February 2024

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It’s been too long since F-Zero fans got a full-fledged new entry in the series (sorry F-Zero 99, you don’t count). And while the latest F-Zero news isn’t of that long-awaited next game, it might be even more fascinating for fans of the franchise. Thanks to the work of the F-Zero community, two lost games in the…

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This week love is in the air, but so are monstrous demons, brain-dead zombies, sword-swinging heroes, and plenty of gunfire. If you’re a Game Pass subscriber, you’ll be able to download 2020’s remake of Resident Evil 3 on February 13, and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night on February 14.

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We’ve all been there. You see a chair in a game. It prompts you to sit. Curious, you oblige. 

Your digital butt meets the seat, and…nothing. You just sit and stare for a few seconds before rising and continuing your adventure. More often than not, sitting does not result in a cutscene, reward, character dialogue, or, in some cases, even a good view of your surroundings. You just sit. 

You could be slaying a mighty dragon.

You could be rescuing your captive friends.

You could be discovering the true meaning behind your existence and your place in the cosmos.

But instead, you sit. 

With some exceptions, taking a seat in games equates to a whole lot of nothing. And yet, it remains a regularly recurring mechanic. So why do we sit? Do you like to sit? How long do you sit? Should sitting still be a thing in games? Please take a seat and discuss your stance in the comments below.

Last week, amid rumors about Xbox exclusives coming to other platforms, Phil Spencer announced an event that would detail the future of Xbox. While we're no closer to knowing the exact details of the event, we now know the "where" and "when": the announcement will happen on the official Xbox podcast this Thursday, February 15. The episode will be posted at 12 PM Pacific/3 PM Eastern

Please join us for a special edition of the Official Xbox Podcast.

Hear from Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty as they share updates on the Xbox business. pic.twitter.com/TxwWJVUbgx

— Xbox (@Xbox) February 12, 2024

The podcast in question will feature more than just Xbox head Phil Spencer, however. Sarah Bond and Matt Booty, the Presidents of Xbox and Xbox Game studios, respectively, will also give updates on the future of the brand. 

Helldivers 2 has become the biggest PlayStation game released on PC yet, at least going by the number of simultaneous players on Steam, as it doubled the previous record of concurrent players set by God of War.

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A group of developers with credits across a number of Final Fantasy games - including the composer of Final Fantasy XII and a former Final Fantasy XIV artist - have unveiled their own upcoming JRPG headed to PC next year.

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The Thaumaturge, the detective CRPG blending together eastern-European fantasy, alt-history Warsaw and even a bit of Pokémon (or Persona, if you prefer), has been pushed back from its planned release date next week to the start of March. With development said to be finished, creators Fool’s Theory say that it’s simply to let the game breathe a bit easier.

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The owners of Elden Ring developers FromSoftware have dampened hopes that long-awaited DLC Shadow of the Erdtree might release in time for the soulslike’s second anniversary this month - despite recent rumours and behind-the-scenes Steam updates indicating otherwise.

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Microsoft's gaming top brass are expected to lay out their plans to publish some Xbox games on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms via a business update released this week as a podcast.

The podcast episode will be made available this Thursday, 15th February at 8pm UK time - that's 3pm Eastern or noon Pacific.

Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer, Xbox president Sarah Bond and head of Xbox game studios Matt Booty - the company's top Triforce of gaming division decision makers - will share "updates on the Xbox business", according to a post from the platform holder on X.

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During Wonder Festival 2024 Winter, Cerevo revealed new details about the Persona 3 Reload Evoker Replica and also showed off an unfinished model of the replica Evoker. Cerevo and Atlus teamed up together to create this 1/1 replica Evoker, and the development of the replica has been supervised by the Persona 3 Reload team. [Thanks, Hobby Watch!]

The Evoker replica features a number of different functions. With its built-in LED lights, the replica Evoker will light up blue when in its normal mode, but can also shift into Theurgy Mode, which will change the LED lights in the Evoker to red. It will also play Persona summoning voice lines from the various SEES members from the game. It is also said that it will replicate the sensation of "blowback" or the recoil experienced when using the Evoker. Cerevo is planning to add additional functions to the Evoker replica.

The replica Evoker will come inside a special carrying case, and will also come with a holster that can be worn by people intending to use the replica for cosplay. Cerevo and Atlus first revealed the Evoker replica during a special livestream held on January 31, 2024.

Some images of the unfinished model of the Persona 3 Reload Evoker replica from Hobby Watch can be viewed below:

Sanrio is collaborating with Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun to release new merchandise at their Character Shop in the Ikebukuro P'PARCO starting on Valentine's Day. The character shop will be open from February 14, 2024, to March 3, 2024.

The new character shop will feature Welcome to Demon School Iruma-kun characters with Sanrio characters, including the following pairs: Iruma with Cinnamoroll, Asmodeus with My Melody, Clara with Hangyodon, Kalego with Bad Badtz-Maru, Opera with Hello Kitty, Jazz with Kuromi, and Lead with Pompompurin.

The following items will be sold at the Ikebukuro P'PARCO Character Shop:

• Can Badge (Blind) Sweets Version - ¥550 (~$4 USD)
• Acrylic Magnet (Blind) Sweets Version - ¥550 (~$4 USD)
• Die-Cut Stickers Sweets Version - ¥550 (~$4 USD)
• Mini Towel Sweets Version - ¥1,100 (~$7 USD)
• Big Keychain Sweets Version - ¥1,320 (~$9 USD)

There was one Rebuild of Evangelion figure announcement among the Good Smile Company WonHobby 38 reveals, and that was a model of the AAA Wunder. A PLAMAX model kit of the ship is in development.

The image at the official site shows that it is very early on in development. Only the image render of the ship appeared. It did note that it is a plastic model and showed a plain, grey, unpainted version of the ship. 

Here’s a closer look at the announcement image of the Evangelion model kit:

During Super Bowl LVIII, a teaser trailer dropped that baffled a lot of viewers—it wasn’t the Despicable Me 4 one making fun of AI, but an action-packed Twister teaser. The trailer showcased the July 2024 movie starring Normal People’s Daisy Edgar Jones and Top Gun: Maverick’s Glen Powell as storm chasers. It featured…

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The Thaumaturge, an upcoming narrative-focused, turn-based RPG, was planned to launch in just a few days on February 20. However, the game has now been delayed until March as the developers and publishers hope to avoid a “busy” February and give the game more “breathing room.”

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Last week, thanks to the Final Fantasy VII Rebirth demo, some old video game discourse returned and overtook social media: The use of yellow paint to mark certain in-game objects or ledges. All it took was a now-viral tweet of Cloud climbing some yellow rocks in the new demo and a comment about how yellow paint was a…

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SSD prices have been on the uptick recently, following a record-breaking 2023 where oversupply caused the best deals on high-capacity SSDs we've ever seen. That means that current prices aren't going to beat out last year's Black Friday deals, but there are still some decent options that carve out a better value proposition than their peers. One example is the Kingston NV2, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 SSD going for just £50 on Amazon UK at the moment - some £14 below its UK RRP.

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The Asus ROG Ally has dropped in price in response to the release of the Steam Deck OLED, and now a 10% off code at Very makes this handheld gaming PC even better value. You can now get the top-spec ROG Ally with the Z1 Extreme chipset and 512GB of PCIe 4.0 storage for just £539 with code VTQ8C, a brilliant price that puts it in direct competition with the 512GB Steam Deck OLED.

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Vtubers Elira, Ike, and Vox, representing the Anycolor Nijisanji EN branch, put out a video providing more details on the recent controversy about Selen Tatsuki. The whole video is available on Elira’s channel. Anycolor CEO Riku Tazumi has not issued a statement as of time of writing.

Here is the statement shared by Anycolor and its three performers:

To begin with, Elira stated that there are limits on what she and the company Anycolor can disclose, and the three Nijisanji Vtubers that appeared spoke based on their personal experiences. She also reminded viewers that Nijisanji EN does not condone any harassment towards anyone involved, and she volunteered her channel for the stream after discussing it with the other livers. Tazumi will also post a video about the matter.

Following the release of a video statement by Nijisanji's Vtubers Elira Pendora, Vox Akuma, and Ike Eveland about the Selen Tatsuki situation, Anycolor released a statement on social media that claimed it “has not made any confidentiality violations” when sharing information from Selen Tatsuki and her lawyer with its livers. It revealed it shared parts of the information as part of an internal investigation.

On February 12, 2024, a video was shared on Elira’s YouTube channel with her, Vox, and Ike speaking about the situation. It noted the three of them had seen the documents provided by the person behind Selen Tatsuki and her lawyer to Nijisanji parent company Anycolor. In the latest announcement, Anycolor claimed “necessary parts of the information” was shared with its performers. It also claimed the Vtubers with the company “are not held to any confidentiality obligation regarding the information shared to them from Anycolor Inc.”

Here is the full statement from social media:

Regarding concerns that have arisen in relation to the current situation.

Justin Sevakis, a producer at Discotek Media, put out a statement in regards to the company’s English dub of the anime series Lovely Complex, which is also known as Love Com. This is in reference to disparaging statements that Brendan “JelloApocalypse” Blaber had made about the source material.

To summarize it, it states that English dubs of anime usually “punch up comedy and smooth over rough patches” under the original producer's supervision so that the end product provokes the intended response as the original work. Those who wish for a more accurate one-to-one translation of Japanese media should Discotek's subtitled collection. That being said, Discotek is disappointed with Blaber’s “lack of professional discretion” and will no longer work with him in the future.

Blaber’s “lack of professional discretion” comes from a post that he made on his blog, which you can only access via archives. Blaber explains that Sound Cadence obtained the rights to work on Lovely Complex’s dub from Discotek, who did not want to dub it because it is an expensive process. As such, he and many other people who worked on the production were volunteers.

Following a statement from Elira, Vox, and Ike in regards to Selen’s termination from Nijisanji EN, Riku Tazumi, the CEO of Anycolor, made an announcement on the official Nijisanji EN YouTube account. The video is a little over six minutes long.

You can watch the video here:

The video starts with Tazumi bowing at the audience before he says that he wishes to speak about some misunderstandings, as well as address some concerns. He first apologizes about the IR report and the usage of the word “negligible,” saying that it gave off the impression that Anycolor did not value Selen or the impact she had on the company. He also states that he will be rethinking how the company communicates in English going forth. Tazumi acknowledges that Selen's contributions were integral to Nijisanji EN's growth. He deeply regrets how things turned out.

A little boy steps out into the world for the first time. The landscape is full of lush meadows, striking blue rivers, and wildlife gently pottering around. It holds such serenity that I almost feel commanded to stop and drink in every detail.

I played the Europa demo like this at first. I walked slowly along the trodden paths, retracing the same steps the creator of Zee, our android protagonist, took. As Zee's creator narrated the words of his collectible journal pages, it turned out the beautiful world before me hid something darker.

An attempt to terraform Europa into a paradise for humans, and to leave behind Earth in its human-induced environmental destruction, was successful at first. But by the time Zee arrives on Europa, civilisation has fallen, leaving the world feeling empty. Its beauty turned haunting instead, and I was cautious of blasting through the demo for fear of missing out on an intended sadness I was meant to feel.

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Cygames announced that Granblue Fantasy Relink has achieved over a million worldwide sales. The game reached this milestone after only eleven days. [Thanks, Wario64!]

Cygames has uploaded a piece of art commemorating this milestone. It shows Gran, Djeeta, Lyria, and Vyrn cheering. The reception for the game has been highly positive as well. As of the writing, there are almost 17,000 Steam reviews and 89% of it have given it a Very Positive score. Most of the reviews praise the party AI, replay value, and presentation. Meanwhile, negative reviews focus on the “grindy” aspect, balance issues, and the localization.

Hit comedy game What The Golf? is coming to PlayStation consoles next month.

The game will be available on both PlayStation 4 and 5 from 14th March, in addition to its previous releases on mobile (Apple Arcade), PC (Steam, Epic, GoG), and Switch.

If you haven't played it yet, then, there's really no excuse. It's hilarious stuff.

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Developer Arrowhead has released a new patch for its PC version of Helldivers 2.

With this update in play, users should be able to get into games a little more easily. In addition, this patch addresses some progression issues, with the developer stating it has now "fixed the daily and difficulty progression error".

Arrowhead said many of the issues in Helldivers 2 were being caused by a large number of users in the game and server capacity. Writing on Steam, the developer said this cocktail had created "unexpected behaviours".

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Microsoft's Xbox and PC exclusive Pentiment will make its way to PS5 and Nintendo Switch, alongside the previously-leaked Hi-Fi Rush.

That's according to a new report from The Verge ahead of Thursday's podcast from Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer, Xbox president Sarah Bond and head of Xbox game studios Matt Booty, where the trio will reveal Xbox's new business strategy - including, it's believed, the launch of exclusive games on rival platforms.

Sources confirmed to The Verge that Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment will be the first two games on the way, with Sea of Thieves planned for later this year. Other first-party titles are simply described as being under consideration.

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The Honor Magic V2 RSR Porsche Design is perhaps the most sublimely designed foldable to date. With a bigger battery than competitors, as well as being much thinner, it's one of the first options we've seen that compares well in size and capacity to more standard form factor phones. The standard variant, priced at £1700, is dearer than competitors from Samsung, Google, and OnePlus, and it's expected that this special model will be even dearer when pricing is unveiled at MWC in a couple of weeks time. For the price though, you’re getting a truly incredible phone with a lot to like about it.

For the outlay however, the Magic V2 RSR has quite the capable feature set, with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor backed with 16GB of RAM, 1TB of internal storage, a sublime triple camera setup with a 50MP main shooter, a 50MP ultrawide and a 20MP telephoto. You of course also get two LTPO OLED displays: a 7.92-inch foldable screen and a 6.43-inch cover display.

The Honor Magic V2 RSR Porsche Design is quite the looker, with a sleek profile that's reminiscent of the vehicular namesake attached to this collaboration. The standard Magic V2 is an excellent looking phone as it is, but this RSR Porsche Design variant takes things to the next level.

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Ragdoll physics! Friendly fire! Connectivity issues! On-the-nose satire! Bugs! Double-A gaming is back, baby. You could argue it never really went anywhere, but still: what a breath of fresh air this one's proven to be.

Helldivers 2 is a blast; a messy, frenetic, straight-into-the-action whirlwind of quickfire jokes quickplay matches (when they're working). If you played even the slightest bit of the first Helldivers, though, none of this should come as a surprise.

"This is also the latest game from Magicka developer Arrowhead Game Studios - a studio, right, whose logo shows an arrow going through somebody's head. In other words, you should expect a few quirks. The biggest of these is friendly fire: it is so terribly easy to shoot your own team-mates in Helldivers. It's so terribly easy to be shot by your own team-mates. Or stepped on by them if they've unlocked mechs. Hell really is other people." That's what we said in our review of the first Helldivers, way back in 2015, a game that was cross-buy across PS3, PS4 and - hold me - the Vita. This could just as easily be describing Helldivers 2, although I've yet to see anyone unlock their own mechs just yet. If anything, the biggest surprise is how little it's changed.

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Much like a lone Super Earther descending from orbit, only to Nope The Heck back to their spaceship after glimpsing the insect hordes, Arrowhead have released and swiftly pulled a Helldivers 2 patch designed to address the new shooter's server capacity and progression issues. The bugs were too much to handle, I guess! Lord, this news post practically writes itself.

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Hey, you know that idea for an RPG you've been kicking around your head for years now? Maybe it's time to give it a crack. Right now on Steam you can grab a free copy of RPG Maker XP, an older version of the wildly popular (and quite accessible) game-making tool. It might be fun to kick around an idea or—who knows—maybe you've even got the next To The Moon (made in RPG Maker XP, don't you know?) rattling around up there, waiting to manifest.

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Former Dead Cells lead designer Sébastien Benard is none too chuffed about publisher Motion Twin's decision to end development of the well-regarded roguelike Metroidvania. A few days ago, Motion Twin announced that the 35th major Dead Cells update, aptly titled The End Is Near, would be its last. Benard feels this is a betrayal of both the game's community and its current development team, Evil Empire, a spin-off studio who took the reins in 2019.

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UPDATE 15/02/24: Sony has insisted Rise of the Ronin was never intended for release in South Korea.

In a statement to IGN, the company once again confirmed the Team Ninja game will not be released in South Korea, refuting claims it has been cancelled.

"Rise of the Ronin for PlayStation 5 was never officially announced for release in Korea," said a spokesperson for Sony. "We can confirm that the title is not going to be sold or published in South Korea in any form, physical or digital."

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Arceus, the god Pokémon, won't turn up in Pokémon Go for this month's upcoming Go Tour: Sinnoh.

Its apparent absence had been hotly debated by fans, though has now been confirmed to Eurogamer by developer Niantic. It means Go Tour: Sinnoh will be the first one of Pokémon Go's popular annual Tour events not to let players complete their Pokédex for the corresponding region.

Two other Sinnoh species will also be absent: Mythical creatures Manaphy and Phione.

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Two F-Zero games exclusively released on Nintendo's Satellaview SNES service have been restored by fans and are available to play for free.

The BS F-Zero Grand Prix games were first made available in a series of broadcasts in 1996 and 1997, including remixed courses from the original SNES game and some exclusive tracks too.

However, these games appeared to be lost in the mute city of time - until now.

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This deceptively simple house-building game from Friedemann is surprisingly good at prompting stories. Once you enter a world, you are left alone to create homes or buildings with a fair amount of resources and very little restriction. It’s a lot of fun by itself, but over time the ease of placing things led to me creating deep backstories for everything I was making. Summerhouse simply lets you be. Your imagination is allowed to wander wherever it desires in that moment.

Soon after starting the demo, I found that I was asking myself, ‘Who lives here? What do they do?’ I would start asking these questions with one building, and often that would prompt the beginning of a story that would span the rest of the street. It helps that, although there isn’t an endless amount of choice, each item you can add to a building ignites its own spark of inspiration. I built a cafe then questioned if it was any good. My answer was, ‘No,’ so I placed several overflowing bins outside it. If the Cafe is bad then perhaps the local restaurant is popular - so much so that it needs renovating to keep up with demand? So then I’d put a construction-like block next to it with a stop sign outside. Naturally, traffic cannot pass through a construction site!

A mobile version of hit survival horror Lethal Company has popped up on the iPhone App Store and Google Play - but isn't what it seems. The game's developer Zeekerss has warned players this is "likely a scam of some sort", and not made with its permission.

Lethal Company has become incredibly popular since its debut last year, and prompted praise for the game's mix of genuine horror and almost slapstick comedy. Now, it appears others are trying to profit off Zeekerss' success by releasing their own rip-off of Lethal Company on mobile. Don't be fooled.

Writing on the Lethal Company Discord, a moderator stated this mobile version "was made with no explicit permission and is most likely a scam". They asked users to refrain from linking to any fake games, to avoid anyone falling foul of "devious and malicious intentions that may be behind that operation".

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Former lead designer Sébastien Benard has further discussed the decision made by publisher Motion Twin to end Dead Cell's development - something he previously dubbed "the worst imaginable asshole move".

Benard originally shared his sentiments on the end of Dead Cells development via the game's Discord server, where he said the official statement from Motion Twin was "total marketing bullshit" from a company he called "greedy".

Now, Benard has shared an update with further thoughts on his blog, in a bid to shed more light on his previous words.

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Steam Next Fest may be over for another few months, but dozens of demos are still alive and kicking, it seems - which is good news for me, who still has a good half dozen on my to do list, and also good news for you, as it means you still have time to check out the really quite good demo for Stand-Alone, a fast, 2D hack and slasher where you play as a robot-powered sheep packing a very large sword. Wolves have broken into your home and murdered all your friends, but you play as the one sheep who got away - or rather, a sheep that's been fused with a surprisingly powerful robot capable of producing a honking great greatsword to make their escape with. Thus begins the wolves' hot pursuit - not least because this robot also seems to be kind of sleeper agent for them - and your roguelike-shaped quest to avenge your fallen friends.

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I’ve known that representation in games mattered ever since that day in 1987 when I finished Metroid and discovered that intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran was that rarest of things (for the time): a cool female video-game protagonist. I loved playing as Mario, or Link, or any intrepid hero, but I was particularly…

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