Factorio console commands: world editor, game speed, god mode, and more

3 years 8 months ago

Using Factorio console commands, you can do anything from editing terrain to enabling all technologies, killing all enemies, and much more.

Using Factorio’s in-game console, players can do just about anything they could ever want to do in this marvellously addictive factory management game. From modifying the world around them to controlling the spread of biters, from instant teleporting to increasing your inventory size, from adjusting the game speed to enabling instant crafting of items, our Factorio console commands guide will show you exactly how to use all the most useful and powerful cheats in the game.

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Author
Ollie Toms

Maid Of Sker review

3 years 8 months ago

A screenshot of an enemy in Maid Of Sker. His face fills the whole screen, having grabbed the player character by the throat. His face is covered by a mask made of a rough hemp sack. The shape of eyes and a mouth is suggested in the cloth, but there are no holes through which he can look or see.

Maid Of Sker

is a first-person survival horror game, which makes the name a bit confusing because it’s pronounced like “Made Of Scare”. Sadly, this isn’t a very good description of Maid Of Sker, because although there are some good and creepsome bits in it, this isn’t a game made for jump scare compilations on YouTube, nor it is suffused with a creeping, lingering dread.

Author
Alice Bell

Check Out The Stylish Othercide Launch Trailer

3 years 8 months ago

Tactical roguelike Othercide has launched on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. With it comes a popping new launch trailer to show off all the nightmare creatures and other terrors you face in the turn-based dark world with your powerful (and death-prone) daughters.

Arm yourself with a variety of abilities and powers as you push back against the darkness time and time again, gaining small advantages with each brutal defeat as you are sent back to square one. Timing is everything, and mastering turn setups that trigger reactions, interrupts, and other powerful skills can keep you alive in the face of certain defeat. If you're a fan of XCOM-style strategy games that have punishing mechanics, Othercide might be your style and pace. Check out the launch trailer below!

Click here to watch embedded media

 

Author
Daniel Tack

Op-Ed: Game development in a time of upheaval

3 years 8 months ago

"To create inclusive characters is not to surrender the creative vision, and to say that embracing diversity means losing that agency or that it is a creative burden is simply untrue and must be rejected," writes Michael Chu, newly-hired narrative director at 2K's 31st Union studio. ...

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Valve’s Gabe Newell Says the Xbox Series X Is Better than PS5

3 years 8 months ago

Valve co-founder and president Gabe Newell has been asked which, between the PS5 and the Xbox Series X, is better. His answer was unflinching.

The interview was showcased on The Project, a broadcast from New Zealand of which you can watch a segment below. It was spotted by Reddit user ronbag.

To the rather direct question, Newell immediately answered “The Xbox.” To a surprised “why?” from one of the hosts, he simply said, “Because it is.” 

Newell continued by mentioning that he doesn’t have a stake in the race, as most of Valve’s development is done on PC. Yet, among the two consoles, he would “definitely work on Xbox.”

He did not provide any kind of specific explanation for his preference, so we don’t know exactly why he favors the Xbox Series X over the PS5. That being said, the lack of any hesitation in the answer is certainly rather interesting.

You can check out the interview below, set at the specific spot for your perusal.

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

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Carrion review

3 years 8 months ago

Carrion's monster is a marvel of procedural animation.

Carrion

has fleeting moments of brilliance. You might have seen those moments, in the GIFs that have been popping up on Twitter over the course of the Metroidvania monster mash’s development. It’s a shame, then, that the brilliance doesn’t last beyond the frames of a looping animation.

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Author
Graham Smith

McFarlane Toys acquires rights to Witcher action figures

3 years 8 months ago

This past weekend McFarlane Toys - the merch manufacturer owned by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane - announced that it had secured the rights to produce a run of action figures based on popular fantasy RPG franchise The Witcher.

While the company had nothing specifically to reveal in terms of designs or prototypes, it was revealed that the first run of figures will be based specifically on characters featured in 2015 release The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, and are optimistically expected to release in the fall of this year.

McFarlane Toys are renowned for their great sculpts and complex, intricate detailing, so Witcher fans should definitely keep an eye out for this new range of bookshelf-fillers. Geralt is a given, but I'm looking forward to seeing figures for Yennefer, Ciri, and hopefully the wooden tub playset.

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt is available now on PS4, PC, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

McFarlane Toys nabs the rights to make Witcher figures [Superhero Hype]

McFarlane Toys acquires rights to Witcher action figures screenshot

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Author
Chris Moyse

Animal Crossing gets fireworks, dreams, island backups in next update

3 years 8 months ago

It's almost time for our next dose of much-needed Animal Crossing goodness, as the second wave of the free summer update is arriving this week, and it sounds positively dreamy.

Landing on 30th July, the Summer Update Vol.2 introduces fireworks, "dreaming" and the long-awaited island backup service. Players will be able to view firework shows every Sunday throughout August at 7pm, and use bells to purchase raffle tickets in the plaza and bag some festive items. You can even personalise some of the fireworks with custom designs.

Dreaming, meanwhile, refers to the previously-datamined "dream suite" feature similar to the one introduced in New Leaf. This allows players to visit other people's islands in a dream, a state in which nothing is permanent, as anything the visiting player does is not saved. They are, however, free to explore to their heart's content. You can access this function through taking a nap on a bed in your house, before using a "dream address" to visit other islands - or let players visit your own.

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The Destroy All Humans! PC remake is out now

3 years 8 months ago

A cartoony alien levitates a cow over a large puddle in a pretty country landscape

Moaning about bad titles is easy money in this job, but now and then you get to complain because a game’s title pretty much explains itself, critically undermining your introduction.

Destroy All Humans! is a remake of the mid-2000s action game about wacky 1950s aliens who’ve come to Earth to harvest brains and blow everything up for kicks. Its release today is the first time it’ll appear on PC.

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Author
Sin Vega

Star Fox 2 cut characters revealed in latest gigaleak finds

3 years 8 months ago

Newly uncovered concept art for Star Fox 2 features an alternative menagerie of squadmates for Fox, Falco, Slippy and Peppy.

Designs for a gazelle, bison, hippo, cat, bear, sheep, lemur and more are the latest finds in the ongoing so-called gigaleak of Nintendo development data.

Rounded up by Kotaku, the artwork was uncovered from the gigaleak's treasure trove of data and posted to Twitter by numerous fans.

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Necrobarista Review

3 years 8 months ago
It’s a downright tragedy that Necrobarista was released when the whole world is participating in social distancing. All through my playtime, I kept thinking how nice it would be if I could just grab my laptop and knock out this review at my nearby coffee shop. God, do I miss coffee shops. The traditional text boxes and flat character sprites of a visual novel can often feel like similarly static affair to the mundanity of sheltering-in-place, but Necrobarista supercharges that formula by fully animating the action. Couple that dynamic presentation with a colorful cast of characters and it offers up an engrossing story set in a supernatural coffee shop. While that tale is a fantastical tearjerker about the mundanity and melancholy of death, Necrobarista is really about spending five hours with a loveable cast of misfits. There’s the coffee shop’s boss Maddy, her co-worker Chay, a young engineering genius named Ashley, the recently-deceased Kishan, the infamous Australian outlaw Ned Kelly, and a couple of other passers-by, all of whom are as charming as they are funny. [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=necrobarista-screenshots&captions=true"] Maddy and Chay quickly establish themselves as the stars of the show, and their relationship forms the heart of this ghost story. Maddy, who inherits the coffee shop from her pun-loving mentor Chay at the start of the story, begins the game as a curt, quick-witted barista who’s faster with a comeback than your coffee. But as things progress, the tragedy that links Maddy and Chay together becomes readily apparent. It’s also impressive how quickly Necrobarista can introduce compelling drive-by characters who nearly steal the show. Side stories pop in and out without much warning, like one character’s dream of becoming a battle bot champion.
Author
Matt T.M. Kim

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Xbox's August freebies will leave you wondering if Game Pass is killing Games with Gold

3 years 8 months ago

Xbox Game Pass is an excellent subscription service that offers one of the best (if not the best) values in gaming. Xbox Games with Gold, on the other hand, has been on a steady decline over the past several months.

That trend doesn't change in August, as there's no clear-cut headliner out of the bunch. On Xbox One, it's Minecraft-like Portal Knights and fighter Override: Mech City Brawl. There's a double dose of original Xbox nostalgia for the backward compatibility games as 2004's MX Unleashed and 2002's Red Faction II round out the month.

Is there a correlation between Game Pass' ascent and Games with Gold's descent? Is Game Pass' ever-expanding library snuffing out candidates for future Games with Gold freebies? The business side of it all is obviously confidential and unclear. But one thing is increasingly apparent: Games with Gold is routinely underwhelming while Game Pass becomes more and more of an essential service.

Here's the full Xbox Games with Gold breakdown for August:

Xbox's August freebies will leave you wondering if Game Pass is killing Games with Gold screenshot

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Author
Brett Makedonski

Death Stranding PC: how next-gen AI upscaling beats native 4K

3 years 8 months ago

The concept of native resolution is becoming less and less relevant in the modern era of games and instead, image reconstruction techniques are coming to the fore. The idea here is remarkably simple: in the age of the 4K display, why expend so much GPU power in painting 8.3m pixels per frame when instead, processing power can be directed at higher quality pixels instead, interpolated up to an ultra HD output? Numerous techniques have been trialled, but Kojima Productions' Death Stranding is an interesting example. On PS4 Pro, it features one of the best checkerboarding implementations we've seen. Meanwhile, on PC, we see a 'next-gen' image reconstruction technique - Nvidia's DLSS - which delivers image quality better than native resolution rendering.

Checkerboard rendering as found in Death Stranding is non-standard and it's the result of months of intensive work by Guerrilla Games during the production of Horizon Zero Dawn. Curiously, it does not use PS4 Pro's bespoke checkerboarding hardware. Base resolution is 1920x2160 in a checkerboard configuration, with 'missing pixels' interpolated from the previous frame. Importantly, Decima does not sample a pixel from its centre, but from its corners over two frames. By combining these results over time in a specialised way similar to the game's TAA and a very unique pass of FXAA, a 4K pixel grid is resolved and the perception of much higher resolution is achieved. According to presentations from Guerrilla, of the engine's 33.3ms per-frame render budget, 1.8ms is spent on the checkerboard resolve.

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Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes by Suikoden Creators Gets New Stretch Goals As Crowdfunding Skyrockets

3 years 8 months ago

Rabbit & Bear Studios’ JRPG Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes is already the newest Kickstarter success as new stretch goals have been announced today.

The crowdfunding total is now at $1,734,756 which means “New Sound Effects” at $1.6 million, a Chinese localization at $1.65 million, and a guild system at $1.7 million have already been achieved.

At $1.8 million the game will get a 101st hero named Perrielle, $1.95 million will unlock the inevitable fishing minigame, and $2.1 million involve a stretch goal titled “Stay Outta the Water!” which has not been explained.

In the meanwhile, here’s what the developers have said about some of these features.

  • Guild System – Build guilds in your town that will issue requests for rewards. Have your characters join a guild and learn new skills that will help them both at home and on the battlefield.
  • Perrielle Joins – The intelligent, hardworking, but often underestimated Perrielle Grum joins the game at this stretch goal, bringing the total number of heroes to 101. (more information about Perrielle will be shared in an upcoming update)
  • Fishing Minigame – It’s not a JRPG without a riveting fishing minigame, and we aim to please. If you’re not fishin’, you’re not livin’.

The game was announced a few days ago and launched on Kickstarter yesterday, reaching its basic founding goal in two hours and unlocking console platforms shortly after.

Author
Giuseppe Nelva

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Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Island Backup Service Arrives This Month

3 years 8 months ago
Animal Crossing: New Horizons' Summer Update - Wave 2 will arrive on July 30, 2020, and will bring with it a weekly fireworks show, the ability to visit others' islands while dreaming, and the long awaited Island Backup and Restoration Service. The Island Backup and Restoration Service was one that had been promised for a while and was of importance because, currently, if you were to lose or break your Switch, your island would be gone with it. With this new service, Nintendo Switch Online members can enable this new backup system that will automatically upload island and user save data to the internet at certain times. If you were to lose or break your switch, and this was enabled, Nintendo Customer Support would be able to get you back on your island as you last left it. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/07/28/animal-crossing-new-horizons-summer-update-wave-2-trailer"] Furthermore, Nintendo has reminded us that this is separate from the Save Data Cloud functionality offered for other games, so the option to move an island to another Switch that wasn't lost, stolen, or damaged is still not ready. However, later this year, Nintendo will release an update that will allow players to move users and save data to another system. As for the fireworks show, this will take place every Sunday at 7pm. Players can redeem Bells for raffle tickets in the plaza to "get various festive items." Players will even be able to upload custom firework designs to see their creations light up the night sky. Lastly, the dreaming feature will begin when players choose to take a nap in any bed placed in their home.
Author
Adam Bankhurst

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Kingdom Hearts III soundtrack will finally see release in November

3 years 8 months ago

Square Enix has announced that the Kingdom Hearts III soundtrack will see its official release on November 11, offering up majestic and dramatic scores taken from the epic RPG sequel as well as a selection of recent Kingdom Hearts side-titles.

The soundtrack will feature the music of Kingdom Hearts III, Kingdom Hearts III ReMIND, Kingdom Hearts 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, Kingdom Hearts Unchained X, and finally Kingdom Hearts Union Cross. While the full tracklist is yet to be revealed, the set will include somewhere in the region of 160 tracks taken from across the five titles.

The physical edition will consist of eight discs and will retail for ¥13,200, or roughly $125 USD. Pre-orders are open now at a variety of Japanese outlets including Tower Records, Amazon Japan, Sony Music Shop and Square's own digital store. While the digital release has been described as "worldwide", seemingly no western retail store is offering pre-orders on the physical edition, so fans might have to bite the bullet on an import.

Kingdom Hearts III is available now on PS4 and Xbox One.

Kingdom Hearts III soundtrack set to release worldwide [KH13 for Kingdom Hearts]

Author
Chris Moyse

Animal Crossing: New Horizons Update Adds Fireworks, Dream Suite, and Island Backup

3 years 8 months ago

Last month, we learned that Animal Crossing: New Horizons would receive a summer update coming in two parts. Wave 1 released in June, and now we finally know the details about Wave 2 that we can expect in the upcoming weeks.

The Animal Crossing: New Horizons Summer Update Wave 2 has three parts.

The first part is the addition of a weekly fireworks show. Every Sunday during the month of August, a fireworks festival will take place in which you can launch fireworks into the sky.

During the fireworks show, you can launch your own custom-design fireworks based on patterns that you’ve made. Additionally, Redd the fox will appear in the plaza to sell surprise items as part of Redd’s Raffle.

The next part of the update comes in the form of what was previously known as the Dream Suite in Animal Crossing: New Leaf. By sleeping in a bed, a character named Luna will appear.

Luna will let you access different “dream islands,” which include other players’ islands around the world. This is a special way to visit other people’s islands without them being online. You can also show off your own island for others to visit.

Finally, the third part of the update is an island backup and restoration service. Since Animal Crossing: New Horizons has not been compatible with cloud saves or system transfers, many players have been stuck with how to back up their island in case of a system failure.

Author
Rebecca Stone

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Powerful New Charizard Card Features the Pokemon's Gigantamax Form

3 years 8 months ago
The next Pokemon TCG: Sword and Shield expansion Darkness Ablaze is almost upon us (release date August 14) and when it arrives it’ll debut a powerful new Charizard card featuring the fan-favorite Pokemon’s fiery Gigantamax form. IGN is excited to offer your official first look at the English version of Charizard V, Charizard VMAX and a few other cards from the upcoming set such as Butterfree V, Houndoom V and Suicune. Take a look by clicking through the slideshow gallery below: [widget path="global/article/imagegallery" parameters="albumSlug=charizard-and-more-from-darkness-ablaze-ign-exclusive&captions=true"]

A Surefire Investment

It goes without saying that these Charizard cards will immediately become collector’s items. Regardless of whether a Charizard card is considered competitively viable in the game or not, you can always count on it earning some value on the secondary market. Last year a shiny Charizard-GX sold for over $10,000 at auction. Charizard VMAX is notable for being the first-ever card featuring the mighty Gigantamax Charizard.

Playing With Fire

Sure, getting cash for your cards is cool, but can this Charizard VMAX melt your opponent's face in a Pokemon match? Let’s discuss how to use it in the game. Forget the days of Base Set Charizard doing a mere 100 damage. After you evolve Charizard V into Charizard VMAX, it hits for a staggering 300 damage with its G-Max Wildfire attack and stands tall with an above-average 330 HP. Those are some impressive stats, but just like Ash’s unruly Charizard in the anime, it’s incredible power will be a challenge to use effectively. The current Pokemon TCG metagame features gargantuan Pokemon VMAX that typically knock each other out in two hits, and they give up three Prize cards when they go down.
Author
Joshua Yehl

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Street Fighter V: Champion Edition to reveal new characters in August 5 live stream

3 years 8 months ago

Capcom has announced that it will be holding a special live stream next week dedicated to the future of its flagship fighting title Street Fighter V: Champion Edition.

Available for streaming on the Capcom Fighters YouTube and Twitch channels, the "Street Fighter V: Champion Edition Summer Update" hosts and special guests will deliver news about Street Fighter and its competitive scene, while also revealing brand new characters headed your way in Season V.

As you may recall, Street Fighter V was planning to enter its home straight after Season IV, but the one-on-one fighter's ongoing success has encouraged Capcom to deliver one more batch of fresh content. Be sure to tune in, August 5 at 10:00 PT / 13:00 ET / 18:00 BST, and see what awaits in the twilight period of one of Street Fighter's most tumultuous entries.

Street Fighter V is available now on PS4 and PC.

Street Fighter V: Champion Edition to reveal new characters in August 5 live stream screenshot

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Author
Chris Moyse

Maid of Sker review - an effective if unadventurous slice of rural horror

3 years 8 months ago

There's a banner hanging above the grand staircase. The light from the glass-topped domed ceiling pulls your eyes to it the moment you step into the stately entryway - "GRAND RE-OPENING - 30th October 1897" it declares in neat print - yet the colourful bunting adorning the vestibule is tattered and torn in places, and the wooden floor is scuffed and stained. The muted light - derived chiefly, if not quite exclusively, from candlelight - is soft and delicate, but you'll learn the hard way that it conceals a lot, too. Like the pool of blood at the bottom of the stairway. Like the Quiet Ones who skulk in the shadows.

You begin to wonder how anyone could've thought Sker - a Welsh word pronounced "scare" but one that has no literal translation, I don't think? - Hotel was fit for anything, let alone a grand re-opening. It's dusty and dirty, and many of its rooms are stacked with unopened crates and boxes. Every mirror in the hotel is fractured and splintered. Later, when you explore the upper floors and stumble upon horrifying contraptions that have surely been yanked from the imagination of HH Holmes and his infamous Murder Castle, you'll realise the plans to open this place weren't "grand" at all. Later still, when the banner lies in ribbons on the floor of the lobby as the heavy footfalls of blind men - or are they monsters? - stomp aimlessly from one side of the room, ears pricked for the slightest creak that'll give away your position, you'll be left wondering how on earth you can survive this.

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The Tokyo fire department is using Animal Crossing as a cute way to disseminate safety tips

3 years 8 months ago

We've seen several entities use Animal Crossing: New Horizons as a new way to spread information or teach folks: but now the Tokyo fire department is joining in on the fun.

Revealed last week, the official Tokyo fire department Twitter account has noted that the staff will be "relocated" to a digital island, where they'll "transmit" information to folks on how to stay safe and prevent disasters. As a kid, I would have went wild for these kinds of gimmicks revolving around games.

More recently the account made its first post, giving out tips on how to prevent a heat stroke (frequent hydration, wear a hat, use an air conditioner) and stop drowning incidents (watch your kids, don't swim after drinking, pay attention to inclement weather). The accompanying New Horizons image shows a fire department member's avatar sitting near a fan to beat the heat.

It's the exact wholesome content we need right now!

Tokyo Fire Department [Twitter] Thanks John!

The Tokyo fire department is using Animal Crossing as a cute way to disseminate safety tips screenshot

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Author
Chris Carter

Ex-Ubisoft creative boss canned Dragon Age dev's King Arthur game

3 years 8 months ago

Ubisoft has been shaken by a wave of sexual abuse and harassment allegations in recent weeks, leading to the resignation of several high-profile executives and a pledge from boss Yves Guillemot to reform Ubisoft's processes and editorial board. One of the executives who has since resigned, chief creative officer Serge Hascoët, has been accused of enabling and facilitating a culture of toxicity and misogyny - along with blocking plans for a solo female protagonist in the Assassin's Creed series.

Yet beyond the allegations of misogyny, it seems Hascoët also stifled creativity in other ways, as a new report claims he cancelled a potential King Arthur game led by Dragon Age creative director Mike Laidlaw.

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The EPOS tech interview: designing gaming headsets for esports and immersion

3 years 8 months ago

Sennheiser is one of the most legendary names in audio, a German firm that makes both well-regarded headphones for critical music listening as well as some of the best gaming headsets on the market. Its gaming division is set for a change though, as it is now set to de-merge from Sennheiser and become a new independent entity: EPOS.

The new company will continue to offer a line of existing products under a new co-branding scheme, including two of our favourite premium wireless headsets, the GSP 370 and GSP 670, which we like for their durable (if bulky) design, long battery life and generally warm, inviting sound. Of course new products are also coming, including one we're testing at the moment - the GSX 300 external sound card. We haven't finished our review yet, but so far we've been impressed with the device's clean industrial design and even cleaner audio. It's an encouraging first step, but the company will need several successes on the trot to bring the same cachet that Sennheiser enjoys to the new EPOS name.

To mark the re-launch, we spoke with EPOS' senior director of product Andreas Jessen about the new company's design process, its future lineup and the most important headphone features for competitive or immersive gaming. Enjoy!

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Red Dead Online is getting a “naturalism” Frontier Pursuit today

3 years 8 months ago

Rockstar is inviting you to become one with nature in Red Dead Online today. At least, I’m reasonably sure that’s what they mean. They’re introducing a new Frontier Pursuit “that will introduce players to the secrets of naturalism”, which sounds a lot like you’ll be able to become a hunter, or maybe just make friends with the animals. Hm, actually, probably not. Let’s be honest, Red Dead isn’t really a “make friends with the animals” sorta game.

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Author
Imogen Beckhelling

(Update) Phantasy Star Online 2 seems to be coming to Steam very soon, in case you hated the Windows launcher

3 years 8 months ago

[Update: Sega has confirmed that PSO2 will arrive on Steam on August 5, which will allow you to link your existing account and cross-play with Windows/Xbox One users. On that same day, Episode 4 (a huge content update) will arrive on both PC and Xbox One. You can watch the trailer for that below.]

Phantasy Star Online 2 is finally out in the west...but it might not be on your choice of platform.

It hit the Xbox One this past April, with a PC release following in May. The thing is, that PC edition didn't launch so swimmingly, most notably due to some issues with the Windows 10 launcher. While Sega has patched up some of those problems the experience isn't silky smooth just yet: though Steam might be an option soon.

Wait, Steam?! Yes, it looks like Microsoft doesn't have a Gollum-hold on the game for the foreseeable future, as a new listing for Phantasy Star Online 2 just popped up on Steam today. According to the page it'll be out on August 5, which is much sooner than a lot of us probably anticipated. Yay for options!

This bodes well for the upcoming Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis project, which is also confirmed for PC on top of the Xbox family of consoles. While everyone feared that this entire western PSO2 umbrella would be forced into Windows 10, Steam is back on the menu.

Author
Chris Carter