February 2024

After weeks of speculation and rumors, the newest Sonic the Hedgehog title has been confirmed at last. Showcased as part of PlayStation’s 2024 State of Play, Sonic X Shadow Generations is a remaster of the 2011 platformer with fresh content starring everyone’s favorite edgelord, Shadow the Hedgehog.

It may come as no surprise to Sonic aficionados, who have heard rumblings from reliable leakers that Generations would be the next entry to be remastered with some Shadow-flavored additions, but seeing it all play out officially is still quite exhilarating.

I’ve long since been a Persona 4 stan. Out of the three modern Persona games, P4 has always stood out to me as the best of the bunch. You’ve got a killer cast, a great story, and a timeless soundtrack through and through. And while, yes, Persona 5 may look a lot prettier and flashier than its slightly outdated-looking predecessor, I’d play P4 over P5 any day of the week.

Which is why I think it’s an absolute crime that with the release of Persona 3 Reload, Persona 4 is now officially the ugliest new-school game in the series.

Pocketpair’s Palworld is certainly a successful mashup of many different design decisions. Some Arc, some Rust, lots of creature catching Pokemon, but even with all those well-working pieces, the world and exploration itself could be stronger on its own. So, here’s 10 ways Pocketpair could improve Palworld’s sense of exploration.

FPS games continue to change with the times, with classics like Call of Duty and Destiny 2. Then, there’s Karlson, a game that combines Mirror’s Edge’s Parkour and Superhot’s combat.

Everyone has their own motivations, from John Wick’s dog to Chainsaw Man’s quest for melons. And for Karlson, it’s all about milk. The dairy-infused man will take down anyone to find his favorite drink, unleashing 3D mayhem.

Silent Hill: The Short Message shadow dropped yesterday following the conclusion of the PlayStation State of Play for the affordable price of free-ninety-free. The PS5-exclusive adventure follows a troubled teenager named Anita as she searches for her friend Maya in a decidedly not-okay apartment building. From the first-person perspective to psychological tricks and an oppressive atmosphere, The Short Message sports heavy P.T. vibes. If that sounds too terrifying, or if you don't own a PS5, you can watch me play the brief adventure from start to finish in this archived live stream. 

To watch more of our livestreams, video podcasts, and series such as Super Replay, be sure to visit and subscribe to our second YouTube channel, Game Informer Shows. Head over to our flagship Game Informer YouTube channel for more previews, reviews, and discussions of new and upcoming games. 

Last year’s remake of Resident Evil 4 was a fantastic game, and the addition of a revamped Separate Ways DLC made it even better. But if you’ve been holding out on jumping into Leon’s mission to save Ashley, now may be a good time to take on Las Plagas with the announcement of Resident Evil 4 Gold Edition.

Launching on February 9, this version includes the base game, Separate Ways, and the Extra DLC pack (previously only available in the Deluxe Edition) of character skins, weapons, and items. Of course, The Mercenaries mode serves as free DLC. The price is unknown at the time of publishing, but if you haven't picked up the game on console, PC, iOS, or PS VR2, this looks to be a good way to get everything in one neat package. 

Resident Evil 4 Gold Edition is coming to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, and PC. 

I didn’t expect to check Twitter or X or whatever today and see a Super Bowl advertisement featuring Patrick Stewart, Master Chief, Arnold from Hey, Arnold!, the band Creed, Knuckles from the Sonic franchise, and Survivor host Jeff Probst. Yet, folks, here we are. Welcome to 2024. It sucks.

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It’s Black History Month, y’all, which means it’s time to uplift anything and everything connected to the African diaspora. And whoa, would you look at that! Coinciding with the first day of this celebratory and historic month is a free Steam demo for Tales of Kenzera: Zau, a stunning side-scrolling Metroidvania that…

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Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League isn’t the game a lot of Arkham fans wanted. It’s also yet another live-service video game, something that folks are less and less excited about with each passing year. And it’s not had great previews or trailers. But, I’ve enjoyed Rocksteady’s past games a lot and the idea of…

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Good Smile Company revealed that it will release a new Pop Up Parade figure based on Kirby worldwide in 2024. It has also opened pre-orders for the static figure. People living in the U.S. and Canada can head to Good Smile Online Shop U.S. and place an order at $31.99. Those residing elsewhere worldwide can instead order the figure on the international web store at ¥4,800 / €33.90.

While most of the non-scaled Pop Up Parade figures stand at around 17-18 cm, this Kirby figure will only have an overall height of around 14 cm (5.51 inches). The measurement includes the star Kirby is riding on, the sky trail effect, and the cloud that serves as the figure base.

Here are some of the sample images for the figure:

New Otani Hotel in Hakata will, for the first time in western Japan’s history, offer two Sanrio collaboration rooms featuring Pompompurin. The rooms will open up for people to stay from March 1, 2024.

Sanrio posted a few pictures of the rooms on its website. There will be Pompompurin and his friends on all of the walls, on the sheets, and on the windows. Those who stay in the Pompompurin hotel rooms will also be able to take home exclusive merchandise. The names of the rooms are “Lots of Pompompurin Room” and “Inventing Cute in this Lab Room!”

Bushiroad Games and Lancarse have set up a Twitter (X) account for Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation - Quest of Memories. This account will share new information on the game leading up to the official release.

As of the time of writing, the account still only has less than 100 followers and has made four posts. The first two posts are to advertise the Twitter (X) account and the official site. However, the third and fourth Tweet are promotional material. It posted the second key visual, which shows Rudeus and Roxy chatting while they’re around a campfire. Studio Bind, which worked on the anime, drew this. It also posted about the January 2024 trailer for the game, which you can watch here:

HoYoVerse announced that Honkai: Star Rail is going to appear on the Las Vegas Sphere on February 4, 2024. There will also be a contest associated with it for people both in the city at the time and on social media to commemorate the occasion.

The company didn’t go into what it will exactly project on the Sphere during the segment. However, this is happening in honor of the 2.0 update that arrives on February 6, 2024. As such, it did note that Honkai: Star Rail characters and Penacony will be the focus of the presentation. That will show up between 6pm-10pm PT on February 4, 2024.

As for the contest, there will be two was to enter. People in Las Vegas when Honkai: Star Rail appears on the Las Vegas Sphere can share photos of it on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (x) with the hashtags #DiveIntoDreams, #HonkaiStarRail, and #VegasHSR. Doing so is an automatic entry into a contest to be one of 10 people to get a $100 gift card. HoYoVerse didn’t note what kind of gift card it will be. For those who aren’t in Nevada, that part of the contest already kicked off. 20 people who share the official tweet with the name or identity of a character from the game will also be entered to win one of 20 $100 gift cards.

Good Smile Company is re-releasing the 2.0 Touhou Project Reimu Hakurei Nendoroid. She’ll come out in July 2024 for Japan and Q4 2024 for North America.

For those in Japan, she’ll cost 6800 JPY, which is approximately $46.30. If you purchase her from the North America shop, it will cost you $33.99. The updated Reimu Hakurei Nendoroid originally came out in June 2020, and it was an upgrade of the original 2011 Nendoroid. Both versions of the little figure have very similar face plates and optional parts. However, the 2.0 Nendoroid has a more modern aesthetic.

Here's a closer look at this Touhou Project Reimu Nendoroid:

During the February 2024 All Aksys event, the company revealed details about the Tokyo Xanadu eX+ Switch versions and four otome games. Despera Drops and Tengoku Struggle: Strayside are new original titles, while Radiant Tale: Fanfare and Virche Evermore Epic: Lycoris are fan discs. There’s a Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II Switch, PS5, and PC February 15, 2024 release date confirmed as well.

As a reminder, Tokyo Xanadu eX+ is a Persona-like RPG from Nihon Falcom. Like the other title, people follow high schoolers with special Soul Devise abilities that allow them to protect the real world by heading into the Other World. The eX+ version adds additional content like insight into the character White Shroud. Tokyo Xanadu eX+ showed up on the Switch in Japan in June 2023, and is heading westward in June 2024. Aksys will also sell its four-CD soundtrack.

The Crucial T500 is our current recommendation for the 'best high-end PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD for gaming', a title it earns through exceptional performance and a more reasonable price than competitors like the Samsung 990 Pro and WD SN850x - no mean feat!

Right now there's a great deal on the 2TB version of the T500 at Amazon UK, where you can get this size for just £130 when you use a £10 voucher. This price also includes one month's worth of access to all Adobe Creative Cloud apps, like Photoshop, Lightroom and Premiere Pro (worth £34).

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It was just yesterday that I was espousing the benefits of the newly released Ryzen 7 5700X3D processor - a cutback version of legendary 5800X3D that breathes new life and exceptional gaming performance into classic Ryzen 1000, 2000, 3000 and 5000 systems. I was thrilled to see the 5700X3D debut at £233 at Amazon - before stocks were exhausted and it went back up to £240, anyway.

Now though, the faster 5800X3D has dropped to nearly the same price, just £234 - an even better deal given its higher clock speeds and (very marginally) faster performance. If you're still running an older Ryzen processor and your motherboard can be updated to support the 5800X3D, then I highly recommend this processor, especially if you're using a comparatively low-res 1080p or 1440p display as you're more likely to be CPU-limited at these resolutions!

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Dig back far enough into the history of any word and you'll find something sinister. Take "cute". Nowadays it means pretty, lovable or charming, albeit perhaps with an undertone of mistrust or contempt, as in the phrase "that's a cute observation, Edwin". But the word originally evolved from "acute", which very broadly means sharp or intense. "Acute" was once a Middle English word for a short-lived fever - it's related to "ague", a word you've likely come across in a medieval fantasy RPG somewhere, which refers to fits of sweating and shivering. The word "cute", then, is secretly diseased, and so, perhaps, is the experience of cuteness. There's a psychological phenomenon called "cute aggression" which refers to the desire to physically envelop, dominate and even abuse the thing you find cute - "I just want to squeeze you till you pop".

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Inkle, the studio behind the acclaimed likes of Heaven's Vault and last year's A Highland Song, has just surprise-released The Forever Labyrinth, a free browser-based narrative adventure spanning the entire history of art from across the world.

The Forever Labyrinth, which has been made in partnership with the Google Arts & Culture initiative, transports players to an ever-shifting maze of rooms - resembling everything from serene gardens to clifftops, forests, and cellars - as they search for their friend Professor Sheldrake, who's lost amid its mysterious interlinking passageways.

These passageways take the form of paintings and art - "drawn from the collections of great museums who are keen to share their treasures in new and exciting ways online", as the press release puts it - scattered around each room. By collecting clues and identifying elements present within the artwork, players can learn to navigate the labyrinth and hopefully find their friend - if the monster ceaselessly devouring the world doesn't get them first.

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Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC
Publisher: Private Division
Developer: Evening Star Studio
Release: 2024
Rating: Everyone

Omnipresent brothers, Travis and Jason Kelce (who are NFL players, commercial stars, SNL hosts, podcasters, and members of Taylor Swift’s inner circle) are looking to add a game development feather to their caps—specifically, they want to reboot ‘90s classics Backyard Football and Backyard Baseball. Whether or not…

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If there’s one thing I’m going to do in Final Fantasy XIV, it’s endlessly spam emotes at all of my friends while we stand around in the middle of the Limsa Lominsa Aetheryte Plaza. But there’s only so many times I can /pet, /cheer, or /lalihop before it gets old. Thankfully, Square Enix is delivering unto players a…

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Open-world survival game Palworld lets you explore the world and craft away at your own pace, tending to your survival needs and your crafting goals as you like. But of course, there are always some best practices. And when it comes to the game’s early moments, you’ll want to find the right Pals for the job and gather…

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Did you know there is a large portion of the Sonic the Hedgehog fandom that ships the blue blur with his black-and-red rival Shadow? The golden retriever boyfriend and black cat boyfriend dynamic apparently stirs something in people. If you weren’t aware of the Sonadow ship, you, and likely many others, are about to…

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I might be in the minority, but I enjoyed the first season of the Paramount+ Halo TV series. Though it stumbled at times, I appreciated its attempts to flesh out characters like franchise lead Master Chief John-117, expand upon well-established Halo lore, and give us more than just a video game retrofitted into an…

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Key Visual Arts posted a statement on its website, stating that it will donate 10 million JPY to help victims and restoration efforts after the Noto Peninsula earthquake on January 1, 2024. That would equate to around $68,265.

The statement starts with Key expressing its sympathies for those affected by the earthquake. It then states that it will donate 10 million JPY but is also holding a sale on specific games. It will add all of the proceeds from the sale games to its donation.

The sale will run from February 1 to 29, 2024. Summer Pocket Reflection Blue, Loopers, Lunaria, and Stella of the End will be the games that are part of this sale. Key will make an announcement when it donates the money. This will likely take place at the end of February 2024 or the beginning of March since that is when the sale will end.

Scrap announced that a Chainsaw Man escape room game will appear at various locations throughout Japan starting on April 4, 2024. The title of the escape game is Escape from the Labyrinth Devil (Meikyuu no Akuma kara no Dasshutsu.)

The escape room story will feature Denji, Makima, Aki, and Power, and original devils created especially for the story will appear. The first location for the event is the Tokyo Mystery Circus located in Kabuchi-cho, Shinjuku, and it will be available until June 30, 2024. It was also revealed that the event will appear in Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Sendai, and Okayama. Release dates will be announced in the future.

Priority advance tickets for the Chainsaw Man escape room will go on sale on February 3, 2024, with general tickets available from February 10. General entrance tickets cost 3,600 yen (or about $24) during weekdays and 3,900 yen (~$26) on weekends. Meanwhile, groups of up to 6 people can buy group tickets at a reduced price of 3,300 yen (~$22) during weekdays and 3,600 yen (~$24 for weekends.

People can pay an extra 2,800 yen (~$19) to receive a limited-edition bonus notebook in Tokyo Special Division 4 style. All tickets can be converted to bonus tickets. You can take a better look at the notebook here:

Spike Chunsoft has released all existing mainline Memories Off visual novels on the PC platform Steam. The titles range from the series' inaugural entry originally released in 1999 to the seventh entry—Yubikiri no Kioku—that came out in 2010.

The new releases have their illustrations enhanced to Full HD resolution. The interface for each entry is also based on the series' latest entry -Innocent Fille- for Dearest which appeared in 2020. However, even though the titles are available for purchase worldwide, they only support subtitles in Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese.

Cospa announced the release of new One Piece t-shirts and tote bags featuring the Gear 5 Luffy transformation. The items are now available for pre-order from the Cospa online store, and will release in Japan on April 2024. [Thanks, PR Times!]

In addition, the items will be available for sale early at the AnimeJapan 2024 event, which will be held at Tokyo Big Sight between March 23-24, 2024. The Gear 5 Luffy t-shirt is available only in black and sizes S, M, L, and XL.

 Here is the full list of One Piece Gear 5 Luffy merchandise and its prices:

• Gear 5 t-shirt – 3,300 yen (~$22)
• Gear 5 Large Tote Bag – 1,980 yen (~$13)
• Gear 5 Shoulder Tote Bag – 2,200 yen (~$15)

And you can also take a better look at the items here:

Last week, developer Tango Gameworks distributed a relatively minor Hi-Fi Rush update to celebrate the first anniversary of its acclaimed rhythm-brawler's release; however, dataminers poking around the update's innards are now claiming to have found further evidence - in the form of unique T-shirt designs - that a PlayStation and Switch launch is on the way.

Reports that the previously PC and Xbox exclusive Hi-Fi Rush could be making its way to PlayStation and Switch first began circulating in January, after a number of reliable leakers started expanding on claims by insider Nate the Hate that Microsoft was set to "one of [its] more acclaimed first party releases to a competitor system" this year.

And while there's been no sign of an official announcement to back up those reports in the weeks since, datamined discoveries in Hi-Fi Rush's latest update (thanks Wario64) have lent further credence to the rumours. Patch 7, as last week's update is officially known, includes an Anniversary T-Shirt Bundle containing new clothing for Chai to wear. Four of these designs are available to everyone, while three are exclusive to the platform - Xbox, Steam, or the Epic Games Store - players own the game on. However, a number of dataminers are now claiming to have unearthed two additional, unused T-shirts in the update, looking suspiciously like exclusive designs for Switch and PlayStation.

WWE 2K24 celebrates 40 Years of Wrestlemania, and we got a chance to go hands-on with the annual grappler to see how it's stacking up. Join GI's resident wrestling enthusiast Marcus Stewart and Kyle Hilliard as they show off the new Ambulance Match type, a peek at a match in the Wrestlemania-focused Showcase mode, and provide an overview of what's new and improved in 2K24 overall. You can also read our more in-depth hands-on preview right here. 

Head over to Game Informer's YouTube channel for more previews, reviews, and discussions of new and upcoming games. Watch other episodes of New Gameplay Today right here.

In a short Tweet on Twitter (X), Masahiro Ito announced that he was a monster designer for Silent Hill: The Short Message. The game is free-to-play on the PS5.

Ito is a video game artist who has worked on the Silent Hill games since 1999. He usually works on designs for monsters or the background, but he was also an art director for Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. Aside from his work on Silent Hill: The Short Message, Masahiro Ito is also working on the Silent Hill 2 remake. Konami showed a trailer for that game as well.

Those who played the game have praised Ito for his design, with some even saying that they let the creature grab them a few times just to see more details of it. He also notes that he was only in charge of the design. Other members of the team worked on aspects such as the 3D model, textures, and animations.

The many iterations of the Suicide Squad have changed up the crew line-up, expanding the classic dynamics from the original comic series. Kill the Justice League is one of those entries that have recently altered the course, made up of King Shark, Harley Quinn, Deadshot, and Captain Boomerang.

Although the team already makes for a great ensemble, some DC fans can’t help but wish for more. This has led them to develop potential ideas for the game’s sequel (if it does actually happen.)

Despite Hogwarts Legacy’s successful launch, the game hasn’t necessarily received any major updates to prolong the magical experience. Even the PlayStation-exclusive Haunted Hogsmeade quest had no set release date for other platforms, but it seems like things could be changing with a new announcement.

The Hogwarts Legacy Twitter/X account indicates that new updates will be implemented this year to celebrate its first anniversary. This has led fans to believe that the long-awaited DLC will be a part of these future patches, along with other desires they’ve wanted in-game.

But will it be in the Kingsman universe?

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