Assassin's Creed Mirage – an Assassin's Creed that looks to the original game for primary inspiration – is nearly upon us. Join me as I play not quite the beginning of the game, but one of the game's earlier hours. You get to see some tutorials, a little bit of exploration, and finally, a stealthy attack on a well-guarded dock.

If you enjoy our livestreams but haven’t subscribed to our Twitch channel, know that doing so not only gives you notifications and access to special emotes. You’ll also be granted entry to the official Game Informer Discord channel, where our welcoming community members, moderators, and staff gather to talk games, entertainment, food, and organize hangouts! Be sure to also follow our second YouTube channel, Game Informer Shows, to watch other Replay episodes as well as Twitch archives such as Replay, GI Live, and more.

New Capcorom plushies of Ada Wong and Claire Redfield from the Resident Evil series will become available at Capcom stores in Japan on October 6, 2023. They will cost 1,100 yen ($7.38) each, including tax. It has not been announced whether these plushies will become available to international audiences outside Japan. [Thanks, PR Times!]

The Ada and Claire Resident Evil Capcorom plushies will be available at the Tokyo, Osaka, and Cafe Umeda Capcom stores in Japan. For those that can’t go to the store physically, you also have a chance to win the plushies from the Capcom net catcher online crane machine from anywhere in Japan.

The Capcorom series of plushies is a line of Capcom dolls featuring characters in an adorable, round style. Other characters from the Resident Evil series, including Chris Redfield, Leon Scott Kennedy, Jill Valentine, Nemesis, and Mr. Raccoon, were also sold as Capcorom plushies from 2019 to 2021. New Monster Hunter Capcorom plushies were also recently revealed in September.

Ada Wong and Claire Redfield Capcorom plushies will be sold at Capcom stores in Japan beginning on October 6, 2023. They will cost 1,100 yen ($7.38) each. They will also be winnable from the Capcom net catcher online crane machines. The latest game in the Resident Evil series is the Resident Evil 4 remake, available on PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC.

Storied RPG developer BioWare is downsizing. The studio announced on August 23 that it will cut 50 roles as it continues production on both Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and Mass Effect 4, telling fans it needed to take a more “agile and focused” approach to game development.

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New information has been revealed regarding Hiroyuki Kobayashi’s current video game project in the latest issue of the Japanese magazine Famitsu. His new game will be a single-player 3D action RPG for home consoles. [Thanks, ryokutya2089!]

Kobayashi’s new game will not be as difficult as his previous work, which challenged players with their characters facing death repeatedly. The new action RPG will feature jobs that you can complete, as well as a battle system where you can take advantage of an enemy’s weaknesses to easily defeat them. Currently, the main outline of the game’s world has already been decided on. A test version of the RPG will be completed by spring of next year, and an announcement about the game will be made following that. It will take two or three years before the project is completed.

Kobayashi was a veteran producer at Capcom for 27 years and now works for NetEase to lead the game studio GPTRACK50. He is well known for producing both the Devil May Cry series as well as the Sengoku Basara series of games.

It was revealed in the latest issue of the Japanese magazine Famitsu that producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi’s new game is a single-player 3D action RPG. It will remain in development for two or three more years.

Ubisoft revealed Assassin's Creed Mirage during a special celebratory event for the franchise's 15th anniversary. After several trailers, gameplay videos, and even a Game Informer cover (check out our hub here for exclusive behind-the-scenes content and more), the game is finally out for everyone. 

If you've kept up with Mirage, you know it's a bit of a return to the series' roots. After completing the game, it's safe to say that's definitely the case, with Mirage falling somewhere between where this franchise began and the modern RPGs of late. It feels modern but ditches the RPG mechanics and nature of the open-world games and instead embraces series tradition: a singular city to explore, a focus on stealth and parkour, one-hit assassinations, and more. 

Modern Warfare 3 is right on the horizon and as we grow closer to its release date, Activision has dropped teaser after teaser. With all the new information we have, there has yet to be an official announcement on whether Warzone 2.0 will become 3.0. And in that spirit, we wanted to share our wish list for Warzone 3 if it exists.

Mission Contracts

There are two generally good contracts. Bounty which marks an enemy squad and has your team hunt them across the map, and Most Wanted which marks yourself to the entire lobby for the chance to resurrect your dead squaddies.

A new report claims that Sega’s recently canceled online extraction shooter, Hyenas, was the publisher’s most expensive game production ever, beating out even Sega AM2’s historically pricey adventure game Shenmue, which famously cost $70 million in turn-of-the-century dollars to develop.

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New World, Amazon Games’ fantasy MMO, has finally added horses to its previously horseless (and entirely mountless) setting of Aeternum. First released in 2021, New World has had players clamoring for rideable critters ever since, and although the privilege of straddling a horse, lion, or other mount, available only…

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It’s no secret that the crossover between video games and professional wrestling, be it through the hilarious signs fans bring to events or the intricate wardrobes stars wear into the ring, is a strong one. As such, it’s hardly surprising to learn that WWE’s Randy Orton is an avid gamer who plays Elden Ring on his…

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Today, during Blizzard’s Diablo IV Developer Update livestream, members of the game’s dev team dove right into the myriad changes expected to arrive with the game’s next big update: Season of Blood. But tweaks to loot drops and XP rewards won’t be the only new experience for PC players, as the game is now confirmed to…

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Microsoft’s Bing Image Creator creator has been around since March, using “AI” technology to generate images based on whatever the user types. You never know where this sort of thing might lead, though, and in recent weeks users have been using the tool to create images of Kirby and other popular characters flying…

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Another Crab’s Treasure hooked me with its underwater Soulslike premise and cutesy charm. But once you take a closer look at the game’s polluted ocean, filled with plastic shells and weapons, the comparisons to Dark Souls get a little clearer. This is a quiet and kinda melancholy post-apocalypse. We can now find out whether the crustaceans lean on cuteness or sadness more in the game’s new demo, released just yesterday.

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Reviewed on: Switch
Platform: Switch
Publisher: Nintendo, The Pokémon Company
Developer: Creatures Inc.
Release: October 6, 2023

The previous Detective Pikachu game, released over five years ago on 3DS, traded in traditional Pokémon elements for mysteries more familiar to the Phoenix Wright/Professor Layton crowd. Gone were the trainers, Poké Balls, and battles in exchange for evidence-gathering, deduction, and a Pikachu that can speak far more than its own name. A year later, the movie adaptation became the second highest-grossing video game film at the time. While the game left a central loose thread dangling, the movie, which is disconnected from the game series, tied everything up in a neat bow. Detective Pikachu Returns is left to deal with this discrepancy, impacting the story this game sequel can tell.

It's rare to see 32-inch 4K 144Hz monitors under $500, but that's exactly what you can get on Amazon US at the moment thanks to a hefty discount on the Aorus FI32U. This HDMI 2.1-capable model suits PC, PS5 and Series X use, uses a Fast IPS panel I've recommended many times before and even comes with some extra features worth knowing about. First, here's the link to the deal:

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I love racing games, but I’m not really a racing game kind of guy. What that means is I enjoy getting beyond the wheel of a flashy car, whether it’s a half-million-dollar Ferrari or a souped-up Subaru hatchback, and trying to hug turns while grazing past the competition. What I don’t particularly care about is getting…

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The price of Steam Deck SSD upgrades continues to fall, as Integral's 2230-sized PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD has dropped to £69.95 at Amazon UK. That's a great price for a drive that more than doubles even the highest capacity Steam Deck sold by Valve, and makes a tremendous upgrade for 512GB and 256GB Steam Deck owners too.

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Platform: Switch
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Release: October 20, 2023

As one of the most popular and influential series in video games, Super Mario Bros. must appeal to a wide audience of players across a massive spectrum of skills. The main stages of nearly every Super Mario Bros. game accomplish this daunting feat through balanced level design, innovative gimmicks, and fun challenges that nearly anyone can complete. However, late-game and special stages have traditionally been the place where Nintendo tests the mettle and skill of more veteran players.

Seven former BioWare employees are suing the storied RPG studio for “adequate severance.” The studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age recently laid off around 50 employees, including developers who had been with the team for two decades, citing a “shift towards a more agile and more focused studio.” Now, a group of former workers are seeking better compensation.

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Japanese game developers Yoko Taro and Yusuke Shiokawa met for a Denfaminicogamer discussion to attempt to answer the question, “What should creators do when they get flamed on the internet?” Taro, best known for his work as the director of the 2017 action RPG NieR: Automata, said it may be too late for Shiokawa, the former creative director of the massive mobile game Fate/Grand Order. He also advised becoming the Joker in response to such reactions. [Thanks, Denfaminicogamer!]

Before Shiokawa left the company Delightworks in 2022, there were a few instances in which the words he posted on social media were skewed and misunderstood. When he asked Taro for advice on being liked by the general public and avoiding his words being taken out of context, Taro came to the conclusion that it may be simply impossible.

Here is Yoko Taro's exact response from the Denfaminicogamer discussion:

This person is no good, and will never get better. Mr. Shiokawa is sincere about making games, but his word choice is overwhelmingly bad.

Shiokawa noted he long accepted the idea that getting flamed online is part of his job. Though it has been happening more as he transitioned to being an independent producer, he said, “I’m not going to do anything about it.”

You remember Gigantic, don’t you? The hero shooter from Motiga that was released in 2017 and, uh, died a year later? Well no worries if not, because Gearbox is bringing the ill-fated hero shooter back for a limited-time event from October 5 to 7, 2023.

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IO Interactive soon turns 25 years old, but Agent 47’s unwrinkled face doesn’t carry the “what am I doing with my life?” stress that normally accompanies such a birthday. The developer are instead celebrating with both new and returning events coming to the stealth infiltration mega package that is Hitman: World Of Assassination.

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French police have arrested five former Ubisoft executives after a years-long investigation that began in 2021 following complaints and allegations of sexual assault and harassment within the company, as reported by GamesIndustry.biz. Among the five arrested are Ubisoft's former chief creative officer, Serge Hascoët, and former vice president of editorial and creative services, Tommy François. 

The publication learned of these arrests after French newspaper Libération reported that three former Ubisoft executives were arrested yesterday, with two more arrested today. 

The summer of 2020 marked a turning point within Ubisoft after numerous reports surfaced regarding abuse, misconduct, and power corruption happening within the company. Various executives and managers, including François, were fired as a result; Hascoët voluntarily resigned. 

A new strategy and simulation game where players get to be a demon king Murayaki Villain appeared on Steam. The game will come out some time in Fall or Winter 2024, though you can check out some early information on it via its store page. It is a new female-oriented SLG (strategy and logistics game) in which you play as a demon king who attempts to conquer the world. Developer and publisher ALENISM made the game using Wolf RPG Editor, and it is a simulation game in which you raise your demon king army. [Thanks, 4Gamer!]

You play as the descendant of a demon king that a hero defeated in the past, and you’re trying to make a great and powerful demon army that will eventually destroy all of humanity. You can get money through attacking villages and gaining items by robbing corpses. As you do so, you accumulate karma, which will become the root of your power. Other characters include Clarity, Vivian, Memel, and Solo, who are “useless” monsters who survived the previous war and currently serve under you.

Much like TV- and movie-streaming apps with sliding scale price plans, manga-reading services have slowly integrated payment tiers with varying benefits and limitations. Manga Plus by Shueisha, a previously free-to-read manga website with a rather annoying caveat (we’ll get there), is the latest to launch a new…

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Square Enix released an official interview with SaGa General Director and SaGa Emerald Beyond Director Akitoshi Kawazu and SaGa Localization Director Neil Broadley about the new game. In particular, it goes over its cast and gameplay. When discussing the foundation for it, Kawazu talked about the SaGa Emerald Beyond character creation process and noted Tsunanori Mido was the first hero created.

Back when Square Enix first announced SaGa Emerald Beyond at the September 2023 Nintendo Direct, it revealed we will follow six folks on their journey. These are Ameya the witch, Bonnie the cop, Diva No.5 the songstress mech, Formina the cop, Siugnas the Dismal King, and Tsunanori Mido the Kugutsu Puppetmaster. Kawazu explained in the interview that all of these characters can see something called the emerald vision. He noted he made Mido first, then built up others around him to add new elements. 

Here’s Kawazu’s exact statement:

Final Fantasy 14’s latest update, Growing Light, sees the conclusion not just to the epic Endwalker storyline, but also to one of the most ambitious projects the development team has undertaken in the past few years. Thanks to said project, players can now solo every mandatory dungeon along Final Fantasy 14’s main story.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t quite mean one can play through the entirety of the story without having to occasionally group up with other players.

Ubisoft revealed the release times for Assassin's Creed Mirage worldwide on the series' social media account ahead of the game's launch. Players will be able to look forward to the game releasing in their region on October 5, 2023, although some regions will have access to the game on October 4, 2023. Pre-loading is also currently available on all consoles and PC if the game was pre-ordered digitally.

The release times for Assassin's Creed Mirage are broken down by major cities in order of their timezone below:

Los Angeles

• PC - October 4, 10 PM PT
• Console - October 5, 12 AM PT

Mexico City

• PC - October 4, 12 AM CST
• Console - October 5, 12 AM CST

Sao Paulo

• PC - October 5, 2 AM BRT
• Console - October 5, 12 AM BRT

Montreal

• PC - October 5, 1 AM EDT
• Console - October 5, 12 AM EDT

New York

• PC - October 5, 1 AM EDT
• Console - October 5, 12 AM EDT

London

• PC - October 5, 12 AM BST
• Console - October 5, 12 AM BST

Johannesburg

• PC - October 5, 1 AM SAST
• Console - October 5, 12 AM SAST

Paris

• PC - October 5, 1 AM CEST
• Console - October 5, 12 AM CEST

Abu Dhabi

• PC - October 5, 3 AM GST
• Console - October 5, 12 AM GST

Stockholm

Creative Assembly’s Hyenas - the recently cancelled extraction shooter about space Robin Hoods - was supposedly publisher Sega’s biggest budget game ever. New details about the game’s development claim that a lack of direction, slow progress, and an engine change turned the once hopeful “Super Game” into the canned FPS that it sadly is today.

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Macy’s announced the 2023 Thanksgiving Day Parade will include a One Piece balloon of Luffy for the first time. It also included an initial rendering of how it will look. This will be a chibi version of Luffy that looks like he is about to use his Gum-Gum abilities to attack.

First, here’s a better look at the float from the Toei Animation social media account. It appears he’s about to use Gum-Gum Pistol in the balloon’s design. 

Luffy and One Piece won’t be the only anime and game character represented in this year’s parade. The official site already confirmed some of the returning designs. The Pikachu and Eevee balloon that debuted in 2021 will be back. Goku from Dragon Ball Super will return. 

Brian Jacques' Redwall books were my greatest obsession between the ages of approximately eight and 12-years-old. They're sort of The Lord of the Rings, but with talking woodlands animals, and their appeal for me consisted of three things 1) comedy British accents, 2) big fights, and 3) big feasts. I couldn't get enough, to the point that I tried to have one of my unborn siblings named after a badger warcry from the novel Salamandastron.

Fast-forward to 2023, and Oregon-based Soma Games are about to release a Redwall videogame, titled The Lost Legends of Redwall: The Scout Anthology. Will it measure up to my childhood fantasies about acorn pancakes slathered with gorseflower honey, or forest logboat armadas of squabbling guerilla shrews? Probably not, but what can? Here's a new trailer from publisher Forthright Entertainment.

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