Live A Live, developed by Square Enix and published by Nintendo, is a JRPG variety pack. In both its original and remade forms, it offers a collection of digestible tales, each enjoyable in a few hours. It shows a new, valuable use for the “HD-2D” approach, and in many ways sets a template for future remakes. And yet? It’s still very much its own peculiar thing as well.

Prehistory

In this tale, you play the rule of a rather rude little cave boy, using smell to navigate and generally trying to accomplish tasks and communicate without language. Instead of text, this chapter uses images, grunts and gestures to tell you things, and it’s intentionally a bit tough. It adds to the atmosphere, certainly, but it’s also one you probably don’t want to play first as you learn how the game does things. But hey, you could play chronologically and run into it first, we suppose!

The Prehistory chapter makes it especially apparent, but the whole game is largely steered by the minimap and its orange dot. This is a game that would be largely aimless without it, as it doesn’t always explain what you need to do next in any other fashion. And it’s a clear upgrade from the Super Famicom original, which really extended its game time by making players fumble around. Of course, now? Now it does feel like it’s guiding you perhaps to a fault.

FaZe Clan is now a publicly traded company, but its value is already dropping.

The organisation of esports professionals and gaming influencers has begun trading on the Nasdaq to become one of only a few esports companies on the market.

However, when FaZe agreed last October to merge with acquisition company B. Riley Principal 150 Merger Corp., it was valued at close to $1bn. Now that value is closer to $716m.

Read more

UK-based developer Jagex has acquired long-running US games company Pipeworks Studios.

Situated Eugene, Oregon, Pipeworks was actually acquired just two years ago by Sumo Group for $100 million. The group has now sold the company to Jagex for an undisclosed sum.

And it's Jagex's first ever acquisition.

Read more

After four hours with Saints Row, it's funny being back in the present. I have a gaming PC! Bills to pay! A smartphone that recognises my face! Grey hairs! I say all this because Saints Row - not to be confused with Saints Row yet also to be confused with Saints Row - whisked me back to the early 2000s, when I was but a naïve teenager whose life largely pivoted around their Xbox 360. A time when Saints Row and Saints Row 2 were lighthearted Grand Theft Auto alternatives, then Saints Row: The Third came along and cranked up the silliness, and then Saints Row 4 grabbed the lever and cranked it so hard it snapped. So, yes, this year's Saints Row reboot is technically Saints Row 5, except it’s more of a careful reboot. Where does it really sit on the timeline? At both ends, I reckon.

Read more

Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC
Publisher: Deep Silver
Developer: Volition
Release: August 23, 2022
Rating: Mature

Boisterous business discussions and the clanking of silverware ring out from the crowded patio of a corner restaurant in the heart of Champaign, Illinois, a small college town two hours south of Chicago. Lording over these hungry patrons is the stoic face of Deep Silver Volition. The studio’s logo hangs a few stories above the lunch spot on the side of a brownstone building. Many eating here today are likely Volition employees, and they have reason to celebrate with a feast, as their studio’s next game, Saints Row, is nearing completion.

The Saints Row series saw a massive shakeup back in Summer 2021, as Deep Silver and Volition revealed that a brand new game would be coming out that reboots the franchise. Since then, we’ve had a lot of information provided that reassured fans that the game will still feature the same wacky and weird gameplay and story that fans came to love.

Yet, even with all of the info that’s been shown off, there’s still a lot of questions on people’s minds before Saints Row releases next month. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Volition UI Artist Danielle Benthien to discuss some of those questions and much more, which you can see right down below.

Twinfinite Features Editor Andrew McMahon: How will the new characters captivate fans like the Saints we know and love from the past games? Will there be anyone that can possibly live up to the legacy of Johnny Gat?

Live A Live on Switch

Live A Live is unlike any JRPG I have ever played. It was way ahead of its time when it was released in Japan for the Super Famicom in 1994, and it’s a shame that the rest of the world didn’t get to experience it back then. Fortunately, Square Enix decided it was time that this ambitious game was remade and introduced to new audiences in 2022.

What makes Live A Live stand out from other JRPGs is that instead of building a party of characters around a singular protagonist throughout the game, the story is split into eight very distinct scenarios. They are so distinct that they have very little to do with each other at all, or at least that’s what it seems at first.

Each of the eight scenarios you’ll play through features characters from all different time periods, from a cave boy in prehistory all the way to a robot in the distant future.

The RPG is the genre in which side activities are always threatening to take centre stage. Many classic specimens are built around a more conscious antagonism between main and secondary content than you'll find in, say, today's open world games, where everything is available for consumption at any time. Think of how Tetra Master had you leaving the plot on hold for days in Final Fantasy VIII, or the dangerously more-ish Sokoban-style block puzzles in the older Wild Arms games. It's in spaces like these that RPG designers sometimes conceal their best, or at least, strangest ideas, away from the stresses and constraints of the central production.

First released in 1994 and remastered using the same, sprites-meets-polygons visual style as Octopath Traveller, Live A Live is essentially Sidequest: The Game - as I probably should have realised before I compared it to a level-select cheat in Sonic. It's a collection of loosely interwoven, 1-3 hour tales set in different historical and/or fantasy periods, each its own colourful interpretation of what an old-school Squaresoft role-playing game can be. Much as with sidequests in traditional single-narrative RPGs, some chapters are more successful than others, but all are engrossing experiments, and while it's slightly thwarted by the stop-start anthology structure, the overarching, grid-based battle system is worth the 20 hours or so it'll take you to reach the closing credits.

Ever since it debuted in 2006, Saints Row has been one of my favorite franchises in gaming. The sheer absurdity of its story and gameplay was always refreshing compared to all the serious and gritty action-adventure games that have been released over the years.

So, when Deep Silver invited me out to Las Vegas to try the upcoming reboot of Saints Row, I simply couldn’t wait to see what was in store. Thankfully, it’s good news for Saints Row and co-op fans.

The hands-on preview opens up at the start of the game, teasing an interesting mystery surrounding the Saints before jumping back a bit to before they were officially founded. The story starts out with a bit of a surprise, as your character isn’t actually a part of any of the gangs that make up the streets of Santo Ileso.

Atlus has confirmed it will not provide an upgrade path for PS4 owners of Persona 5 Royal wishing to upgrade to the PS5 version.

Instead, players will have to purchase the enhanced edition separately at full retail price.

The limitation was announced in an FAQ posted on Atlus's Japanese website.

Read more

Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 3 has thus far proven to just be one big celebration. The old Command Cavern was a bland cave where nothing fun happened, but now it’s a 24/7 rave. Though, a new challenge does require players to break up the party. Here’s how to stop the music at Rave Cave in Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 3.

Stop the Rave Cave Music

Obviously, the first thing you will want to do is land at Rave Cave. Considering the current No Sweat Summer event and some of the other weekly challenges, you might want to wait until Rave Cave shows up at the end of the jump line, or wait until later in a match.

Capcom is releasing a perfume line inspired by The Great Ace Attorney.

The collection, announced yesterday, features series protagonist Ryuunosuke Naruhodo alongside supporting characters Kazuma Asogi, Herlock Sholmes, and Barok van Zieks.

The item descriptions on Parco Online Store list the ingredients featured, which are inspired by each character they are named after.

Read more

The gaming industry has made huge leaps and strides in its technology. Goals that were pipe dreams years ago, like rendering huge crowds, impressive destruction features, and life-like animations, are now commonplace. As far as the industry has come, the industry has also left some things behind.

The games that founded this industry have been left in the dust, and as the timeless saying goes, the video game industry giveth and the video game industry taketh away. Today, we’re shouting to the heavens for these industry-defining games to make a return. These are the top 10 franchises that need a remake or remaster.

Gearbox today announced that it will be sunsetting its forums at the start of next month.

In a message posted on its boards, the forums admin team said it's "noticed many of [the] community members prefer to engage on other social platforms" over the past year. The post indicated that the "team will continue to receive feedback and concerns" on its dedicated support website, but that the forums themselves would be shut down on August 1.

The discussion boards are already in read-only mode, before they disappear entirely "later this summer." The team said they would provide 30 days' notice to users, and invited them to join their various Discord servers.

Read more

The Enhanced Edition of Raji: An Ancient Epic is now available on consoles.

The update was made available on PC back in May and now arrives on Xbox and PlayStation consoles, with a Switch version due soon on 28th July.

The new version adds a number of extra features, most notably ray-tracing and a Hindi voice over.

Read more

Bandai Namco released another character trailer of its upcoming fighting game JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R.

This time around, we get to take a look at another “JoJo,” Joseph Joestar, the main hero of the second arc of the manga and anime, on top of regular characters in plenty of other arcs.

You can watch the trailer below.

Capcom revealed some of the planned content coming with the first free title update for Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak. Specifically, Capcom plans to add a new armor upgrade system as part of the endgame Anomaly Research quests. The new armor upgrade system will allow players to further strengthen their armor sets by adding new skills and modifying elemental resistance stats.

Editor's Note: Minor Spoilers for the ending and post-game content for Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak

Once players defeat the final boss of the Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak expansion, a series of new quests will be unlocked. These Anomaly Research Quests pit hunters against stronger Afflicted variants of previous monsters. Completing these quests allows hunters to collect Anomaly Tickets, which were previously limited to crafting the game's strongest weapons.

That is set to change with the next free title update. Two new posts from the Monster Hunter Twitter accounts reveal that Capcom will add a new mechanic it calls Qurious Crafting. Included images indicate that Qurious Crafting will allow for greater improvement to existing armor. Unlike standard Armor Sphere upgrades, however, Qurious Crafting will augment each armor piece's resistance stats, and could even add new skills.

https://twitter.com/monsterhunter/status/1549703533058039808?s=20&t=LOPjjq4BxOxGWkIvWpAf5g

In Marvel Snap, Kazoo has quickly emerged as one of the most meta decks that Pool 1 players can build, and it allows them to be a bit more competitive even when they’re going up against Pool 3 players who have already unlocked a ton more cards and deck-building options. If all that sounds like gibberish to you, let me break down exactly how card unlocks work in this game.

Every Marvel Snap player has a Collection Level. Your Collection Level is increased through cosmetic upgrades, which are performed with Credits and Boosters. Boosters can be obtained very easily just by playing the game, but Credits are capped pretty heavily as free-to-play players can only get a set amount each day by completing daily and weekly missions.

To add to that, the card collection system is divided into Pools. For instance, players will only unlock Pool 1 cards from Collection Levels 1 to 214. Once you pass that 214 mark, you start unlocking Pool 2 cards, and so on and so forth. This system sounds pretty fair on paper; players starting at the same time will unlock every Pool 1 card in a randomized order, but by the time they hit CL 214, they’ll all have the exact same cards to play around with.

76.1 million games were sold across Europe during the first six months of the year, a rise of 13.5% over the same period in 2021 (GSD Market Data).

32 million of these games were physical titles, while 44 million were sold via digital stores. The physical data covers all games sold in a box, while the digital data covers games from mainly AAA game developers (with Nintendo the notable absentee).

The biggest European market for game sales was Germany, with nearly 15.4 million games sold over the first six months of the year (sales up 13.6% compared with the same period in 2021). Followed by the UK with 14.3 million sales (up 2%), then France with 10.2 million (up 12.1%).

Read more

There’s nothing more frustrating than loading into a game of ranked only to discover one of your teammates has disconnected. Thankfully, there’s a way to avoid having to play with just four players. If you’re wondering how you remake in Valorant, here’s what you need to know.

What Is a Remake in Valorant?

First, let’s clear something up: in Valorant, a remake is something that can only occur under specific circumstances. You can only remake if the person who has disconnected did not spawn into the game during the first round.

If a player disconnects mid-round, you will be unable to remake. You’ll, unfortunately, have to wait and hope they reconnect, otherwise, you’re stuck with four players for the remainder of the game.

How Do You Remake in Valorant? Answered

So, you’ve booted into a game of Valorant, but only four of you made it in. What next?

All you need to do to remake is wait until the second round begins, then open up chat (Enter) and type “/remake.” The game will not allow you to do this during the first round, and if you wait until the third round, then it’s too late.

A vote will then proceed, requiring the remainder of your team to vote yes in order to initiate a remake of the game.

That’s everything there is to know about how to remake in Valorant. If you’re wondering how to surrender, we have a dedicated guide for that also. You can also find lots of other related guides and coverage about the game either by searching the site or checking below.

The new brawler, MultiVersus, is currently in a closed beta that will be going public for everyone on July 26. The good news though, it’s going to be free to play. However, this does mean that there will be plenty of currencies for players to navigate. The following guide goes into detail about how to get Gleamium in MultiVersus and what it can be spent on.

Getting Gleamium in MultiVersus

Currently for the beta, there is one primary way for players to get their hands on Gleamium, which is to spend real-world money to get more of the currency. As pictured above, there are four packs for players to purchase, ranging from 450 to 6000 Gleamium. These can get to be quite pricey as many of the in-game items purchased with Gleamium are expensive.

Here are all bundles of this premium currency and their prices in USD:

The opening sequence of BlueTwelve Studio’s charming new adventure game sees a young tabby separate from its family. It’s a heartwrenching scene, indeed. So, does the cat in Stray find its family? Here’s what you need to know.

Spoiler warning: Obviously we’re about to delve into major spoiler territory here for the ending of Stray. Do not read on if you’re sensitive to finding out what occurs after you have completed the game.

Does the Cat in Stray Find Its Family? Answered

The simple answer is no, the cat never reunites with its family in Stray.

While the game’s premise starts off as seemingly a cat on a quest to reunite with its family, that focus shifts somewhat throughout the story. Not only is our furry feline keen to escape the city itself but also to help B12 and the robots who still dwell inside to leave as well — or, at least to appreciate the world outside exists and (presumably) other communities of robots/humans live outside too.

The very final chapter of Stray sees the cat open up the city by manipulating computers in the control room. This sadly destroys B12, but it is successful in unlocking the city’s roof and removing the seal from the walls. It is essentially left to our imagination that the cat will venture outside and possibly reunite with its family now that it is free to do so.

In case you’re wondering, there’s no alternate ending to be found that reveals anything else with the cat’s family, either. As we’ve noted in our dedicated guide on the subject, there’s no secret ending in Stray that changes this outcome. Also, there are no multiple endings or secret endings for grabbing all of the different collectibles like Notebooks, B12 Memories, Badges, and Music Sheets.

Sony has announced it will discontinue one-to-one PlayStation customer support on Twitter.

This move will come into effect on 1st August. Sony has not given a reason for this decision.

Once this service comes to a close, PlayStation users will need to get in contact with customer support through the company's online site.

Read more

Shueisha will compile six chapters of Shokugeki no Sanji into a tankobon that will come out on August 4, 2022. The trio behind Shokugeki no Soma, or Food Wars, worked on the book. It is unknown if more chapters will appear in the future. Yuto Tsukuda wrote the story, Shun Saeki provided illustrations, and Yuki Morisaki contributed recipes.

https://twitter.com/Eiichiro_Staff/status/1549227645124022274

Chapters take place within the One Piece canon timeline, with some familiar faces making cameos. They originally appeared as one-shots, with the first having appeared in 2018. Chapters would release in Weekly Shonen Jump alongside new chapters of the actual One Piece manga.

Shokugeki no Sanji will have 234 pages and will cost 506 JPY, which is approximately $3.70. It is currently unclear if an English publisher will license the book for localization. There will also be a digital version of the book in Japanese, which will also come out on August 4, 2022.

In a crossover that no one saw coming, adventure game Oxenfree and indie skater OlliOlli have come together for a fresh collaboration in OlliOlli World.

Oxenfree character Alex is available for anyone who has progressed beyond the Sketchside biome in the main game.

All players need to do is enter the postcode MV32FR33 in OlliOlli World's Portal Mode.

Read more

An official Detroit: Become Human manga series is launching on 22nd July in Japan.

Titled as Detroit: Become Human Tokyo Stories, the comic will follow the story of Japan's own android revolution.

A short synopsis and some panels have been released on Famitsu in Japanese. The story is set in 2038 and stars Reina, an android idol. It seems that Tokyo Stories takes place alongside the original story of Detroit: Become Human, contrasting the largely hostile attitudes to androids seen in the game with a society that is much more accepting of them.

Read more

The highly-anticipated ARPG title, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, is right around the corner, and the players who have pre-ordered the game can now pre-install it. In simple terms, Nintendo allows you to download the game before its release date so that you can embark on the thrilling adventure immediately. With that being said, here’s a detailed breakdown of Xenoblade Chronicles 3 preload times & installation size.

Never underestimate the innate cuteness of cats. It’s a phenomenon that’s served the Internet, Ancient Egyptian civilisation and Andrew Lloyd-Webber well. Now it’s the turn of Annapurna Interactive, publishers of miaow ‘em up Stray, who have seen the highest concurrent player counts on Steam for any of their games released to date. That's despite the game being free to PlayStation owners right now, if you sign up for their newly added seven-day free trial of their PlayStation Plus Extra subscription. Watch the trailer below to get a dose of cuteness for yourself.

Read more

Nintendo fans should immediately stop using its archaic Wi-Fi dongle, the company has said.

The device - officially named the Nintendo Wi-Fi USB Connector - slotted into your PC and provided internet access to the Nintendo DS.

However, continued use now risks your computer being targeted by "unauthorised access" or "infection of the computer terminal" with a virus, Nintendo has now cautioned.

Read more

Sucker Punch has made the Cole's Legacy DLC for Infamous Second Son available for free on the PlayStation Store.

The DLC was originally only available as a pre-order incentive for the game or with a special edition copy.

Infamous Second Son has been added to Sony's newly launched PS Plus service, so new players are able to access the DLC as well as those who own the game.

Read more

Yesterday we got a few bitesize leaks for Naughty Dog's recently announced The Last of Us Part 1 remake, which is coming to the PlayStation 5 and eventually PC. Now, however, the floodgates have well and truly opened.

Today, the internet is awash with all sorts of new information about the game, including details about its accessibility options and control layout.

If you are keen to avoid any spoilers, there will be some included in the text below - so take this as your cue to read something else on Eurogamer if you so wish.

Read more

With the release of Endling: Extinction is Forever on July 19, 2022, HandyGames uploaded an animated release trailer to the company’s YouTube channel. The trailer is just over a minute long and gives an idea of what the game is about, as well as the general atmosphere and theme.

Endling places the player in the shoes (paws?) of a mother fox. The last mother fox on Earth, in fact. You have three cubs that you need to protect, care for, and teach in order for them to survive. Due to the hostile environment, you must also keep them safe from natural and man-made enemies However, you only have a limited amount of time to do so each day before things become too dangerous. Losing the litter could spell extinction for the species. As you raise the cubs and teach them lessons, they can learn new skills and develop distinct personalities. Some of them may have certain preferences and fears you must work around.

Since the reason behind the world’s state is pollution as a result of human activities, the game has an eco-conscious message. This game is the first from its developer, Herobeat Studios. The website, as well as sales pages for Endling, also note that environmentalism is what the game is ultimately about.

You can watch the release trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZY0Gw70gzU