The Witcher 3 stands as one of the most revolutionary RPG experiences of the last-generation of console gaming. The third title in CD Projekt Red’s acclaimed trilogy is slated to get substantial visual and technical improvements for next-gen consoles. However, according to Kotaku, some of these aforementioned enhancements might be coming from fan-made mods that focus on HD textures and models.

Earlier this month, one modder named HalkHogan, provided an update in the posts section of their extremely popular The Witcher 3 HD Reworked Project modpage, saying “I know I announced a new HDRP preview in early March but I was silent the whole time. Sorry for that. But in return, I have some good news, and the reasons why I was quiet and why I don't have too much to show. I think the most important news is that I got an official message from CDPR about cooperation.” HalkHogan went on to say,  “While it's not certain yet, it's very likely that HDRP will be included in the official next generation update.”

We've already gotten a frighteningly good look at the wild peacock suit coming to Hitman 3 today in its new Season Of Pride. Io Interactive have now laid out their full roadmap for the season in a new trailer, including all the free pride-themed contracts coming throughout the month. Along with all the official Hitmaning, contracts made by your fellow agents are arriving in June as well.

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The next Fire Emblem Heroes Resplendent Hero will be Nino: Pious Mage. She looks like she raided Veronica's closet for her new outfit.

The post Fire Emblem Heroes Resplendent Nino Is Doing Her Best for Embla appeared first on Siliconera.

The Epic versus Apple trial kicked off its second week today, finishing up cross examination with Epic head of marketing Matthew Weissinger. In continued discussion of Epic’s unspeakable inappropriateness, Apple’s lawyer had some questions about Fortnite’s cursed banana, Peely.

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If you're new to Game Developers Conference, no worries! Get caught up on the history of the event before this year's all-digital show. ...

A couple of weeks before the Epic vs Apple trial kicked off, Epic added the Itch.io app to the Epic Games Store. It seemed like a move to show how inclusive and happy Epic were to host another storefront on their store, but now Apple have used this as ammunition against them. Last Friday, during the fifth day of the trial, Apple made it sound like the excellent indie-focused store is an evil demon app that sells games "so offensive" they couldn't possibly speak about them in court.

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Hitman’s second deadly sin has arrived

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Four content drops still coming in Gears 5’s Operation 7 and 8.

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Do you prepare Nino Nakano with long hair or short hair?

The post The Quintessential Quintuplets Nino Nendoroid Has 2 Hairstyles appeared first on Siliconera.

Twelve Minutes - which you may remember as one of those games that came to your attention the best part of a decade ago, and whenever you see it pop up again with a new trailer you're like "Oh yeah, that time-loop puzzle game, with the husband and wife and policeman!" - is still not finished. At this point, though, Twelve Minutes is the closest to not not being finished it's ever been. Director Luis Antonio tells me it's going to be out "really soon", and that they're just at QA and bug fixing right now.

I got to play a small bit of it recently, and it's as intriguing as ever. It's a story of violence and domestic intimacy shouldered by just three characters: you, controlling a husband (voiced by James McAvoy), must protect your wife (Daisy Ridley) and home from a violent intruder claiming to be a cop (Willem Dafoe), who bursts into your flat and accuses your wife of murder. Most intriguing is that you're actually able to figure out how to overcome Detective Dafoe pretty quickly, Antonio tells me. "The game becomes more than stopping this guy, and more about understanding each character," he explains.

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From Terry Cavanagh, the man behind Super Hexagon, Dicey Dungeons, and VVVVVV, comes a Roblox level about climbing a giant guy that you can play for free right now.

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You’ll need a lot of time to figure out what makes this thriller tick

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We need to make a pact. Let’s you and I never, everrrr download and play this Noita mod called Flesh Biome. We can’t be encouraging this sort of thing. Noita’s depths are already terrible as it is without adding the meat tunnels and digestive system gases that’ll consume your wands and dreams. Wizards shouldn't have to run their robes through a 'viscera' cycle.

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"Where is Bloodborne 2" is among the most common gamer inquiries in the gaming community, and while we don't have anything official at this time, we do have a really extensive (and cool) fan-made concept that shows off what could be. 

Called Bloodborne 2: Blood Hunt, Resetera user 'Garden of Eyes' took to the forums to show off their concept Bloodborne 2 gameplay trailer. This is a fully-realized concept design with its own gameplay seen in the trailer below. Check it out, but spoiler? It's awesome: 

The concept includes new bosses and new NPCs, but also an idea for a new Boss Arena as well. "After the events of the first game," says the creator, "the nameless hunter has defeated the source of the Dream, the nameless Moon Presence, and has transcended into a higher plane; ushering a new Childhood's Beginning, and earning the name: Apotheos." If you thought the hunt was going to end once and for all, think again...

The original post, seen here, shows off different new bosses, including the following: 

SNK showed off the idle animations for Chris, Shermie, and Yashiro, all three returning members of Team Orochi.

The post See Shermie, Yashiro, and Chris’ KOF XV Idle Animations appeared first on Siliconera.

Welcome to the 10th episode of Digital Foundry Direct Weekly! It's our chance to disengage from our ongoing projects, sit down together (virtually, of course) and to discuss the biggest news items of the week. As you might imagine, the unseemly Epic vs Apple legal bunfight dominates proceedings - principally owing to some of the more astonishing documents to have been published and/or inadvertently leaked. We also discuss Resident Evil Village and offer up some first thoughts on the PC version (with a full analysis due later in the week). And as for Housemarque's brilliant Returnal, what's going on with its post-launch rollout and what's with all the patches?

The team also spend some time talking about the recent 74 game drop of FPS Boost updates for Xbox Series consoles - and again, we'll be returning to this with more detailed coverage later in the week. Suffice to say that it's great to see so many games getting huge performance uplifts, but is FPS Boost all it can be on Xbox Series X, where so few titles are fully tapping into the Xbox One X feature sets and sometimes run at Xbox One S resolution targets? Other topics up for debate include Genshin Impact - which launched on PlayStation 5 in a sub-optimal state then saw a dramatic frame-rate upgrade literally within days of launch.

Eurogamer and Western Digital are teaming up to give away some of the latest WD_Black drives for PC and consoles.

We'll be giving away one brand-new WD_Black Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Special Edition SN850 1TB NVMe SSD, perfect for use in computers with the latest motherboards. We'll also give away one WD_Black Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Special Edition P50 Game Drive, a portable 1TB NVMe SSD that works with the latest consoles* and more.

Both drives come with a unique look and a voucher for 2,400 Call of Duty points¹, which are redeemable for in-game items. Each drive is amongst the fastest in its class too, with the SN850 topping out at a blistering 7000MB/s² for sequential reads and the P50 managing up to 2000MB/s - impressive for an external drive that you can take on the go.

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After an extended period of silence, more PS5 stock is set to be available this week in the UK - and these are the retailers you'll want to keep an eye on.

Amazon, Game, Argos, Very and John Lewis are the five main stores that are poised to release more PS5 consoles into the wild over the next few days. The expectation is they will mostly be the standard PS5 but there will also be a smaller percentage of PS5 Digital Edition consoles, too.

The real-life Dragon Quest attraction will be available in an amusement park located on Japan's Awaji island.

The post Dragon Quest Island Attraction Grand Opening Set for This Week appeared first on Siliconera.

The PlayStation 5 has broken the world record for US console sales since its release, but that doesn't mean everyone who has been interested has gotten one. With low stock and scalpers always at the ready, the journey into next-gen has been a rough one for many. Unfortunately, that doesn't look like it's going to change, because Sony warns that the PS5 stock issues could very well extend into next year.

Sony Group Corp. recently gave a heads up to an analyst group that the PlayStation 5 shortage is expected to be a reality leading into 2022. The company also mentioned that this supply issue has provided a stress point for sales targets, despite the recent numbers boasting impressive feats for the gaming brand. 

“I don’t think demand is calming down this year and even if we secure a lot more devices and produce many more units of the PlayStation 5 next year, our supply wouldn’t be able to catch up with demand,” Chief Financial Officer Hiroki Totoki said in a statement received by Bloomberg. 

Capcom said its video game business "drove results" after reporting record profits for the fourth consecutive year.  ...

Sony tells analysts it can’t meet PS5 demand this year or next

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Carnage Explained: The Basics

Back in black!

The post My Hero Academia: World Heroes’ Mission Film Stealth Costumes Go Tactical appeared first on Siliconera.

Dontnod Entertainment might be well-known for its work on the Life is Strange series, but it won't be helming the next entry in the series. From the sounds of it, the studio is looking to other options as it moves forward.

In an interview with IGN, Dontnod CEO Oskar Guilbert discussed the road ahead for the studio, which has also produced games like Vampyr and Tell Me Why. The Life is Strange intellectual property is not owned by Dontnod, but by Square Enix, and while that doesn't prevent Dontnod's return, it sounds like the focus for the studio is on what it owns.

"Never say never," Guilbert told IGN. "But for the moment it's not our strategy, yeah. We want to create our own IP. That's what we want to do."

The next entry in the series, Life is Strange: True Colors, is being developed by Deck Nine, who also developed the prequel series Life is Strange: Before the Storm. Dontnod, meanwhile, has been working on other narrative games, including Tell Me Why and Twin Mirror.

In The Room: Old Sins, players navigate a mysterious, puzzle-filled dollhouse, hoping to solve the mystery of a prominent engineer gone mad. Players find pieces of the dollhouse as they play, adding them to the build to unlock new areas. Sounds like the perfect project for the Lego Ideas program.

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Chris is just a little sleepy baby in ‘Mini Me’ mod

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VVVVVV creator Terry Cavanagh released a free new game that he built in Roblox. Climb The Giant Man Obby is a platformer, and though the title tells you that you’re climbing a giant man, it doesn’t tell you that there are puzzley bits, jumpy bits, and more. It’s a fun way to accidentally play a game instead of eating your lunch, because I just did that. Now I must eat.

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As you may or may not be aware, I spent all of last week in a small house in a converted seedbarn. There were a non-zero number of rooms with black mold. There were also no activities to engage in, and I couldn't carry my PC tower down there, so I just had my MacBook. My games that week mostly consisted of watching the overfed young blackbird I named The Idiot Child (who fledged but didn't want to leave and kept trying to get back into his nest; I assume he thought if he managed it his parents would just shrug and keep bringing him food forever).

Luckily, my laptop can also run Glass Masquerade 2: Illusions. This is a jigsaw game inspired by stained glass windows, and I love it because those stained glass windows are from the most ridiculous church ever dreamed of. I played a billion hours of it last week.

I will preface this by saying that Glass Masquerade 2 is a genuinely good puzzle game. There are different difficulty levels, so you can have the game automatically show you where to place some edgy bits if you need help getting started. At the same time, the shapes you end up placing are very unlike standard jigsaw puzzle pieces, so it's a fun little challenge no matter what difficulty you choose.

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As a result of the PS5 chip shortage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, people could still have trouble getting a system well into 2022.

The post PS5 Component Shortage Will Make It Scarce in 2022 too appeared first on Siliconera.

Capcom's latest jaunt into the world of survival horror, Resident Evil Village, has had a successful start, debuting at number one in the UK Charts. The creepy sequel saw the second-biggest physical launch of 2021 so far, behind Nintendo's Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury. In regards to UK physical sales, Village saw both the third biggest launch on the PS5 platform, and the second-largest launch on Xbox Series X/S.

As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, Resident Evil Village did not hit the same UK launch numbers of Capcom's 2019 remake Resident Evil 2, nor did it hit the same launch numbers of 2017's Resident Evil VII. It should be noted that with each passing year, sales lean further toward digital sales, so Village's true impact is yet to be ascertained. Assuredly, however, it has definitely been a hit.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that video games would be joining the Festival as Official Selections for the very first time. ...

A movie director has accused Capcom of copying one of his monsters for a Resident Evil Village boss fight.

Dutch director Richard Raaphorst said the Sturm boss found in the recently-released Resident Evil Village is a "one-to-one" copy of a monster he created for his 2013 found footage horror film Frankenstein's Army.

Capcom failed to comment by press time.

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The separate figures can also be aligned to create a connected scene.

The post Demon Slayer Tanjiro and Nezuko Will Get More Figuarts Zero Figures appeared first on Siliconera.

If you've thought of yourself as SOLDIER material, the chance to virtually prove your mettle is coming. Registration is open right now for Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier's closed beta.

Square Enix has sign-ups open through May 27 at 8 a.m. PDT, after which a play period of June 1 through 7 will follow for those selected. You can pre-register on the Google Play Store, and you'll be notified if you make the cut—though Square Enix mentions that registering does not guarantee a closed beta invite. It's also only open for Android users; sorry, Apple fans.

If you need a refresher, Final Fantasy VII The First Soldier is a battle royale set in the universe of Final Fantasy VII, where SOLDIER candidates compete to be the last one standing across Midgar. While there are certainly guns, there's also plenty of more Final Fantasy options, like summoning Ifrit for help or using materia to get the upper hand.