If you’re wondering about how Bandai Namco’s Scarlet Nexus will perform on different platforms, you have come to the right place.

Director Kenji Anabuki revealed during a press keynote that the Xbox One and PS4 versions are targeting 1080p and will run at 30 frames-per-second.

On the other hand, the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions will aim for 4K and will run at 60 FPS.

The Steam version for PC will grant you 4K and 60 FPS if your rig matches the recommended specs.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, here’s how Bandai Namco describes Scarlet Nexus.

“In the far distant future, a psionic hormone has been discovered in the human brain, granting people extra-sensory powers and changing the world as we know it.

As humanity enters this new era, deranged mutants known as Others begin to descend from the sky with a hunger for human brains. Impervious to conventional weapons, those with acute extra-sensory abilities, known as psychics, are our only chance to fight the onslaught from above and preserve humanity.

Since that fateful day psychics have been scouted for their talents and recruited to the Other Suppression Force, humanity’s last line of defense.

Players will dive into a complex story of bonds, courage and heroism crafted by the minds behind the iconic TALES OF game, TALES OF VESPERIA. Using psycho-kinetic powers, the world becomes an important ally. Lift, break, and hurl pieces of the environment to build attack combos and lay waste to enemies.”

Scarlet Nexus marks the debut of Bandai Namco’s own studios on the next-generation of consoles, and we finally got a chance to see more of the game.

Twinfinite was invited to attend an online press preview event where we heard plenty more details from the development team itself.

The visuals of this action-JRPG appear to be an evolution of what we saw in Code Vein, which isn’t surprising considering that the two games share part of their staff. The legacy of the God Eater and Tales series is also quite visible. 

What we have seen so far is certainly pleasing to the eye, especially considering that this is a  cross-generation title that needs to run on PS4 and Xbox One as well, on top of PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC. 

The genre is defined as “Brainpunk” because, while the world appears somewhat similar to cyberpunk settings, its technological development and the powers of the characters are based on the brain.

The deals train is in full swing today, as Gamesplanet are also holding a big Gamescom sale this weekend. The biggest deals are on a bunch of Bethesda games, with a massive 50% off Doom Eternal and Fallout 76, as well as flash deals on loads more. Alas, the Bethesda deals are only available to those buying in Europe (which thankfully still includes the UK), but there’s still plenty of other game bargains to sink your teeth into if your current place of residence is elsewhere. Read on for my pick of the bunch.

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Challenge Fatalis in the final Monster Hunter World: Iceborne Free Title Update.

The post Fatalis Will Be the Final Monster Added to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne appeared first on Siliconera.

World of Warcraft: Shadowlands is out on October 27, and in true MMO fashion, Blizzard is already prepping folks for the next big thing: the first raid.

As is customary with WoW, its inaugural raid will debut a bit after the launch of the game so folks have time to get ready for it and prep their world-first Twitch runs. On November 10, Castle Nathria will debut, which is a 10-boss raid located in Revendreth: the vampiric realm of the Venthyr covenant, which I am totally joining as quickly as possible.

On November 17, the Mythic version opens (the real challenge), as well as the first wing of the Raid Finder (LFR, or "looking for raid") system. On December 1 the second wing will open on LFR, followed by the third on December 15 and the final wing on January 4. As a note, the first season of the game will also kick off on November 10.

For those of you who don't play WoW, LFR is a wonderful tool that can basically be classified as "easy mode raids." It allows everyone to use matchmaking to enter endgame raid content and at least see it and experience the story. For the hardcore players, they can still tackle the Mythic version and reap the rewards/glory.

It's a win-win and I wish more games implemented it (cough Destiny).

Shadowlands: Castle Nathria and Season 1 Goes Live November 10 [World of Warcraft]

Two different illicit gig economy experiences are yours for free this week on the Epic Games Store, which is currently giving away 2016’s stealth assassination game Hitman and a collection of the Shadowrun cyberpunk fantasy RPGs. Sure, basically you’re being paid to kill and rob people in both, but you’ll go about it in different ways.

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It’s been obvious for a while that Bandai Namco has been keen to expand on the Ni No Kuni franchise. Following the critically acclaimed second game back in 2018, a remaster of the original followed, as did a film spin-off that came to Netflix earlier this year.

The initiative then continued with the announcement of a new mobile MMO called Cross Worlds toward the end of last year by Korean developer Net Marble. Today, we got a first look at its MMO action in a new trailer.

It reveals an art-style and score in keeping with the mainline console titles. It’s a little difficult to tell whether the battle-system is a real or turn-based affair — I’m interested to see whether it’ll follow on from Revenant Kingdom or return to the same system in Wrath of the White Witch.

Early signs certainly look positive, anyway. It could quite easily be a mainline console game based on the aesthetic, and some of the cutscenes we’re briefly shown at least appear as though there’s going to be an emphasis on storytelling, which was so much a part of the single-player games.

Below is a list of ‘33 things wot are for sale on the eBay’. Entries have been stripped of vowels and had any inter-word spaces repositioned*. For example, if yoga mat was present it might appear as YGM T. Euphonium would be PHNM.

*Hyphens are treated as spaces. Apostrophes are ignored. (more…)

A is for Alphabetised wargame and sim news.

Welcome to the cosy corner of RPS where the vehicular is valued, the historical is hallowed, and the paragraphs are shorter than 7.5 cm Kampfwagenkanone 37 L/24 barrels. (more…)

Kojima Productions will be partnering with Japanese delivery service Yamato Transport.

The post Kojima Productions Will Partner With Japanese Delivery Service Yamato Transport For Special Collaboration appeared first on Siliconera.

Journey developer thatgamecompany has announced that the Switch port of its ethereal mobile title Sky: Children of the Light has slipped from its 2020 release date. It will now arrive on the Nintendo platform at some point in 2021.

"As a small indie studio, it's been challenging to pull off so many releases back to back," said the developer on Twitter. "Due to the remote slowdown during COVID & our utmost priority to protect our team’s health, we're pushing Sky on Nintendo Switch back by a few months into 2021. Through the pandemic, we’ve done our best to release Sky on Android, manage a live game, and launch two new adventure seasons. We’ve been excited to finally bring this game to console as much as you have, and thank #thatskygame fans for their patience while we work on its release."

Welcome to Morning Music, Kotaku’s new, daily hangout for folks who love video games and the cool-ass sounds they make. Today’s aural treat (of sorts) is Nintendo’s 1995 freebie album Killer Cuts, which was the soundtrack to Minoru Arakawa’s illegal, underground raves.

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As August draws to a close, it can only mean one thing. Summer is officially over, and Autumn is on its way – and Humble are holding an End of Summer Sale to celebrate. Running from now until September 10th, Humble have sliced up to 90% off loads of games, and there are literally dozens upon hundreds of thousands to choose from. Here are some of my highlights below.

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The Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning release date is right around the corner at this point. It’s launching on Sept. 8, and there hasn’t been much real gameplay shown off from the remaster. That is, until now. This new Kingdoms of Amalur Re-Reckoning trailer previews Finesse build gameplay.

With the help of THQ Nordiq, this relatively obscure RPG has been brought back from the afterlife. It’s a hidden gem that RPG fans should definitely try for themselves when it comes to PC, PS4, and Xbox One next month.

One of the best aspects of Kingdoms of Amalur is its gameplay, and Re-Reckoning looks like it’s bringing that back in this new trailer.

Much like Fable, players can choose to put points into three categories: Might (Warrior), Finesse (Rogue), and Sorcery (Mage). Though, this game allows the three to be mixed and matched creatively to suit various play styles.

This trailer focuses on Finesse, with bows, daggers, and stealth kills taking center stage here. Check out the gameplay video below to see all that and more in Kindoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning:

The first strategy adaptation of Games Workshop’s Age Of Sigmar is coming next year. Developed by Gasket Games, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Storm Ground will put players in charge of fantasy forces fighting turn-based tactical battles. The announcement trailer from Gamescom Opening Light Live didn’t reveal too much, but it did show some golden shiny lads riding dragons, which was pretty cool.

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These waitress variants come packed with some debilitating debuffs.

The post Summon Waitress Versions of Kohaku and Rita in Tales of Crestoria appeared first on Siliconera.

iBUYPOWER Element 9260 Gaming Desktop | $870 | Amazon

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World of Warcraft: Shadowlands will be released on October 27th, and we have 150 keys to the current beta test to give away.

Massively multiplayer games like World of Warcraft don't get sequels. That was tried once and it turned out to be a bad idea. EverQuest 2, the 2004 follow-up to the enormously influential 1999 game, just ended up dividing the audience of a game that had been doing just fine before it came along. Most players were far too invested in the characters they already had, the systems they could feel in their bones and their muscle memory, to start again. It flopped, and OG EverQuest never quite recovered from this filial blow, although it soldiers on to this day.

So MMO developers just keep releasing expansions (apparently, EverQuest has 26 of them), edging up the level cap each time, layering on vast shelves of content like the segments of an increasingly precarious and indigestible cake. This isn't a big issue if you just take an existing, max-level character through the new content each time, but for new players - or serial fresh-starters like yours truly - the path to the top, and to the latest stuff, looks increasingly daunting as the game gets older. That, and the bottom layers of the cake, made all those years ago, start to go stale. It's a problem.

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Poor Bing Maps. Microsoft Flight Simulator‘s usage of the mapping services data is so bloody awe-inspiring that any errors or gaps in the data stand out like giant, monolithic thumbs. It is missing some major landmarks, where the autogen tech has swapped out famous stadia and shiny palaces with bizarre, brutalist replacements. And the slightly humiliating solution the community has come up with is to use Google Maps to fill in the gaps.

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Bethesda teased the "One Wasteland" update for Fallout 76 recently, but this week they're going all-out on telling us what it exactly entails.

In short? The aim is to improve open world gameplay through various tweaks. Aim is the operative word here, as we all know that Fallout 76 patches are not known for their consistency. Digging into it, One Wasteland is going to bring level-scaling to Fallout 76 so the game feels more approachable on multiple levels.

In groups, enemies will dynamically scale with players of different levels. The example Bethesda gives is a level 300 character playing with another who is level 30. The former will see stronger enemies while the latter will see a weaker one: but they'll still be the same enemy character model for visual parity.

There's a lot that can go wrong here, but I'm hopeful that partying will be much more enticing overall, as picking up the game dirt cheap and playing with a friend can at least provide solace for a rainy-day weekend. The philosophy of allowing new players to pick up the game and do higher-end content is extremely promising, as you don't need to "grind to get to the good stuff." In theory.

You can test the system out in the PTS now, and I suggest some of you do so if you're still into this game: the kinks should all be caught before this goes live! As a reminder, you can access the PTS at any time so long as you have the game via the Bethesda launcher.

Inside the Vault [Bethesda.net]

Makes sense, I guess? Kojima Productions developed Death Stranding, a game about delivering things, and now the Tokyo-based game studio is doing promotion for Kuroneko Yamato Transport, a Japanese delivery company.

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World of Warcraft's eighth expansion Shadowlands now has a release date - 27th October - and thanks to Blizzard we have a chance for 150 of you to join the current beta test and try it out ahead of its release.

Shadowlands takes players on a new adventure in Warcraft's version of the afterlife, where they will get a chance to join one of four Covenants - essentially factions of the world of the dead. The expansion also goes hand-in-hand with a sweeping revision of levelling in the game, a new experience for new players and a reduced level cap. You can read my thoughts on that here. You can try both the new high-level areas and the revamped levelling experience in the beta.

For a chance to receive one of the beta keys, answer the question in the widget below and let us know your email address. Entry is open until 12pm on Tuesday 1st September. Will email you with a key if you win - the key can be redeemed at your Blizzard Account page. The giveaway is open to anyone and everyone over 13 years of age.

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When Crystal Dynamics' take on an Avengers game was first unveiled, I think it's fair to say everyone was somewhat taken aback by the characters' appearance-change from the movies. Which makes sense, as we've all become accustomed to seeing Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Hemsworth plastered over our screens for several years - and so the sudden transformation was a little jarring.

But what would it look like if the game did, in fact, use the faces from the movies? Thanks to a video made by one YouTuber, we now have an idea... although things still look a bit odd.

Using deepfake technology DeepFaceLab 2.0 by IPerov, YouTuber BabyZone managed to create face models for Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemworth and Mark Ruffalo - and then plaster them over the character models in a Marvel's Avengers video.

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Now that everyone else has had their turn to celebrate the season with cheap games, Humble has decided it's their time to have a go and see things out with their End of Summer Sale. I'll take anything that suggests we're nearer to the end of 2020 right now.

And what better distraction is there than more games? Especially if they remind us of simpler times. Enter the Command & Conquer Remastered Collection for just £5.93. For a game that launched back in June to be this heavily discounted by 67 per cent already is quite something.

This bundle of RTS classics features fully-remastered versions of both Command & Conquer and Red Alert (plus expansion packs) with 4K graphics, reworked music, upscaled FMVs, improved UI, modern online features and in-built mod support. Altogether, Digital Foundry called it one of the greatest remasters of all time, so definitely don't skip it at this price. As a heads up, this is an Origin key and not a Steam key.

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Danganronpa: Despair Love Letter puts a devious twist on the classic board game.

The post Send Love Letters to Monokuma in Danganronpa: Despair Love Letter appeared first on Siliconera.

During last night's gamescom Opening Night Live presentation, Activision offered new details pertaining to its upcoming platforming sequel Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. Unfortunately Crash himself was unable to make the presentation, having not gotten the memo and showing up to gamescom's regular haunt, the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany.

Despite this faux-pas, Activision released a new video featuring Crash Bandicoot 4's new "Flashback" stages. These are essentially double-tough "puzzle-rooms" based on classic locales from the original Crash Bandicoot releases. The Flashback stages will not be easy to access however, as they require the player to collect several "Flashback Tapes" throughout the main game's stages, but without losing a single life. Should this task be completed, then the player will be whisked off to take on the challenging side-levels.

You can check out the full Crash Bandicoot 4 gamescom presentation in the video below, courtesy of Gamespot. Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time launches October 2 on PS4 and Xbox One.

Since 1997, Eiichiro Oda has churned out One Piece. It has become the most successful manga ever. And one day, One Piece will end—according to Oda, in the next four to five years.

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Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will take a little longer to drop out of hyperspace than first expected. A new trailer shown during Gamescom Opening Night Live has confirmed it for a spring 2021 release on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X.

The Skywalker Saga was first revealed at E3 2019 and was initially expected to be out this year. It is an all-new retelling of all nine films (yes, including Rise of Skywalker), with the idea of being the definitive Lego Star Wars game.

A gameplay demo I saw last year showed Tatooine, one of the game's many open world areas, built in a new engine for the long-running Lego series. It looked ambitious - with the promise of being able to land there in any one of the saga's three main time periods.

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Yesterday Blizzard finally revealed the World of Warcraft: Shadowlands release date: October 27. But it wasn't all they gave us.

A new short is also primed and ready to watch, and it centers on some extremely crucial lore figures as well as some new expansion material. Uther and Arthas are united with the modern World of Warcraft era: or more specifically, the Kyrian Covenant and the angelic realm of Bastion.

I don't want to spoil it directly, but the short is extremely emotional and deals with decades of built-up lore, even if it doesn't satisfy every single fan. While Blizzard can sometimes go a little red-pen-crazy when it comes to rewriting the Warcraft narrative to suit the MMO world, it frequently gives us gems like this.

Visiting Uther's tomb in Sorrow Hill is a fun little pastime of mine, and this gives it new meaning.

Watch your language - or have Steam do it for you, as Valve is trialling a new text and chat filtering system which allows players to control what sort of language they see on the platform.

Available now in beta through Steam Labs, the system is built on the chat filtering used by CS:GO, Destiny 2 and Dota 2, and allows players to customise their preferences across supporting games and the Steam client, web, and mobile chat. It obscures "the most offensive language shared on Steam" and replaces the words with symbols, but players can control whether profanity and slurs are displayed, and can add or remove specific words from their personal filter. Valve says it's also possible to upload lists of words or phrases, thus "empowering groups and communities to work together to define and share your own sets of language guidelines".

"A playful match can quickly turn to a heated competition full of emotion and expression, some of which crosses a line," Valve explained in a community post. "But where is that line? We've found the answer is different for everyone.

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As we all know at this point, I am a big fan of the ants in Obsidian’s new early access survival game Grounded. But the ants aren’t the only thing I ask about when I interview Obsidian’s Adam Brennecke, the game’s lead designer.

In Grounded you play as a child, or group of children working together, who has been mysteriously shrunk down so that a normal suburban garden becomes a huge jungle. It’s a great idea, but I’m curious where Grounded came from conceptually. Did they set out to make a survival game that eventually became about being tiny and encountering giant ants and spiders, or was there a particular idea or concept that came before that? It turns out it’s the former.

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Capcom has revealed the final behemoth heading to the killing fields of Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. As predicted by many in the Monster Hunter community, it is none-other than the fearsome elder dragon Fatalis, who will be gracing us with its presence on October 1.

Originally making its debut in the very first Monster Hunter release, Fatalis is something of a legend within the MH universe. The gargantuan black dragon follows the more traditional tropes of the fantasy species, both in visual appearance and its range of fire-breathing, tail-lashing attacks. Fatalis is also capable of flight through the use of its huge, powerful wings.

Defeating Fatalis will reward your party with Fatalis-themed armour, weaponry, and clothing. Given the fact that this terrifying creature can wipe out most parties with relative ease, here's hoping that you're prepared. This battle could be the very moment you've been training for, Hunters.

Hakone, Japan is known for mountain views, hot springs, and Evangelion.

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Last night, we got a first look at some gameplay for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, showing off loads of the exciting bits from all nine episodes of the Star Wars films that we’ll get to play through. Riding banthas, cool lightsaber fights, and rides in a bricky Millennium Falcon are but a few of the things we can expect when the game launches in spring 2021. Check out the new trailer from Gamescom Opening Night Live below.

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