With October coming to a close, Microsoft has announced the next crop of games heading to Xbox Game Pass for November 2023—and the list is stacked.
While anime streaming juggernaut Crunchyroll is trying a shotgun-spread approach of releasing a wide variety of anime this season that—with a few exceptions—will likely have little to no staying power in viewer consciousness, Netflix seems to be taking fewer, smarter shots, and has struck gold with its exceptional…
Psychedelic Alan Wake 2 is just as brooding as the white-sheet Halloween sky. It’s the ideal time of year to play the survival-horror sequel to 2010’s Alan Wake, in which the titular novelist and protagonist seals himself away in a dark purgatory. Now, in Alan Wake 2, Alan can warp reality with his words, which…
Remedy Entertainment released Alan Wake 2 last week, and both fans and critics alike seem to be pleased with the long-awaited sequel – you can read Game Informer's Alan Wake 2 review here. And now, just a few days later, the studio has provided some updates to some games it has in development, including Control 2 and its remakes of Max Payne 1 and 2.
In its latest earnings report for the third quarter of 2023, Remedy says, "Alan Wake 2 launched with great reception, laying the foundation for [the] future," although with the game having just launched, it has nothing to share on the financial performance of the game. However, the studio says, "[We] continue enhancing Alan Wake 2 with new updates and developing the two announced expansions to the game," adding that "Alan Wake 2 marks the first of many great new game launches enabled by our multi-project model, which we have built over the years."
Reviewed on:
PlayStation 5
Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher:
Don't Nod
Developer:
Don't Nod Entertainment
Release:
Rating:
Everyone
Jusant asks players to do one thing: climb. As a silent mountaineer accompanied by a cute critter, the only thing standing between you and your mysterious mission is one very tall mountain. The journey to its summit is treacherous, but thanks to an ingenious climbing system, beautiful art direction, and intriguing world-building, inching toward the top is worth the effort.
The intuitive climbing mechanics are the star of the show. Pressing the left and right shoulder buttons lets you grip handholds with the corresponding hands of the climber while you aim with the left stick. The back-and-forth rhythm of hitting both buttons to pull yourself up precarious terrain feels natural and realistic without being cumbersome. Gripping drains a stamina meter, and though managing this isn’t often difficult, it does add a nice element of thoughtfulness and tension to the ascent. Climbing excels, but simply walking can be troublesome as the character has a habit of getting stuck on even the most negligible geometry, such as small pieces of rubble, resulting in awkward jumping and spinning to break loose.
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In smashing news for the galaxy's irrational planet-haters, some adept tinkerer has created a Starfield mod that lets you build your own space-stations. Mind you, it appears the associated functionality was secretly part of Bethesda's sci-fi RPG all along, perhaps destined to be unlocked by a DLC pack, like a slumbering fairytale royal awaiting true love's kiss.
The modder in question is vexthecollector, whose catchily-named Spacestations for Outposts lets you bolt together hab modules, windows and docking bays to fashion your very own Deep Space Nine. Sadly for my character, the acutely terra-phobic star pirate Mary Read, you'll need to first build an outpost on a planet in order to access the goods.
Headless enemies aren't exactly a new concept in games, so I'm not sure why the Headless in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice instills such dread in me. It's so terrifying to face that I almost didn't write this post, because I knew I'd have to drop into its heinous lair in order to take the screenshot you see above.
But I'm a brave boy, so I dropped in, and of course died almost instantly. Sekiro is still one of the toughest soulslikes around, absolutely filled with extremely dangerous bosses and twisted body-horror monstrosities that can carve you up with just a couple of hits, sending you back to the last checkpoint bereft of all your XP. But the Headless scares me so much, I actively avoid facing it until I have absolutely no choice.
Looking for the Modern Warfare 3 release time? Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is almost upon us, with the campaign, multiplayer, and zombie modes unlocking for most members of the public on either November 9 or November 10, depending on your location across the globe. If you've pre-ordered MW3, you can also preload the game and enjoy the campaign up to a week early. Whether you participated in the beta and can't wait to get back in action or are a new player simply trying to find out when the game unlocks, you're in the right place.
Below, we'll list all the Modern Warfare 3 release times, as well as when you can preload the full game and the Campaign Early Access.
Jusant is all show, no tell, which is a bold swing. Video game characters aren't often big on show don't tell in 2023. A lot of them have been cursed by their creators to narrate everything they do, as they do it, incase the meatsacks controlling them are unable to parse even one second of what is happening on screen without direction. I love HZD's Aloy, but does she ever just stream-of-consciousness her way through life.
In contrast, the nameless protagonist in Don't Nod's new climbing puzzle adventure (what even are genres?) is also silent. There are no other NPCs. You are climbing up through the ruins of an old civilisation. As such, Jusant relies on the devs having crafted an understandable world that you can barely interact with, aside from painstakingly climbing across it like a spidery archaeologist. You've got to have faith in your environmental storytelling if you're making a game like that. And Don't Nod have nailed it.
A little knowledge can be worse than no knowledge at all. I know a little about the Yakuza series, having reviewed the 1980s-set Yakuza Zero for this very parish in 2018, and tried a bit of 2019's turn-based battler Yakuza: Like A Dragon. Fast-forward to 2023, and all Yakuza games are now Like A Dragon games, including the forthcoming Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, which is an... Animal Crossing game, actually? With skateboarding? I'm still getting my head around the existence of a zombie spin-off, Dead Souls, to say nothing of the samurai-era Like A Dragon: Ishin. And then there's the inter-quel Like a Dragon Gaiden, due this November, which seems like a relatively straight-laced delve into the past of original protagonist Kazuma Kiryu. Phew, it's just as well Ed Thorn wrote that guide to the order you should play the Yakuza games in.
I am sure an honest, self-respecting Tolkienian fantasy dwarf would, if I pinched his apple cheeks and told him he's very endearing, he'd at best glare at me and at worst kneecap me with his axe. And yet! That's a large part of what I enjoy about the new subterranean survival-craft-'em-up The Lord Of The Rings: Return To Moria. It's a slower, more weighty survival game than you might be used to if you're a Valheim or ARK type, for example, and you'll spend a lot of your time in the dark. But what is this, a survival game for elves? No sir. And besides, like I said, it's rather sweet. Cosy, even.
Square Enix and Applibot announced two new FFVII Ever Crisis Halloween costumes and weapons for Zack and Glenn based on a werewolf and pumpkin. The new Weapon Featured Draw is now available, and its costumes can be obtained through the Stamp Card.
The new costumes for Zack and Glenn are called Black Hound and Pumpkinmare, respectively. The Black Hound costume gives wolf ears to Zack, as well as an orange hoodie and a black jacket with spikes. This could be a reference to Angeal referring to him as a "puppy" throughout Crisis Core FFVII. The Pumpkinmare costume gives Glenn a leather cape, full-head pumpkin mask, and an ornate top hat.
Meanwhile, Zack’s new five-star weapon is the Black Whiskers sword, and Glenn’s weapon is the Pumpkin Lamppost. You can take a better look at the new Werewolf Zack and Pumpkin Glenn costumes and weapons for the FFVII Ever Crisis Pumpkin Fest Halloween event here:
Bandai announced new room wear apparel based on the uniforms used worn in Gundam: The Witch from Mercury. Pre-orders for the uniform room wear are now available until November 29, 2023 from the Premium Bandai online store. [Thanks, Game Watch!]
The new room wear is based on the uniforms that students of the Asticassia School of Technology use in the latest Gundam anime series. They are available in two models, a green and black model with red accents, and a white and black one with gold accents.
Both uniform models cost 13,200 yen (or approximately $88). The new uniforms are unisex, and they are available in M, L, and XL sizes. You can take a better look at the new Gundam: The Witch from Mercury room wear uniforms in the gallery below:
Kotobukiya announced it is now taking pre-orders for its Bishoujo Felicia Darkstalkers figure. The recolor model is expected to release in December 2023 in Japan for 16,500円 (~$109), with Big Bad Toy Store selling it for $154.99 in February 2024.
This is a limited edition version of the character. It features a black and orange color scheme for her outfit and paw pads, which extends to the base she’s standing on. Instead of blue hair and eyes, she has purple ones instead. The pose is identical to the other variant, however, with only the color scheme changing for this version.
Here’s a closer look at the figure with her box, as well as one from Kotobukiya showing it alongside the original version of the statue.
People won’t need to wait for Deltarune Chapter 5 to release before getting to play Chapters 3 and 4. Toby Fox’s Halloween 2023 newsletter confirmed 3 and 4 will be available to purchase when 4 is finished.
The newsletter began with an update on Deltarune Chapter 3. This is the first since the September 2023 update that went over the removed stealth section. Fox described it as “content complete” and also said that someone already played through the chapter from beginning to end in its current state.
After the update about Chapter 3 being complete, Fox went over why the plan changed from releasing it at the same time as Chapters 4 and 5. Fox specifically said, "My original plan was to release Chapter 3, 4, and 5 together. However, the finish line of Chapter 5 is still pretty far off... and I don't think anybody really wants to wait that long to release anything. Especially me.”
As for the Deltarune Chapter 4 update, there’s a new producer working on it and both some cutscenes and enemies are done.
Alan Wake 2 is one of the best-looking video games ever made. With beautiful lighting and intricate asset detail, it's a bit of a technical showcase, especially on PC with path tracing enabled. The PS5 release also looks brilliant, as I covered last week, with the similar visuals bereft of some path-tracing niceties and with some image quality issues. However, I didn't spend a huge amount of time looking at the differences between quality and performance modes. Meanwhile, review code for Xbox Series machines didn't arrive until launch, which raises a couple of key questions: does Series X match or improve upon PS5? Does Xbox Series S have the power to deliver a decent Alan Wake 2 experience?
On PS5 and Series X, Alan Wake offers a quality mode and a performance mode, which target 30 and 60 frames per second respectively. Remedy has gone a lot further than just tweaking resolution, however, with the developers cutting back a range of settings to hit the higher performance mode target, though most of these alterations are fairly subtle.
Most obviously, the density of environmental objects is decreased quite a lot in the performance mode. Plants that are present in the quality mode are often entirely absent when we switch to the performance mode. Grass also tends to see a reduction in density, with a more sparse, patchy appearance. Scattered leaves and rocks are similarly thinned out. Both modes look perfectly fine on their own terms, but the quality mode looks significantly more lush in head-to-heads, with abundant, thick foliage. While we're looking at the terrain, the performance mode also seems to have a slightly cruder terrain surface, with less obvious displacement for ground details. This is most obvious up close, where the ground clearly features less geometry than the quality mode.
Oh yes. It was the bit in the movie where you leap from one spar of a broken bridge to another, and try to avoid thinking of the drop beneath you. I buckled up. I checked the carabiner. I decided to trust the line. I leapt. I swung on the rope. And then--
Now. I could have swung across the gap and connected with the other part of the bridge. No problem. In the bold sweep of difficult things that Jusant asks you to do while climbing, this was not actually that tricky - it just looked singularly dramatic. But there I was, suspended on a line above miles of buffeted nothingness, and I saw the bridge and its handholds and the safety and progress it represented. But from this angle I could also see something below me. A cleft in the rock. A lacuna, as my neurologist would say. A gap. And in that gap I glimpsed the outline of a tall building disappearing into shadow, a building that almost seemed made of shadow as much as it was made of rock. My game brain said: optional detail. It said: nice to have. But something else in my brain said: church. Pretty church. Interesting church.
Church, yes - and yet it was so far down, so much of a risk. And that bridge above me with its easy holds... Easy progress...?
Happy Halloween! Ubisoft Netherlands invites you to celebrate the spooky festivities with AI-generated Assassin’s Creed art. Terrifying indeed!
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III, due November 10, is a unique, albeit confusing, blend of new and old. It’s not a remake of 2011’s Modern Warfare 3, though it does contain all the multiplayer maps from 2009 first-person shooter Modern Warfare 2. But it’s not a sequel to 2009 MW2—it’s a sequel to the 2022 reboot Modern…
The final anime crossover for Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis in 2023, as Sega announced in the October 2023 NGS Headline that it will add content from Black Lagoon into the PSO2 upgrade. That will show up sometime in December 2023.
A "Black Lagoon Style" scratch ticket will feature avatar items and weapon camos that let players replicate Black Lagoon characters like Revy and Roberta. The anime's opening song "Red fraction" will also be available in-game via a Music Disc.
Sega's announcement included a piece of original artwork where Black Lagoon's Revy is posing with Ogi, the default Slayer CAST character for New Genesis. The upcoming crossover will also come with a Build Part that lets players place a poster of this artwork in their Creative Space.
A new visual novel starring Holostars English VTubers will appear on PCs, as the English official social media account for Hololive Production revealed that Doppelganger is in the works. A webpage for the visual novel also appeared on the newly established CCMC Corp itch.io.
People interested in playing this visual novel can place pre-orders on the site with a minimum price of $12.99. They can also add more funds to support the game's development team.
Doppelganger will star all six active Holostars English VTubers as of October 2023. Although Vesper Noir and Magni Dezmond are no longer with the group, Regis Altare and Axel Syrios have since been joined by Gavis Bettel, Machina X Flayon, Banzoin Hakka, and Josuiji Shinri.
Nintendo announced the October 2023 additions to the Nintendo Switch Online library. The newest titles people can play on the Switch are Castlevania Legends (Game Boy), Devil World (NES) and The Mysterious Murasame Castle (NES).
Castlevania Legends was a Game Boy title originally conceived as a prequel to the entire Castlevania series before appearing on NIntendo Switch Online. You play as Sonia Belmont battling the first incarnation of Dracula in the series’ classic style. Due to the game now being considered non-canon, it was left out of the Castlevania Collection released a few years ago.
The new PlayStation 5 “slim” complete with a disc drive and DualSense controller is being bundled at no extra cost with Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, according to a new advertisement shared by CoD news site Charlie Intel. The free game comes just a month after Call of Duty officially became part of Xbox.
Twitch’s first big artificially generated show Nothing, Forever is not the same anymore. Although it’s been running nonstop since December 2022, with just a handful of changes here and there, the Seinfeld-like broadcast almost broke late last week. Now, after getting fixed, it’s somehow even creepier than before.
When you make a long-running series as wacky and melodramatic as Sega’s eclectic Yakuza / Like a Dragon games, there’s no telling what players will latch on to. A key example? Yakuza’s creators were very surprised by female players finding Goro Majima, the series stalwart eye-patched gangster, unfathomably attractive.
Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski thinks the series needs to be rebooted and get the same treatment Sony gave God of War in 2018. And he’s willing to help consult on that theoretical reboot if it happens. For Gears fans who haven’t had a new game in the main series for nearly four years, that might sound like a…
This story is part of our new Future of Gaming series, a three-site look at gaming’s most pioneering technologies, players, and makers.
Atari has entered into an agreement to acquire Digital Eclipse, the retro-focused studio behind the likes of Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration and this year's The Making of Karateka.
Digital Eclipse has existed in a number of forms since its founding in 1992. In its original guise, it specialised in porting arcade games over to the likes of Game Boy Colour and PlayStation; that emulation work has continued in the years since despite organisational changes, first as it became Backbone Entertainment following a merger in 2003, and again after the Digital Eclipse brand was purchased and revived by former employees in 2015.
In more recent times, the studio's emulation work has included the Blizzard Arcade Collection, Street Fighter: 30th Anniversary, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, but last year's interactive digital documentary Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration - which blended new video interviews, archival material, and playable games to form an exhaustive record of Atari's history - was particularly well-recieved. The studio then launched its Gold Master Series earlier this year, taking a similarly thorough approach to individual classic games, starting with the acclaimed The Making of Karateka.
A new Humble Bundle deal from WB Games gives you the chance to buy the entire Batman Arkham series, Gotham Knights, Mortal Kombat 11, and more for less than $20.
Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios’ king-size role-playing game, has tons of intricate lore by virtue of being based on Dungeons & Dragons. Nearly three months after its August 3 release date, players are still discovering hidden information about the game’s mechanics, romanceable characters, and storied fantasy races.…
Bungie employees knew the Destiny 2 studio was struggling, but might not have expected a recent mass layoff of roughly 100 staff. That’s according to a new report by Bloomberg which details a meeting earlier this month in which studio leadership blamed poor player retention following 2023's disappointing Lightfall expansion
Deltarune, spiritual successor to the beloved, retro-inspired RPG Undertale, is two chapters into its seven-part story. Now, about halfway through development, director Toby Fox and his team are shifting its episodic release plan.
For as long as PC games have been around, people have been modding them. And while players love being able to modify their games, adding new features or fixes, recent comments reveal that Capcom isn’t totally on board with such digital shenanigans, with the publisher suggesting that all PC game mods are effectively…
There’s a new Tekken 8 trailer, and it shows that Alisa Bosconovitch, Chaolan Lee, Devil Jin, and Zafina will be playable characters. The announcement also reconfirmed Panda, following her TGS 2023 reveal, and showed footage of her for the first time. [Thanks, IGN!]
The new trailer begins with a look at characters we knew about. For example, we see Jin and Kazuya facing off when it begins. After that are a few clips of revealed folks. After that, we get to see the newly confirmed characters. First, there’s Panda footage. Zafina follows her. Chaolan shows up after that. Alisa unleashes some attacks. Then, it closes out with a look at Devil Jin. The video ends by showing two more character reveals will come on November 2, 2023 and November 12, 2023.
The first Goddess of Victory: Nikke Nendoroid will be a figure of Rapi, one of the first Nikkes players meet in the game. She’ll show up in June 2024 in Japan, with a worldwide release set for Q4 2024.
Rapi costs about the standard price for a Nendoroid figure. She’s ¥7,000 in Japan. The US Good Smile Company storefront is selling her for $43.99. There is a bonus for buying her directly through the company, which is a papercraft that lets you create a blockade for her to crouch behind.
Rapi will come with extra face plates, leg parts, equipment used in the game, and a removable hat. Her three expressions are one in which she looks angry and like she’s talking, a neutral one, and one in which she is smiling. She can be posed with the same assault rifle she uses in the game. There are also leg parts that allow her to crouch on one knee and fire, as she does when taking part in a stage in-game.
Here’s a closer look at the Nikke Rapi Nendoroid, which shows the different parts included with the figure.
Pathea Games took to social media to show how My Time at Sandrock development helped with My Time at Portia Switch loading times. Due to work on the sequel ports, the team was able to improve the original game.
The update noted that when working on the console versions of My Time at Sandrock, new “optimization techniques” came up. The team then went back to the original game to see how that would work on the first game in the series. The work still isn’t done yet, as the new patch is in Q&A. Once done, it will be handed over to Nintendo and, after that, an update will eventually be released. There’s no release window for that new patch yet, however.
Here’s the video showing the exact comparison. Entering the Portia Commerce Guild involves 4.02 seconds of loading in My Time at Portia Switch after the update. The original took 7.23 seconds. Leaving the building to go back into town will take 6.33 seconds after the update, compared to 9.11 before.
Square Enix announced the release of the new Cait Sith and Giant Moogle robot plush from FFVII Remake and Rebirth. The new plushes are sold separately and will release in Japan on January 27, 2023.
The Cait Sith plush costs 4,180 yen (or about $28). It is made out of yarn and has a knitted texture. Meanwhile, the Giant Moogle plush costs 5,500 yen (~$36), and it features a soft and fluffy texture. Both plushes are now available for pre-order from the Square Enix e-store.
You can take a better look at the new FFVII Remake and Rebirth plush of Cait Sith and the Giant Moogle here:
Bandai Namco and FromSoftware released the original soundtrack for Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon on multiple digital music platforms. People can now listen to Armored Core 6 tracks on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
The Armored Core 6 digital soundtrack consists of 47 tracks totaling 130 minutes in duration. FromSoftware's Kota Hoshino composed most of the songs, with additional contributions coming from Takashi Onodera and Shoi Miyazawa. In just a few hours after its release, Kota Hoshino's "Contact With You" has become the soundtrack's most-played entry on YouTube Music with almost 300,000 clicks.
The Armored Core 6 soundtrack's official aggregate page also includes links to Japanese streaming sites Line Music and Awa other than Spotify and YouTube. Japanese residents can also opt to purchase a downloadable album from Mora and Recochoku in addition to iTunes Store and Amazon Music.
UPDATE 1/11/23: Destiny fans have criticised the statement from Bungie boss Pete Parsons describing the loss of around 100 employees as a "sad day", as more details on the impact of the studio's layoffs come to light.
Parsons' tweet has been called out as tone deaf "Your senior social lead probably would have recommended against this post, which you would have known had you not let them go," wrote Alex_frostwolf, Respawn's global social media lead on Apex Legends. "Pity."
An IGN report last night stated that Bungie had taken responsibility for the layoffs, rather than them being part of a wider Sony directive to cut costs. Dwindling numbers of people playing Destiny 2 was blamed, alongside disappointing pre-order numbers for next year's climactic expansion The Final Shape.
