Honkai: Star Rail released its first major update this week in the form of version 2.0 It adds a cornucopia of new content for trailblazers to explore, including a continuation of the main quest, new characters, and the new Penacony area. I’ve only spent a short amount of time with version 2.0 but things are looking…
Update: 2/14/24, 3:30 p.m.:Last week’s demo for the hotly anticipated RPG Final Fantasy VII Rebirth hit digital shelves and although public perception remains positive, there has been some concern over the visuals, specifically when using the game’s high frame rate “Performance” mode. That’s hopefully going to change…
Kujibikido announced a new Gintama kuji lottery with merchandise goods featuring characters from the series participating in strawberry picking. The kuji lottery will be available between February 13 and March 4, 2024.
The new Gintama strawberry picking kuji lottery items feature newly drawn illustrations of Gintoki, Shinpachi, Kagura, Hijikata, Okita, and Kondo. Each lottery entry costs 770 yen (or about $5) each, and the items are expected to release in Japan around mid to late June 2024. There are four prize categories, ranging between S, A, B, and C.
The S prize is a cushion featuring a strawberry milk carton on the front and an illustration of Gintoki drinking milk on the back. There’s a 1% chance of the S prize being picked. The A prizes are character acrylic stands of the new character illustrations, and they have a 12% chance. The B prizes are acrylic keychains and have a 29% chance.
Finally, the C prizes are pin badges and have a 58% chance. Additionally, People that purchase a set of 5 kuji tickets will receive an illustration card set as a free gift, and people that purchase a set of 10 tickets will get a bag of Gintoki strawberry milk candy.
You can take a look at the Gintama strawberry picking kuji lottery here:
With the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth only weeks away, it’s becoming abundantly clear that Square Enix is playing fast and loose with the original game’s script. That was true of FF7 Remake, but the most recent State of Play, focused entirely on Rebirth, was a bounty of spoilers and scenes that suggest this…
Denis Villeneuve got deadly serious when io9 mentioned the Dune Lego set to him. “I’ll be honest with you,” the director of Dune: Part Two said. “Probably I’m making movies because first I was a hardcore Lego player. I’m from that first generation where it was just bricks, right? I went to a lot of places with those…
Square Enix released four new pieces of FFVII Rebirth key art showcasing the characters Red XIII, Vincent, Aerith, and Cid in various locations such as Nibelheim and Cosmo Canyon. The images follow the FFVII-focused State of Play broadcast.
Each of the images feature the characters in a location relevant to their story, with Cid sitting atop the landed plane Tiny Bronco, and Vincent brooding over a stormy Nibelheim. Red XIII stands next to the petrified body of his father, and Aerith is pictured kneeling and praying to the lifestream. Each one of these images is based on an original piece of key art from the PlayStation release.
The tweet featuring Aerith's art also contains the message "The world will be saved, but will you," further teasing theories about what her fate in the remake will be.
You can get a look at the new FFVII Rebirth key art of Red XIII, Vincent, Aerith, and Cid in the gallery below:
Crunchyroll announced the Spy x Family Code: White movie English dub release date. The film will debut in Canada and the US with both an English dub and Japanese with English subs option on April 19, 2024.
First, here’s the trailer for the English dub of the Spy x Family film. It sets the stage by showing that this is both a family vacation and the setting for a new mission for members of the Forger family. We also get to hear the English voices for Anya, Loid, and Yor.
If you played and liked last year's excellent slice-of-life adventure A Space For The Unbound, stop what you're doing and go and download the Steam Next Fest demo for Until Then. Go on, I'll wait. Right, sorted? Let's continue. Like A Space For The Unbound, Until Then is a coming of age story where the ups and downs of everyday high school life start intermingling with strange, supernatural occurences.
In parallel with development of a stunning-looking sequel, Kojima Productions has continued to work on the original Death Stranding, delivering a series of ports - and the latest is exceptionally intriguing, targeting MacOS and selected iOS devices. A single purchase gets you access to a game that runs on Apple Silicon Macs and iPads - as well as the iPhone 15 Pro. The promise is mouthwatering, especially on iOS: the full Death Stranding experience on portable, fanless devices.
Cutting to the chase, Apple's iPhone 15 Pro comes surprisingly close to the console experience in Death Stranding. The basic visual setup is convincing, with visual settings not too far from its PS4 counterpart. Pausing on the opening shot of gameplay, there are some differences - the rain is less prominent on iPhone, the foliage looks different in spots, and some LODs have been trimmed back, but it's otherwise a very comparable looking shot. Near-field detail is about the same between iPhone and PS4, while more distant LODs are sometimes simplified. Foliage density and quality has also been tweaked. There are obvious differences in image clarity as well, though we'll touch on that in a few moments.
Even shadow resolution - which is typically the first port of call to cut back on mobile ports - is about the same between the two systems. Screen-space reflections are maintained on iPhone, though they do look a bit coarse. Decima's volumetric cloud system does get a pretty sizeable haircut on iPhone, with chunkier and more artifact-ridden volumes. I imagine the Nubis clouds are running at a substantially lower resolution, with passable enough but somewhat noisy results.
Final Fantasy 8 director, and series producer, Yoshinori Kitase has said he would change its combat system in a hypothetical remake.
The eighth game in the series is more experimental than others, in particular with its Junction system used to boost the stats of player characters.
Kitase told IGN he would "really rework the battle system", mentioning the Junction system specifically.
While playing WB Games’ new co-op shooter, Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, a player was knocked down by enemies mid-fight. They then heard something that they were probably not meant to hear: the name of the game’s next playable character. And you can’t blame dataminers or leakers for this slip-up. Instead,…
As smash hit survival and animal-catching game Palworld is still in Early Access, bugs and hiccups are to be expected. The game’s developer, Pocketpair, has been quick to address many of the game’s more frustrating bugs, including issues with its respec item which were plaguing players. The latest patch continues the…
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach was featured heavily during Sony’s January State of Play presentation. The PlayStation 5 sequel is coming out in 2025, but while it’s still over a year away, we did learn a lot about it in the nearly 10 minutes of new footage from the show. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, for a game helmed by…
Square Enix Producer Yoji Fujito announced the Final Fantasy XI February 2024 version update release date and details. It will launch on February 13, 2024 and, while small, offers Master Trials and Ambuscade updates and a new login campaign.
Both the new Ambuscade and Master Trials updates in Final Fantasy XI give us more to fight. With the Master Trials, Founder King August Adoulin will be there to challenge people. If you beat that fight that includes him, you get a new title and reward. With the Ambuscade for February 2024, Ahrimans and Taurus will appear as the Notorious Monsters.
As for the February 2024 Final Fantasy XI login campaign, a number of items will be available to obtain with points. The key item this month is the 500 point Sheet of Near Eastern tunes. People can also spend 1,500 points on things like Red Pondweed, Savory Shank, and Sweet Tea. The full list of rewards is available at the official site. People can stop by each day to obtain points until March 5, 2024.
This smaller update falls in line with what Fujito previously discussed. He noted there won’t be as many updates in 2024.
Three new characters will debut in Honkai Impact 3rd Part 2, and HoYoVerse shared new insight into the Senadina Deepspace Anchor: First Light battlesuit making its debut. It goes over what people can expect from the Sea of Data heroine.
The new trailer begins with Senadina at home, waiting for the Dreamseeker. When she appears, the two dash out to see the outside world. It’s then that she’s introduced as a “trendy” character who is “enigmatic” and has “Martian aesthetics.” She’s also described as being someone really lively who can help pull the new characters together. The team also mentioned she’s designed to look futuristic, to tie into the sci-fi elements and as though she came from Mars.
As for gameplay, the team noted that due to the secrecy surrounding her that they didn’t have much of her background when designing her. From what they did know, they decided to make her yoyo her signature weapon. The team also mentioned it took over half a year to put together the Honkai Impact 3rd Senadina Deepspace Anchor: First Light battlesuit and included a yoyo expert to consult and put on a performance to be used in the game.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2's much anticipated New Game Plus mode will arrive next month - on 7th March - which means soon we can all swing back around and go for another spin with Peter and Miles.
Along with this new mode, players can also expect some new suits for the two Spider-Men and "more" when the update goes live.
The Marvel's Spider-Man 2 team has promised it will share a complete list of upcoming features a bit closer to this update's release. We will, of course, keep you posted.
Foamstars has a vibrant cast of characters, each of whom is best suited to a different playstyle. While the differences aren’t immediately obvious, here is where each of the characters excels and how you can best use them for your style of play.
This K-pop star’s love of dance makes her one of the best characters in Foamstars for movement. Her run speed is quick and her weapon fires has a quick fire rate. However the key thing that makes her so evasive is her L1 Skill, Bubble Step. This is a convenient get-out move that allows her to jump in whatever direction suits, leaving a barrage of shots in her wake. This move can even be used mid-jump, effectively giving her a double jump other characters lack.
In a recent interview with Famitsu, FFVII Rebirth co-directors Tetsuya Nomura and Naoki Hamaguchi talked about the addition of Gilgamesh to the world of Final Fantasy VII. Gilgamesh will appear as part of a side quest chain spanning throughout the entire map of the game. [Thanks, Famitsu!]
The directors said that the side quest chain is titled Ancient Matters, and Gilgamesh seems to first appear on the fourth mission. When asked about the inclusion of the character in the world of FFVII, Hamaguchi revealed that Gilgamesh was one of the many characters proposed by the co-director to be included in a questline spanning through various regions in the game.
Nomura initially thought that the inclusion of Gilgamesh in FFVII Rebirth would clash with the setting of the game, but the developer ended up making adjustments to the character and questline that would make his appearance adjust better to the tone and setting of FFVII Rebirth.
Gilgamesh made his first appearance ever in Final Fantasy V. Nomura said that he designed him as a pixel art character first, and artist Yoshitaka Amano created the illustrations of the character per Nomura’s request.
Studio Supersoft announced that a marriage feature will be coming to Moonstone Island as part of a free Valentine's Day update on February 13, 2024. The update will coincide with the release of a small, paid Valentine's themed DLC pack.
The star feature of the update is, of course, the ability to marry characters in the game and have them move into your house after a ceremony. However, also arriving are several new items, a new taming system, a stat reset potion, and five new spirits. The new characters you can capture are Breadmaus, Kiwiwatt, Toxitoe, Snohm, and Barkbyte. The Steam page detailing the update also teases a new collaboration in the works, though no details were shared.
As well as the free update, a new DLC packed titled Designed for Lovers will also arrive at the same time, including new furniture and housing decorations like a heart-shaped archway, a box of chocolates, and a loveseat. The DLC will cost will cost $3.99, with a 20% discount active until February 22, 2024.
We can view the trailer in the tweet below.
Strap in Sonic Adventure 2 sickos, the main theme from the series’ 3D platformer is going to be in the Sonic the Hedgehog 3 live-action movie. Were you worried we’d get some terrible needle drop during a climactic moment? Were you mentally bracing yourself to hear Bonnie Tyler’s “Holding Out For A Hero” as Sonic and…
A new survey from Capcom asks fans if they are interested in more sequels or new entries in franchises like Dino Crisis and Onimusha. As someone who regularly sees people asking for more Dino Crisis—the last game came out in 2003—I think I can answer that question for Capcom.
Overwatch 2’s second big anime collaboration is coming in season nine, and this time, it’s all about the classic ‘90s space western Cowboy Bebop. This marks the first big crossover event the game has put on in 2024, and cements that Blizzard is more than willing to go back to the anime well after its One Punch Man…
Platform:
PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Publisher:
Slow Bros.
Developer:
Slow Bros.
Release:
2024
The first teaser trailer for Harold Halibut was released seven years ago and was only a minute and a half long, but it immediately grabbed my attention. The footage showed a stop-animated Harold (or what looked stop-animated) cleaning up graffiti in an underwater facility. The striking visuals inspired a thought I don’t often have – how did they do that? It was my first question for game director Ole Tillmann and art director Onat Hekimoglu when I recently spoke with them.
Visual Concepts Austin, the 2K Games studio behind sports franchises including WWE and NBA, as well as last year’s kart racing game Lego 2K Drive, has reportedly laid off a number of employees. The cuts come fewer than six months after the last round of layoffs at the Texas outlet.
Last week, you decided by 60% to 40% that vampires are better than werewolves. I trust we will never hear of this again. Alas, I must respond to serious allegations. RPS reader Truffles commented, "This is an absurd comparison, I thought this was meant to be scientific! How are we meant to decide between two completely unrelated things?" You're right. I'm sorry. I'm failing you all. "I hope next time we're back to proper sensible comparisons," Truffles added, "like instant-death bottomless pits vs. being able to reroll your build." Alright, let's find out. What's better: instant-death bottomless pits, or being able to reroll your build?
After years without a new The Sims game, it seems like three are likely to land in fairly close proximity - sort of, anyway. We know that Paradox’s ambitious competitor Life By You will arrive this June (assuming no more delays), while EA’s own free-to-play evolution of the OG life-sim series - currently codenamed Project Rene rather than The Sims 5 - is probably still a while off yet. Dropping somewhere in the middle will be Paralives, the promising Patreon-funded up-and-comer led by indie dev Alex Massé, which has been given a fresh look and confirmation of a release date sometime next year.
“I really fight being envious of Larian,” says indie RPG designer Jeff Vogel. “Or any other big company. Because everyone’s scared, everyone has hard times, and the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. I’ve had a very successful life where I’ve earned enough and gotten enough stability. And so I'm really happy with my choices. It would be awesome if I could write a big hit that everyone played, or had a big team and could do a big thing. But you know, I’m content. I’ve had enough people play my games.”
One of the many recent Final Fantasy VII Rebirth announcements from Square Enix is that there will be a FFVII Ever Crisis crossover involving the game. That will kick off on February 15, 2024.
Here’s the trailer for the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth crossover heading to the game. It focuses on the flashback to the early days of Cloud’s encounter with Sephiroth, showing the two of them when they went on a mission to Nibelheim. There are no details about what the event will entail and if it could involve another playable version of Sephiroth.
When the 2.0 update arrived for Honkai: Star Rail, it also added the four-star Destruction character Misha to the pool of available characters. To help people understand how the new ice-type ally works, there’s a new “Keeping Up with Star Rail” episode discussing him.
As usual, the video started by showing him a bit in Penacony, before going into combat. His basic attack deals ice damage to a single target. His R-Room Service Skill deals primary ice damage to one enemy and splash damage to the ones next to it. At the same time, it increases the number of hits for his Ultimate by one for each use. His Ultimate G-Gonna Be Late normally hits three times, with the first hitting a designated foe and the other hits hitting random ones. If the Skill was used before it, more random hits are landed. Also, his Ultimate has a chance of applying the Frozen status effect to any enemy it hits. Depending on how many times you use his Skill before his Ultimate, it can hit up to 10 times.
Here’s the full Misha “Keeping Up with Star Rail” installment that explained the new Honkai: Star Rail character’s moveset.
Disney is making its biggest push yet into video games. On February 7, the Mouse House and Fortnite creator Epic Games announced plans to create new games and an entertainment universe where consumers can “play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar…
A GameStop tweet promoting a demo day when folks can come in and play some games on Xbox consoles using “Microsoft Game Pass” has injected more chaos and controversy into the ongoing, apocalyptic Xbox drama—set off by reports of exclusive games like Starfield coming to PS5—currently affecting console warriors and…
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PlayStation 5 is getting the much-requested and previously teased New Game+ option in March, as well as some other “highly requested features” and new suits for Spidey.
After getting pushed into 2024, we have a release date for the game's next big update. New Game +, new suits, and other upgrades are on March 7. Along with those vague content promises, Insomniac also says it will have a proper list of new features in the future.
❗ OUR NEXT UPDATE IS COMING MARCH 7
— Insomniac Games (@insomniacgames) February 7, 2024
Our title update for Marvel's #SpiderMan2PS5 arrives next month and adds highly requested features like New Game+, new suits, and more!
Watch our social media for a complete list of features closer to release. 🕸️🕷️ #BeGreaterTogether pic.twitter.com/qhncOPkUXY
For more on Marvel's Spider-Man 2, you can read our review here.
A PC version of Dreams, the PlayStation 4-exclusive toybox-slash-game creation platform from LittleBigPlanet makers Media Molecule, was nearly completed before being cancelled late last year, according to a new report.
The director of Final Fantasy 8 has shot down hopes that the next numbered Final Fantasy might see a remake once the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy comes to its conclusion. The reason? Simply that it’s a lot of damn work.
Good news, star admirals with decent CPM! Gearbox and Blackbird Interactive's strategy escapade Homeworld 3 has a demo on Steam. It's been live for a few days, actually, but whether due to the bombardment of other Steam Fest goodies or my being led astray by the similar-but-nerdier Nebulous: Fleet Command, I didn't try it till last night. The demo includes a tutorial mission, four maps and the War Games mode, a one-to-three player affair which essentially turns Homeworld into a roguelike - pitching you up against unpredictable opposition while unlocking new fleets and doling out Artifacts that augment your vessels.
If you're a fan of The Sims and Sims-like experiences, it's quite an exciting time; work on The Sims 5, or whatever it'll be called, is officially underway. Then there's the imminent release of Paradox's Life By You following a number of delays, and even the charmingly lo-fi Tiny Life for old-school Sims fans. The game that's generated perhaps the most excitement since its unveiling in 2019, however, is Paralives, and after a long old wait - and five years of crowdfunding support - its developer has announced it'll be entering early access next year.
That bit of information comes via Paralives' new live mode gameplay video (live mode in Sims parlance is the bit where digital chracters actively go about their daily business, as opposed to the customisation-focused build mode) which charts the life of Anisa as she moves into a new apartment and begins to get to know the neighbourhood and her new neighbours.
There's a look at how a Para's personality can be created - initially by raising or lowering their physique, mind, creativity, and charisma attributes, as well as adding a "vibe", social perk, talent, and various lifestyle toggles - and after that it's time to go outside.
In a recent interview with Famitsu, Stellar Blade Director Kim Hyung-tae confirmed that NieR: Automata served as a big source of inspiration for the upcoming action title. The director also talked about other games that have influenced him and the game's creation. [Thanks, Famitsu!]
When asked about the comparisons between Square Enix and PlatinumGames’s titles, director Kim Hyung-tae said that NieR: Automata was the game that made him realize that he wanted to make a game like Stellar Blade.
The developer also mentioned God of War as a game that he loves as a fan and the game that taught him open worlds are not necessary to express the vastness of a world. Some other game series that influenced Kim Hyung-tae in the creation of Stellar Blade include Bayonetta, Sekiro, and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
Epic Games and The Walt Disney Company have announced a new collaboration that will result in the joint creation of an all-new games and entertainment universe. Alongside the partnership, The Walt Disney Company is investing $1.5 billion to acquire an equity stake in Epic Games.
The multi-year project aims to create an all-new universe that spans the various Disney properties, including Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, Avatar, and more. Disney says players will be able to create their own stories and experiences, share content, and express their fandom in experiences powered by Unreal Engine.
"Our exciting relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney's beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe," Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a press release. "This marks Disney's biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion. We can't wait for fans to experience the Disney stories and worlds they love in groundbreaking new ways."
You can see the announcement trailer below.
