Movie to become the second-largest of 2023 so far. There’s only one thing holding the movie back apparently: people can’t hear what the hell characters are saying sometimes.

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The ongoing remake/reimagining of Final Fantasy VII, the landmark 1997 JRPG, has resulted in some of the most anticipated entries in the Final Fantasy series in many years. But it’s also shrouded in a lot of mystery given the narrative surprises of the first installment, Final Fantasy VII Remake in 2020. Now, Square…

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We’re a week away from the big not-E3 Xbox summer showcase for 2023 and the ball’s in Microsoft’s court to win back fans after a quiet 12 months punctuated by the disastrous launch of Redfall. In a subtle shot at the recently underwhelming PS5 showcase, Xbox marketing VP Aaron Greenberg promised no first-party games…

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In preparation for Diablo IV’s global June 6 launch, Blizzard has dropped the first real update for the loot-grinding RPG that makes some pretty substantive changes to all five character classes. While most of them got nerfed, one class, the Necromancer, has been buffed to be even better than it was previously.

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Street Fighter 6’s character creator is one of the best parts of an excellent game. On top of its tools having enough precise detail that you can create near-perfect replicas of just about anyone you want, the game also recognizes character builds so it can reflect them in fights. If you make a short king, your kicks…

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For my money, one of the most interesting aspects of a game’s creation is the composition and orchestration of its music. With Final Fantasy, that’s doubly the case because for me, and I imagine for so many others, the music of this series is one of its best parts. Be it lo-fi channels, new arrangements, compilations, piano versions, or something else, Final Fantasy music makes its way into many of my playlists. 

That’s why I was so excited to chat with composer Masayoshi Soken about his score for Final Fantasy XVI. You might recognize his name as he’s also the composer of Final Fantasy XIV. Still, if you don’t, there’s a chance it’s a name you come to remember following the release of FFXVI because after more than three hours of hands-on time with the game in Square Enix’s Tokyo, Japan, office, I’m confident we’re about to get a banger of a score. 

In talking with Soken, I wanted to speak to him about some of the major themes and melodies of any Final Fantasy game – things like the Prelude, the main theme, the Victory Fanfare, and more – and he had plenty to say. In this four-part series, I’ll be breaking down different aspects of the music that excite me and hopefully you too. 

Be sure to check out the first two parts: 

You don't need to play 2020's Final Fantasy VII Remake to enjoy its sequel, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, according to the game's co-director Motuma Toriyama. 

Last week, Square Enix and the official Final Fantasy VII Twitter account began releasing new details about the upcoming sequel, answering one question each day. On day one, we learned Rebirth is "progressing smoothly." Day 2 and Day 3 were less exciting, teasing that players will have a "high degree of freedom, experiencing a myriad of different stories" and that players "will witness a chain of narrative events that lie at the very heart of the Final Fantasy VII story." 

For Day 4, the question is: Do I need to play Final Fantasy VII Remake to enjoy Final Fantasy VII Rebirth? And here's Toriyama's answer: "No – we have made preparations so that players who did not get a chance to play the first game can fully enjoy Final Fantasy VII Rebirth." 

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
Developer comment number 4#FF7R pic.twitter.com/vsmJZvDljw

People might have been sleeping on Swordship, which is as unfortunate as it sounds. It’s a dodge ‘em up about luring enemies into attacking each other while swooshing down waterways. Clean, is the word that comes to mind: a purity of purpose. Everything looks and sounds exactly like it should, while making little metal chumps shoot other little metal chumps is a fundamental joy.

It launched last December, but developers Digital Kingdom just shipped a 1.1 update that adds a new mode, overhauls unlock progression and tweaks loads more. There’s a free demo, if you don’t want to take the full plunge.

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If there’s a single upside to the collapsing standards of technical competence among big-budget PC games, it’s that when something like Diablo 4 comes along and simply performs well, there’s an almost pleasant relief to it. Like your bus arriving on time, a minute after watching the previous, late-arriving one flip onto its roof attempting a handbrake turn.

It’s not perfect, but Diablo IV does run smoothly for the most part (also sorry Google, but I'm going back to Roman numberals), and its system requirements on PC are as likely to involve museum pieces as they are the latest and priciest graphics cards. I’ve put some hours into the early access build and have come up with a best settings guide, but in truth, this will likely just optimise your framerates – Diablo IV’s higher quality settings rarely trouble it, especially at 1080p.

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Dig deep, for both mental fortitude and coin, because yet another videogame is getting the cardboard treatment. Paper Fort Games are transmuting beloved mine and craft ‘em up Terraria into a 4 player co-op board game, albeit one that's on the distant horizon. A crowdfunder is coming and the devs “don’t expect” the game will ship this year, but a lucky few did get to try an early alpha prototype at the UK board games expo last weekend. Somewhat surprisingly, they seemed to like it.

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For those in the UK, the latest “here’s what you could have won” bit of helpful EU regulation just dropped. Valve are now required to show Steam users in EU countries a game’s lowest price over the past 30 days, which means sellers can’t display deceptively high discounts by bumping the base price before a sale. Valve made the change in order to comply with the ominously named “Omnibus Directive”, which applies to all online stores.

Steam already enforces limits on manipulating prices around sales, but it’s nice that some people get to have a little extra peace of mind.

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And just like that, Summer Games Done Quick 2023 is over. The summer segment of the speedrunning celebration wrapped up last weekend, having this year taken place slightly before summer for some reason. The event raised over $2 million for Doctors Without Borders, while also spawning an excellent Ratatouille speedrun/audition for award-winning chef drama The Bear.

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Now that Final Fantasy XVI’s debut is drawing nearer, Square Enix is showing and talking more about the game. Some of this involves more detailed looks at things players will see. For example, there are clearer, high quality peeks at different spots. This means now we can see more defined screenshots of both Final Fantasy XVI Eikons and locations.

First, here are the Eikons screenshots shared via the Final Fantasy XVI Twitter account. They look at every "summon" we know about. As a reminder, Joshua is the Dominant of Phoenix. Cid is the Dominant of Ramuh. Jill is the Dominant of Shiva. Benedikta is the Dominant of Garuda. Hugo is the Dominant of Titan. Dion is the Dominant of Bahamut. Barnabas is Dominant of Odin.
[gallery columns="4" ids="966579,966580,966581,966582,966583,966584,966585,966586" link="file"]

Square Enix’s screenshots of Final Fantasy XVI locations is a bit more vague. It doesn’t note where any of these places are. However, we can see some of the crystals in four of the images.

Explore the world of Valisthea from June 22nd. #FF16 pic.twitter.com/AG4kaqEQ61

— FINAL FANTASY XVI (@finalfantasyxvi) June 4, 2023

People can now see the Halsey and Suga Diablo IV "Lilith" music video. The official video for the song released on the official launch day for the game. (Early access started last week.) It’s also available to listen to via services like Apple Music, Amazon Music, Pandora, and Spotify.

Here's the full "Lilith (Diablo IV Anthem)" music video from Halsey and Suga. There's no gameplay footage used. Instead, it focuses on the two performers as the song plays. It does seem to depict Halsey as a sort of character from the game facing various challenges.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PdH-zavwO4&ab_channel=HalseyVEVO

Halsey actually performed “Lilith” from Diablo IV at The Game Awards 2022. That performance only included them, however. Suga wasn’t present for that version of the song. In case you missed that, here’s how that looked:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilyN638DKx8&ab_channel=thegameawards

BTS music ended up tied to games before. People may have heard its tracks tied to games like Fortnite, Beat Saber, and various rhythm games. It also ended up with a Maple Story collaboration.

The NieR Reincarnation Final Fantasy XIV event will be back, and three characters will appear as a Black Mage, Red Mage, and Samurai. Saryu, Lars, and Yudil are getting the new look. They will appear alongside the three returning alts on June 9, 2023. A trailer also appeared to showcase the new looks for existing characters, but it's only available on the Japanese account now.

Here's the trailer revealing Black Mage Saryu, Red Mage Lars, and Samurai Yudil.

【予告PV公開！】

／
　#FF14 コラボ
　2023.6.9（金）復刻決定！
＼

6/9（金）に復刻開催する「ファイナルファンタジーXIV」コラボでは、赤魔道士、黒魔道士、侍のコスチュームに身を包んだ #リィンカネ キャラが新たに登場！#NieR pic.twitter.com/jtBXEi30Ba

— NieR Re［in］carnation (@NieR_Rein) June 5, 2023

The English account for the game did announce the countdown missions leading up to the crossover, however.

FINAL FANTASY XIV Resurrected Crossover Countdown Missions are now underway!

Another Honkai: Star Rail Twitter event kicked off, this time focused on Silver Wolf. It's called "You Got Hacked." If you log-in via the event page and enable it, it will count someone toward the reward goals. There are four tiers of rewards. However, the site doesn't note if only participants will get the in-game items, or if they will be doled out to everyone if hallmarks are hit.

Here are all of the items you can earn in the Honkai: Star Rail "You Got Hacked" Silver Wolf Twitter event. The on-site bar doesn't note how many people signed up yet, so we can't track and see what might be doled out.

• 5,000 - 5,000 Credits
• 10,000 - 3 Adventure Logs
• 30,000 - 2 Dust of Alacrity items
• 50,000 - 30 Stellar Jades

Given this is another Honkai: Star Rail Twitter web event, it may be wise to follow the same recommended precautions as the first one. A launch countdown event premiered that involved character designs and wallpapers. HoYoVerse recommended backing up icons and the bio details, just in case. The site for this event reiterates many of those same concerns, while also noting people who subscribe to Twitter Blue won't be able to change back for a while.

Capcom has been hitting it out of the park recently with its Resident Evil remakes, but what would it look like if the publisher decided to take its games in the opposite direction?

Well, you don't have to wonder any longer, thanks to a group of modders creating a Resident Evil 0 demake. The game was originally released in 2002 for the GameCube, and looks and plays similar to the HD Resident Evil remaster.

This demake for 0 does the opposite, however, and turns the game into a Resident Evil experience like that of the first three games on PlayStation 1. Footage of the project in action can be seen below, via El Rincon del Lobezno's YouTube channel, who is one of the modders involved in its creation.

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Square Enix has confirmed it has "made preparations" to ensure Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth can still be enjoyed by those who missed the first game.

Beginning at the end of last week, Square Enix has issued fresh comments on the game each day - thankfully remembering the project still exists, after nearly a year of no news.

The first comment confirmed a release date was being considered, while subsequent comments have noted that the game will have a "multifaceted world with a high degree of freedom" - which some fans are interpreting to mean "open world". Lastly, Square Enix has clarified that yes, this game will in fact contain a story and characters. Who'd have thought?

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On the face of it, last week wasn't exactly crammed with gigaton news announcements - and so we were expecting a fair light edition of DF Direct Weekly, but the announcement that Ratchet and Clank is coming to PC next month changed all of that. It may not be a game designed to appeal to the core PC audience, but how well the port turns out is crucial to the future of the PC format.

If that sounds somewhat hyperbolic, allow me to explain. The new consoles have much in common with PC: they are based on x86 processors, they use Radeon graphics and they have SSDs. These have been staple components of a mainstream gaming PC for many years before the arrival of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X in 2020. However, Ratchet and Clank leans in heavily to proprietary PS5 components and their equivalents in the PC space have yet to be established nor have they been battle-tested in a triple-A release. Ratchet and Clank looks set to change that.

Let's spell out the challenge here. Insomniac's game is built from the ground up for PlayStation 5. With its rich visuals, ultra-fast loading and portal mechanic that literally zips you between dimensions within the blink of an eye, it's heavily reliant on two aspects of the PlayStation 5: its solid-state storage and its hardware decompression blocks. The SSD streams in data at lighting speeds, the decompression blocks take care of losslessly decompressing the data for the game to use.

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Indie roguelike smash hit Dead Cells has now passed a hugely-impressive 10m copies sold.

First launched in early access back in 2017, Dead Cells is now available for PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation and Xbox, as well as on smartphone for iOS and Android.

It also remains regularly updated - and today, we heard word that Dead Cells would continue getting further updates for at least another two years, until 2025. Gosh, that sounds like the future!

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Diablo IV officially lands on June 6—some players already have early access—and Blizzard has already dropped the first official update for the imminent dungeon-crawling, loot-collecting RPG. There are a number of changes here worth digging into, but the biggest takeaway is simple: Four of the five classes have been…

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Days after the debut of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, the sequel is already being lauded as a marvel of animation and a fascinating mix of mediums. There’s even a small reference to Insomniac’s upcoming Spider-Man game hidden in the film.

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Julian wanted to brush up on his Japanese and Spanish. The popular language learning app Duolingo, with its gamified incentives and rewards, its leagues, tournaments, and power-ups, seemed like a good way to do it. He started spending hours in the app, trying to claw his way to a better rank. That’s when he started…

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I've spoken on many occasions about my love for Cooler Master's NR200 small form factor PC case, and today it's gone on sale in the US for the first time in a while - so I thought I'd let you know!

Right now you can pick up the NR200 in white for $70, down from $115. To get this price, you'll need to use code CMJUND2 at the cart and then use a rebate form for an additional $25 back. That's a bit of a faff for sure, but in exchange you do get one of the best and most popular SFF PC cases on the market.

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Tch, who opened the door to Necrom? Now we’ll be up to our eyeballs in tentacles and ichor - or at least, we will be if you buy The Elder Scrolls Online’s new expansion. Necrom: Shadows Over Morrowind sends you off to biff a threat that could unravel all reality, packing traditional expansion fare like new zones and new companions, as well as the game’s first new class since 2019.

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Yusuke Murata, the artist for Eyeshield 21, uploaded an in-progress trailer for an upcoming special Eyeshield 21 one-shot. There is no information on when to expect the one-shot, which is called Brain x Brave. However, it is going to be for the 21st anniversary of the series.

You can watch the trailer for the Eyeshield 21 one-shot here:

https://twitter.com/NEBU_KURO/status/1665705036268331011?t=Pr8JDG1A2oTQevAIOqxfgA&s=19

As of the time of writing, Murata uploaded the trailer three hours ago. However, it already accumulated over 5.9 million views. The trailer does not have any music, sound effects, or voice lines in it yet. It’s unclear if it will bring back voice actors who appeared in the anime for this trailer. Murata was the director of the trailer, working with eight animators from Village Studio and Kome Studio.

Eyeshield 21 is a Japanese manga that originally ran from 2002 to 2009. Riichiro Inagaki wrote the stor and Yusuke Murata (who would later go on to illustrate for the Weekly Young Jump version of One Punch Man) was the illustrator. A TV series for it ran from 2005 to 2008 with 145 episodes in total. Eyeshield 21 follows the story of Sena Kobayakawa, who is a quiet introvert working as the secretary for an American football club. However, quarterback Yoichi Himura forces him to become the team’s running back. His number is 21 and he wears an eyeshield to remain anonymous, hence the title Eyeshield 21.

At Apple's WWDC 2023 presentation on June 5, 2023, Hideo Kojima appeared to announce the Death Stranding: Director's Cut Mac port. After the game porting technology Apple is working on was announced, the head of Kojima Productions appeared with his reveal. There’s no release date yet for it beyond the latter half of 2023, however. Kojima also stated, “This is just the beginning, and we are actively working to bring our future titles to Apple platforms.”

Here's a screenshot showing Kojima committing to future games, perhaps like Death Stranding 2, also coming to Mac like Death Stranding: Director's Cut.
[caption id="attachment_966634" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Apple[/caption]

When discussing the port of his game for the Mac, Kojima also talked about some of the technology that will be used. He referenced Apple silicon and Metal 3, and specifically mentioned how they used MetalFX Upscaling.

Ahead of the official release of version 1.1 of Honkai: Star Rail, Trailblazers can pre-download the game onto their PC or mobile devices. This comes ahead of the June 7, 2023 debut of the update. HoYoVerse also revealed what compensation Honkai: Star Rail players can expect after the five-hour maintenance. As a reminder, the maintenance will take place starting at June 7, 2023 at 3pm PT/6pm ET.

For starters, all players over Trailblaze Level 4 will get 300 Stellar Jades as compensation for the Honkai: Star Rail server maintenance. It should arrive in the mail after maintenance is over. It can only be claimed until July 7, 2023.

As for the Honkai: Star Rail pre-download, it should be available to pre-load from the game launcher. You’ll need around 8 GB of space, so HoYoVerse recommends pre-downloading with Wi-Fi. If you’re on mobile, you will still need to download a new client in order to play the version 1.1 update.