September 2023

Square Enix and Applibot offered another peek at the new Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis young Sephiroth character in a new trailer for the game. This brief clip includes an array of in-game footage. In addition, the companies confirmed there will be an English-language livestream with game announcements like the one held in Japan on September 26, 2023. That will appear on September 29, 2023. 

Here’s the full Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis Young Sephiroth introductory trailer. It begins with some story segments showing him in The First Soldier segments with characters like Glenn, Lin, and Matt. At one point in it, he notes, “But I don’t want to be a hero.” It then shows footage of him using an ability in-battle. 

Check out this trailer introducing Sephiroth! #FF7EC #FF7EverCrisis #FF7 pic.twitter.com/cMTpTN2gNj

— FINAL FANTASY VII EVER CRISIS_EN｜FF7EC (@FFVII_EC_EN) September 28, 2023

HoYoVerse teased the new 4-star Honkai: Star Rail character, sharing a picture of Hanya ahead of her 1.5 debut. This character is a Ten-Lords Commission judge on the Xianzhou Luofu. Despite fellow upcoming playable character Huohuo being a judge-in-training, she’s a more-powerful 5-star while Hanya is a 4-star.

The initial announcement revealed some Hanya details, as well as her official Honkai: Star Rail art. She uses a device called the Oracle Brush to assess and interrogate criminals. She’s a Harmony type character, which means she’s a supporter, and she uses Physical attacks. While we haven’t seen her in-game, we’ve seen her sister Xueyi appear during the story.

Hanya will sound familiar for those who play Honkai: Star Rail in English. The character is voiced by Suzie Yeung. Yeung also plays Eula in Genshin Impact, Yuffie in Final Fantasy VII Remake, Fuuka in Persona 3 Reload, and Ochette in Octopath Traveler 2.

Good Smile Company opened pre-orders for the new Nendoroid figure of Sayori from Doki Doki Literature Club (DDLC). The release date for it is Q4 2024 in North America and May 2024 in Japan. The figure costs $44.99/¥6,900 yen and is now available for pre-order from the North American and Japanese Good Smile Company online stores.

Editor's Note: Several of the official photos for the Doki Doki Literature Club Nendoroid of Sayori feature spoilers for the game.

As a Goodsmile Online Shop pre-order bonus, the Nendoroid of Sayori will include a heart shaped cookie and hand part, as well as a random effect sheet set specifically designed for Nendoroid figures.

You can take a better look at the new DDLC Nendoroid of Sayori on the gallery below.

Magicians have a concept known as "closing the doors". It's an extremely complex, multi-stage form of lying, basically. You have a good trick, but to make it great, you go around and you spot any avenues of thinking which could lead the audience to work out how it might be done, and then you lock these avenues off, one at a time. It's misdirection, but a sort of nth dimension misdirection.

Cocoon does something similar. Or maybe it's the same thing but through the looking glass, inverted, turned upside down. If magicians close the doors of possibility to stop you from solving a puzzle, Cocoon closes all necessary doors in order to help you solve one. It's closing the doors not in the name of misdirection but, well, direction. And it does it so skilfully I almost always miss those doors closing in the first place.

This is a challenging puzzle game, in other words, but it's never a jerk. And the reason it's never a jerk is all those doors it has closed behind you. If an area's no longer needed, it quietly locks it off. If a puzzle needs you to trek so far for a solution but no further, it will gently place a perimeter around the location. If you need an item, it will find a wordless way to highlight it. Wordlessness! That's a central element here, and we'll come back to it later. For now, what this all means is that when you're stuck, it's always clear where you're stuck, and it's always clear that the solution will be nearby. It will just require some alien logic to find it and implement it. And it turns out that alien logic is pretty easy to uncover when the parameters are so well defined because all those misleading doors have been closed for you.

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UPDATE 4.54pm: Epic has confirmed reports of widespread layoffs at the company, saying the move will affect "around 830 employees", with approximately two-thirds of those job cuts said to be in teams "outside of core development".

Around 250 employees will leave the company as a result of Epic's newly announced divestiture of Bandcamp and SuperAwesome.

"For a while now," Epic CEO Tim Sweeney wrote in an all-staff email now shared on the company's website, "we've been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators. I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic.

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Super Mario Bros. Wonder will be playable in the UK for the first time at EGX.

Nintendo's forthcoming side-scroller is a fresh take on the world of Mario that's set to release on 20th October.

EGX, then, is a chance to check out Elephant Mario in all his glory in advance. It'll take place from 12th-15th October at London's ExCel and is run by Eurogamer parent company ReedPop.

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Insomniac Games has detailed some of the accessibility features that'll be available in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 at launch, plus what other options it'll add to the game post-launch.

The developer revealed the customisable Access controller for PS5, which releases on 6th December, will be compatible with the game in an official PlayStation blog post. This marks the first PS5 game which Access support has been explicitly confirmed for.

Accessibility options included in Insomniac's previous Spider-Man games, such as Challenge Levels of various difficulties, Chase Assist, and Quick Time Event Autocomplete, will be present in the hotly awaited sequel.

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Microsoft has introduced a new update across Xbox that aims to simplify users' experiences when they set about backing up their game captures.

With this update in play, any captures stored on the Xbox network will now be deleted after 90 days. Users can check on their captures' status via the Captures app, where any images coming close to that 90 day limit will be flagged.

As is apparent with this "new retention approach", Xbox users will need to ensure any captures they wish to keep for more than that 90 day period are backed up elsewhere or risk losing them forever.

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Xbox Cloud Gaming will be available on Meta Quest headsets in December.

Microsoft and Meta announced their partnership a year ago, but now we finally know when Xbox games will be available on the VR headsets.

It means the likes of Starfield, Halo Infinite, and Forza Motorsport will be playable on a screen right before your eyes.

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Epic Games has announced it is laying off roughly 16 percent of its workforce, resulting in around 830 employees losing their jobs.

In a statement posted by Epic president Tim Sweeney, he explains the layoffs as a cost-cutting measure that will include divesting Bandcamp, which it acquired last year, and spinning off advertising platform SuperAwesome into an independent company. Epic had acquired SuperAwesome in 2020. 250 people will be leaving Epic as a result of these divestitures. 

“For a while now, we've been spending way more money than we earn, investing in the next evolution of Epic and growing Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators,” Sweeney writes in his statement. “I had long been optimistic that we could power through this transition without layoffs, but in retrospect I see that this was unrealistic.”

Sweeney then explains that despite taking steps to reduce costs, such as scaling back on marketing and events, Epic still fell short of achieving financial stability and that layoffs were the only solution. Sweeney states that two-thirds of the terminations come from teams outside of core development and that these departures will not come at the expense of game development or lines of business. Sweeney also says this will be the only round of layoffs and that Epic will still be hiring for “critical roles.” Development of content for titles such as Fortnite, Fall Guys, and Rocket League will continue as planned. 

Reviewed on: PC
Platform: Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
Developer: Geometric Interactive
Release: September 29, 2023

The abstract environmental puzzle game has become its own genre in recent years, with some telling stories that are strange but easy to parse and others being so opaque that the player can ascribe almost any meaning to what is transpiring on screen. On this difficult-to-define spectrum, Cocoon lands on the latter half of the scale. I basically never had any idea why I was doing what I was doing or what the larger goal was, but I didn’t mind for a moment because the puzzles scratch your brain so effectively that I was always eager to complete whatever strange task it put in front of me.

Reviewed on: Switch
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Publisher: Konami
Developer: Konami
Release: September 12, 2023
Rating: Everyone 10+

Gaming franchises need to evolve to stay relevant. Whether it's expanding on certain mechanics or overhauling quality-of-life features, any great series that's been around as long as Bomberman is forced to make changes or be left in the dust. Unfortunately for Super Bomberman R 2, the changes it makes to the formula are mostly unsuccessful. While games with your friends can be thrilling, online play is hit-or-miss, and its story mode is a huge letdown. I respect Konami for trying new things with Bomberman. In this case, it just turned out to be a misfire.

First, a disclaimer. I primarily reviewed the game on the Switch. When I booted it up, however, I was taken aback by the poor graphics. Textures are notably blurry, the lighting is flat, and shadows are pixelated. The first Super Bomberman R – a launch title for the Switch – looks much better in comparison. The difference between the Switch and PlayStation 5 versions is night and day. Performance-wise, the games feel the same, but if you want decent-looking visuals, especially in the story mode, I'd recommend any non-Switch version.

Cocoon is a puzzler where worlds are contained within orbs, and it's your job to unpick puzzles with your ability to hop in and out of them, as well as carry them on your back. While it might sound complex, the worlds these orbs contain steer you carefully towards a clear goal every time: solve the problem, then grab your orb on the way out. Before you know it, you're carrying orbs within orbs and you're unravelling a cosmic mystery where the floor might be a biomechanical stingray or the path forward a spinal cord composed of ferns. I am convinced everyone should spring to action and hoist an orb on their shoulders. I couldn't put mine down.

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As friends, family and long-time RPS readers can probably attest, reverse Alleyway puzzler Holedown became a mild obsession of mine a few years back. Every spare idle moment I had, I'd be bouncing balls down its infinite planetary mining silos, mesmerised by the vacant stare of its iconic white Holedown worm (my record is still 1090m, in case you're wondering). It's a most joyous day, then (as much as it can be on a day like today), to hear that solo developer Grapefrukt will soon be back with another ball-bouncing beaut in the form of Subpar Pool, which is coming to PC (and phones) on October 12th.

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As a child of the early internet, games like Hypnospace Outlaw can't help but resonate quite deeply with me. This was the internet as I remembered it, goddamnit, and the fact it mixed in a compelling corporate conspiracy story in between its pages was just the icing on an already fine cake (in GIF form, naturally, with a MIDI tune of Vivaldi's Four Seasons blaring out from your internet browser for good measure). But in revisiting Hypnospace for this month's RPS Game Club, there was one page in particular that really brought the rose-tinted shutters down on me. It was beautiful, lovely April, Hypnospace's virtual pet hamster, who can live, snooze and poop on your desktop, and maybe turn a slightly sickly shade of green if you don't pay enough attention to her.

As with most things in Hypnospace, I can only assume that April and her fellow gaggle of virtual pet friends are riffs on real-life virtual pet games Catz and Dogz from the late 90s, which, yes, as a ten-year-old girl at the time, I was absolutely obsessed with. Developed by the now defunct PF Magic, Catz and Dogz 3 were arguably two of my most formative PC games growing up, and cor, I miss those dumb beasts so very much.

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This week we at the Electronic Wireless Show podcast look at two contrasting tales of games being always online: Payday 3's overloaded launch servers, and Sea Of Thieves' triumphant reveal of season 10 additions. Is always online good? Is it bad? Or, much like the radiator in your living room, is it basically invisible as long as nothing breaks? Plus we dive into the games we've been playing recently (Nate is still plugging away at Baldur's Gate 3), recommend a bunch of unrelated short videos, and answer a question that has plagued humanity for years: would you punch a gorilla for a cheeseburger?

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There was a moment near the end of Cocoon when my brain could not keep up with the game. Like being curled up in a wave and then flipped head over heels against the surf, my mind sluggishly tried to work backwards what precisely had just occurred. Where did I just come from? How did I get here? Cocoon’s strange, alien…

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A video game-themed collectible storefront claims Sony ordered it to destroy all of its licensed PlayStation-themed merchandise, chief among them being statues based on The Last Of Us Part II, God of War, and Bloodborne.

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Sega has canceled the yet-to-be-released Hyenas, an extraction shooter set in space that was in development at Total War and Alien Isolation studio Creative Assembly. The publisher also canceled several other, unannounced games as part of “structural reforms” across its European operations.

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Epic Games Inc., the company behind global megahit Fortnite, the Epic Games Store, and the wildly popular Unreal Engine, is laying off 16 percent of its current workforce. This report, first coming from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, sees almost 900 employees losing their jobs.

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Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a suite of AI-based chatbots, including one that portrays rapper Snoop Dogg as a role-playing game Dungeon Master, during the Meta Connect 2023 Keynote on September 27. Each of Meta’s 28 new bots (which are not yet available to the public) is a curated character represented by a celebrity,…

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The third installment in the Search for Kirby puzzle book series is now available to order on the Yomeruba website. It will cost 1,210 yen ($8.10) including tax. You can order and read a preview of some of the pages on the website. These books are similar to the Where’s Waldo series of children’s books, but it’s Kirby who people are looking for instead of the man in the red and white striped sweater. Many of the pages are themed after Kirby games that were released in the past. There's no news about a worldwide release.

This time, the theme of this installment is that Kirby decides to throw a party full of yummy food to eat. He pops up in various locations sending invitations to all of his friends. Also, readers can search for different forms of Kirby, too. For example, the Drill Copy Ability Kirby can be found.

The games that appear as themes in the third Search for Kirby! book include:

Good Smile Company revealed new Plamax model kits featuring Rei Ayanami from the Rebuild of Evangelion series. The plastic model kits will be available in multiple versions. Other than the regularly known appearance with short hair and neutral facial expression, the company will also release a separate alternative set with long hair and a smiling face. They will appear in Japan in April 2024 and North America in Q3 2024.

Both the regular and long-haired versions of Rei Ayanami's model kits are available to pre-order on the Good Smile Online Shop US site at $49.99 for US and Canadian residents. Pre-orders made via Good Smile Company's own website will also come with a clear hair runner to produce more glossy hair in the finished kit. The unpainted Sculptor's White editions are only available on the global storefront at ¥9,800 / $63.99.

When I played the Cocoon demo in June 2023, my main takeaway from the experience was intrigue. It left a lot of open questions, yet its gameplay design and mysterious atmosphere made me desperate to play more. My experience with the full game has failed to answer many of the questions the demo instilled in me. Instead, it asked even more and left me unable to stop thinking about what on earth I experienced.

This is a good thing.

Cocoon is the brainchild of former Playdead designer Jeppe Carlsen, who designed many of the puzzles in Limbo and Inside. While he was not responsible for the overall aesthetic and storytelling of those games, there is some clear shared DNA here. This mostly comes across in the vague way its world and story are presented. However, Cocoon is an even less explainable experience.

After a full month of new Hatsune Miku x Pokemon Project Voltage designs, the final four trainers all appeared on the project’s social media account and official website. This week, we saw hypothetical Steel, Fighting, Dragon, and Dark-type Pokemon trainer Miku designs crafted by various artists that work for Game Freak and The Pokemon Company International. In addition, the first four producers creating songs for the event have been revealed, and the first music video will premiere on September 29, 2023.

We have now seen Hatsune Miku Project Voltage designs for all 18 Pokemon types. Here’s a list of the final four types, partners, and artists that contributed to the project:

• Dark: Obstagoon (art by Rōnin)
• Dragon: Miraidon (art by Yūsuke Ōmura)
• Fighting: Sirfetch’d (art by take)
• Steel: Jirachi (art by Megumi Mizutani)

Have a look at all of the new Project Voltage and character sheets in the gallery below:

[gallery ids="988502,988505,988507,988508,988509,988511,988512,988513,988514" link="file"]

Bandai Namco offered a closer look at the Tales of Arise Classic Characters Costume & Arranged BGM DLC. This involved two screenshots of the outfits in-game, as well as an overview image that shows the six members of the cast wearing the six outfits inspired by past characters. The add-on will appear on November 9, 2023, the same day Beyond the Dawnappears for the game.

First, there are two images that show every character in the Tales of Arise Classic Characters Costume DLC. The first, from left to right, shows Kisara as Flynn from Tales of Vesperia, Rinwell as Rita from Vesperia, Alphen as Ludger from Xillia 2, Shionne as Velvet from Berseria, Law as Jude from Xillia, and Dohalim as Jade from Abyss. There’s also a screenshot of teh whole party in their costumes, which features Dohalim, Kisara, Alphen, Shionne, Rinwell, and Law from left to right.

Being sneaky and as sly as that proverbial fox is about to get even more up close and personal (well, for those on PlayStation - I know others have had this experience already).

Earlier today, InnerSloth, Sony, Schell Games and Robot Teddy announced that social deduction game Among Us will be coming to PS VR2. So, get ready to grab your Crewmates and then subsequently betray them all with a quick slice here or a subtle tongue impaling here. You know, as you do.

When Among Us makes its way onto PS VR2, players can expect the usual likes of tasks, sabotages, venting, and those frantic emergency meetings where accusations begin to fly left, right and centre. But in addition to all this, Among Us VR on PS VR2 will also include new tasks and new features designed specfically for virtual reality. This includes 3D cosmetics, proximity voice chat, accessibility and comfort settings, safety and in-game moderation tools, crossplay compatibility, and custom lobby settings.

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Unreal Engine and Fortnite publisher Epic Games are making an absolutely enormous round of job cuts. As announced by billionaire founder and CEO Tim Sweeney in an email to staff today, the company will lay off approximately 830 people, totalling “around 16%” of their workforce, in order to achieve “financial sustainability” following a period of heavy investment and lower-than-hoped returns from Fortnite.

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With release just a couple of weeks away on 13th October, Lords of the Fallen has a new gameplay overview trailer. It's a dripping, cheesily VO-d cinematic layer cake of gore and gristle that introduces you to the game's god-blighted fantasy world and the many different ways you'll expire within it - from having a boss inconsiderately drop a load of golden swords on you, to getting mobbed by underworld spooks according to an escalating "dread" level, which is sort of GTA's old heat system but with more Grim Reapers.

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As my spaceship emerges from interstellar travel to orbit a once-distant alien world, I know that once I’m down on its surface, it won’t feel like a world at all. Instead, what Starfield will give me is a series of zones, awkwardly stitched together in a way that makes it hard to pretend they make up a planet. This…

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Pro Mortal Kombat player Jarrad Gooden, or NinjaKilla212, demonstrated how absurd Mortal Kombat 1 combos can get by throwing demon warrior Baraka for nearly a full minute. Though the game was only just globally released on September 19, Gooden represents a committed number of players already trying to find the most…

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Sanrio is teaming up with Hatsune Miku and friends in the mobile game Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage, known in Japan as Project Sekai: Colorful Stage featuring Hatsune Miku. An upcoming in-game event will begin soon. All 26 Colorful Stage characters will be a part of this event, which involves new illustrations. Also, all of the various Sanrio mascot characters featured in the upcoming event have been revealed in the latest announcement video on the Project Sekai official social media account. Craft Egg plans to announce more information about the event in a live broadcast in October 2023.

In the video, a few of the new designs for certain characters were shown, but we can only see a small portion of them. It is up to the us to figure out who these characters are and which Sanrio mascot characters will be paired with them. As for the Sanrio characters that will be featured, they are all displayed at the end of the video. Popular mascots like My Melody, Kuromi, Pompompurin, Cinnamoroll, and Hello Kitty are just a few examples of ones that will be featured.

Check out the announcement tweet and video below:

[embed]https://twitter.com/pj_sekai/status/1707028022849679396?s=46&t=SNtyEdQZL6ezAJBHG2IubA[/embed]

Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage is available on iOS and Android devices worldwide, though it is known as Project Sekai: Colorful Stage featuring Hatsune Miku in Japan. The Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage Sanrio event is in development.

Uniqlo is now selling Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 shirts, and there are five different styles featuring characters from the series. All of these are unisex shirts designed for adults. Each one is available in sizes XXS through XXXL. People can find them in the online storefront, and they should be in retail stores as well. These items already debuted in Japan back in August 2023.

As this covers season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen, it means the new Uniqlo shirts feature the younger versions of characters like Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, as well as present-time characters like Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara. Four of the shirts feature designs on the front. However, the fifth features Gojo with Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara on the back.

Here’s a gallery showing all of the designs:

Good Smile Company opened pre-orders for the 1/6 scale figure of Hololive's La+ (Laplus) Darknesss. People living in the US and Canada can place their orders on the Good Smile Online Shop US site, where the figure is priced at $148.99.

The static figure will have an approximate height of 24 centimeters / 9.44 inches with no movable parts. Good Smile will instead bring more details to La+'s attire and facial expression. The figure will come with a pentagonal base featuring the logo of Secret Society holoX. The set will also include La+'s companion crow, which the owner can attach to her hair's cowlick.

Ubisoft released the Assassin’s Creed Mirage launch trailer, and it turns out OneRepublic and Mishaal Tamer worked on a song for it. “Mirage” plays while people watch gameplay from this entry. The song is also available to purchase and listen to via multiple sources, This comes about a week before the game’s actual launch.

Here’s the full Assassin’s Creed Mirage launch trailer with OneRepubic and Tamer’s song “Mirage.” We get to see footage of new protagonist Basim as the music plays.

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