Netflix announced its new live-action Assassin's Creed TV series back in October of last year, a live-action story that goes beyond the limitations of film. With E3 2021 in full force, the streaming company has revealed quite a bit about its upcoming anime and TV line-up, including a new update about the Assassin's Creed TV series. 

Another name has been added to the Assassin's Creed TV series, this time with Jeb Stuart of Die Hard fame as the show's writer. In a new report from Variety, Stuart is joining the creative team on this new endavor, flanked by Jason Altman and Danielle Kreinik as the show's executive producers. 

Stuart is the perfect person to pen this new take, especially when looking at his work on Netflix's Vikings: Valhalla, a spinoff from the hit History Channel Vikings series. Funnily enough, the Assassin's Creed franchise itself has gone the Viking route with a game under the same name with Valhalla. 

Kotobukiya teased official art for a Darkstalkers Bishojo Felicia figure and shared a video discussing design decisions for the Morrigan one.

The post Darkstalkers Bishojo Felicia Figure Teased, Morrigan Figure Discussed appeared first on Siliconera.

Nintendo’s E3 2021 Direct comes on the last day of the mammoth game festival, and fans are hoping for updates on tons of games, including Breath of the Wild 2, Pokémon, and Splatoon 3.

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Nintendo is going to air its Direct presentation celebrating E3 2021 today, pretty much closing off the show.

The livestream will begin at 9.00 am PDT, noon EDT, 5:00 pm BST, or 6:00 pm CEST.

It will include the Nintendo Direct proper which will last 40 minutes and focus exclusively on Switch software, and the traditional Treehouse Live presentation. That’ll be three hours of gameplay showcasing the games presented during the Direct.

There are many games that Nintendo fans are waiting to see, from the sequel of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild to Bayonetta 3.

New hardware rumors have been floating around, but Nintendo said this presentation focuses on software. Yet, you never know what kind of surprises they may pull out of Mario’s hat.

So sit comfortably, grab your drink and snacks of choice, and let’s see what Nintendo and its third-party partners have in store for us this time around.

The YGD Awards are organised by BAFTA to celebrate and spotlight some of the best and brightest emerging talent in the UK games industry. ...

The beautiful Microsoft Flight Simulator is, touch wood, the closest I'll get to flying a plane. But could it be more immersive?

It turns out, for $350 (about £250), it probably could.

Peripheral manufacturer Turtle Beach has announced the VelocityOne Flight system: a yoke handle and lever control set meant to work with Microsoft Flight Simulator on either Xbox or PC.

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A decade ago, Wayforward attempted to freshen up the dormant BloodRayne franchise by reimagining it as a 2D side-scrolling action game, BloodRayne: Betrayal. While it didn’t result in a comeback for a series, it offered a competent, if not challenging, reinvention (here’s our review). Fast-forward to today, and Wayforward is dusting off Rayne’s final outing to date for another chance in the spotlight. 

BloodRayne Betrayal: Fresh Bites upgrades the 2011 title in more ways than one. The vibrant 2D visuals pop even more thanks to an increased resolution up to 4K. The game will also sport other non-specific modern features, and Wayforward has squashed bugs present in the original game. Furthermore, the voice-acting has been re-recorded with original cast members Laura Bailey and Troy Baker reprising their roles as Rayne and Kagan, respectively. 

Perhaps the best news is the new difficulty rebalancing. Betrayal was commonly criticized for being too punishing for its own good, so Fresh Bites rebalances the game to make it more approachable. If you’re a skilled player/masochist that enjoyed that higher challenge, don’t worry; you can still play Betrayal with its original difficulty setting. See the remaster in action in the trailer below.

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“How do you survive and keep that optimism and heroic nature?”

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PlatinumGames dropped The Wonderful 101 Remastered Time Attack DLC on all platforms today and announced an upcoming June livestream.

The post The Wonderful 101 Remastered Time Attack DLC Debuts appeared first on Siliconera.

Back 4 Blood is essentially the Left 4 Dead 3 experience we've been hoping for. The same team that created Left 4 Dead is back with a new co-op experience (and no, the creator doesn't mind the constant Left 4 Dead tie-ins either, he told us himself!). We know that there are no microtransactions regarding the cards, we know about the PvP element, but now Turtle Rock is clearing up a few questions about how DLC will work, especially with a game that is reliant upon other players. 

In a recent update, the studio offered another inside look at what Back 4 Blood will have to offer. Taking to a few frequently asked questions, Turtle Rock clarified how paid content will work in relation to maps and the campaign. The short answer? "No separation, no exclusion, no split." The slightly longer answer goes a little more in-depth about this particular concern. 

Regarding DLC, Turtle Rock explains, "In PvE, if your party leader owns a paid content drop, you will be able to play that content with them - including maps, gameplay, and the campaign." 

The topic of content drops always raises some alarm within the community when looking at PvP, so the studio elaborated: 

We tend to remember E3s not for the moments of triumph but those more commonplace, faintly tragic and often very comic interludes we set our watches by the start of every summer: Kudo Tsunoda's 'Bam, there it is' that killed off Kinect before it'd even properly launched; Mr Caffeine and his poop on your toothpaste; pretty much everything that unfurled in the theatre Konami booked out for its 2010 E3 presser.

Add to that ever-growing list the reveal of Final Fantasy spin-off Stranger of Paradise during Square's show on Sunday night. I'd assumed the move away from a live show would mean a move away from the awkward theatrics that once defined E3, but how gloriously wrong I was: in the announcement trailer that seemed to stumble forth from a different era entirely, we got an entire conference's worth of cringe crammed into two and a half minutes. It was spectacular.

It didn't stop there, either. The PS5 demo that was due to hit the PlayStation Store in the immediate aftermath of the show did turn up on time. The only problem was, it was corrupted - a problem that persisted for an entire 24 hours before finally being addressed earlier today. All of which doesn't exactly inspire confidence, does it?

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You have one week to try them all

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When you are out shopping, Xbox game cases are easily identifiable from their green color, a design Microsoft has used since the first Xbox console launched in 2001. At this current time, almost every Xbox game that is released is cross generational, meaning it will work on your old Xbox One or your new Xbox Series X or S. As we move forward in time, the Xbox One will eventually be phased out by most developers and publishers.

Through a subtle box art redesign, Microsoft is making it easier to see which systems games are compatible for. On the boxes you see now, the name "Xbox" is front and center, followed by a smaller tag that lists the systems. On the new box, the name "Xbox" is gone, and the systems are now the first thing you see in a new white box.

The original box art design:

The New Box Art Design:

No one does villain origin stories like Gaston!

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A Japanese promotional leaflet revealed a more specific release window for the Demon Slayer video game.

The post Demon Slayer: The Hinokami Chronicles Will Come to Japan in October appeared first on Siliconera.

If you're looking for a game like Rimworld that zooms you up to the stars to organise a space station, rather a land colony, then you might be interest in Starmancer. Developed by Ominux Games and published by Chucklefish, Starmancer is a space station management sim in which you play as an AI tasked with looking after squishy humans. It's heading to early access on August 5th.

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Well, friends, it's that time of year again. The digital convention center is closing, and while you don't have to leave, you sure as hell can't stay here. E3 2021 is almost over, but that doesn't mean we're quite done yet. Not when the Big N hasn't had its turn in the digital spotlight. Nintendo is presenting around 40 minutes of new info on its 2021 slate of games and beyond, and you bet your sweet bippy we're going to be there to react alongside you.

Join The Council of Alexes (Van Aken and Stadnik) for one last ride as they get hyped once more for one of the biggest press conferences of the year. The fun kicks off at 10:45 exclusively on Twitch, and we'd love for you to join us to react to all the reveals, news, and hopefully The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2!

Update: CD Projekt Red's polarizing action-RPG Cyberpunk 2077 looks to be returning to the PlayStation Store after being delisted in December last year. ...

Early builds of games are back with Xbox One and Xbox Series X demos for Summer Game Fest 2021. They're around for a limited time only.

The post 40 Xbox Game Demos Appear for Summer Game Fest 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.

Last week, Xbox and Geoff Keighley’s Definitely Not-E3 Summer Game Fest announced the return of the Summer Game Fest Demo Event, now in its second year of being a total mouthful while also letting you play a bunch of unreleased indie games. Through June 21, you can download and play demos of 40 games from independent…

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It was a weird E3. A lot of video games we already knew about, and more CG trailers than we might like, but there were still some notable announcements and gameplay reveals. While Kevin Hart didn't seem too pleased with his involvement in the festivities, those watching at home had an alright time.

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Developer Camouflaj is celebrating its 10-year anniversary today with the announcement of a new version of Republique, its acclaimed stealth adventure game which first launched on mobile devices as an episodic series back in 2016 before releasing as a remastered package on PS4. The new Anniversary Edition is a compilation of the remastered game that also includes recently recorded commentary tracks revealing new secrets about the game’s tumultuous development. More importantly, it brings the game to Nintendo Switch and PSVR for the first time alongside PS4 and PC versions.

For the uninitiated, Republique is a stealth-adventure game that explores the perils of government surveillance in the Internet Age. Players receive a call from Hope, a woman trapped inside a mysterious totalitarian state, and must hack into the nation’s elaborate surveillance network to guide her to freedom. Its story and premise is inspired by literary classics such as George Orwell’s 1984.

For a first glimpse at the new Anniversary Edition, check out the trailer embedded below.

So, we heard you liked games. Well, good, because Xbox is making a whopping 40 games available to play right now as Early Access demos as part of Geoff Keighley's ongoing Summer Game Fest. Thanks to ID@Xbox, the Summer Game Demo Fest highlights indie treasures that deserve some major love, including one game that features adorable kittens (who doesn't like kittens?). 

The ID@Xbox Summer Game Demo Fest is going on from now until July 21 and offers gamers a chance to check out titles that may interest them. Maybe even to step out of their box and try out something new, as well! In addition to the demo access, ID@Xbox's Jessica Ronnell also revealed 12 newly announced games that are coming to the Xbox library: 

• Arietta of Spirits (Third Spirit Games)
• BattleCakes (Volcano Bean)
• Button City (Subliminal)
• Catlateral Damage: Remeowstered (Manekoware)
• Dreamers (PlaySys)
• Faraday Protocol (Red Koi Box)
• Get Packed: Fully Loaded (Coatsink)
• Paint the Town Red (South East Games)
• Tanknarok (Polyblock Studio)
• The Strange Story Of Brian Fisher: Chapter 2 (Intetic)
• The Tale of Bistun (Black Cube Games)
• Wreck Out (Four5Six)

For the full list of new games coming to Xbox, check out the complete list below:

100-player WW2 first-person shooter Hell Let Loose hits new-gen consoles this year.

Black Matter's shooter launched on Steam as an Early Access title in June 2019 and has enjoyed a positive reception. It leaves Early Access on PC and launches proper there on 27th July. It then comes out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S late 2021.

The console announcement trailer is below:

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The Forgotten City is an intriguing project that’s garnered more and more excitement during its four years of development. The game began life as an award-winning Skyrim mod created by modder Nick Pearce that blew up into its own, standalone title. Now the game is a month away from release, and a new trailer provides an overview of its murder mystery premise while showing off how far it's come overall.   

The game’s hook centers on your custom-made protagonist being transported thousands of years into the past to a secret underground Roman city. This ancient society is governed by a mysterious “golden rule” which mandates that if just one person sins, a divine cataclysm will befall the populace. The problem: someone is about to break that rule, and it’s up to you to discover who and save the city from disaster. 

Thanks to a mysterious time loop, players will constantly relive the city’s final moments before the golden rule is inevitably broken. Nailing down the culprit depends upon using the information gleaned by interacting with the city’s 23 residents to find clues pointing towards the soon-to-be-killer. Of course, you’ll also get wrapped up in citizens' own personal troubles. When you die, you’ll use any knowledge gained to make different, hopefully better choices the next go around and alter the course of events. 

Coromon is a new RPG that’s confidently stepping foot in the monster tamer/creature collector genre. And it’s doing this by modernizing well-known elements of GBA-era games while adding its own unique gameplay elements and design choices.

Coromon’s storyline has you assume the role of a young hero who joins a futuristic organization called Lux Solis. You start out as a Battle Researcher and are soon put on a special task force. Your goal is to research the effects of Titan Essences by traveling across the region of Velua and challenging the six Titans.

There are over 120 Coromon to catch and collect on this journey as you venture through various different climates and Titan dungeons.

I didn’t get to see much of the story in this build, but there was plenty of gameplay to experience. The game offers a level of freedom and customization that just isn’t found in many other games in the genre.

I'm not here for discussions on what "wholesome" means or the limits of its definition when applied to video games. What I am here for is to list every single PC game that was shown at this year's Wholesome Direct at E3 2021. There were a lot of great looking games this year, from bee conservation sims to beautiful puzzle games about putting things in order, to loads of games about witches for some reason.

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People are reporting that the PlayStation Store on the PS5 is once again showing Cyberpunk 2077, though people can't buy it again yet.

The post Cyberpunk 2077 PlayStation Store Listing Reappears appeared first on Siliconera.

Xbox is spotlighting a smorgasbord of indie projects during its second ID@Xbox Summer Game Fest Demo event. ...

Look outside. See the dogs and cats lying down together? The snakes giving birth to kittens? The prophecies are coming true, the end-times are among us, and Cyberpunk 2077 may be about to return to the PlayStation Store. Update: And it’s gone again.

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A decade ago, some fella named Jim Rossignol posted on RPS that the X-Com-esque strategy sequel UFO2: Extraterrestrials was due to launch in March 2012. Reader dear, it did not make March 2012. But UFO2 finally launched today, delivering more turn-based alien-busting in an X-Com way. Check out the gameplay trailer below.

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For those curious about how the Halo Infinite Battle Pass works, here is a simple breakdown of what's ahead. What immediately sticks out, and is worth noting, is that unlike other Battle Passes on the market, Infinite's never expires. With details now available, there is a hope that 343's take on the Battle Pass system will set a new standard for the industry going forward. 

Battle Passes are all the craze; a mechanic used to provide an additional incentive to keep players involved and invested within live-service games and the ecosystems they create. With an extensive new look at Halo Infinite, both in terms of a new story trailer and multiplayer gameplay, 343 Industries has also given interested players a look into how the studio is adapting Battle Pass in a way that honestly should be the norm. 

Discussion on whether or not Battle Passes should even be a thing aside, 343's approach is that access shouldn't expire. The reason this game will have a Battle Pass at all is that the multiplayer is free-to-play, so this is a monetization model for those that just opt into the online experience. In the video below, the studio outlined what Halo fans can expect from Infinite's multiplayer experience, including that of cosmetic items and access to them. 

The crowdfunding will also support Switch ports of Valis II and III.

The post Valis: The Fantasm Soldier Switch Crowdfunding Announced appeared first on Siliconera.

Got your crystal ball handy? Hope so, because Nintendo won’t be holding its traditional press event, Nintendo Direct, until Tuesday, June 15. Though that’s the final day of E3, this is probably going to be a last-but-not-least sort of scenario, because Nintendo’s widely expected to bring out some big guns for its…

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Well, it looks like the front of Xbox game cases are getting a very slight refresh, as box art images spotted on BestBuy appear to show a newly re-designed version of the standard Xbox Series X game case.

As you can see from these Halo Infinite and Flight Simulator listings, more of the box is taken up with game art rather than additional Xbox logos at the top, and the console banner has become a little shorter and wider. The banner has also changed colour from black to white - as if someone's flipped a switch to put it in light mode.

Social media account Xbox News also managed to spot a version for Forza Horizon 5, which you can see below. It's worth noting that the big "optimised for Series X" badge was removed from cases last year following negative feedback from fans.

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Netflix is not messing around when it comes to its anime and gaming initiatives. With adaptations like Dota, Resident Evil, Castlevania, and more, it's clear that the streaming service is all-in on "geek culture," as it markets this branch, and that includes even more The Witcher on the horizon. With the live-action The Witcher season 2 coming soon and the prequel well underway, there is yet another Polish-inspired adaptation in the works and that's with Netflix's The Witcher anime called Nightmare of the Wolf. 

This morning, on June 15, Netflix shared more details about its upcoming anime plans with a spotlight focused on The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf. 

It can be said that many Witcher fans were made that way thanks to CD Projekt Red's gaming adaptations, the novels that inspired that series, written by Andrzej Sapkowski, offer a much bigger world beyond the games. The live-action series takes place within the book settings as a sort of prequel, but Nightmare of the Wolf aims to take a different approach, this time focuses on a different witcher beyond Geralt of Rivia. 

You can't buy a new graphics card for love nor money these days. When the RTX 3070 Ti went on sale last week, it followed in the footsteps of all new GPU launches this year and disappeared in a puff of smoke in 23 seconds flat. It's a real shame, as some of these new GPUs would be pretty decent upgrades if your current PC's starting to struggle a bit.

However, I put it to you that the real crime of 2021 is the current state of graphics card box art. It's just so... bland and sensible these days. Not like the good old days, when Palit's robo frog was giving you the evils from on high with a menacing grin, PNY's purple Verto face could turn you to stone with their piercing, cybernetic snake eyes, or... whatever the hell's going on with that goblin up there. Seriously, is that a glowing bagel on a stick? And what is with that terrible haircut? Oh no. Today's graphics cards don't know they're even born. So here's to you, GPUs of yore and their terrible box art. We miss ya.

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Shortly after the game's launch, Cyberpunk 2077 was pulled from the PlayStation Store back on December 17, 2020. The reason for the pull was that the quality of the open-world RPG was incredibly low compared to the PC version of the game. On last-gen consoles, namely the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Cyberpunk 2077 was near unplayable for many. This caused Sony to quickly act, swiftly removing Cyberpunk 2077 from the PS Store and immediately offering refunds. Team Blue told CD Projekt Red that the game could return only when enough progress has been made to ensure the quality of the game was close to what was promised. It looks like all of those updates have finally paid off, because the CDPR staple has returned, though there are some weird stipulations surrounding its listing. 

If you search for Cyberpunk 2077, as spotted by IGN, you can find the sci-fi RPG in the PS Store. Though it has the tag "Just Announced" attached to it, this is the same game that released late last year. If you already own a digital copy of the game, you can simply redownload it. If you were among those that chose to wait until a few updates went through, you can simply add it to your wishlist .

Activision Blizzard has delayed the advisory vote on a say-on-pay proposal regarding executive compensation to give shareholders more time to mull over the decision. ...