Missed out on the latest PlayStation State of Play showcase? The 20-minute broadcast has now concluded, and we've got everything wrapped up for you below.
Tonight kicked off with a bizarre-looking TV gameshow murder-'em-up, like Squid Game meets The Prisoner. You can forge weapons, play with melee or guns. It's called DeathVerse and it's coming in spring 2022 to PS4 and PS5.
Death's Door, the celebrated action-adventure from Titan Souls' developer Acid Nerve, will be making its way to PlayStation 4, PS5, and Switch on 23rd November.
Death's Door debuted on PC and Xbox earlier this year, immediately garnering acclaim for its richly atmospheric blend of ingenious exploratory puzzling and challenging combat - all wrapped up in a wondrous, melancholy tale of a soul-reaping crow on a quest to fix a devastating mistake in a beautifully bleak world.
King of Fighters 15 gets an open beta in November.
The open beta test, which was announced for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 during tonight's Sony State of Play broadcast, kicks off on 20th November and runs until 22nd November. It includes eight playable characters, and lets you play online casual matches and online room matches. There's offline training, too.
Earlier this week, reports began circulating that Warner Bros is working on a Smash-Bros-style crossover fighter - and now a leaked first image and fresh details have appeared online.
Word of the project - said to include the likes of Scooby Doo's Shaggy, Lord of the Rings' Gandalf, Tom & Jerry, Fred Flintstone, Mad Max, and Johnny Bravo as playable fighters - initially surfaced on Reddit, but was subsequently verified by GamesBeat's Jeff Grubb.
Star Ocean! Little Devil Inside! Other stuff! Everything as it happened.
Superliminal, the acclaimed perspective puzzler from developer Pillow Castle, is introducing an "experimental" battle-royale-style multiplayer mode in a free update on Steam next week.
In its original, single-player-only guise, Superliminal took players on a brain-flexing first-person journey through the SomnaSculpt dream therapy programme, in which the environment - and objects within it - could gain hitherto unseen properties by manipulating perspective.
Square Enix's series of Final Fantasy pixel remasters continues on 10th November with the arrival of Final Fantasy 5 on Steam and mobile devices.
Final Fantasy 5, which originally released back in 1992, follows the adventures of a wanderer named Bartz and his trusty Chocobo who, as Square puts it in its announcement, "find themselves drawn toward friends that will change their destiny."
UPDATE 27/10/21: Sony has now officially announced Apple Music support for PlayStation 5, following the leak spotted and tested by Eurogamer earlier this month.
PS5 is the first console to offer Apple Music. If you're a subscriber you can access the service's 90 million song library, music videos, playlists and radio, and use it similarly to Spotify to stream music in the background.
Ubisoft is emailing Far Cry 6 owners with a roundup of their playtime so far - prompting a mixed response from some fans.
The email, written in the style of the game's villain El Presidente, is essentially a message meant to goad player character Dani Rojas back into action.
Letter from the Editor is a new monthly column from our editor - a bit like the editorial on the first page of a magazine! - that's exclusive to all Eurogamer supporters.
In a way, this month's column is an extension of what I talked about in the first letter last month: what constitutes a busy release schedule and what doesn't. Back then, I was musing on the contrast between 2021's meagre lineup of big releases and the parade of positive reviews of mostly smaller games we have run recently. (Indeed, in the weeks since I wrote that, we've added two more Essentials and Stephen Totilo's Axios Gaming newsletter did us the honour of undertaking a statistical analysis of our reviewing - complete with graph! - pointing out that we've equalled 2020's tally of Essentials with fewer games reviewed overall and two months still to go in the year.)
Ubisoft has indefinitely delayed Ghost Recon Frontline's planned closed test following a less-than-stellar reception to the controversial free-to-play battle royale, but it's continuing to update 2019's Ghost Recon Breakpoint with a significant single-player focused experience.
The Operation Motherland update, due out 2nd November, revolves around the new Conquest mode, which is described as an alternative mode to Ghost Recon Breakpoint's story mode. Here's the setup:
Nintendo's N64 and Mega Drive Switch Online apps have been datamined, revealing some solid hints at upcoming games, as well as how many are currently planned.
Each console app contains a numbered list of games ordered alphabetically, with gaps for upcoming titles. But some of these gaps are so small it is obvious which game will alphabetically fill the space (thanks, MondoMega).
I'm not sure you've played golf until you've played it in the moonlight. In the moonlight under the pink blossom - I think it's blossom - with the fireflies coasting and the lanterns - I think they're lanterns - shining from their perches. A Little Golf Journey will take you here, and early on in its campaign as well! World 2: night golfing! Blossom and fireflies! No need to worry about lost balls.
No need to worry about much of anything. A Little Golf Journey is ease itself. Across its neat, low-poly landscapes, you play a streamlined game of golf that still manages to capture the game's precise pleasures and ASMR detailing. Move a little cursor around to direct your shot. Hold a trigger to stretch the shot further, but be aware that there will be more sway, more of a game of probabilities, to where the shot lands. Hold another trigger to steady your heart and battle the sway. Shoot! The rest is all detailing - move the camera about, reverse the camera - very useful this - so you can shoot from the perspective of where you want the ball to land. Knock the ball in the hole as economically as you can, and earn a bunch of stars for your performance.
Happy 20th anniversary, Pikmin. Two decades on from its original launch on GameCube, Nintendo's beloved garden strategy series has been re-imagined by Pokémon Go maker Niantic, in partnership with original creator Shigeru Miyamoto.
The result is Pikmin Bloom, a charming mix of light strategy, collecting and exploration over your local area. As you might expect from Niantic, this is another game which encourages you to get off your sofa and wander the real world, played on your smartphone.
Blizzard - which remains embroiled in a messy legal battle following the State of California's lawsuit alleging sexual discrimination, harassment, and a "frat boy" culture at the company - has announced it will "pause" next year's BlizzConline as it looks to "reimagine" the event.
BlizzConline - which debuted this February as a digital-only replacement for Blizzard's annual BlizzCon live event in response to the coronavirus pandemic - was due to return "early" in 2022 after the company opted to cancel BlizzCon for a second year running back in May.
The Division 2's long-awaited major new content update - which includes a game mode said to be entirely new to the franchise - will now launch in February next year. Ubisoft had previously said it would arrive "late 2021 at the earliest".
New content for The Division 2 was officially announced back in March, following Ubisoft's decision to continue supporting the online shooter despite initial plans to make December 2020's Update 12 its last. Since then, updates have largely been limited to re-runs of previous seasons while developer Ubisoft Massive works on delivering the next major release.
It has been more that 16 years since the last major Age of Empires - and in that time we've seen the demise of franchise creator Ensemble Studios and a general shift in the design of real-time strategy games. But the good news is that Age of Empires has returned with a fourth series entry, with RTS powerhouse developer Relic at the conn. The game is well worth checking out and I really enjoyed playing it, but I honestly feel that key improvements need to be made from a technological standpoint.
The Age of Empires series has so much history behind it that Relic Entertainment faced a huge challenge in resurrecting the franchise, especially in the wake of the successful remasters for the second and third games. Overall, the game is excellent with much to commend it, delivering an experience that should satisfy series stalwarts while also gently introducing the game to newcomers. As the game starts up, players are immediately introduced to the basic mechanics of the game, teaching you the staples such as resource collecting, technology and the various units' strengths and weaknesses. On top of that, there's a dedicated training game type, which goes deeper into how AOE4 works. Even the initial Norman campaign has several defining moments sculpted by the developer to teach the player more about the game's micro and macro management.
There's some bad news for Shadow Warrior fans eagerly awaiting another taste of Wang before the year is through; developer Flying Wild Hog has announced a delay for the third instalment in the rebooted FPS series, revealing it'll now launch next year.
Shadow Warrior 3, which was originally due to release in 2021, follows the continuing adventures of protagonist Lo Wang as he shoots and slashes his way across Neo-Feudal Japan, this time on a quest to recapture an ancient dragon unleashed from its eternal prison.
Valve has confirmed the dates of its next three Steam sales.
Via its official Steamworks Documentation page we have the dates for the Steam Halloween, autumn and winter sales:
A trans developer who worked on Guardians of the Galaxy but left developer Eidos before the game's release has praised the studio for crediting her despite her departure - and for doing so with her new name.
Cloé Veilleux worked on the game for three and a half years and was promoted to Technical Level Design Director before leaving Eidos a year before the game was released.
Microsoft has explained why it created a "Min Spec Mode" for Age of Empires 4.
The PC real-time strategy game, which launches this week, is the first brand-new Age of Empires game in 16 years. It was developed by Microsoft-owned studio World's Edge and Sega-owned studio Relic Entertainment (Company of Heroes, Dawn of War).
Yesterday, Microsoft re-revealed the Halo Infinite campaign with a new video that gave us our first proper look at what to expect from that portion of the game in over a year.
With all eyes trained on the visuals - and Craig's new beard - the announcement of a few brand new enemies for the Halo universe flew under the radar. Check out the action in the video below:
Metroid and Tetris may not seem like an obvious match, but the two games are joining forces to celebrate the release of Metroid Dread.
Starting this Friday 29th October, a Metroid Grand Prix will be added to Tetris 99, in which players will be able to earn a special Metroid theme within the game.
Nintendo's pricier Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription is now available, including a selection of N64 classics - though not all are working as intended.
Subscribers to the £35-a-year catalogue have reported a number of general issues, including lag and low frame rates. But a couple of games also feature more specific problems.
For a good chunk of my initial time with Back 4 Blood I had precisely zero opinions about it. It's a strange game, half of it built on a kind of ultra-nostalgia, especially potent for anyone who spent a single day of the late noughties in the same room as an Xbox 360. The other half - all cards, progression, loot - is quite abruptly modern. The two, at least at first, seem to cancel each other out, turning it into a thing that's just too familiar, too recognisable. I'm shooting zombies in co-op, while looting weapons and grinding the progression system for cards that might help on my next run. Imagine, in the most emotionless voice: OK.
But, actually, thankfully, it's more than that. Scrabbling around in the game's oddly enticing dark for long enough has allowed me to admit I was very much wrong. Back 4 Blood is interesting. It is unfamiliar, in places. It is good! Really good.
In the morning, his lawn is covered with poems, which take the form of ribbon and coloured streamers. His neighbor is a poet, so that narrows things down a bit. Inevitably, he goes to complain.
I've been reading Vermilion Sands this past week, a collection of short stories by JG Ballard that are all based in a fictitious desert holiday community - Palm Springs or the scorched armpits of Arizona - at some point in the nebulous future. It's a short book but I'm eking it out. I don't want it to end. I knew I was going to love it - there's Ballard, of course, but it's also hard not feel something for a paperback that comes with its own 3D glasses for viewing the fractal depths of the cover art.
Supremo scare-'em-up Phasmophobia is pulling a bunch of spooky new treats out of its ghostbustin' bag for Halloween, with today's massive new Nightmare update adding a haunted campsite map, four new ghosts, weather effects, and more.
Maple Lodge Campsite is Phasmophobia's first outdoor map and packs in everything you could possibly hope for in a spooky holiday retreat, including picnic areas, tents, a log cabin, and even a haunted lake. Developer Kinetic Games says the new map features "more unique objects, higher object density and more visual detail", and that players can expect other maps to receive a similar boost in detail, plus more unique objects, at a later date.
Activision - which remains mired in a messy legal battle following the state of California's lawsuit alleging sexual discrimination, harassment and a "frat boy" culture at Blizzard - has shared a handful of new Call of Duty: Vanguard details ahead of the WW2 shooter's launch next week.
All the new information comes via the PlayStation Blog, in which Vanguard developer Sledgehammer offers details on the game's PS5 DualSense wireless controller support alongside a look at four Operators, complete with introductory trailers for each.
DF Direct Weekly returns once again, with myself, John and Alex taking a time-out from our various individual projects to discuss the latest gaming and tech news. Our chat kicks off with the arrival of new Apple Silicon found with the brand new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros. M1 Pro and M1 Max look absolutely monstrous and from a GPU perspective alone, we're looking at a doubling then a quadrupling of the already impressive M1. In the new Direct, we share our thoughts on strategy but ask the fundamental question beyond some truly impressive tech: will this extremely capable, super-efficient technology ever really be put through its paces in gaming? Is a profound commitment to gaming beyond the iOS ecosystem even worth considering for Apple, when its mobile ecosystem is likely to be so much more profitable?
Beyond that, discussion moves on to last week's announcement of God of War for PC, complete with select new graphical features, unlocked frame-rates, ultrawide support and the pleasantly surprising inclusion of Nvidia DLSS. It's not clear just how much of an improvement the new features add, but it'll be interesting to see if DLSS and other upscaling features are added to other Sony titles, such as the forthcoming Uncharted collection. We also discuss Sony's global vision: in a recent gamesindustry.biz video interview, Jim Ryan talked about addressing addressing millions more users with Sony titles, which inevitably leads to discussions about the cloud and therefore the concept of PC ports happening as a matter of course. Unless, of course, Sony is intent on packing out datacentres with PS5 hardware - which seems unlikely, especially in light of the mooted deal with Microsoft.
