8BitDo has released countless controllers for every console, old and new. Now it’s getting into the mechanical keyboard frenzy with two models inspired by the NES and Famicom. They’re priced at $100 each with a planned ship-date of August 10.
Remnant 2, this year’s sequel to surprisingly good ‘Dark Souls, but a co-op shooter’ Remnant: From the Ashes, continues to land surprise after surprise - from being a surprisingly ambitious follow-up to the less-good surprise of its tech woes on PC. The biggest and best surprise so far might be an entirely new class, which devs Gunfire Games deliberately hid behind an unlock process so obscure you needed to datamine its solution.
Final Fantasy 14 has teased what to expect from the MMO’s upcoming patches, the last updates to hit the game before the release of incoming expansion Dawntrail next year. As usual, there’s a lot of stuff planned, from new dungeons and trials, to quests and XIV’s upcoming Fall Guys crossover.
Update: Hasbro have now clarified their previous comments, claiming they were made "in error":
“To clarify, comments that suggest Transformers games have been lost were made in error. We apologize to Activision and regret any confusion; they’ve been great partners, and we look forward to future opportunities to work together.”
Original story: Transformers owners Hasbro have said they would like to see older video games based on the beloved toy franchise to make a return - except those games are lost somewhere on a hard drive inside Activision.
Developers Colossal Order have been explaining the nitty gritty inner workings of Cities: Skylines 2 during their weekly development diaries, and this week’s update boasts about how massive the urban management sequel really is. The newest video (embedded below) says the sequel’s playable area is “five times bigger than before,” and it also details how map tiles and themes work this time around as well.
Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter's #screenshotsaturday tag. And every Monday, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, my eye has been caught by a whole lot of water, which I swear is a coincidence. Ships! Ponds! Otherworldly pools! Ponds! Sharkgirls! Come admire these attractive and interesting indie games.
During the Q&A section at the FFXIV Fan Festival 2023 event held at Las Vegas, Director and Producer Naoki Yoshida was asked about the possibility of a Final Fantasy XIV anime, movie, or TV series being made. He said that he is open to the idea, but he would need to be directly involved in the project. [Thanks, Famitsu!]
Yoshida mentioned that he is the producer and director of FFXIV, as well as head of Creative Business Unit III and a board member, when the topic came up. Because of this, the developer doesn’t think he would be capable of also being director of a TV project for Final Fantasy XIV like an anime or show. However, he also said that Square Enix is still open to any offers they may receive and welcomed other parties to pitch in.
Yoshida also revealed that the FFXIV development team was approached before for similar projects. However, due to a series of factors, including the effect of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, no such project has been able to take shape.
Additionally, if the Final Fantasy XIV team committed to creating an anime or TV series, Yoshida wants to make sure that they aren’t damaging the image that players have of the game.
Hololive and Regis Altare announced the Holostars National Tempus Radio podcast starring is now live. The first episode appeared on July 31, 2023. New episodes will release every Monday on Spotify and YouTube.
You can see the first episode before. Rather than all four Holostars Tempus HQ members joining, he and Axel Syrios are joined by the two Vanguard members Gavis Bettel and Josuiji Shinri instead. While the episode involves a number of topics, the first episode focuses on their thoughts on foods.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRlqB7T3x18&ab_channel=RegisAltareCh.HOLOSTARS-EN
A new KOF XV character breakdown video appeared on the SNK Youtube channel, this time showcasing Najd the Saudi vigilante. The video goes over how her moves work and the overall strategy she encourages. It could prove useful to anyone wanting to play her or just anticipating lots of players trying her out online when she launches in Summer 2023.
Najd's playstyle focuses on getting in close, breaking your opponent's defense, and then hitting them with an attack that can power up her Specials. She does this with a variety of moves like overheads and cross-ups, before using the opening to land a move called Anticipated Power. Successful hits with Anticipated Power increase the level of her special, Retribution of the Unknown. That is a leaping attack that gains speed, knockback and new follow-up opportunities based on her level of power.
You can watch the full KOF Najd Character Breakdown below:
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbhKUrqEno0[/embed]
Earlier in July 2023, Najd appeared in a character trailer along with the announcement that she would be playable at EVO 2023. Meanwhile, back in June 2023, KOF XV received crossplay support in an update also featuing the character Goenitz. SNK's has previously done character breakdowns for Goenitz and Sylvie Paula Paula.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, the heavily Jet-Set-Radio-inspired adventure from developer Team Reptile, launches for PlayStation and Xbox on 1st September, two weeks after Switch and PC.
As a mere glimpse will confirm, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk pays homage and then some to Sega's beloved Dreamcast classic Jet Set Radio, sporting an immediately familiar cell-shaded aesthetic as players skate, skateboard, and cycle through the futuristic streets of New Amsterdam, dodging militarised police, spraying graffiti, and facing off against other crews.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk's New Amsterdam features five main boroughs to explore, and players can make use of a "unique environment based trick system" that includes combos and boost tricks as they roam. Additionally, there're new crew members to recruit along the way, plus a composer line-up including Hideki Naganuma, who wrote Jet Set Radio's soundtrack.
We already knew that Hiroyuki Kotani, the creator of Patapon, was working on a spiritual successor to his 2D indie darling and that a Kickstarter page for the project would go live this week. And today, we discovered that the game has already hit its funding goal in under one hour.
The Kickstarter went live today with a funding goal of $141,098, which the project successfully reached in just 47 minutes. At the time of reporting, the project has surpassed over $200,000. While the project has hit its funding goal, the campaign is running until September 1, so there's still ample time to back the project.
Ratatan is an upcoming rhythm and strategy game announced earlier this month at BitSummet. In addition to Kotani working on the project, Kemmiei Adachi, the musician for the original Patapon, is also tied to the project.
Patapon was originally released back in 2007 on the PSP and spawned two sequels, with the most recent release being Patapon 3 in 2011. While PlayStation remastered the first two installments in 2017 and 2020, respectively for the PS4, the series has remained dormant since.
No word on which platforms Ratatan will release on, but the Kickstarter page notes that those who back the project can expect rewards to be delivered on April 2025.
Legend Story Studios has announced Flesh and Blood: Bright Lights, an (almost) all-Mechanologist set launching October 6 with three new heroes including the character evolution of fan-favourite Dash.
IGN can reveal an exclusive trailer for Bright Lights (below) alongside an interview with James White, CEO and founder of LSS, who shared insight into the new Crack, Shuffle, Play! format, equipment cards that start in the deck, and a reprint of one of Flesh and Blood's most sought after cards, Fyendal's Spring Tunic.
Alongside the character evolution of Flesh and Blood's original Mechanologist, referred to by White as Dash I/O, founder of Teklo Industries Teklovossen will also feature as a new hero alongside a so-far unannounced third character. Evo equipment also makes its debut in Bright Lights: cards which start in the deck and are played out over the course of the game, transforming base equipment into countless possible mech suit combinations.
"Each of the three heroes in Bright Lights have a proficiency that leans them towards one of three components within the product: Evo equipment, Items, and Boost," said White. "However, most decks are interested in each of these components because the synergies that span these components offer the vast scope to experiment and innovate with different deck archetypes.
"Bright Lights has the more interconnecting parts than any set we’ve made yet, but at the same time, we have been mindful to make sure there is a simplicity to this all, as to not become overwhelming, through things such as new card borders to visually differentiate the card clusters, and many commons in the set being very simple in design and function."
The recent releases of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters have at last given a new audience the opportunity to play the original six Final Fantasy games on modern consoles. But while the games are currently available on PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, Square Enix would really love to get them working on a third platform, and no, I'm not talking about the Xbox. I'm talking about Final Fantasy 14.
Speaking at a press conference at Final Fantasy Fan Fest 2023, director and producer Naoki Yoshida (known as Yoshi-P) said that he's been interested for some time in the idea of FF14 players being able to play the Pixel Remasters either through the Gold Saucer amusement park in game, or through player housing.
However, the feature has proven extremely challenging to implement, due to the Pixel Remasters already running on "middleware," effectively a software program middleman that lets an operating system do something it isn't normally able to do.
"So because it's running on a middleware, if you want to implement that into 14, you'd have to build another system that can play back the middleware inside the game," Yoshi-P said, according to a quote picked up by Gamesradar. "So it's like you're building a system of a game to play a system of a game and it's just this weird configuration."
That said, Yoshi-P is still very interested in the idea, and put out the call for a "super programmer" to step up and help Square Enix out.
Dozens of PlayStation fans have spent years dreaming about a new Patapon game, the rhythm-based strategy series for the Playstation Portable that mixed shades of Pikmin and Guitar Hero. That’s probably never happening, but creator Hiroyuki Kotani is back with the next best thing: a spiritual successor called Ratatan…
Remnant II, a new Souls-like shooter developed by Gunfire Games, contains a lot of secrets, including a whole, completely hidden player class. But, twist: The devs hid it so well that only dataminers would ever find it. And they just did.
A new Wake Studio resin statue of Link from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has it all: the hero of time, a dual-box fan glider, explosive barrels, and a bokoblin screaming for death. And it can be yours for only $150.
Naoki Yoshida, the FFXIV director and producer, said that the development team has been testing adding the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster titles into the MMORPG. The developer is interested in adding classic games as part of the Gold Saucer experience or as housing items. However, due to problems with implementing the games, this is only an idea. [Thanks, Famitsu!]
During the Las Vegas FFXIV 2023 Fan Festival, Yoshida was asked about the possibility of playing classic Final Fantasy titles in the MMORPG. The developer said that the team had been testing the idea for about a year and a half. They were considering adding the Pixel Remaster of the first Final Fantasy game as a Gold Saucer or in-game housing item.
However, because the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster games run on middleware, FFXIV would need to be able to run said middleware and run the game on top of it. This would require a complex solution, and Yoshida joked about maybe being able to accomplish it if the team had some more “super programmers.”
Here’s a quote from Director and Producer Yoshida:
"I say this half-jokingly and half-seriously. But since (FFXIV) operates as a theme park for the Final Fantasy series, we would like to be able to do such a thing."
Additionally, the developer emphasized that if the team would be able to add these titles to the game, they would certainly be paid items and not available for free.
When the Good Night World anime debuts on Netflix in October, it will feature theme songs by Nijisanji Vtubers. The official Japanese Twitter account revealed both tracks. Kuzuha will perform the opening track "Brack Crack." Meanwhile, the unit Nornis will perform the ending theme "Salvia." There's also a new trailer for the show ahead of its October 12, 2023.
We can only hear a sample of one of the two Nijisanji Vtuber theme songs for the Good Night World anime so far. Kuzuha's "Brack Crack" appears at the end of the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5umoUuW2zcc&ab_channel=NetflixAnime
As a reminder, Nornis was originally made up of the Nijisanji Vtubers Asahina Akane, Inui Toko, and Machita Chima. However, Akane graduated back in May 2023. This means the song would only be performed by Chima and Toko.
Good Night World is about a family of four who all play an online game called Planet together. There, they act as a “family” of players. However, they don't know they actually are all members of an estranged family who happen to have found each other again.
The Good Night World anime will air on Netflix on October 12, 2023 worldwide. The manga is currently running in Japan. However, there's no official English localization of it.
American Truck Simulator has almost reached its latest destination, with developer SCS Software confirming the game's Oklahoma expansion will arrive tomorrow, 1st August.
Since launching back in 2016, American Truck Simulator's digital reimagining of the US - with its miles of winding road and endless sweeping vistas - has been steadily expanded and refined through a mixture of free and paid updates. Oklahoma brings the game's total number of explorable states up to 13, joining California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Texas.
SCS says "wonderful state parks, several natural marvels, and historical places full of mysteries and legends" await those that pick up American Truck Simulator's Oklahoma DLC, and its arrival will be accompanied by a new World of Trucks community event tasking players with communally amassing a total of 111m miles travelled while delivering cargoes - during jobs of at least 100 miles - to or from any of the 10 cities including in the expansion.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, Team Reptile's upcoming action-adventure game heavily inspired by Jet Set Radio, is coming to Xbox and PlayStation on September 1 – two weeks after the game releases on PC and Nintendo Switch.
Bomb Rush Cyberfunk was announced back in 2020 by Team Reptile with confirmation that the game would release on Steam and the Nintendo Switch. The game will have players traverse around the in-game world, spraying graffiti and using boostpacks to reach new heights.
More interestingly, when the game was first revealed over three years ago, the developer also confirmed that Hideki Naganuma, the composer for Jet Set Radio and Jet Set Radio Future, would compose the music for the game.
The game was originally supposed to launch last year, but in August, Team Reptile confirmed that it would delay the release to summer 2023 while also confirming that Bomb Rush Cyberfunk would come to other consoles shortly after its initial release on PC and Switch. In April, the developer revealed that the game's new release date for Steam and PC would be August 18.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
James Donaldson aka Mr. Beast, one of the most popular YouTube stars in the world, is suing the virtual kitchen company he partnered with after fans complained about poor-quality food being delivered to their homes. Mr. Beast says that the company sacrificed quality control in order to expand as quickly as possible.
