July 2023

I have a complicated relationship with retro-style games in general, and no particular fondness for the Everything Was Nintendo school. Or platformers, or double jumping, or dashing, or neon, or being alive in general. Dislike is the wrong word, but "weary neutrality" about covers my feelings when another retro platformer comes down the game tubes.

Gravity Circuit, however, is good enough that I can't not mention it here. It's loud and bright without being obnoxious or overwhelming, fast and precise without being overly demanding, and generally just a damn good effort at creating a modern action platformer whose main influence is obvious, but isn't just going through the motions for the sake of nostalgia. I'm saying it's good, yeah? Maybe not quite for me, but good anyway.

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Maggie Robertson, known for her towering roles in both Resident Evil Village and God of War Ragnarök, is set to play Orin the Red in Baldur's Gate 3.

While we have known about her inclusion for a while now, with developer Larian confirming it to our Bertie earlier in the month, her magical, menace of a character had remained largely under wraps until now. However, new details have now been released about this "grandmaster of murder".

In a new video, Robertson introduced her upcoming villain as "affectionately unhinged", revealing that players won't know when she is about to pop up in Balder's Gate 3 thanks to her shapeshifting abilities. In fact, Orin is able to take the form of anyone - "perhaps even someone in your camp".

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This week on the Eurogamer Newscast, we look ahead to the rest of 2023, and everything on the horizon we can't wait to play. Turns out, there's a lot to get excited about!

Can you think of the top three games you're looking forward to over the rest of the year? It's a question three of us try and answer while juggling this autumn's bulging release schedule - from Starfield to Super Mario Wonder. Can you guess which we pick?

Joining me this week are Ed Nightingale and Victoria Kennedy - let us help you plan out what to play over the coming months!

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Ratata Arts has released a new Ratatan gameplay trailer, to whet appetites for the rhythm strategy game.

The developer said Ratatan's gameplay will incorporate a "unique combination of rhythm and strategy", and see players taking on the role of a conductor. This conductor has the very important job of controlling an army of the titular Ratatan, which will be able to "attack, defend and support" as they march against other armies in the game.

Additionally, these music loving animal-like creatures will be able to "gather 'Cobuns' that can chant, move and attack according to the instructions". As a result of all this musical mayhem, the developer has promised "one massive rhythmic showdown!" You can see how it all looks in the video below.

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While exploring dungeons in Diablo IV, you might encounter The Butcher, a terrifying and hard-to-kill demon boss who’s been a staple of the series since the original game in 1997. But if you get lucky, you might be able to easily kill this legendary baddie if he gets stuck behind a locked door. I’d feel bad for the…

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Upcoming fantasy role-playing game Baldur’s Gate 3 just released a character trailer for a villainous new big bad character who’s quite likely to take the internet by storm just like Resident Evil Village’s Lady Dimitrescu. Why? Because she’s played by the same voice actress and seems to have that certain chaotic…

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Hello Kitty Island Adventure is everything I want in a repetitive, relaxing open-world life sim of its kind. The Animal Crossing heir, made by Hello Kitty’s massive merch company Sanrio and small game studio Sunblink, is a honeycomb-sweet combination of taking care of friends and a surprisingly large, secretive…

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Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will probably be the biggest PlayStation 5 game of the year, and its limited edition console is already going fast. Pre-orders for the $600 bundle went live on July 28, and the special Spidey accessories look likely to sell out fast.

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Final Fantasy XIV publisher Square Enix and developer Creative Business Unit III revealed the MMO's next expansion, Dawntrail, during Day 1 of Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2023. 

Square Enix revealed this 7.0 expansion that acts as a new beginning for Final Fantasy XIV with a new cinematic trailer. After the trailer, director Naoki Yoshida took to the main stage to host a keynote presentation, and it was during this that we learned a lot about the Dawntrail expansion, which will hit the game sometime in summer 2024. Let's break it all down. 

Final Fantasy XIV is finally coming to Xbox Series X/S next spring. 

Xbox head Phil Spencer joined Final Fantasy XIV director Naoki Yoshida on stage today, during Day 1 of Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2023, to reveal the news.

Here's what Spencer had to say:

Spencer says this is a seminal moment "in our relationship with you and the Final Fantasy team as we look to partner more closely together in the future," perhaps teasing more Final Fantasy to come to Xbox down the line. 

Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Arzest, Sonic Team
Release: 2023

Sonic Superstars aims to give players an experience loyal to those initial Classic Sonic entries on the Genesis. However, unlike past games like Sonic Generations and Sonic Mania, which relied heavily on fan-favorite zones from previous games, Sonic Superstars forges its own path within the Classic Sonic series, delivering all-new stages that still deliver that Classic Sonic feel.

Final Fantasy XIV publisher Square Enix and developer Creative Business Unit III have revealed Dawntrail, the MMO’s next expansion, and it hits the game next summer. 

Square Enix revealed Dawtrail today, the first day of Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2023 in Las Vegas, with a new trailer showcasing the tropical New World known as Yok Tural and many beloved characters hanging out there. Shortly after the reveal, director Naoki Yoshida took the stage to discuss the expansion as part of the Fan Festival’s keynote presentation. 

Check out the Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail expansion trailer for yourself below: 

Yoshida says the logo art for Dawntrail was created by Yoshitaka Amano using the color gold, which is the theme color of this expansion. You can check out the Dawntrail logo below:

Nijisanji Vtuber Hyakumantenbara Salome revealed on her Twitter account that she voices a character in the Honkai: Star Rail 1.2 update. Following Kanae, she is the second Nijisanji VTuber to make a voice acting debut in the game. Salome voices a random NPC in Xianzhou Luofu.

In her tweet, Salome showed the back of her character and did not specify where to find her in Honkai: Star Rail. However, replies to her tweet showed the location if you want to see her for yourself. At the bottom of the Central Starskiff Haven, there’s a Vending Machine with a woman in front of it. If you’re playing with the Japanese audio and go near her, you’ll hear her talk. She even uses Salome’s typical “desu wa” way of speaking.

Announced at the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest 2023 in Las Vegas, Fall Guys and FFXIV will feature a massive collaboration in the near future. This surprising collaboration will include content for both games. However, the Warriors of Light and Scions will come to Fall Guys before they show up in the MMORPG, as that has an August 22, 2023 start date.

It starts with Fall Guys hosting a new Warriors of Light Fame Pass for players beginning on August 22, 2023. We will get six weeks to progress through the pass and unlock the various rewards before it concludes on October 3, 2023.

The Final Fantasy XIV Fall Guys Warriors of Light Fame Pass includes a variety of new costumes, themed around the main characters and other neat mascots. Some of the skins featured in the trailer include:

• Alisaie
• Alphinaud
• Chocobo
• Goobue
• Namazu

https://twitter.com/fallguysgame/status/1684995594304008192?s=61&t=9YBio6l0V75AlnyR8nX7jQ

There will also be emotes, celebrations, and more that players will be able to unlock during this time.

In addition to the FFXIV events in Fall Guys, the opposite will happen as well. FFXIV will feature a minigame event in the style of the other game for players to check out in the Gold Saucer. No release date is known at this time, other than it will arrive during the Patch 6.5X series of updates.

Dawntrail, the fifth expansion for the critically acclaimed MMORPG FFXIV, is coming out in Summer 2024. The release marks the beginning of the 7.x line of patches, starting with 7.0. Here's what we know is coming in Final Fantasy XIV 7.0 and beyond.

What is Final Fantasy XIV update 7.0 bringing with it?

One of the biggest changes coming in 7.0 is a level cap increase. As of Endwalker's release in December 2021, the level cap has been set at 90—Final Fantasy XIV 7.0 boosts this to 100.

Another notable change is a graphical overhaul. Significant tweaks to lighting and textures are on the way, breathing new life into character models, locations, dungeons, and more. This does mean that the FFXIV system requirements are changing slightly.

[gallery size="full" ids="975124,975123,975120,975121,975122" link="file"]

Other content coming in Final Fantasy XIV 7.0 and 7.x includes:

FFXIV will receive a major graphical update alongside the release of the upcoming Dawntrail expansion. This is the latest major graphical update for the game since its release, radically updating many of the textures, armor, equipment, and characters.

The FFXIV graphical update in the new expansion’s 7.0 update includes updated higher resolution textures and shadows. These will affect all of the races and characters, significantly changing how they look. This includes both the player characters and the NPCs alike.

Hair, skin textures, eyes, and more will improve considerably over the currently existing visuals. In addition, the character’s equipment will feature greater detail, including the materials, giving a cleaner look. The improvements are meant to make everything look better without losing what made them so loved in the first place.

https://twitter.com/ff_xiv_en/status/1684991280768835584?s=61&t=9YBio6l0V75AlnyR8nX7jQ

In addition to the characters, areas in the game will feature greater details, shadows, and lighting. This includes not only the new locations in Dawntrail, but also the older environments as well. One of the most significant changes are to the plants in locations like Il Mheg where they will look richer in color and detail.

Other changes include the following:

During the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest 2023 keynote, Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida announced the Final Fantasy X Pelupelu race will appear in the FFXIV Dawntrail expansion. They will be the new Allied Tribe. As usual, they are described as a diminutive race compared to the height of humans and other races. People will find them in Tural, outside the main city in Urqopacha settlements.

Yoshida noted that these new people always wear masks. They also act as traders around Tural. Some of the things they tend to make and sell are various drinks, with coffee, mezcal, and tea mentioned.

Here’s the official slide from the presentation that offered initial FFXIV Pelupelu details.
[caption id="attachment_975086" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Square Enix[/caption]

Pelupelu first appeared in Final Fantasy X and X-2. However, they also made a Mobius Final Fantasy cameo. We never actually see their faces in that game, due to them always wearing hats and masks with goggles and penguin-like beaks.

Good Smile Company announced a rerelease of the Yami Yugi Nendoroid from Yu-Gi-Oh, which originally came out back in August 2019. Pre-orders are open now, so those who missed it the first time around have until September 7, 2023 to secure one for their collection.

The figure comes with a Millenium Puzzle on chain, a detachable jacket, a duel disk, and two sets of prop cards for Yu-Gi-Oh fans to pose it with. It also comes with 3 swappable face plates and a plastic stand for posing. The figure will cost ¥5,500 or $36.99 depending on which store you order from, but preorders from either will also net you 1 of the 5 available Number Balloon and Hand part sets as part of the Nendoroid Preorder Campaign #3.

You can get a look at the figure in the gallery below:

[gallery ids="975025,975026,975024" link="file"]

Back in May 2023, family restuarant Coco's held a Yu-Gi-Oh collaboration that resulted in the Hungry Burger card coming to life. Meanwhile, Yu-Gi-Oh Cross Duel announced that it would shut down in September, 2023.

Dawntrail is the fifth expansion for the long-running MMORPG. Alongside new content, characters, and a story, players will have the opportunity to explore a new side of the world. The new Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail location is known as Tural. During the 2023 Fan Fest, Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida offered some initial details about it.

Tural is an island nation in the far west of the world, past Eorzea in a previously unexplored location in Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail. The people of Tural live among nature in a bright island lifestyle. The new hub city for players to explore and spend plenty of time in is Tuliyollal in the Yok Tural region of the island.

This new city is at the heart of the story of Dawntrail, with the ruler of the city being Gulool Ja Ja, who is a two-headed Mamool Ja. The crux of the plot will revolve around the next ruler of the capital city of the city-state. This new city is a colorful market-centric port side town.

The region of Yok Tural where Tuliyollal is based is a forest region. This dense forest area is so thick with trees that the forest floor rarely sees any sunlight. Players will be able to explore the forest floor and high-elevation areas alike.

Players will also be able to explore the region of Urqopacha, which is a mountainous region. It is home to a mix of exceedingly large and unusually small races.

After announcing the new expansion at the 2023 Fan Fest, Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida announced details about the FFXIV Dawntrail story and how it takes people to the “New World” location of Tural for a “summer vacation.” The theme color this time is gold, and is part of a “journey of discovery.”

When introducing FFXIV Dawntrail’s story, Yoshida said, “What we want to bring to all you Warriors of Light is the very best summer vacation a hero could possibly have.” He noted this is a “first step” for the next adventure for the game. We’ll head to Tural alongside the Scions to help pick the new ruler during a rite of succession. However, Yoshida teased that the Scions will be split into two groups. So people might not end up being your allies during the adventure. The winner takes the throne from Gulool Ja Ja, the Mamool Ja ruling the new city.

There’s also rumor of a “City of Gold.” The initial story teases suggest that the events of this contest for the new ruler will involve players reaching it.

You can watch the keynote and July 28, 2023 Fan Fest events below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--_vb2j_qDo&ab_channel=FINALFANTASYXIV

Square Enix's MMORPG Final Fantasy 14 is heading to Xbox consoles.

This long-requested platform addition was announced at this year's Final Fantasy Fan Fest in Las Vegas, with Xbox head Phil Spencer taking the stage.

The game will be playable on both Xbox Series X/S consoles, available in full from spring 2024.

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Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is out now on PC, two years after it launched as a PS5 exclusive. It's always fascinating to see how Sony's flagship titles fare on PC, especially those produced by porting specialist Nixxes. Rift Apart is also a cutting-edge effort - it's one of the first to support DirectStorage GPU decompression, which ought to shrink load times and raise performance. This analysis reviews the quality of the PC port at launch (with some commentary on the new patch that just 'dropped') with derived PS5-equivalent and optimised settings for a range of hardware, plus DirectStorage 1.2 tests. There's plenty to praise from Insomniac's latest PC release - along with a litany of graphical bugs and issues that suggest the game needed a little more time in the oven.

Ratchet and Clank's options are immediately familiar to anyone that's played Nixxes' Spider-Man PC ports, with a real-time tweaking menu and a good array of options for users to take advantage of including upscaling options from all GPU vendors. The settings menu is generally easy to use - though a flash effect when making changes sometimes obscures the nature of the change. Weirdly though, the main menu runs below 60fps on mid-range hardware without obvious CPU or GPU utilisation.

There are more serious issues elsewhere in the game, which suggest Rift Apart has launched without the typical polish we'd expect from a Nixxes release. For example, we experienced a handful of game crashes on a range of hardware within the first few hours of play, from a high-end Core i9 12900K and RTX 4090 rig to a minimum-spec build with the Ryzen 3 3100 and RX 570.

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Men of War 2 devs Best Way have announced they will run a third and final beta weekend for their upcoming World War II RTS next month, giving us a look at its Classic and Realism modes before it fully hits PC screens in September.

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The WD Black SN850x is our top SSD pick for PC gaming, offering some of the fastest load times we've ever recorded - so I thought I'd let you know that the 1TB size of the drive has dropped to £47.99 on Ebay when you use code APPLY20 at the checkout. That's a tiny fraction of the drive's original RRP and the lowest price we've ever recorded for this size. All told, it's a hugely impressive deal.

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Cook, Serve, Delicious is coming back with a ‘Re-Mustard’ (that’s a remaster - you have to admit, it’s a good pun) that adds a new campaign, typing mode and a bunch of other shiny new features to the fantastically intense meal-making PC game. The game is being revamped with new visuals, music and even a rebuild of its code to help it run in 60 frames per second, if that matters to you in a game about stacking burgers.

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Sony's DualSense controller is one of the premiere options on PC, offering enhanced trigger rumble ('adaptive triggers') in a handful of games on top of excellent ergonomics and high-quality buttons that are much appreciated in a huge number of racing, action and other titles. These controllers normally cost around £50 to £60, but today they're down to £40 – as part of a Sony summer sale that sees the Sony console drop from £479 to £399.

There are a wide range of colours available, far beyond the white models that launched with the console in 2020. I'm a fan of the black and camouflage options, but there's also red, pink and blue. Here are links to Amazon and Currys, with the latter offering all colours apart from purple at £40 at the time of writing and Amazon only for black, white and blue.

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Update 8/11/23 4:50 p.m. ET: As spotted by Reuters, Activision Blizzard has dropped its counter-lawsuit against Anthony Fantano, the super popular music critic behind the well-known YouTube channel The Needle Drop.

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In the words of Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat, opposites attract. Perhaps that kernel of wisdom can explain the recent announcement that Final Fantasy XIV—an epic, fantasy MMORPG—is crossing over with Fall Guys—a colorful, small-scale battle royale—in a future update.

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As promised, Blizzard held a livestream today, July 28, going over what Diablo IV players ought to expect from the game’s upcoming 1.1.1 patch. During the stream, the developers laid out their overall philosophy behind the expected changes, and got into some specifics about what to expect when it lands on August 8,…

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At long last, Xbox owners will soon get to enjoy the MMORPG PlayStation players have enjoyed for nearly a decade. Final Fantasy XIV is headed to Xbox Series X/S in spring 2024 after being a PlayStation console exclusive since 2014.

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Reviewed on: Xbox Series X/S
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Release: July 14, 2023
Rating: Mature

As an omnipresent robotic voice condescendingly wishes my team luck, my eyes widen in disbelief as a massive portal materializes over a city block. It spews hundreds of raptors that rain from the sky, tumbling down buildings before they sprint in our direction. It’s a jaw-dropping sight, but that awe turns to intimidation at the staggering number of adversaries thirsty for our blood. Our tank units move forward and activate their shields to create a defensive wall. A healer fills health bars to the brim. A sniper takes point on an elevated perch. All the while, my finger rests on the trigger of my grenade launcher, waiting to see the whites of my scaly enemies’ eyes before unleashing hell. 

This week on All Things Nintendo, Brian and Alex drill down into what they learned from their time playing Sonic Superstars and talking to the development team as part of Game Informer's latest cover story. Wesley and Marcus also join the show to give their reviews of Disney Illusion Island and Double Dragon Gaiden: Rise of the Dragons, and Brian talks about his time with Mr. Run and Jump.

If you'd like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram/Threads @BrianPShea or Twitter @BrianPShea. You can follow Alex Van Aken on Twitter: @ItsVanAken. You can follow Marcus on Twitter: @MarcusStewart7. You can follow Wesley on Twitter: @LeBlancWes.

The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we 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!

The patch notes were lengthy — so much so that we're still jotting down the details for the other three classes — but here is everything that was announced for the two weakest classes in the current Diablo IV meta: