Dark Souls fans will be able to praise the sun even more through UselessUse Laboratory new line of home decor items coming out in March 2024. The collection includes a Dark Souls 3 clock, soup mug with mini plate set, and a wooden small item storage unit.

The Dark Souls 3 clock features a golden Warrior of the Sun covenant symbol affixed to a traditional 12-hour roman numeral clock made of black steel. Solaire of Astora can be seen praising the sun in place of the roman numeral "VI". The clock can be propped up against a flat surface or mounted to a wall. The clock will cost ¥11,000 (approximately $74 USD).

[gallery columns="7" ids="987314,987318,987320,987321,987322,987323,987324" link="file"]

As if you were short on giant RPGs to play, here comes Cyberpunk 2077 with its excellent new expansion and a patch which basically sounds like a miniature relaunch. You're done with Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield, right? So what are you playing this weekend? Here's what we're clicking on!

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During the official TGS live stream presentation for Blue Protocol, Bandai Namco revealed the new Japanese release window for the game on consoles. Blue Protocol is scheduled to release for the PS5 and Xbox Series X on Winter 2023 in Japan. Additionally, the new Chapter 4 is coming to the PC version of the game in Japan on October 25, 2023.

The developers also announced that Blue Protocol will feature cross-play between all three versions of the game. Additionally, cross-save between the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC versions will be possible by using the same game account.

You can check out the reveal trailer for Chapter 4 of Blue Protocol below. The trailer is only available in Japanese.

There’s another layer to the FFXIV KFC event on the way, as a Colonel Sanders Black Mage statue appeared at TGS 2023. The life-size figure is at the Square Enix booth at the event. Square Enix Senior Manager for Social Media David Lee shared a photo of it at the event. The placard in front of it reiterates that things will “start” on October 4, 2023. [Thanks, David Lee!]

First, here’s Lee’s photo of the KFC Black Mage Colonel Sanders display at the FFXIV booth. The mascot is wearing the job’s iconic hat. A mage staff is in its left hand. The statue’s right hand is holding a Moogle. Aside from the hat and equipment, the Colonel is still wearing the mascot’s familiar white suit.

Colonel Sanders is a Black Mage in FFXIV….

That’s amazing. pic.twitter.com/1OhXMrMbKW

— David Lee ੭•̀ω•́)੭ (@Pudgyboi) September 23, 2023

During the Tokyo Game Show 2023 Level-5 livestream, Producer Keiji Inafune revealed a new “Life” (job) players can choose in the upcoming game Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. The Artist Life will be entirely new to the Fantasy Life series. We still have no word on a release date for the game, aside from the developer assigning it a 2023 window.

A playable demo of Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is currently available to try out at Level-5’s booth at Tokyo Game Show 2023. During the stream, we saw demo gameplay of some of the jobs available to choose in the game. Prior to that, the Level-5 Vision 2023 Tsuzumi event showed off 12 of the roles people can take. You can see a full list of possible jobs on the game’s official website. No gameplay of the new Artist Life was shown just yet.

The new Artist Life in Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time was revealed during the Tokyo Game Show 2023 Level-5 livestream on September 22. The game will be released sometime in 2023 for the Nintendo Switch.

The post New Fantasy Life i “Life” (Job) is the Artist appeared first on Siliconera.

At Tokyo Game Show 2023, attendees can try their hand at dating a woman who is a giant with a demo of SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim. It is an upcoming indie title by SAFE HAVN STUDIO. On the game’s Steam page, the supported languages list English, Japanese, and Chinese. The game is scheduled to be released on PC sometime in 2024. [Thanks, Game Watch!]

As you might be able to tell from the title, Saeko is a giant. Or, that is to say, the player is very small. Their avatar is merely the size of Saeko’s thumb.

The gameplay is separated into two parts: daytime and nighttime. During the day, the game tells the story of the little people living in Saeko’s room. When night falls, that’s when the player has a chance to interact with and have a one-on-one conversations with Saeko. If you make her mad by selecting a less-than-favorable dialogue option, she’ll squash you.

Check out the first TGS 2023 trailer for the game below, which shows the main character and what happens if you upset her.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKV4H0SKmsE[/embed]

SAEKO: Giantess Dating Sim has a playable demo at Tokyo Game Show 2023. The game will be released on PCs worldwide via Steam sometime in 2024.

Konami revealed Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1's output resolution and framerate information on the game's official website. People can expect 30fps to 60fps, depending on the game. [Thanks, Wario64!]

Metal Gear Solid will run at 30 frames per second and display at a 1920×1080 resolution on all consoles. Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater will run at 60 frames per second and display at a 1920x1080 resolution on the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Steam versions. With the Nintendo Switch version of both games, they will run at 30 frames per second and display at a 1920x1080 resolution when the Nintendo Switch is in TV mode.

All three games will display at 1280×720 and run at 30 frames per second on the Nintendo Switch when used in Handheld mode.

Konami noted that the listed framerate information is just the maximum framerate achievable in the Master Collection, and during gameplay or cutscenes with large amounts of effects, the framerate may drop.

The full resolution and framerate information for the Master Collection can be viewed below:

Two new trailers for Gust, Koei Tecmo, and Akatsuki Games’s upcoming mobile and PC free-to-play RPG Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy & the Liberator of Polar Night appeared official YouTube channel for the game during the 2023 Tokyo Game Show. This comes after an official livestream for the title appeared at the event.

The cinematic trailer exhibits the variety of characters players can meet in the game. The game’s theme song, "Saihate e (To the Far Reaches of the World)" by Reche, plays the background. Reche was originally a member of the Japanese band Egoist and she worked on the music for the anime series Guilty Crown in 2011. She also has worked on music for Atelier Ryza 3.

You can watch the cinematic trailer for Atelier Resleriana: Forgotten Alchemy & the Liberator of Polar Night below:

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CEGvLS-wnQ[/embed]

The second video is another character trailer. The YouTube channel has been periodically dropping them as of late. This time, we get a closer look at the game’s namesake and one of the protagonists, Resna.

Unity announced its updated Runtime Fee plan after receiving heavy criticism from the game development community after its initial announcement.

Unity revealed that the company has no plans to charge developers for using the Unity Personal plan and any games built on Unity Personal will not have a Runtime Fee. Games developed in Unity Personal will receive an increased revenue and funding cap to $200,000. Unity will also be removing the "Made with Unity" splash screen on games made in Unity Personal.

Unity also announced that games that make less than $1 million in trailing 12-month revenue will not be subject to the Runtime Fee.

Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise developers will be subject to the Runtime Fee if they are using the next Life Term Support (LTS) version of Unity releasing in 2024. Any games currently developed on the 2022 LTS version of Unity or earlier will not be subject to the Runtime Fee. Unity has promised that they will not change the terms for the Unity Engine developers are currently working with for as long as they use that version. Once developers update, they will be subject to the Runtime Fee.

The ASUS Republic of Gamers line will feature Evangelion items once again, as a plethora of Asuka and Unit 02 gaming computer hardware is on the way. The new collection is slated to be released before September 2023. According to the ASUS ROG social media account, the lineup includes a large amount of premium Evangelion-themed hardware.

The first two items are the ROG Thor 1000w Power Supply and the ROG Scabbard II mouse pad, respectively. Both feature classic Evangelion designs, with the NERV logo and font on them. Next up are the ROG Keycaps for RX switch keyboards. The keys are colored with Asuka's signature black and red theme, with the character featured on the space bar. There's also the Harpe Ace Mouse Grip, which is mainly red with Asuka on the right button and a silhouette of Unit 02 next to the sticker. You could put that mouse grip on the Gladius III wireless mouse.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is out soon and looking very good, with a ton of hype surrounding the PS5 exclusive open-world superhero game. But now, even years after Sony made clear it would be giving Spidey a new look, fans keep grumbling about the loss of Peter Parker’s old face, last seen in the original PlayStation 4…

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Want to get a powerful Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor for $50 off with a free copy of Starfield Premium Edition? B&H Photo in the US have you covered with their latest discount on AMD's fastest gaming CPU*, which sees the processor drop to $389 after debuting earlier this year at $439.

That's still a hefty chunk of change, but it's worth it for a gaming CPU that outfights the Core i9 13900K and trades blows with the much more expensive Ryzen 9 7950X3D, coming well ahead in some games and a tiny bit behind in others.

*Fight me

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Xbox's Elite Series 2 controllers are a great pick for PC and Xbox consoles alike, but they're also pretty darn expensive. Thankfully, you can pick up the cheaper Core version for significantly less money, especially if it's on sale - which is the situation right now! Amazon US are selling the Elite Series 2 Core in white for $99, a solid reduction from its usual price of $130.

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McDonald's Japan started airing new anime style, lofi ads on social media drawn by Urachan. So far, two ads appeared. The first features a family eating chicken nuggets and fries together in their kitchen. In the second, a group of young adults who appear to be in high school are eating food from the restaurant together outside. Both are specifically designed to showcase a promotion involving a nuggets and fries meal.

Here's the first Urachan ad showing off the family together.

特別じゃない、しあわせな時間。 pic.twitter.com/P7Og6hbMsx

— マクドナルド (@McDonaldsJapan) September 20, 2023

Next, here's the McDonald's Japan anime style ad with the group of kids eating together.

こんな時間を大切にね。大人より pic.twitter.com/VYkV5w2qrD

You probably saw a ton of headlines about Xbox leaks this week: new hardware, upcoming games, Game Pass costs, acquisition strategies. A trove of unredacted documents accidentally uploaded to a federal court’s case server gave the world an unprecedented look into the secret machinations of the gaming wing of a $2…

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Part of the appeal of video game remasters and remakes is the prospect of playing an old game on better hardware that can, ostensibly, run it better than your old console did back in the day. That is the hope, at least. Unfortunately, not every “remaster” is an improvement over its source material—just ask the Grand…

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Although early reviews claimed Starfield was Bethesda Game Studios’ most polished game to date, the open-space RPG still suffers from some of the strange, sometimes amusing, occasionally very helpful sorts of bugs and glitches the studio’s work is often known for. Maybe the most mind-boggling bug yet, however, is one…

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Vendors are a crucial component of Starfield, as you’ll need to make use of the RPG’s merchants in order to get better gear, obtain necessary parts to fix a damaged ship, buy healing items, and sell off all your contraband to earn enough credits to eventually buy that house in Akila City. The bars and restaurants in St…

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The table above was shared on an official Konami website for the collection earlier today, and most notably has Metal Gear Solid locked to 30fps across all platforms. Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, on the other hand, both run at 60fps on everything but Nintendo Switch. What's more, all the games are stuck at 1080p resolution on everything (except the Switch's handheld mode, which doesn't support it) and never make it to 4K.

As fans are pointing out, these limitations feel incredibly frustrating given the age of the games, as well as the fact that HD versions of MGS2 and MGS3 were released years ago for PS3 and Xbox 360 and ran at 60fps just fine. What's more, Konami previously told multiple outlets (including us) that "the collection" would target 60fps on everything but the Switch - which feels misleading given the now-published chart.

In a recent interview with Japanese outlet Dengeki Online, Tetsuya Nomura confirmed that late voice actor Keiji Fujiwara will still be the Japanese voice for Reno in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. The prolific voice actor died due to cancer on April 12, 2020 at the age of 55, just two days after the release of FFVII Remake. [Thanks, Dengeki Online!]

Here is what Tetsuya Nomura had to say about the posthumous role of Keiji Fujiwara as Reno in the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Rebirth:

“Fujiwara-san will remain as the voice of Reno for this game. The news of his death came shortly before the recording sessions for FFVII Rebirth commenced, so we were not able to replace him immediately. Because of this, I asked the scenario team to let me use past recordings of Fujiwara-san’s voice for Reno in Rebirth, and they made the necessary adjustments.”

This week on All Things Nintendo, Brian is joined (in his dining room) by Atari CEO Wade Rosen. The two chat about the past, present, and future of the legendary gaming company, as well as Wade's lifelong love of video games. Wade sticks around to take part in Definitive Ranking and gives his eShop Gem of the Week. There isn't a video version this week, but we'll be back with the recently introduced video format next week! 

If you'd like to follow Brian on social media, you can do so on his Instagram/Threads @BrianPShea or Twitter @BrianPShea. You can follow Wade on Twitter: @WadeRosen. You can also find all the latest Atari news at Atari.com.

The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry's most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what's happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they'll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!

There’s been a lot of attention given to Baldur’s Gate 3’s sex, sexiness, and sexuality since it launched in August. Larian Studios’ Dungeons & Dragons RPG has received both high praise and some criticism for its party of adventurers doing the horizontal tango. It’s received acclaim for its lack of restriction and…

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The Dungeons and Dragons phenomenon has continuously grown in popularity, especially with the likes of Baldur’s Gate 3 and the Honor Among Thieves film. And now, Minecraft has added more fuel to the fire with the announcement of its DnD DLC release date during its monthly segment.

With this Minecraft Monthly, we have learned that the Dungeons and Dragons DLC will arrive on Sept. 26, 2023, featuring the return of notable locations across the Forgotten Realms. This includes destinations like the Icewind Dale and Candlekeep, which have been used in numerous sessions.

Ten days after Unity successfully enraged huge swathes of the development community by announcing sweeping, and wildly unpopular, changes to its Unity Engine business model, the company has said it's "sorry" and walked back on significant aspects of its new pricing plan.

Last Tuesday, Unity announced that, as of 1st January 2024, developers would be expected to pay an additional monthly Unity Runtime Fee per new game install on top of their existing licence subscription after reaching certain revenue and life-time instalment thresholds. The backlash was immediate and intense, resulting in minor revisions to Unity's initial plan.

Now though, Unity's Marc Whitten has outlined significant changes to last week's announcement in a post on the company's website, beginning with another apology. "I want to start with this: I am sorry," he wrote. "We should have spoken with more of you and we should have incorporated more of your feedback before announcing our new Runtime Fee policy. Our goal with this policy is to ensure we can continue to support you today and tomorrow, and keep deeply investing in our game engine."

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The latest video in Masahiro Sakurai’s video series is a show-and-tell episode showing rare items he’s acquired over the years. One of the more notable items was a Kid Icarus figure of Pit and Palutena based on their Uprising appearances. He noted “only about three of these exist.”

The Kid Icarus: Uprising Pit and Palutena figure comes up at the 1:12 mark of the Masahiro Sakurai video below. He noted it is based on the 3D printed model of the two characters used for a Goshogawara Tachineputa parade held in Aomori, Japan in 2011. That float was 10 meters tall. Sakurai and the float designer are two of the only people to own one.

So much of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is spent jumping between Hyrule’s landscape and the floating islands above it that I can’t fathom somehow beating the game without traversing both the sky regions and Hyrule proper. But that’s exactly what one player miraculously managed to pull off.

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The special sets of the Pokemon Trading Card Game are often more about collectability than playability. Still, the newest expansion does a great job of offering at least a bit for everyone! Here are our picks for the best Scarlet & Violet 151 cards.

The coolest Scarlet & Violet 151 cards

Fans with nostalgia for the original 151 may also be fond of the quick-play TCG antics of Hitmonchan, so it’s nice to see a new one with some bite. It has a Counterattack ability that damages the opponent when it’s hit, and a two-energy Excited Punch attack that hits for 60 on turn one and 120 on consecutive turns.

In terms of visuals, we really like the Illustrator Rare sets that depict a whole evolution line in the same environment. What’s somewhat less common in the TCG is extending this treatment to the “normal” cards, but sometimes we see it and we’re glad when we do! Take this set’s Gastly line, for example. It’s an experimental art style, and a willingness to go off-model a bit that we miss from the card game’s early days.

With Mortal Kombat 1 on the horizon, we're revisiting the entry that set the series on its current trajectory: 2011's Mortal Kombat (aka MK 9). Join us today on Twitch at 2:00 p.m. Central as we take a bloody journey through the game's genre-defining story campaign. Episodes will be uploaded to our Game Informer Shows YouTube channel the following Saturday morning. 

After 2006's Mortal Kombat: Armageddon seemingly concluded the franchise's main narrative, 2011's entry picked up the bloody pieces. It moved the saga forward by resetting the timeline, serving as a soft reboot that brought Mortal Kombat back to its 2D fighting roots and ushering in the return of the classic roster. MK 9's cinematic story mode served as an epiphany for the series and fighting games as a whole, establishing the blueprint for narrative fighting campaigns still utilized today. MK9's story also serves as the first chapter of the modern trilogy of games that Mortal Kombat 1 builds upon. For a whole lot more on MK9 and its development, you can read this feature on how the reboot saved the franchise.

Join editors Marcus Stewart and Kyle Hilliard as they battle their way through MK 9 to see how its reimagined tournament holds up. 

Square Enix revealed FFVII Ever Crisis updated to add the Shinra Building, Logues Ruins, and Sunsin Cave as new dungeons. However, there are issues with two of them.  After revealing the new locations, it noted both the Crisis and Criterion dungeons, which Shinra Building and Logues Ruins both fall into, are encountering game-breaking problems.

The one issue brought up involves the Specimen H0512 opponent. This is an enemy that appeared first in FFVII Remake. If you happen upon a Cactaur during its quest in Co-op Battle here, the game crashes. The other is a solo issue during Logues Ruins. If you pause during that dungeon, then the game will stop working. Square Enix didn’t announce any official fixes for either of these FFVII Ever Crisis dungeons issues yet, beyond saying not to pause during the one, but is aware of the problems and “investigating.”

If you've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Total War: Pharaoh next month, on 11th October, there's a bit of bad news - for some purchasers, at least: developer Creative Assembly has announced it's delaying the title into "early 2024", but only on the Epic Games Store.

It's a bit of an unusual one this, but Creative Assembly says the situation has arisen because it was "recently asked to help support the integration of social functions before we can launch on the Epic Games Store, and we'll need additional time to help make that happen".

Importantly, though, Total War: Pharaoh's 11th October release will remain unchanged on Steam - and all pre-orders made on Epic have been automatically cancelled, should you want to take your business elsewhere. Creative Assembly says all affected customers should receive an email confirming this cancellation directly from the Epic Games Store support team.

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