Today EA unveiled Madden NFL 22 along with announcing the game’s cover stars: Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes. The annual football game is due out on Aug. 22 and will retail at $69.99 on PS5 and Xbox Series S | X, and $59.99 for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Stadia.

Along with revealing the game, EA has dumped a lot of new information about what is going to be new this year and, honestly, it’s quite exciting for a change.

The last few years we’ve been a bit down on Madden. While it has continued to be a serviceable football game, it has felt very stagnate. I’m quite forgiving when it comes to sports games because I can sympathize with how difficult it must be to make a new game year after year, but last year I felt comfortable calling Madden NFL 21 a “roster update” for all intents and purposes.

Madden NFL 22, at least on paper, appears to be coming in much harder with fresh ideas that have the potential to really shake up the gameplay.

The big one is Dynamic Gameday, which is a new feature that will attempt to inject stadium atmosphere, game momentum, and even home-field advantage as factors that can impact how a game turns out.

I spent much of my time with JRPG Tales Of Arise veering from a state of serene calm to one of total confusion. Like I'd been out for a walk down the street, spotted a group of misfits down a quiet suburb, and starting yelling encouragement as they kicked seven shades out of a fire hydrant. That feeling of not really knowing what you're doing, but rather enjoying whatever it is that you are, in fact, doing.

Read more

Madden NFL 22 releases on August 20, EA Sports and developer EA Tiburon have announced. When Madden NFL 21 launched last year, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X weren't yet to market, but even so, those versions of the game didn't release until December of last year. Now that EA Tiburon has one year of new-gen releases under its belt, Madden NFL 22 will release simultaneously on new-gen consoles, last-gen consoles, Stadia, and PC.

This year's game comes on the heels of a game that was widely criticized for its lack of new features and improvements, particularly regarding the title's franchise mode. While modes like The Yard, Face of the Franchise, and Madden Ultimate Team return in Madden NFL 22, EA Tiburon is paying close attention to the Franchise experience this time around. This version of Franchise implements more immersive interactions with players and coaches, as well as a weekly strategy planning session to allow you to pay close attention to the strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies of each opponent. On top of committing to various post-launch updates to the mode, all of the improvements made in Madden NFL 21 after launch are being carried into Madden NFL 22's iteration of the popular mode.

Every year, being named to the Madden NFL cover serves as a major honor for the player chosen. Despite the long-standing superstition that landing on the Madden cover guarantees that you'll have a major downturn or, in some cases, an injury during that season, EA Sports and developer EA Tiburon have continued naming top players to be their Madden NFL cover athletes year after year. This year, the developer is going about it a little differently, as it's bringing a rare two-athlete cover featuring quarterbacks Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes.

Interestingly enough, both Brady and Mahomes have been featured on the cover in recent years. Brady, the current quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, appeared on the cover of Madden NFL 18 when he was still with the New England Patriots, while Mahomes, the man under center for the Kansas City Chiefs, was the face of Madden NFL 20. Both athletes are also seemingly impervious to the "Madden Curse," as the 2017 season saw Brady play about as well as ever, making it to the Super Bowl that year (though his Patriots lost to the Philadelphia Eagles), while Mahomes not only made it to the Super Bowl the year he was featured on the cover, but won the championship game and took home Super Bowl MVP honors. 

The initiative will give console owners the chance to test new PS5 features before they're officially rolled out, with Sony using feedback gathered during testing to guide development. ...

Earlier this morning on the PlayStation Blog, the Senior VP of Platform Experience at SIE, Hideaki Nishino, announced the opening of registration for the PS5 system software beta program. This same program existed during the last generation for players who were willing to be the guinea pigs for the latest PS4 system software. And this generation, the program appears to be fairly similar.

Nishino began by talking about their efforts to deliver the best experience possible to PS5 owners and he even mentioned a major update planned for later this year. But he didn’t mention any details about what features are in the works for that update.

After that brief intro Nishino got in the details of how a PS5 owner can sign up for the system software beta program. You can follow this link to get to the registration page. Make sure you scroll to the bottom of the page when you’ll find a check box and submit button to finish your registration.

Just keep in mind that you must fit this criteria in order to join the program:

Sony offered people a chance to sign-up for a PS5 system software beta to test an upcoming firmware update and new console features.

The post PS5 System Software Beta Sign-ups Open for Firmware Update appeared first on Siliconera.

This year’s E3 was certainly different, as the first ever digital version of the event had an interesting combination of surprises and disappointments when it came to both its conferences and games alike. Regardless of how you felt about the outcome of E3 2021, though, one thing is for certain: it resulted in a lot of hilarious memes.

From the chaotic feeling you got seeing Strangers of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origins to the hilarity that was Kazuya throwing people off a cliff, these are the best E3 2021 memes from across the internet. Be sure to let us know which ones were your favorites in the comments below. Also, don’t hesitate to leave any other great memes that we may have missed down there to help make us all laugh.

You can sign up to help Sony improve its flagship console

Continue reading…

The constant flow of new Nintendo Switch games slows to a relative trickle in the wake of E3 2021, with only 23 new games coming to the Switch eShop this week. They include Rebellion’s 2018 co-op supernatural shooter Strange Brigade, and Sega’s fresh take on the Tokyo Olympics.

Read more...

Pokemon Unite will appear first on the Switch, followed by a September mobile release. Learn more about the Pokemon MOBA and its currencies.

The post Pokemon Unite Switch Launches in July appeared first on Siliconera.

The Razer Kraken is one of the best entry-level gaming headsets on the market, and today it's been marked down 50 percent at Currys PC World, dropping it from its normal price of £55 to just £27.50.

To get the reduced price, just use code SAVE50 at the checkout. This is the cheapest we've ever seen this wired headset, which works with PC and all recent consoles including Xbox Series X/S, Switch and PS5.

The Razer Kraken was refreshed quite recently, but the headset has been one of Razer's staple models for years. It's a wired 3.5mm headset, so it works with PCs of all kinds plus consoles - including the latest releases, like the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, and older consoles including the PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. If your smartphone or tablet has a 3.5mm headphone jack, obviously you can use the Kraken there too.

Read more

Creator Scott Cawthon announces retirement amid criticism of political donations

Continue reading…

I first caught wind of Pirozhok Studio and HeroCraft’s Anvil Saga about a month ago when a press release showed up in my inbox. The pitch was simple: play as a blacksmith during the Hundred Year War and supply weapons to all factions involved while slowly expanding your shop and improving your craft. Sounds pretty straightforward, and I’m a sucker for management sims so this seemed right up my alley.

I got to check out a demo build of Anvil Saga this past week, and while it definitely has some obvious flaws that still need to be sorted out, this game is pretty much everything I’d hoped for just from seeing the trailer, and I’m excited to see the finished product.

Players take charge of Arthur, a blacksmith who take over his father’s craft after he passes away. Each day, you’ll smelt ore into ingots, then use those ingots to fulfill equipment orders. Things seem straightforward at first, but gradually, you’re given more tasks to manage. You need to start mining for ore so you can smelt them into more ingots, you need to watch Arthur’s energy and make sure to rest up when he’s tired, you need to buy food to prevent him from getting hungry… the list goes on.

On top of all that, there is a time limit to your orders as well; wait too long, and a customer will walk away angrily, and they might even spread the word that your smithy is unreliable, lowering the number of customers you get.

Assault rifles got even more changes the season 4 update

Continue reading…

People can spend more time in the Shrine of Chaos, as Square Enix extended the dates for the Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin demo.

The post Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin Demo Dates Extended appeared first on Siliconera.

It sounds like a dystopian nightmare, yet it's fast becoming a reality: Facebook has announced it's going to start testing in-headset VR adverts.

Facebook initially started testing adverts on the Oculus mobile app last month, but it's now taking things a step further by trialling adverts inside the Oculus Quest VR headset. The adverts are first being tested in a game called Blaston by Resolution Games, and will roll out to a couple of other apps "over the coming weeks".

Judging by a gif on the Oculus blog showing an in-headset advert, it looks like players can point at an advert to click on a link or save it for later. There's also a drop-down menu to report and hide ads, and an option to tweak user preferences.

Read more

Five Nights at Freddy's creator Scott Cawthon has announced he is retiring, just days after a controversy erupted over his past donations to Republican candidates, including Donald Trump.

Cawthon confirmed his decision in a statement shared to ScottGames.com, accompanied by Five Nights at Freddy's artwork drawn by an unnamed eight-year-old fan.

There's no mention of the controversy in his statement, save for a reference to him receiving support from the LGBTQ community - a nod to the recent criticism faced by him for supporting Republican candidates with broadly anti-LGBTQ stances.

Read more

This update patch also includes several bug fixes and UI adjustments.

The post GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon Update Adds Getsu Renge appeared first on Siliconera.

This year marked E3’s big return after a year hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, and while it may not have quite delivered the thrills and spills of shows gone by, there’s still been plenty to get excited about. In particular, new game announcements, which are always the most thrilling aspect of any E3 show if you ask us.

So, here we’re going to be recapping the 15 newly announced games we consider to be the biggest showstoppers of E3 2021 and ranking them in order of hype. We’re measuring them both by how much we’re looking forward to playing them and the exciting nature of their reveal, be it expected or entirely surprising.

The announcement of Metroid Dread earlier this week was met with widespread excitement as fans of the series are finally receiving a new 2D Metroid. While some games in the series, primarily 1994's Super Metroid on Super NES, are considered among the greatest games of all time, fans of the 2D style of Metroid have been waiting for news of a new adventure for Nintendo's galactic bounty hunter to embark on.

Following the launch of the last all-new 2D Metroid game, 2002's Metroid Fusion on Game Boy Advance, the name "Metroid Dread" began floating around as early as 2004. Though we've heard rumors of cancellation, development restarts, and platform changes throughout the last 16 years, Nintendo has been largely quiet on the follow-up game to Metroid Fusion. However, Tuesday's re-emergence finally gave long-suffering fans the relief they've been waiting for.

Let's be real, Xbox-Bethesda absolutely slayed its shared E3 2021 showcase. From Starfield to an incredible look at Halo: Infinite and a plethora of other titles, Microsoft wasn't playing around this year when it came to bringing the heat (something that was very much needed because overall, this year's show had quite a few pitfalls). Among the titles showcased was a brand new IP from Arkane Austin, the studio that gave us 2017's Prey. This time, we're not going to space; we're going to vamp town. For those curious, here's everything we know about Redfall. 

From the co-op structure to the dark and explosive nature, many likened Redfall to Valve's Left 4 Dead. But there's so much more we don't know. Luckily, we know more now than we did at the time of the reveal, thanks to Bethesda. 

Welcome to Redfall

Nintendo's E3 2021 Direct saw it reward patient fans with the long-awaited return of franchises like WarioWare and Advance Wars, and (after much teasing) eventually show more Breath of the Wild 2. But perhaps its most astonishing announcement was of Metroid Dread - a project even the most patient Metroid fans gave up on over a decade ago.

Initially described as "Metroid 5", Metroid Dread was a surprise so good it trolled Metroid fans twice. No, this wasn't Metroid Prime 4. And no, really, this was going to be the game fans had written off as vapourware. It was a brilliant rug pull, and all the better for Dread being just a few months from launch.

But how similar is the Metroid Dread you'll play in October to the concept canned more than a decade ago? And why is it coming back to life now? This week I attended a roundtable interview over Zoom with Yoshio Sakamoto, Nintendo's 2D Metroid custodian, to find out more about the long-lost project, and how it serves as a conclusion to the story arc he has spent 35 years developing.

Read more

There's a melancholy to Backbone. Like a stale perfume, it permeates everything - the environments, the weather, the dialogue, the music, the story, even the characters' names. It's not out of place, exactly, because at first it fits this pixel-perfect, "post-noir" detective tale, but later, when that tale takes an astonishing and inexplicable turn, it feels disingenuous. A long-con, even. Because what Backbone purports to be is very different to what it really is in the end.

Your life as PI Howard Lotor - a raccoon detective with the obligatory trenchcoat and a penchant for the dramatic - kicks off pretty much as you'd expect. He lives in a small, run-down apartment, unable to let a single thought pass through his mind without lacing it with a healthy dose of cynicism. His work - an endless parade of cheating husbands, apparently - is neither exciting nor inspiring, and Howie's keen for you to know exactly how unrewarding it is to him.

Despite its moodiness, though, Backbone's journey through dystopian Vancouver takes you to some truly stunning backdrops, painstakingly fashioned in stylish pixel art. Jogging up the street in Glanville, rain speckling the screen as neon reflections dance in pavement puddles, you can peer into the windows of the apartments stacked above the shops and offices along the main strip, watching as the creatures within eat or smoke, silhouetted against the flickering light of their TV sets. It's endlessly fascinating for a voyeur like me and - accompanied by a broody score and fantastic sound effects - it's testament to masterful world-building that successfully delivers a universe that feels authentic and relatable despite the anthropomorphic creatures lining the streets.

‘It’s really about Samus encountering fear, but she actually stands against that fear and fights it and beats it’

Continue reading…

Tetris Effect's multiplayer gets an expansion this summer.

It adds spectator mode and cross-platform multiplayer as Tetris Effect: Connected launches on PlayStation 4 late July.

Cross-platform multiplayer applies to ranked match, friend match and multiplayer leaderboards. There is no cross-platform progress or saves, and you can turn cross-platform play off if you wish.

Read more

Hazelight Studios' co-op adventure It Takes Two has sold 2 million copies in less than three months. ...

Players will be able to customize the equipment of their party members in the full release of the game.

The post Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin Will Feature More Party Members appeared first on Siliconera.

You can tell summer is coming: sun's out, guns out, and taps aff, and a car drove past my flat blasting Len's 1999 monster summer jam Steal My Sunshine at full volume. That reminded me EA made a Simlish version of Steal My Sunshine for The Sims 4's Seasons expansion, and now I've fallen down a terrible hole of breaking my brain with incomprehensible versions of familiar summer jams. Please help. The Simlish translation of "Girl I think my butt gettin' big" in Nelly's Hot In Herre is killing me.

Read more

In this new interview with Creative Director Tetsuya Nomura, he also mentioned that Jack's name is important.. And potentially a spoiler.

The post Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin is Not a Continuation of Final Fantasy I appeared first on Siliconera.

Remember Tamagotchi? Those virtual pets that sparked a craze in the 1990s are back. But this time, they’re wearable smart devices.

Read more...

When Jeff Goldblum delivered the news that we'd be getting a sequel to Frontier's 2018 park builder Jurassic World Evolution sometime in the next six months at the Summer Game Fest last week, I was immediately raised from my E3 slumber. While not perfect by any means, JWE is pretty much the best option out there right now for people who love dinosaur games that don't involve any combat. Sure, the trailer for Jurassic World Evolution 2 only revealed a very slim portfolio of facts about the game, but using my sordid credentials as a giant Jurassic Park nerd, and a sinker of many hours into Frontier's park games, I reckon I can offer some reasonable assumptions as to what you can expect.

Read more

Facebook will soon begin testing in-headset VR advertisements in a small number of video games. ...

The franchise crossover mobile game has received a more elaborate release window.

The post Code Geass Genesic Re CODE Will Launch in Japan This August appeared first on Siliconera.

The latest batch of screenshots focus on Leon, detailing his outfits and his new look in Resident Evil Infinite Darkness.

The post Resident Evil Infinite Darkness Images Showcase Leon S. Kennedy appeared first on Siliconera.

I've been comparing my body to Candy Crush a lot lately. It's been a funny old time. See, I haven't been very well for a while. No, it's not that ailment although I wouldn't recommend being fairly seriously ill with anything during a pandemic. It makes everything much harder. No, it turns out that I have a chronic medical condition called endometriosis - a condition almost as baffling as it is to spell and say.

Essentially, it's a condition that affects those who menstruate. At its simplest, it's where the tissue that normally grows inside of your uterus incorrectly grows outside of it and causes all kinds of havoc. Instead of your body shedding such tissue naturally each month, it all goes a bit wrong. Your body conserves it and it starts hanging around in areas that it really has no right to be. Kind of like a floating invader except - foolishly - your own body created it. It can go mostly anywhere - abdominal organs are popular but even your diaphragm is a possible victim. Some very rare cases have even found it within one's brain.

In my case, it was causing both of my ovaries to stick together with two different parts of my colon, and my uterus. Oh, and my appendix came along for the ride too. Over three hours worth of surgery taught me this while a very skilled surgeon conducted a good job of removing the majority of the tissue. If you don't remove all the tissue, it runs the risk of growing back rapidly. It can and almost certainly will grow back anyhow as this is a chronic complaint, but a good surgeon and a regular supply of contraceptive medication helps significantly in slowing it down.

Read more

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 may still be some way off - it's now "aiming" for a 2022 launch - but Nintendo has given fans plenty to pick over in its E3 Direct trailer.

Now the dust has settled, some excellent fan theories have emerged about what's going on - especially regarding Link's seemingly-corrupted arm.

In a thread on Twitter about Link's appendage, freelance writer and Eurogamer contributor Jordan Oloman highlighted how Link appears to lose his arm at the beginning of the trailer, before it appears to be restored with Sheikah technology.

Read more