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Type-Moon and French Bread have confirmed the launch date for the Melty Blood: Type Lumina Summer 2022 update. The free patch that primarily adds Neco-Arc and Fate/Grand Order's Mash Kyrielight as new playable characters will appear on August 19, 2022, at 6 AM UTC (2 AM ET).

French Bread also revealed more details about the Summer update during the EVO 2022 Melty Blood tournament. Development director Kamone Serizawa explained the additions and changes that the team will bring with the new patch in a six-minute-long video.

Serizawa revealed that the Summer update will also include changes to the game's battle balance. The video includes a detailed list of changes made to combat features, such as Shields, Dashes, Combos, and Moon Skills. The update will also add more features to the Replay Mode and improve the network matching system.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef1aXVm8d8Q

EVO Japan will return in Spring 2023 after a pandemic-induced hiatus. The event's general manager Rick Thiher has confirmed that EVO Japan 2023 will take place in Tokyo from late March to early April 2023. The group has also updated the Japanese event's official website and set up a new Japanese Twitter account.

Four titles will feature prominently in EVO Japan 2023 as main tournaments. They will be Arc System Works' Guilty Gear Strive, SNK's The King of Fighters XV, Capcom's Street Fighter V: Champion Edition, and Bandai Namco's Tekken 7. The organizers will reveal more titles in the lineup and details for tournament registrations in Fall 2022.

EVO Japan is the first event in the Evolution Championship Series to appear outside of the US. The inaugural event launched in January 2018. The organizers managed to hold the event annually in 2019 and 2020, but it was halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Arc System Works announced that it had sold over 1 million units of Guilty Gear Strive in physical shipments and digital sales worldwide. Its press release added more significance, as Strive also became the company's first-ever title to reach the million sales milestone.

The Guilty Gear team's 2D artist Kenta Asano drew a celebratory illustration to mark Strive's 1 million sales milestone. It features Bridget, which will appear as the first Season Pass 2 character. Announced during the Evo 2022 tournament, the most-requested series character in Japan will return simultaneously worldwide on August 8, 2022 (August 9, 2022, in Japan).

At the same time, the company also published a new trailer to mark the fighting game's first anniversary. It features a music video of Sol Badguy's theme song in Strive, "Find Your One Way." The Japanese animation studio Sanzigen produced this video.

[tnm_video layout="mnmd-post-media"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp4-n_u-q[/tnm_video]

Cygames shared more information on the One Piece Film: Red crossover event that will run in Granblue Fantasy. It will launch on September 14 and run until September 25, 2022. The event will grant players two new playable characters, as well as a new summon. There is also a trailer for the event available on YouTube.

Luffy will be a playable character, while Nami and Robin will team up as a single unit. Hijikata and Okita in the Gintama event worked the same way, as do some of the units native to Granblue Fantasy. You can uncap Luffy to unlock two more pieces of artwork for him. Uta also appears as a summon, with Kaori Nazuka reprising her role.

[gallery link="file" ids="933361,933362,933363"]

The trailer is part of the Granblue Fantasy live-stream and features voice actor jokes. For reference, Rackam’s voice actor Hiroaki Hirata also voiced Sanji in One Piece. During the trailer, Rackam is a good cook and calls the women of the crew ‘mademoiselles,’ just like Sanji does. Walder is also prominent in the trailer, serving as the sane man to Rackam. Walder’s voice actor Kappei Yamaguchi also voices Usopp in One Piece.

Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War airs soon, in October 2022. With the promotional engine for the new Bleach anime series in gear, the production staff unveiled a new key visual for the show. It also confirmed more of the voice cast [Thanks, Famitsu!].

The new Bleach anime key visual focuses on Ichigo and his closest friends, with Quincy King Ywach and Uryuu Ishida in the background. Ichigo, Renji, Rukia, Chad, and Orihime are in the foreground, sporting their weapons.

An official site update confirmed more of the voice cast for Bleach: The Thousand-Year Blood War. In addition to returning members from the original Bleach anime, The Thousand-Year Blood War features many new roles for the Stern Ritter. They're the elite soldiers of the Quincy Wandenreich and the main foes of the Soul Reapers in the manga's final arc. Previous reveals of the voice cast confirmed many of the key roles, but a few new and returning cast members remained unconfirmed.

Here are the new voice actor confirmations.

A new summer event, Summer Survival Rhapsody Side A, will debut soon in Honkai Impact 3rd. It will launch alongside Version 5.9, which will debut on August 11, 2022. Using event currency you get from clearing stages and missions, you can get a new outfit, Energy Devices, Crystals, and more.

Here is the trailer for the Summer Survival Rhapsody Side A event in Honkai Impact 3rd:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5HcHsMXS8Q

The Summer Miss Elf♪ outfit is for Miss Pink Elf♪, and you can get it for free in the event shop. She has a white headband in her hair, and is wearing a light white-and-black swimsuit underneath a pale blue short-sleeved blouse. As you play through the three chapters of the event, you can unlock more Flame-Chasers to deploy.

Summer Survival Rhapsody Side A will introduce a new battle mode in Honkai Impact 3rd, which involves rolling a dice. Your roll will determine a Flame-Chaser’s damage. There are also skills to manipulate the numbers you can get from the dice. As you progress through island adventure, you may encounter forks in the path. Depending on what route you choose, there may be rewards and blessings to collect.

Honkai Impact 3rd is available on Windows PC and mobile devices. The Version 5.9 update and Summer Survival Rhapsody Side A event will go live on August 11, 2022.

During EVO 2022, Dragon Ball FighterZ producer Tomoko Hiroki announced that the game will have rollback netcode. This will only be for the PS5, Xbox Series X, and Windows PC versions of the game. During the same announcement, Hiroki said that the game will no longer receive updates in the forms of new characters or balance updates. [Thanks, HD_Kirin!]

Here is a clip of Hiroki announcing rollback netcode during EVO 2022. You can hear the cheers of the audience as soon as she says the words, even before the translator can translate for her:

https://twitter.com/HD_Kirin/status/1556206791318376448

As a reminder, rollback netcode is a function that helps to smooth out online multiplayer experience. Rather than waiting for your opponent to input their commands, it predicts the movement and self-corrects if the prediction is wrong. This means that your gameplay experience should feel smooth regardless of ping. Other games that introduced rollback netcode include Street Fighter 6, BlazBlue Centralfiction, and King of Fighters 2022 Unlimited Match. 

Bandai Namco made an appearance at the Evo 2022 competitive event this year, making a handful of important announcements. In addition to a few updates and adjustments for Tekken 7, the company may have also teased an upcoming Tekken 8 at Evo 2022. While yet unconfirmed, the official Tekken account has acknowledged the teaser and urged fans to "watch until the end".

The teaser appeared just after a series of updates for Tekken 7 and the announcement of the global finals dates. The update for Tekken 7 will release on August 17, 2022. The free update will reportedly include balance adjustments and new tactics. Furthermore, the Tekken World Tour 2022 Global Finals will be making its return in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on February 4 and 5, 2023.

At the end of the video, after a Tekken 7 title card, the ending scene of the original Tekken appears. After defeating his father in battle, Kazuya throws Heihachi off of a cliff and then smiles. Notably, this also mirrors the ending of Tekken 7. Suddenly, the video changes from the original polygonal graphics to a modern, high-definition version of Kazuya. Kazuya's left eye glows red as he smiles into the camera, with the words "Get Ready" appearing beside him.

You can check out the possible Tekken 8 Evo 2022 teaser in the video below (Starts at 1:38):

https://youtu.be/OocpMVBLxlk

The legendary fighting game series is coming back. SNK announced at EVO 2022 that it "green-lit" a new Fatal Fury / Garou project for development. This would be the first such project in the works since 1999's Garou: Mark of the Wolves (a.k.a. Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves).

Check out SNK's new Fatal Fury teaser trailer below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YP3wVygHLg

All in all, the teaser reveals very little about the project. Its naming to Fatal Fury/Garou and the use of Rock Howard in the teaser art implies that it's a follow-up to Mark of the Wolves, at least. In Garou, Rock Howard, son of longtime villain Geese Howard, is a student of series hero Terry Bogard, as well. SNK's announcement also trumpets the project as "the long awaited sequel". Besides the art, the teaser trailer displayed cryptic hints as to the nature of the story. Lines like "The City of Legend Still Breathes," "Hungry Wolves Back on the Prowl," and "A New Destiny Hidden in the Darkness" promise new plotlines spinning off from the narrative of 20 years ago.

Though a Fatal Fury game hasn't made an appearance in over two decades, its characters have kept busy in other games. They've often shown up in the rosters of various King of Fighters titles. Terry Bogard himself even joined Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in 2019 as a DLC fighter.

Bridget returns! Arc System Works had a surprise announcement for Guilty Gear fans at EVO 2022, and it involved the return of a beloved character. Bridget joins the Guilty Gear Strive roster on August 8, 2022, not even a day after the announcement itself. This is the first time Bridget is playable since 2003's Guilty Gear Isuka.

Check out ArcSys' Bridget Guilty Gear Strive announcement trailer below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWOUBwWMakg

Bridget is seen in a new outfit. Rather than the stylized nun outfit worn in previous incarnations, Bridget's new clothing blends everyday wear with nun-like outlines and patterns. Bridget wears a jacket with a hood that resembling a nun's habit, with a sweater, short skirt, and athletic shorts underneath. Bridget's handcuff belt and yo-yo are still used as accessories, with the yo-yo functioning as a single-foot skate, as well.

Crunchyroll's presence in the overseas anime industry continues to grow. The Sony-owned streaming service purchased Right Stuf, which runs the largest online anime retailer in North America. The deal was announced on August 4, 2022, just ahead of the Crunchyroll Expo event. Pricing and other terms were not disclosed publicly. [Thanks, ANN!].

The Right Stuf acquisition bolsters Crunchyroll's burgeoning e-commerce business, widening its selection in both anime and manga. The merger of Crunchyroll with Funimation also put Funimation's physical home video releases under the "Crunchyroll for Home Video brand."

Right Stuf was quick to announce on its blog that the retail side of the business, fronted by the RightStufAnime.com, will not change in large part. No branding changes or mergers of catalog are planned, and all orders, current and future, will continue to be processed normally. The Crunchyroll and Right Stuf online stores will also operate separately "for the moment".

The Smile Fest 2022 event is ongoing, and, Good Smile Company teased upcoming video game figures from games such as Genshin Impact, Xenoblade 3, Elden Ring, and more. The figures range from Nendoroids to scale figures to figma. They are all in various stages of development. Some figures only have announcement art, while others have a painted prototype ready.

The full list of the figures Good Smile Company showed at Smile Fest 2022 is on the online gallery. There are also figures on the way for series such as Fate/Grand Order and Tsukihime. Here is what we can expect to see in the future:

Ace Attorney

During Smile Fest 2022, Good Smile Company teased upcoming anime figures, including ones from series such as Rebuild of Evangelion, Spy x Family, and Attack on Titan.

All of the figures are in various stages of development. Some of them only have announcement art, while others already have a painted prototype. Good Smile Company will reveal the prices and release windows for these figures in the future. This article doesn't contain the complete list, which is available from the Smile Fest online gallery. We did, however, round up some of the highlights and the biggest titles.

One other highlight from Smile Fest 2022 is the announcement of more Act Mode figures. Act Mode is a new line from GSC that combines action figures with plastic models. An Act Mode figure thus includes a pre-pained articulated action figure, and an assembleable plastic model, usually the character's gear or accessories. Several Symphogear figures, with "mecha musume"-style parts, joined the Ace Mode line.

The list of anime figures from Smile Fest 2022 is:

Figma

• Toge Inumaki (Jujutsu Kaisen)
• Yuta Okkotsu (Jujutsu Kaisen 0)

Nendoroid

Good Smile Company teased several upcoming figures of VTubers from various units at its Smile Fest 2022 event. Hololive figures made up the majority of new announcements. However, Vsinger and Nijisanji also had new figure announcements. The figures are all in varying stages of development. It is unknown when to expect the majority of these to go on sale, though the Oozora Subaru Pop Up Parade figure and the Nakiri Ayame Nendoroid look like they are almost finished.

The full list of VTubers figures is:

Figma

• Mori Calliope (hololive)
• La+ Darkness (hololive)

Nendoroid

• Hoshimachi Suisei (hololive)
• Lize Helesta (Nijisanji)
• Luo Tianyi: Grain in Ear Version (Vsinger)
• Murasaki Shion (hololive)
• Nakiri Ayame (hololive)
• Shiranui Flare (hololive)
• Shirogane Noel (hololive)
• Shishiro Botan (hololive)
• Yukihana Lamy (hololive)
• Aki Rosenthal (hololive)
• Amane Kanata (hololive)
• Tsunomaki Watame (hololive)

Pop Up Parade

• Nakiri Ayame (hololive)
• Ninomae Ina’nis (hololive)
• Oozora Subaru (hololive)
• Takanashi Kiara (hololive)
• Watson Amelia (hololive)
• Murasaki Shion (hololive)
• Amane Kanata (hololive)

Scale Figures

During Smile Fest 2022, Good Smile Company showed off some upcoming Fate/Grand Order and Tsukihime figures. There will be a total of 20 Type-Moon figures, with varying release windows for each. Some FGO figures, such as the scale figure of Caster Altria, do not even have a prototype yet. Others, such as the Tsukihime Arcueid Nendoroid figure, are in the final stages of development. The Tsukihime figures are based on the characters' appearances in Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon-, the remake that released in 2021.

The full list of Fate/Grand Order and Tsukihime figures from Smile Fest 2022 is:

Figma

• Arcueid Brunestud
• Ciel
• Mysterious Heroine X Alter (Berserker)

Nendoroid

• Arcueid Brunestud
• Ciel

Pop Up Parade

• Akiha Tohno
• Arcueid Brunestud
• Astolfo (Rider)
• Ciel
• Hisui
• Jeanne d’Arc (Ruler)
• Jeanne d’Arc Alter (Avenger)
• Kohaku
• Mordred (Saber)

Scale Figure

• Arcueid Brunestud (Dresscode: Clad in Glaciers)
• Arcueid Brunestud
• Altria/Artoria (Caster)
• Ciel (Seventh Scripture: 3rd Cause of Death - Blood Loss (Blade))
• Mysterious Alter Ego Lambda (Lancer)
• Scathach Skadi (Caster)

[gallery columns="6" ids="933304,933303,933302,933301,933300,933299,933298,933297,933296,933295,933294,933293" link="file"]

Most of Bandai Namco's Ace Combat series is set in its own entirely fictional setting called Strangereal. A place of multiple continents, a variety of nations and cultures, and many, many wars, its timeline isn't too easy to grasp from the outside. But don't worry, Nugget is here to help. In a new video series, the new puppet mascot for Ace Combat explains Strangereal - and thus Ace Combat - history.

First introduced on video in April 2022, Nugget is a little chick, named after the slang term for rookie fighter pilots. Now Nugget is the official YouTuber for the Ace Combat official channel. Now Nugget's first presentation focuses on making Ace Combat history and Strangereal a little more "real" to fans new and old.

The first subject of Nugget's "Strangereal World Setting Commentary" focuses on 2001's Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies. English subtitles are available via closed captions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnTFCyMaPNU

Telltale Games' adaptation of the The Walking Dead is ten years old in 2022. In fact, the series is available despite the sudden end of Telltale itself in 2018. Skybound Games, the series' new owner, has gathered the whole series and more in a new The Walking Dead Humble Bundle on PC. Money spent on purchases can be split between the charities SpecialEffect and Covenant House. SpecialEffect helps people with disabilities enjoy video games (such as by providing specialized controllers). Covenant House helps homeless and trafficked young people.

Like other Humble-managed media bundles, The Walking Dead Humble Bundle comes in multiple price points, determining how much a buyer gets out of the bundle. The pricing remains at "pay what you want" to start, with the bottom tier unlocking the first two seasons of Telltale's The Walking Dead and the 400 Days DLC chapter. The first season focuses on Lee Everett, a resident of Georgia, who encounters a young girl, Clementine, as the zombie outbreak takes over. The second season focuses on Clementine as she tries to survive alone.

Expedition Agartha is entering early access soon. Published by Snail Games under its Wandering Wizard label, the game was developed by Matrioshka Games as a multiplayer-oriented "hardcore looter survival game". The early access launch date on PC (via Steam) is set for August 18, 2022.

Check out the Expedition Agartha early access launch trailer below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVgk_TvjAnk

Though still in active development, Expedition Agartha has a story premise to rope players in. Its setting is a mysterious island set on the fabled Lost Continent of Mu. There players will launch expeditions into Agartha, a mystical land in the center of the earth. They'll go exploring solo or in teams of three. Along the way they'll face hostile NPCs and environments in search of secrets and treasure. Then, they'll need to find their way to a departure point to get away safely with their loot. This is in contrast to battle royal-style titles like Apex Legends, which typically end a round once a team has won.

The promised day has arrived. Anime studio MAPPA held a special livestream event to unveil its adaptation of Tatsuki Fujimoto's hit manga. The Chainsaw Man trailer gave fans and onlookers the most substantial view yet of the series. It also revealed the show's principal voice cast.

Check out the Chainsaw Man trailer below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk7QSGwupPA

The trailer shows off moments from the earlier chapters of the Chainsaw Man manga. Makima and a crew of devil hunters arrive at the scene of a massacre. Her narration lays out the background of the story. She refers to the advent of the Gun Devil following a gun-involved terror attack in the U.S. The view switches to Denji, still with Pochita. Shots of Denji's devil hunter partners Power and Aki Hayakawa in action are also shown off. The Chainsaw Man anime trailer closes out on a montage of battles, including the ones against the Bat Devil and Leech Devil. Aki uses his contracted Fox Devil, too.

The credits on the Chainsaw Man trailer reveal the show's main voice cast, with several new and lesser-known voice actors in key roles.

A new Kirby Cafe branch will appear temporarily in Nagoya, Japan. Benelic has opened a new webpage for Kirby Cafe Nagoya, which will be open from September 15, 2022, to February 5, 2023. On August 12, 2022, the company will open reservations for cafe attendances up to November 30, 2022.

The Nagoya branch will have several exclusive entries on its menu. One of them will be a Waddle Dee-printed burger served with meat pasta and warm vegetables. The other will feature a hot dog with fried shrimp put literally inside Kirby's mouth. Visitors will also be able to order a Kirby-decorated peach parfait, and they can also bring the glass home by paying extra.

A store selling Kirby-themed merchandise will also appear nearby the cafe, and anyone will be able to visit it without needing a reservation. Benelic will reveal the goods lineup at a later time.

[gallery ids="933250,933249,933248" link="file"]

As of this writing, the Kirby Cafe has two permanent branches in Japan. The game character-branded cafe used to appear sporadically since at least 2016. The first permanent cafe appeared at Tokyo Skytree Town Solamachi in late 2019. Benelic then launched the second branch on Kyushu island at Canal City Hakata in Fukuoka. The company has yet to announce whether it has any plans to turn the new Nagoya branch into a permanent one as well.

Plush versions of the Pokemon Legends Arceus Hisuian starter Pokemon—namely, Decidueye, Typhlosion, and Samurott—will appear from August 10, 2022, on the Pokemon Center online storefront. They will also be available in the physical locations from August 11, 2022. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

Each Pokemon plush will cost 4,400 JPY, which is around $33. You can order them from the Pokemon Center’s Amazon page as well. This means that international customers will be able to purchase and get these items. However, the Pokemon Center website itself does not offer overseas shipping.

The arcade rhythm game series Beatmania IIDX will reach a new milestone with its upcoming thirtieth mainline iteration. Konami has launched a location test for Beatmania IIDX 30 Resident. The new entry will bring more quality-of-life improvements and new songs. Toby Fox is one of the composers contributing to the new tracks.

Masaya "Camellia" Oya revealed on Twitter that he had collaborated with the Undertale creator to produce a new piece of game music titled "Summerblue." The song is available in the location test version. It will appear in the public arcade version after Konami updates the build to Resident.

Konami will upgrade the arcade game's display resolution to Full HD (1080p) when it launches Resident. The new iteration will also have several quality-of-life improvements, such as a Notes Radar-based recommendation folder and a more detailed option to display the Fast and Slow input markers.

Resident—revealed in 2022—will mark the 30th iteration milestone for Beatmania IIDX, but the series celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019. While Konami has recently been releasing new iterations on a yearly basis, it used to release them twice a year during the series' early years.

Toho Animation announced it is producing an anime adaptation of Kaiju No 8. A new teaser trailer gives fans a brief glimpse at how the anime adaptation may look and feel. Furthermore, a new official website, as well as an English Twitter account for the anime adaptation, has appeared. Toho Animation has not confirmed the animation studio for the adaptation.

Kaiju No 8, also known as Monster #8, is a popular science-fiction kaiju manga series in Japan. The story follows Kafka Hibino, a member of a kaiju clean-up crew of sorts, who dreams of becoming a part of the Third Division defense force. After gaining the ability to shape-shift into a Kaiju, Kafka is determined to join the Third Division with the help of one of his childhood friends.

https://twitter.com/KaijuNo8_O_EN/status/1555206933447163909?s=20&t=3dvOm-aP-3xfDqOZ-jxzDg

The teaser trailer doesn't show any footage of the actual anime. Instead, it's a collection of black and white photos and animations of various streets in Tokyo, with audio hinting at some sort of Kaiju attack. The final seconds of the video reveal smoke clouds and a creature in the distance, before cutting to black.

The manga series first appeared on the Shonen Jump + app for free in July 2020. As of writing, Kaiju No 8 has seven volumes in publication. The author of the series, Naoya Matsumoto, is a Shonen Jump veteran and has had his works serialized in the magazine since 2009.

Tactics Ogre: Reborn will be sold in both digital and physical forms overseas. However, it seems that Japanese buyers will have some extra goodies, like a Tactics Ogre Reborn Collector's Edition. They'll also have a chance at a special pre-order lottery.

The Tactics Ogre Reborn Collector's Edition is exclusive to the Square Enix e-Store. As a physical package, it's also exclusive to the console editions of the game (PS4, PS5, and Switch). The package comes with the game itself, and several exclusive items. These include an art book with illustrations by Akihiko Yoshida and Tsubasa Masao, among others. There's also a three-volume script book set, containing dialog lines from all the story routes. Finally, a mini-soundtrack CD and set of tarot cards with a special bag and mat round out the offering. The package costs 22,000 Yen (about $165 USD).

Check out some shots of the Tactics Ogre Reborn Collector's Edition in the gallery.

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The record held by Eiichiro Oda's One Piece in Guinness World Records has received an update. The long-running manga series has generated even more copies when compared to the first time it received a world record in December 2014.

Hiroyuki Nakano, the editor-in-chief of Weekly Shonen Jump, displayed the new Guinness certificate on the official One Piece staff account on Twitter. It shows that there have been 416,566,000 copies of One Piece books circulated between December 1997 and July 2022.

Japanese press releases noted that the number contained in the certificate only counted the number of books published domestically in Japan. The Twitter account added that the manga series has over 500 million copies in print worldwide. That means around 84 million copies have circulated outside Japan.

In June 2022, Eiichiro Oda took a month-long hiatus from publishing new chapters. He wanted to recharge and prepare for the final arc of the long-running series. The hiatus did not dampen the popularity of the series, which resumed publication in the July 25, 2022 issue of Shonen Jump.

The long-teased Hollywood live-action movie adaptation of Root Letter has appeared, and it will launch in American theaters on September 1, 2022. A one-and-a-half-minute-long trailer for the movie is available to watch on YouTube.

While the Hollywood movie will change the characters and locations from the Japanese visual novel, the storyline will still be similar. Danny Ramirez will play the role of Carlos, a teenager who used to exchange letters with his distant pen pal Sarah (performed by Keana Marie). When Sarah goes missing after she sends a final letter claiming she killed someone, Carlos travels to her hometown and interrogates her friends to try to find her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWKuzbI_lV0

Kadokawa Games first announced the Hollywood movie adaptation of Root Letter in November 2018. The Japanese game publisher initially worked with Akatsuki Entertainment USA to produce the live-action movie. The new trailer reveals that Ammo Entertainment will finish the movie and release it in theaters.

The Steam Deck will have its first regional expansion to East Asia. Valve revealed that it is working with Komodo to bring the Steam Deck to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. All three models of the portable console are available to pre-order in those countries and regions.

In Japan, the base 64GB model is available at ¥59,800 (~$449), the 256GB model at ¥79,800 (~$599), and the 512GB model at ¥99,800 (~$749). The prices are higher than in the U.S., where Valve priced the three models at $399, $529, and $649, respectively.

The cooperation between Valve and Komodo will not be limited to the Steam Deck's distribution. The company will set up a large booth dedicated to the portable console at Tokyo Game Show 2022. Japan's annual gaming event will have a physical-and-digital hybrid format, and it will take place on September 15-18, 2022. Valve has yet to announce the East Asian release date, but the TGS 2022 presentation will help introduce the console to the Japanese public ahead of its release.

Neos Corporation has opened a new Steam page for Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation - The Endless Seven-Day Journey. The company will bring the adventure to PCs at the same time as the global Switch and PS4 releases in August 2022.

The Steam page also detailed the game's supported languages. It will have voiceovers in Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. The game will also contain subtitles in those languages, with further additions of English, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Shin-chan: Me and the Professor on Summer Vacation will let players control series protagonist Shinnosuke "Shin-chan" Nohara. His family is staying in the Assou village in Kyushu due to his father's business trip. Other than the main story plot involving a mysterious professor, the game will also have many other activities, such as fishing, farming, DJing, and a dinosaur fighting game.

Summer Vacation is not the only Crayon Shin-chan game that will appear on Steam. In late July 2022, Bushiroad created a Steam page for Crayon Shin-chan: The Storm Called! Flaming Kasukabe Runner!! The endless runner game, currently available on mobile devices in Japan and Nintendo Switch worldwide, will arrive on PCs in Fall 2022.

From my time with its early hours, Soul Hackers 2 feels like the logical accumulation of the many lessons that Atlus learned with its recent SMT-related games. The majority of the game still consists of dungeon crawling. However, having three human party members with their own goals and distinct personalities hooks players hoping for a substantial story. Meanwhile, the difficulty and general structure of the game’s progression can endear it to fans of classic SMT games.

The gist of the story is that Ringo and Figue are artificial humans that AION created. AION is essentially a super-computer that has predicted the end of the world. To stop it, it creates Ringo and Figue and sends them to the human world. Once there, Ringo uses Soul Hack to revive Arrow, Milady, and Saizo. All three of them are Devil Summoners that Ringo believes are instrumental in stopping the apocalypse.

[gallery link="file" ids="933131,933132,933133"]

In combat and gameplay, the three humans also help to keep players engaged. I am not a fan of aimless dungeon crawling. However, as the Soul Matrix unlocked more information on the pasts of my enigmatic allies, it became less a chore and more an extension of the main story, a new way to get to know my people. All four members often talk to each other in battle. The exchanges range in tone, from encouraging and rebuking tones. While it can get old hearing the same lines over and over, it was still an engaging form of background noise. Milady and Arrow’s occasional cat-and-dog spats over enemy weaknesses were also amusing.

The Reminiscent Regimen event is now live in the Golden Apple Archipelago in Genshin Impact. It will remain open until August 15, 2022. Players will need to be over Adventure Rank 32, as well as complete the “Summertime Odyssey: I” quest, in order to participate. There will be three different types of challenges, with a new one unlocking every day for the first six days.

The three types of challenges in the Reminiscent Regimen Genshin Impact event are Descent, Raid, and Convoy. You can play the event, which is co-op only, with a custom co-op group or match with random players. Descent challenges are ones where you float down from the sky and fight opponents on floating platforms.

Raid challenges place you in a Waverider and you have to reach the goal within the time limit. You also need to board platforms to defeat the enemies on them. Finally, Convoy challenges have you protect a Driftstone Raft. It needs to reach a designated spot without the enemies destroying it.

Aside from Reminiscent Regimen, there are still other ongoing events available in Genshin Impact. For example, there is Hidden Strife, which presents various battles as challenges. The next event, Evermotion Mechanical Painting, will start on August 12 and end on August 22, 2022.

SNK has released Mega Man: Battle & Fighters on the Nintendo Switch. Even though Mega Man is Capcom's franchise IP, the Nintendo Store entry lists SNK as the publisher. This game is part of the latter's initiative to bring ports of NeoGeo Pocket Color games to the Switch.

This compilation consists of two NeoGeo Pocket Color games — Mega Man: The Power Battle and Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters. While Capcom had included the arcade versions of both games in Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium (now available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch), the NeoGeo Pocket Color versions feature 8-bit pixel graphics. The compilation still includes bosses from the first to seventh Mega Man games. Bass and Mega Man 8's Duo also join Mega Man and Proto Man in the playable character roster.

Meanwhile, Capcom is preparing another project to revitalize the Mega Man franchise. In late June 2022, the company revealed Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection. The newest compilation in the Legacy Collection series for the Mega Man franchise will contain all six mainline Battle Network iterations from the Game Boy Advance, including the two different versions for the later titles. Capcom will release it for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC in 2023.

Behaviour Interactive officially revealed that Albert Wesker will be the new killer appearing as part of the Dead By Daylight x Resident Evil crossover event. The event, Project W, will also feature Ada Wong and Rebecca Chambers as the two new survivor characters. Behaviour Interactive has not yet announced a release date for the upcoming chapter.

Project W is the 25th chapter of the asymmetrical horror game Dead By Daylight, and is the second chapter featuring characters and enemies from the Resident Evil franchise. Behaviour Interactive previously teased the crossover with a short clip back in May 2022, though the characters did not appear. Alongside the latest announcement, the company also released a short trailer featuring Wesker, Ada, and Rebecca.

Notably, the trailer reveals that Albert Wesker will be based on the character's appearance from Resident Evil 5, complete with his full black duster getup. This Wesker also has control over the prototype T-Virus and Uroboros Virus, possessing the ability to use tentacle-like appendages. Ada Wong appears to be wearing her iconic red dress, while Rebecca is wearing her rescue outfit. As the name of the chapter suggests, the Uroboros Project and Project W will likely be the key themes of the crossover.

You can check out the Dead By Daylight x Resident Evil Albert Wesker reveal trailer below:

https://youtu.be/QMEFfoaNX34

Tactics Ogre: Reborn might be the worst-kept game-related secret of 2022 so far. Its existence has been confirmed by trademark filings, store pages, and deal websites. Seemingly everyone but its makers at Square Enix acknowledge that it is coming, and soon. That era is over. Square Enix has formally announced the game for a November 11, 2022 release date. And it's coming to more than just PlayStation platforms. The official announcement confirmed that it's headed to Nintendo Switch and PC, as well.

Square Enix also uploaded a full trailer, featuring gameplay footage and voice acting.

Here's the trailer in English.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osHD91sQUOk

And the same trailer featuring Japanese-language voice acting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM9kecqxInU

Outside of the target platforms, the Tactics Ogre Reborn trailer and announcement don't confirm anything not already leaked in some fashion. It's an enhanced remaster of 2010's Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together. 

Over 100 million users have been playing games on the Nintendo Switch on an annual basis. Nintendo announced the new milestone on the 12th page of its financial presentation for the first quarter of the 2023 fiscal year that ended in June 2022. The company revealed that there were 104 million users who played games on the console between July 2021 and June 2022.

Nintendo calculated the Switch's annual playing users by counting the number of unique Nintendo Accounts that were connected online, consented to provide statistics, and ran at least one game software. It did not include accounts that were only used to access the Nintendo eShop.

This announcement goes in tandem with the ever-increasing lifetime sales amount of the Nintendo Switch. The company had sold over 100 million units as of December 2021, and over 25 million of them came from Japan. Meanwhile, the new presentation's 10th page revealed that Nintendo sold 3.43 million Switch units between April and June 2022. After adding from the previous total of 107.65 million units in March 2022, it has now sold around 111.08 million units of all Switch models combined.

The tease is over. D3 Publisher, which recently previewed a new project with a trailer that featured a maiden with a samurai sword, has officially announced its newest project. The aptly titled Samurai Maiden was unveiled alongside a new announcement trailer. The trailer shows off more Samurai Maiden gameplay and sets up its premise.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqDDcNiffZE

Samurai Maiden puts players in the high school uniform of Tsumugi Tamaori, an ordinary 21st-century girl. Tsumugi is forcibly transported several centuries into the past, waking up in a burning temple. That temple is Honno-ji, the famed temple where Sengoku-era warlord Oda Nobunaga was burned alive. To survive and find a way home, Tsumugi takes up a blade gifted to her by Nobunaga himself, cutting through crowds of supernatural baddies across the underworld.

The game is a fast-paced character action title. Tsumugi slashes at enemies, throwing them around with her blade and performing superhuman sword techniques. Samurai Maiden equips Tsumugi with her own squad, composed of three "Gokage" ninja. Iyo uses an arsenal of shinobi tools, Hagane is equipped with prosthetic weapons, and Komimi uses fearsome jutsu attacks. Tsumugi can call upon the Gokage's abilities to form powerful combos and sweep the battlefield.

Over 4 million units of Kirby and the Forgotten Land have been sold worldwide. It has also set a new sales record for the entire Kirby series. Nintendo revealed the milestone on the 13th page of the presentation of its financial results for the first quarter of the 2023 fiscal year, which ran from April to June 2022.

The page also compared the sales of Forgotten Land to previous Kirby titles. The 2014 3DS game Kirby Triple Deluxe had over 2 million units sold during its lifetime, while the 2018 Switch entry Kirby Star Allies almost reached 4 million units sold. Forgotten Land set a record in both quantity and speed, as it surpassed all prior entries and hit the 4 million mark in just 15 weeks after its release on March 25, 2022.

Forgotten Land is a new 3D action game where Kirby explores a mysterious world with abandoned buildings while rescuing Waddle Dees. The titular protagonist has a new Mouthful Mode that lets him swallow large objects like a car or a vending machine. The game also supports local co-op multiplayer.

A One Piece Film: Red crossover event will appear in Granblue Fantasy. The collaboration will take place on September 14-25, 2022. The details of the crossover are unclear, but previous crossovers with other properties (such as Gintama) have deployed bespoke stories and added new playable characters to the roster.

Granblue Fantasy will not be the only mobile game to have crossover content from One Piece Film: Red. The movie's website revealed that there will be more collaborations with two more popular Japanese mobile games. The festivities will begin in Monster Strike on August 20-31, 2022, with Puzzle & Dragons following suit on September 1-12, 2022.

Cygames has been adding Granblue Fantasy crossover content from many anime and game titles. In recent months, it held collaborations with Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo in April 2022 and Final Fantasy XI in May 2022. In February 2022, the company announced that the mobile game has over 31 million registered users.

Peripheral maker Logitech and Tencent are hooking up to make some hardware. It's under the aegis of Logitech's gaming-oriented Logitech G branding. It doesn't have a formal name yet, but it's being called the "Logitech G Gaming Handheld" for now.

The companies announced their partnership on August 2, 2022 via press release. According to the announcement, the Logitech G Gaming handheld combines Logitech's hardware expertise and Tencent's software service experience. It's billed as a "cloud gaming handheld".

Cloud gaming is the practice of playing a game via an internet-connected device. The player's device streams inputs to a server, which handles running the actual game, returning feedback via video. Xbox Cloud Gaming, NVIDIA GeForce Now, and the game streaming portions of PlayStation Now (which were folded into PS Plus) are all distinct cloud gaming services. One advantage of cloud gaming is that players need only a compatible device and an internet connection. They won't need expensive consoles or PC hardware to play high-quality games. Square Enix deployed versions of the Kingdom Hearts series to the Nintendo Switch as cloud versions, too. The Logitech G Gaming Handheld will support multiple cloud gaming services.

Square Enix updated the official website for Harvestella, its upcoming farming and life sim RPG, with new screenshots and gameplay details. In addition to information on the game's farming, fishing, and relationship mechanics, the website features a host of new images depicting Nemea Town, the Town of Spring. Harvestella will release for the PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch in November 2022. [Thanks, Game Spark!]

One of the four main locations that players in visit in Harvestella will be the town of Nemea. Located near the Seaslight of Spring, flowers blossom all year long in the town. The town's questline revolves around a large, mysterious egg that appears on the Seaslight of Spring. There, players can meet characters such as Asyl, and Istina, a teacher of the town's orphanage.

Players can then increase their relationship level with characters through character quests. Improving your relationship with characters can unlock new combat abilities, as well as provide reward items. It's still unclear whether the player character will be able to date other characters.

Bandai Namco announced that it had shipped over 2 million units of One Piece Pirate Warriors 4. This number combines physical shipments with digital sales on all available platforms.

One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 launched worldwide in late March 2020. The action game featured a new moveset system where all playable characters can launch aerial combos. Bandai Namco added nine DLC characters for the game's post-release support. The content additions ended in December 2020 with the inclusions of Kin'emon, Okiku, and Kozuki Oden from Wano Country.

Bandai Namco previously announced a 1 million shipments milestone for One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 in mid-December 2020. It is the quickest record to date in the Pirate Warriors series, as the latest entry reached the number in less than nine months. It took around a year and eight months for the game to gain another million for its lifetime shipment number.