25 years ago, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time became more than a game

3 months 2 weeks ago

The most vivid memory I have of childhood is sitting in the back of our dirty red Ford Orion on a violet-hued winter evening. Orange beads wash in from passing streetlights and throw chevrons of illumination across me and the boxes I hold close to my body. It's March 1999, we're returning from Norwich with my eighth birthday present, a large box I insist on holding, with a red vertical banner down its face, holding a Nintendo 64. Nestled between it and my chest, where it can't fall, is a smaller box - black and gold - inside of which is a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The game was released the year before. First in Japan on the 21st November and then a couple of days later in the U.S., before finally appearing in the U.K. on the 11th December. I spent an agonising Christmas watching TV spots, reading magazine features, and knowing I wasn't getting it, staring mournfully instead at the Sega Mega Drive in the corner.

Three months later, however, the Orion's windows are corrugated with rain and Ocarina of Time is so close I can taste it. It's hard to describe how it felt to own my first console in a house in which ownership of my belongings was fluid and influenced mostly by my parents' moods. For this car ride, at least, the Nintendo 64 is mine. That won't stop everyone else taking it: my father to play Castlevania 64 over and over, my brother to pretend it's his when chatting to friends over games of Goldeneye, and my mother to punish me. But on that winter evening, swallowed by the dusty Orion's seats, an N64 and, more importantly, Ocarina of Time belonged to me.

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Author
Geoffrey Bunting

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Doom At 30: John Romero remembers his seminal FPS so that we don't remember it wrong

3 months 2 weeks ago

“When people read anything, no matter the source, they will believe it.” So says Doom designer John Romero on the subject of his relationship with John Carmack. Together, the pair built id Software and the FPS genre as we know it - before the cracks started to show during the difficult development of Quake, ending their professional partnership.

Yet any lasting acrimony has now dissipated. That became apparent when Romero’s new autobiography, ‘Doom Guy: Life In First Person’, showed up on shelves with a glowing back cover quote from Carmack. The latter praised Romero’s “remarkable memory”, and waxed wistfully about their shared impact on the gaming medium. “For years, I thought that I had been born too late and missed out on participating in the heroic eras of computing,” Carmack wrote. “Only much later did I realise that Romero and I were at the nexus of a new era - the 3D game hackers.”

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Author
Jeremy Peel

This 32-inch LG gaming monitor is down to $187

3 months 2 weeks ago

32 inches. That's what I'm looking for in a gaming monitor, but normally screens of this size are just expensive. As you may have guessed from the title though, you can pick up a 32-inch LG gaming monitor for just $187 today, nearly half its original price.

That's a wicked deal for the LG 32GN600, a VA-panel monitor with excellent contrast, a 2560x1440 resolution and 165Hz refresh rate with FreeSync and G-Sync support.

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Author
Will Judd

The Sims 4's For Rent expansion is out, letting you live your landlord dreams

3 months 2 weeks ago

Squashed as it was between The Game Awards, a dozen or more game announcements, and the release of The Finals and The Day Before, you can be forgiven for missing the release of the latest expansion for The Sims 4 on December 7th. For Rent adds multi-family lots to the aging dollhouse 'em up, and with it the ability to be a landlord or renter within apartnment buildings.

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Author
Graham Smith

Metal: Hellsinger's free horde mode update and new DLC are out now

3 months 2 weeks ago

Metal: Hellsinger is a neat rhythm shooter, in which you blast demons in time to the beat of heavy metal. This week brought the release of new Purgatory DLC, which adds new tracks and a bow weapon, but also the launch of a free Horde mode update. The latter lets you fight escalating waves of enemies in different arenas, with between-wave powerups and permanent upgrades to unlock.

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Author
Graham Smith

The Finals developers say they've found why movement speed feels slower, despite "no change" since beta

3 months 2 weeks ago

The Finals surprised launched during The Game Awards on Thursday night and its popularity has picked up where last month's open beta left off. There has been some negative feedback, however, from players upset that player movement is now slower than it was during the beta.

Except, it's not slower, say the developers - there have been no changes to the movement system at all. Instead they're investigating why it apparently feels slower, and say they've found the culprits.

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Author
Graham Smith

The excellent SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless is down to £25 at Amazon UK

3 months 2 weeks ago

The SteelSeries Rival 3 is the best budget gaming mouse in my eyes - and I've even written articles to that effect - so imagine my surprise and delight when I spotted the even better wireless model is down to £25 at Amazon UK. That's £30 below its UK RRP and a fantastic deal for a mouse that offers both 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth connectivity plus an 18K optical sensor and a comfortable symmetric shape.

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Author
Will Judd

Meta Quest 3 Makes VR Games Seem More Plausible

3 months 2 weeks ago

Meta Quest 3 Makes VR Games Seem More Plausible

I was on the fence about VR games and headsets for a long time, due to things like the cost, comfort level of them, and available library. I’ve owned a Meta Quest 3 headset for about two weeks now, however, and oddly enough it feels like this device is changing my thoughts about it with its capabilities and games.

I suppose it helps that I started out with certain staples. After getting adjusted, which this time only took a brief tightening of the bands on the head and a small dial on the front, I was ready. There was no grabbing headphones, getting things adjusted for five minutes to make sure it fit my head properly for that session, or more involved tweaking to ensure it accommodated my poor vision. Right away, I was jumping into Rec Room and Beat Saber, two VR games I’d enjoyed toying around with before, but never really spent substantial amounts of time with. But this time, it took. 

With Rec Room, I was able to play through multiple paintball, disc golf, dodgeball, bowling, and laser tag matches without needing to take breaks due to the weight of the helmet or effects of playing a VR game for so long. It tracked my movements more competently, so my bowling and paddleball skills were better represented. With Beat Saber, it was so much easier to deal with walls and offer the degree of motion the game needs to succeed.

Author
Jenni Lada

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This RTX 4070 Ti + Core i5 12400F prebuilt gaming PC is down to £1299 at Stormforce Gaming

3 months 2 weeks ago

Recently I helped a friend spec out a gaming PC to play Baldur's Gate 3 and other triple-A releases, and we opted for a machine with an RTX 4070 Ti graphics card as that fit within her £2000 budget and allows for excellent performance with gaming monitors up to 4K while leaving enough cash free for a high-end CPU and other nice components.

Today though, you can pick up a pre-built RTX 4070 Ti gaming PC for way less than that - just £1299 - when you get it from Stormforce Gaming in the UK. This build includes a 12th-gen Core i5 processor, 16GB of DDR4 memory, a 1TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD and a 750W power supply, all for £500 off its listed price.

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Author
Will Judd

Zombie MMO The Day Before's player count drops 75% despite a day one patch

3 months 2 weeks ago

Zombie MMO The Day Before has seemingly lost three-quarters of its player base since it release to overwhelmingly bad reviews just two days ago.

As spotted by PCGN, whilst the game hit a concurrent peak of 38,104 players on release day, 7th December, right now, less than ten thousand players are currently in-game.

According to SteamDB, the 24-hour peak sits at just 12,210.

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Metal: Hellsinger's Purgatory DLC and free Horde Mode Update are out now

3 months 2 weeks ago

Metal: Hellsinger's Purgatory DLC and free Horde Mode Update are available right now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.

"Featuring a new weapon, cosmetics, and new songs from Trivium, Ad Infinitum, and Fit For An Autopsy, there’s plenty for Metal: Hellsinger fans to get stuck into in Purgatory," the team explains.

"On top of this, the game’s Leviathan update features the all-new Leviathan horde mode, seeing players pitted against increasingly fierce waves of enemies."

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Students can meet with over 60 studios and 3000+ devs at next year's free Guildford.Games Festival

3 months 2 weeks ago

Guildford.Games Ltd – a not-for-profit initiative introduced to "showcase the local industry and bring the concentrated, creative talent within Guildford to the attention of the world" – has confirmed its 2024 event will kick off on 16th February 2024.

Describing Guildford as "The Hollywood of Games", the festival – which will be "completely free to attend" – offers students and budding developers alike the chance to meet over 60 individual established studios and 3000+ developers "without impacting their finances [...] at a time where funds may be scarce".

Attendees will be able to attend interactive exhibitions, industry panels, and watch keynote speeches from "luminaries in gaming".

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Author
Vikki Blake

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Roots of Pacha Switch Port Is an Ideal Way to Play

3 months 2 weeks ago

Roots of Pacha Switch Port Is an Ideal Way to Play

Roots of Pacha is on the Switch now, and I’ve had a few weeks to take my time with it. In so doing, I realized just how well suited it is to the system. 

Life sims are great on any platform, to be clear. We often see some of them on PCs first, due to elements like early access, then ported to other places. That format also means mods could be available as a community grows. On consoles, it can mean access to a larger audience and immediate controller support. But the hybrid nature of the Switch means they can be especially convenient, and that’s what happened with my latest Roots of Pacha adventures.

I spent quite a bit of time with the PC version of the game, but there are a lot of things that got in my way enjoying it there. A big one being that I spend at least half my day at work in front of a computer. When my shift ends, I don’t necessarily want to spend more time in front of that particular screen. Some sort of detachment ends up feeling healthy and necessary, for the sake of creating more of a balance. Couple that with my go-to and only machine being a MacBook Air, and it’s not an ideal gaming set-up to begin with.

Author
Jenni Lada

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GTA 6 "took my life", says Florida Joker

3 months 2 weeks ago

Lawrence "Florida Joker" Sullivan is demanding $2 million from Rockstar Games for allegedly using his likeness in GTA 6 without consent.

Sullivan – a former tattoo model who went viral in 2017 when his mugshot showed off his resemblance to the Joker – was quick to jump on social media to discuss his uncanny similarites to a character that pops up in the GTA 6 teaser.

Last Tuesday, Sullivan responded to the trailer on TikTok and said he thought a character had been "inspired by [him]", and invited Rockstar to get in touch to "talk". It wasn't clear, though, if he was calling out the company for using his likeness without his permission or if he was extending a call for a deeper collaboration.

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Author
Vikki Blake

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The Orange Box modded to run at 4K 60fps on Xbox Series X is the best way to play on consoles

3 months 2 weeks ago

The Orange Box was one of the greatest deals in gaming on its release in 2007. Cramming five Valve-developed classics onto one disc - Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode 1, Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and introducing the original Portal - the quality bar was supremely high. Originally shipping on the 360 at native 720p resolution, Xbox One X enhancements delivered a 9x resolution increase, offering up a native 4K presentation that naturally transitioned over to Series X and thanks to some config file tweakery, it's now possible to remove the 30fps cap, to play Valve's finest at 60fps on Xbox Series X and Series S hardware.

However, to revisit these games today on console is fraught with issues if you're on Xbox. Firstly, the Orange Box has been removed entirely from the Xbox marketplace as of 23rd February 2023. It simply cannot be bought digitally any more. However, if you bought it before its removal it's still of course possible to play it today from your library. And, if you own the physical disc you're still good to go, of course. But that's really no good at all for Series S users, without a disc drive. In that case you had to buy the digital version while it was still available.

Author
Thomas Morgan

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The Honkai: Star Rail Stellar Shadowseeker Quest Could Be More Creative

3 months 2 weeks ago

Honkai Star Rail Stellar Shadowseeker Quest March

I’ve been out of the loop on Honkai: Star Rail for a few months. I’d finished the main story as far as it went at the time with the intention of jumping in on the next update. That didn’t happen, but I did finally return in December 2023, and it seems like it was the best time to do so. This is because the Stellar Shadowseeker quest turned out be a fun way to get reacquainted with the game.

In Stellar Shadowseeker, the premise is simple. March 7th discovered that a bunch of her photos have been corrupted, with the subjects now concealed by mysterious shadows. She instructed you to go out and take all these photos again, restoring them to their former glory. This requires you to head back to locations on the Herta Space Station and Jarilo-VI based on the shadowy shapes in the original photos.

Author
Leigh Price

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The Game Awards Reaction, GTA 6, Avatar Review | GI Show

3 months 2 weeks ago

We're officially past The Game Awards, and host Marcus Stewart and former GI editor Jason Guisao are unpacking all of the show's highs and lows. They're also diving into Grand Theft Auto VI's big debut trailer. Editor-in-Chief Matt Miller also makes a rare appearance to discuss his review of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora.

The Game Informer Show is a weekly gaming podcast covering the latest video game news, industry topics, exclusive reveals, and reviews. Join host Alex Van Aken every Thursday to chat about your favorite games – past and present – with Game Informer staff, developers, and special guests from around the industry. Listen on Apple PodcastsSpotify, or your favorite podcast app.

Author
Marcus Stewart

Podcast: Covering GTA 6, the sale of Eurogamer, and Game of the Year

3 months 2 weeks ago

Welcome to another episode of Inside Eurogamer, the monthly podcast series exclusively for supporters of the Eurogamer website. It's really easy to become a Eurogamer Supporter if you're not already, and a monthly rolling sub is £3/€3/$3.

We've got quite a lot to talk about today. With me are the one-two leadership punch of editor-in-chief Tom Phillips and deputy editor Chris Tapsell, and they're here to discuss how we cover an event like Grand Theft Auto 6, what we know about the sale of Eurogamer, and how we're going to work out our Game of the Year. We also make plenty of time for your questions at the end, so thank you to those of you who submitted them.

Covering GTA6 is a delicate business. Of course everyone wants to know everything about a game and series of that magnitude, but how much is enough, and when do you risk doing too much? There's a balance. And, on a more personal level, how does a website go about rallying around an out-of-hours leak like this?

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Author
Robert Purchese

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Doom at 30: how a LAN session changed my life

3 months 2 weeks ago

It was a warm Saturday morning in the summer of 1994. I was working at Big Red Software, a video game developer then based in Southam, Warwickshire, just up the road from Codemasters. Naturally, we'd already played Doom, which had been released a few months before and was still the hottest game in the world. Our programmer Fred Williams bought a copy of the shareware version in the Game store on Leamington high street - you could download it for free, but back then the internet was super slow and super expensive, unlike Game, which was convenient and super expensive. Indeed one of the cleverest business decisions John Romero made was allowing software companies with already established retail channels to box up and sell Shareware Doom at no charge from Id Software. It allowed the game to go viral at a time when "going viral" still meant catching chicken pox at your mate's birthday party. As there was no copy protection on the disc, almost as soon as Fred brought it to the office, it was on everyone's computers. We were hooked.

But after a few weeks of play there was still one thing we hadn't tried - multiplayer. Doom launched with what would now be considered a very basic online mode. It supported peer-to-peer play via dial-up modems or you could link up to four players via a local area network. Being a game developer we had one of those. So that's what we did that Saturday morning. We went into work to connect our PCs across the office LAN and play against each other for the first time.

Author
Keith Stuart

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What are we all playing this weekend?

3 months 2 weeks ago

Almost everyone at RPS towers is alseep right now after pulling a very early morning shift covering St. Keighley's Awards Adsplosion, although shout out to Alice0 for sending her entry to what we're all playing ahead of time, and Edwin for just waking up and emailing it in around lunchtime, against all that is necessary. Most of what everyone is playing this weekend is 'being asleep', I assume, although those of us who will be awake have a bit of a variety this week.

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Author
Alice Bell

If The Game Awards Is All About The Devs, Then Let Them Speak

3 months 2 weeks ago

At the opening of last night’s 2023 edition of The Game Awards, host Geoff Keighley hyped the event as an evening “to recognize outstanding creative work in games in 2023.” But as the night went on, the luminaries who were being awarded for their “outstanding creative work” seemed like they weren’t given much time to…

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Author
Claire Jackson

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FFXIV Starlight Celebration 2023 Has Unorthodox Saint’s Santa Armor

3 months 2 weeks ago

FFXIV Starlight Celebration 2023 Has Unorthodox Saint’s Santa Armor

Square Enix announced the FFXIV Starlight Celebration 2023 Christmas and holiday event will include Unorthodox Saint’s Santa Armor. It will begin on December 15, 2023. 

To take part in the Starlight Celebration, someone will need to be at level 15. If they are, when they visit Old Gridania they can speak with the Bearded Lady. She’s going to be at the coordinates X:10.2 Y:9.4. Touching base with her will give someone the quest “Blue Starlight.” Going through it and the event will net people the Unorthodox Saint’s armor set pieces to wear and an Illuminated Topiary Chocobo outdoor furnishing item for a house.

Here are all of the pieces in the Unorthodox Saint’s Santa armor set in FFXIV. They can be worn by any gender or race. The listings for them also noted that these are dyeable pieces of clothing.

  • Unorthodox Saint’s Bottoms
  • Unorthodox Saint’s Cap
  • Unorthodox Saint’s Gloves
  • Unorthodox Saint’s Halfrobe
Author
Jenni Lada

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Let Cid Smoke In Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

3 months 2 weeks ago

Look, I’m just gonna cut to the chase: Cid from Final Fantasy VII needs to be a smoker. Yes, smoking’s bad for your lungs. And yeah, smoking’s bad for the environment, and Final Fantasy VII is nothing if not environmentally conscious. But Cid Highwind needs to smell like an ashtray at all times. Now that we’ve seen…

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Author
Kenneth Shepard

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The eShop Gems Of The Year: 2023 Edition | All Things Nintendo

3 months 2 weeks ago

All Things Nintendo

This week on All Things Nintendo, Brian and Indie Informer's Jill Grodt run down the best indie games that came to Switch over the last calendar year. Brian and Jill chat about their favorite indies and hidden gems of the year, giving you plenty of ideas of games you may have missed and want to check out now that the game release schedule is slowing down. 

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 Jill on Twitter: @Finruin. You can also find Jill's work at The Indie Informer.

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!

Author
Brian Shea

Free Honkai: Star Rail Stellar Jades for TGA 2023 Win

3 months 2 weeks ago

Free Honkai: Star Rail Stellar Jades for TGA 2023 Win

Following a The Game Awards 2023 win for Best Mobile Game, HoYoVerse announced free Honkai: Star Rail Stellar Jades for all players. People will get 1,600 of them starting on December 9, 2023.

The announcement also went over the requirements to claim the free currency and explained how long it will be available. The items will be sent to every player’s in-game inbox on December 9, 2023, so long as they are at Trailblaze Level 4. If you hit that mark during the availability period, you will be given the free Stellar Jades. Those will be available to claim until the 1.6 update arrives. We know the 1.5 update will be available until December 26, 2023, so that should be the cut-off date for claiming the currency from your in-game inbox.

As a reminder, a 10-pull on the gacha costs 1,600 Stellar Jades. This means someone could do a full pull on one of the limited-time character banners, the limited-time Light Cone banners, or the always available standard banner.

Author
Jenni Lada

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The Game Awards' Weirdest, Wildest Act Was A Must-See Triumph

3 months 2 weeks ago

Last night’s Game Awards had a couple of musical delights, but one stood out above the rest. Finnish rock band Poets of the Fall took to the stage as Old Gods of Asgard, the fictional band they play in Alan Wake 2, to perform the song “Herald of Darkness” from the game, and the whole spectacle easily stole the show.…

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Author
Claire Jackson

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Review: A Highland Song Is Often a Pleasant Tune

3 months 2 weeks ago

A highland song

A Highland Song is an atmospheric indie game that lets a player focus on the heroine, her uncle, and the land itself. It’s something special to play, even if the execution isn’t always perfect.

Moira’s had a special connection with her uncle Hamish, who works as a lighthouse keeper. In one of his latest letters, he asked her to come to visit him. So, she sets off secretly, hoping to get there in about a week before Beltane. We climb, jump, and sprint alongside her as she scales mountains and hills, finds relics and possible maps from those who came before, and encounters certain individuals and possibly supernatural elements as she makes the journey to the sea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MLXx7st3KI&ab_channel=inkleStudios

Author
Jenni Lada

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FFVII Rebirth New Loveless and Date Mechanic Details Revealed

3 months 2 weeks ago

FFVII Rebirth New Loveless and Date Mechanic Details Revealed

Square Enix shared more information about the new Loveless theater play and Gold Saucer date mechanics in the upcoming remake FFVII Rebirth. Loveless is a mythical musical based on the epic poem of the same name that appears in the original Final Fantasy VII and Crisis Core FFVII.

One of the new systems that will be present in FFVII Rebirth are the Bonds of Friendship. Cloud’s actions and responses to his friends and party members will change how they see him. Players will have to think about which choices to make when a character they are interested in asks them. This system will affect scenes in FFVII Rebirth such as the iconic Gold Saucer date scene, which we can see pictured in the announcement screenshots below. Those images show Cloud dating Aerith, Tifa, Yuffie, and Barret.

https://twitter.com/FFVIIR_CLOUD/status/1733048774119797029

Author
Daniel Bueno

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Palia Switch Release Date Falls During Next Week

3 months 2 weeks ago

Palia Switch Release Date Falls During Next Week

During The Game Awards 2023, Singularity 6 shared the Palia Switch release date and a trailer for that version of the game. The life sim will be free-to-play on the console starting on December 14, 2023. 

The announcement also reaffirmed some of the things people can expect from the Switch release. For people playing Palia on the PC, they will be able to carry over progress. The Switch version will support cross-saves. Also, PC and Switch players will be able to play together via cross-play.

There will also be rewards for people who are currently playing on the PC and link their account. However, one of those items will be limited-time offers. If you link an account by January 15, 2023, you get a Leap Froggy Outfit. However, linking at any time gets someone the Mushroom Glider.

Also, all Palia players will apparently get a special log-in reward. Between December 14, 2023 and an unspecified date in March 2024, everyone gets a Froggy Bucket. 

Author
Jenni Lada

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