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If you’re looking for the fastest and easiest way to get free spins in Coin Master you’ve come to the right place. This guide contains daily links where you can get free coins and spins in Coin Master. Use these spins to get coins fast and build your villages quickly and easily without spending any money at all. Free Spin Links for Coin Master So what do you need to do to get the Free Coins and Spins? Simply head to the buttons below while you’ve got the Coin Master game open on your phone and it will instantly be transferred to your game. Each code that we post has been tested for safety and is taken directly from the developers of Coin Master who dispense these codes on various social media channels. New Coin Master Links Each day we’ll post new codes, but don’t be afraid to try previous days codes as from time to time they do still work later. If you run out of free code links and still need some more ideas to get spins and coins, you can check out our checklist at the bottom of this article that reveals some alternative ways to getting free spins and coins in Coin Master. Below you’ll find each day’s group of Coin Master Free Spin and Coin links below the date. The more recent the links, the more likely they are to work. If you receive a different amount of spins and coins by clicking on these links, that may be connected to your level so keep on playing to increase the gains. Feel free to let us know on social media if you find that a link is no longer working and good luck in your village building quest. 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Get the latest Blade Ball codes and redeem them for free rewards fast!

Updated: October 28, 2024 Checked for codes. Whenever I get nostalgic about PE classes, Blade Ball makes me feel that familiar adrenaline rush that used to accompany every dodgeball match. Well, back in the day, we didn’t have cool features such as customizable swords and explosions in our regular boring dodgeball games—features that make this Roblox experience incredibly addictive and fun. Just like in the real deal, mastering gameplay in Blade Ball is somewhat challenging at first, particularly when your opponents have powerful skills such as Wind Cloak and Freeze and you don’t. The game offers a ton of features to unlock but never enough coins. Thankfully, with some help from Blade Ball codes, you will get your hands on some of that sweet currency and other exclusive Skins and Swords. And if you don’t want the fun to end just yet, check out our Roblox Fireworks Playground Codes for more free rewards in that game as well. All Blade Ball Codes List Blade Ball Codes (Working) SPOOKYSEASON—Redeem for a free Spin (New) DELAYBALL—Redeem for a free Sword (New) 4BVISITS—Redeem for a free Sword (New) SHARKATTACK—Redeem for a free Spin SUMMERWHEEL—Redeem for a free Spin BPTEAMS—Redeem for a free Spin SUMMERSTARTSHERE—Redeem for a free Spin REBIRTHLTM—Redeem for x1 Rebirth Ticket DRAGONS—Redeem for x1 Dragon Ticket ENERGYSWORDS—Redeem for a free Spin ROBLOXCLASSIC—Redeem for x1 Hacker Ticket GIVEMELUCK—Redeem for x4 Luck Boost GOODVSEVILMODE—Redeem for the Free Good vs Evil Crate DUNGEONSRELEASE—Redeem for 50 Dungeon Runes FROGS—Redeem for a Spin GOODVSEVIL—Redeem for a free Spin BATTLEROYALE—Redeem for a Storm Ticket RNGEMOTES—Redeem for a Spin FREESPINS—Redeem for a free Spin Blade Ball Codes (Expired) EASTERHYPE ZEROGRAVITY GALAXYSEASON FALLINGLTM TOURNAMENTSW LAVAFLOOR LUNARNEWYEAR ELEMENTSPIN FREEHOURLY SENTINELSREVENGE HAPPYNEWYEAR MERRYXMAS WINTERSPIN LIVEEVENTS VISITS_TY RRRANKEDDD WEEK4 SORRY4DELAY UPDATETHREE 1MLIKES HOTDOG10K 10KFOLLOWERZ 500K 200KLIKES FORTUNE 50000LIKES ThxForSupport 1000LIKES 5000LIKES 10000LIKES SITDOWN Related: Roblox Pixel Piece Codes How to redeem codes in Blade Ball To redeem codes in Blade Ball, follow the instructions below: Image: Attack of the Fanboy Launch Blade Ball on Roblox. Click on the Extra icon in the top left corner of the screen. Choose Codes when the drop-down menu appears. Enter your code into the Redeem Code text box. Press the checkmark icon to claim your rewards. How can you get more Blade Ball codes? If you want to look for codes on your own and get new updates directly from the developer, join the Blade Ball Discord Server. Devs occasionally release codes on their X account (@Blade_Ball), so feel free to give them a follow. The official YouTube channel (@Blade-Ball) exists, but the developers are not very active on there at the moment. However, the easiest way to catch the latest codes is to bookmark this page and visit it occasionally. We are constantly looking for and collecting new codes in one place, so you don’t have to waste your time and energy. Why are my Blade Ball codes not working? If you tried redeeming codes manually, you probably met Roblox players’ number one enemy—typos. Always double-check the spelling of your codes and be careful with the details, such as capitalization. Copying and pasting codes directly into the game is an excellent way to avoid this problem. It’s also possible that the code you’re trying to redeem has expired. Developers often don’t specify expiration dates for every code, so an expired one can overstay its welcome on our Working list. If you find a code that no longer works, let us know in the comments, and we’ll investigate the issue. Other ways to get free rewards in Blade Ball The more rounds you play, the more freebies you’ll get. If you click the Quests button on the left side of the screen, you’ll open a menu with three Daily Quests. That way, you can claim some extra Coins simply by progressing through the game. Tasks are usually pretty straightforward, such as completing a certain amount of matches. You can get even more Coins and Wheel Spins by playing the game for a particular amount of time. Press the Extra button in the top left corner of the screen, then click on Playtime Awards in the drop-down menu to claim your rewards. What is Blade Ball? Blade Ball is Roblox’s unique twist on dodgeball, where players can dive into competitive multiplayer matches using special abilities. The goal is simple: hit and block the ball and be the last player eliminated from the Arena. Focus and timing are the key if you want to rise through the ranks. Unlock new abilities and find the ones that most suit your game style. In need of more Roblox codes? Check out our Roblox Codes section for more free goodies in the most popular experiences across all genres!

Updated: October 28, 2024 We looked for more codes! Gamers hoping to find themselves engaged in high-octane combat with some JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure flare should look into the Roblox experience Sakura Stands as quickly as possible. Alongside plenty of combat to partake in against NPC’s and other players, gamers also have the chance to get plenty of experience to level themselves up. Are there any codes for Sakura Stands that will give players a bit of a boost, or will they find themselves at the mercy of Killer Queen? Let’s get ready to live out our lives in this new world, and prepare ourselves for the ultimate form of combat. All Sakura Stand Codes Players will find all of the currently available codes for Sakura Stand below, alongside some questions asked by players of this experience. All Sakura Stand Codes (Working) LobsterActivity – 2,000 Tokens (New) ChxmeiSavedTheDay – 1,000 Tokens SakuraStandSocialExperiment – A random reward between 1-1,000 Tokens (New Servers Only) FreeSFCValuePack – 1,000 Tokens AMMDEVSFROMHEAVENSTANDOMG – 750 Tokens DigitalCash – $10,000 SakuraFinallyAddedStand – Free rewards (Requires Mastery 3) EarlyD4C – Add 50% to Red mist gate (Requires Mastery 3) SFCSpecialCoupon – 500 Token (Requires Mastery 3) RolandAndFriends – 500 Token KuzmaToldMeToAddThisCode – 199 Tokens On ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. – Add 50% to Red mist gate (Requires Mastery 3) dolor ipse est amandus – Add 50% to Red mist gate (Requires Mastery 3) Accipere dolorem est amare – Add 50% to Red mist gate (Requires Mastery 3) GiftFromSFC – 500 Tokens SFCOpen4Business – 1.5k Tokens (Requires Mastery 3) Kafk-ISTHATTHEREDMIST – 1k Tokens (Requires Mastery 1) Kaiju-8 – 500 Tokens batheski – 1500 Tokens and Secret Ska shirt ArrivalOfTheSkaFilmShirt1 – 300 Tokens FreeAdjucha – Spawn 1 adjucha (5 adjuchas limit per server) (Requires Mastery 3) fidgetspinner.io – Free rewards SuddenShutdown – 500 Tokens 2monthsdelay – Free rewards (Requires Mastery 10) theSTARRK – Free rewards AnArbiterAwakens – Free rewards fixedcutscenewowowowowowowoowowowowow – 300 Tokens shutdownmb – 300 Tokens tenthousand – Boosts (Requires Mastery 5) 115KLikess – x2 EXP, 1 Stand Arrow, and 15k Cash 110KLikes – x2 EXP and 1 Token CLASSICAUDDY – random 500 – 1,500 Tokens ThisFateWasFatedForTheFatedFate – the Will of Fate title 105KLikes – 2,000 Tokens justice – Boosts (For new servers only) 100KLikes – 1,001 Token (For new servers only) BugsFix2 – Boosts BugsFix – Boosts SorryforShutdown – 250 Tokens and 75 Snowflakes TYForFollowing – Free Boosts HolidayEvent – Free Boosts FOURTHSHUTDOWN – 1000 Tokens AuddyCOOKED – 895 Tokens HeIsGONE – 1 Token WHISPERTEAM – 1000 Tokens sorryguys – 900 Tokens All Sakura Stand Codes (Expired) CodeBugFix – x2 EXP SukunaFingerIncident – x2 EXP How To Redeem Codes In Sakura Stands Players hoping to redeem a few codes in Sakura Stands may be confused about how to actually redeem the codes that are available to them, and it is easy to understand why. The Code Redemption Menu is hidden away, but follow these steps and you’ll be ready to redeem in no time. Access the Menu in the bottom, left corner of the screen Click on Settings in the new menu that has appeared on the screen Scroll to the bottom of Settings to find the “Enter Code Prompt” Enter the code and press Enter Why Aren’t My Sakura Stands Codes Working Players will want to ensure that they’ve typed the codes in exactly as they were typed on this page, and make sure to follow the capitalization. If a code is expired, this experience will let you know that it is no longer valid, but if it says the code isn’t working, there could be a small typo preventing you from claiming your bonuses. Where To Get More Sakura Stands Codes The developer of this experience is not very active on Social Media, so joining the Sakura Stand Discord Community is likely to be the easiest way to claim some new codes as soon as they go live for this particular game. Also, make sure that you have bookmarked this page, as we will be checking for new codes quite often. What Exactly Is Sakura Stands? Sakura Stands is an action game, based loosely on the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure franchise. Players will be able to power themselves up, as well as earn plenty of unique and powerful allies from not only this franchise, but others such as Jujutsu Kaisen and more. Players can also partake in PVP battles, either in a group or via 1 on 1 battle that can be prompted at any time. Those searching for a new action title that have tired from other experiences, such as Blox Fruits may fall in love with this title. It offers quite a competitive nature, and plenty of things to do, such as side quests and a story to follow alongside. Roblox is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Mobile Devices, and PC.

Check out the Dig Deeper fitness program from BODi today! (free trial offered) We’ve all wished at some point that everything in life was as formulaic as a video game. You develop your skills and strategy, hit certain checkpoints and like clockwork, and you advance to the next level. Unfortunately, as we all know, real life is a little more complicated than that—with plenty of unexpected obstacles that can derail our progress. One area where this is especially true is transforming our bodies. You can hit the gym everyday and consume protein shakes like there’s no tomorrow and still fall short of your goals thanks to the many biological and lifestyle factors at play. The good news is, whether you’re just getting started on your fitness journey or have been on the grind for a while, there is a cheat code for achieving a Kratos-worthy physique—so long as you’re willing to show up and do the work. Enter Dig Deeper, a new online body composition program by BODi. In 12 weeks, the regime promises to help you sculpt a jaw-dropping physique while also making you feel mentally unstoppable every day. Led by (supremely jacked) super trainer Shaun T, the weightlifting program uses proven techniques for reliable results. Take your training to the next level. v Image via BODi Having shed over 50 pounds himself, Shaun T has helped millions of people all over the world get into their best shape. Now, he’s teamed up with BODi by Beachbody to launch this low-impact yet highly effective program that blends heavy weights with zone two cardio. Much like the levels of your favorite RPG, Dig Deeper has three progressive phases you’ll work through in order to build lean muscle while reducing body fat. Collection one is “dynamic circuits,” where you’ll complete fast-paced circuits with moderate weights and higher reps to increase your endurance. Collection two is “sculpt and define,” and calls for you to slow it right down with lower reps, supersets and time under tensions, to enhance muscle definition. Collection three is “the build,” with a focus on controlled heavy lifting with drop sets and pyramids to optimize your gains. There’s also a fourth, bonus collection, “no excuses,” with optimal workouts under 25 minutes that are perfect for when you want to sneak in a quick session during a streaming marathon. Available to stream on the BODi app on your phone, tablet or computer, you can do the fast and effective workouts anytime and anywhere. There’s absolutely no zone five cardio or jumping, and the only equipment needed is heavy weights and a bench. And because nutrition is equally as important as training you’ll also get dietary guidance tailored to your needs with Dig Deeper’s quick-start guides — with zero need to cut out entire food groups. You can try it for free for 14 days by signing up to a six month BODi subscription. Or, you can get lifetime access for just $59.95 as a standalone product. Ready to dig deeper and see what you’re capable of? Hit start on your body reset by signing up to the program here.

Added a new code! Are you wondering what all Pokémon Scarlet and Violet mystery gift codes are so you can unlock free content? Mystery Gifts are an easy way to unlock content for your game and are usually free. Mystery Gifts can include a wide variety of content, like a Pikachu with a special move and Tera Type or an Adventure set with many valuable items. Here are all the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet mystery gift codes you can use to unlock free content. All Pokémon Scarlet and Violet Mystery Gift Codes Here are all current Pokémon Scarlet and Violet mystery gift codes available: Mystery Gift Code Gift Expiration Date TEAMSTAR Paldean Winds Episode 3 of a Revavroom October 31st, 2024 L1KEAFLUTE Cetitan with the Ferocious Mark August 31st, 2024 SLEEPTALKW0RLDS Tomoya Ogawa’s 2023 World Winning Sylveon N/A 909TEAMUP06 Fuecoco January 31, 2025 NA1CTR1CKR00M Nils Dunlop’s Porygon2 N/A F1ARR0W23MASTER Violet Talonflame June 2, 2024 D0T1STPARTNER Dot’s Quaxly November 30, 2024 GYARAD0S2023SG Gyarados June 30, 2024 987W1THSPECS Flutter Mane May 7, 2024 Code is sent to the email of guidebook purchasers 100 x Potions None Code is sent to the email of guidebook purchasers 100 x Rare Candy S None Automatically given to Double Pack purchasers 200 x Poké Balls None Get via Internet, available to all players Adventure Set Code is sent to the email of eShop purchasers Special Pikachu We will update the above table as new Mystery Gift codes become available. How do I Redeem Mystery Gift Codes in Pokémon Violet and Scarlet? The first thing you need to do is unlock the ability to access the Mystery Gift Codes menu, which you can accomplish by reaching a Pokémon center. This will take you about 90-minutes of playtime. Once you have reached the first Pokémon center, you will gain access to the Poké Portal on the menu screen. From here, you have several options to redeem content. Here are the various options you have available to you: Get via Internet Get with Code/Password Check Mystery Gifts Check Poké Portal News Get via Internet The Get via Internet option will search for available gifts you can download. You can only download one gift at a time. This option is available for all players and is what you want to use to get the Adventure Set gift. Get with Code/Password The Get with Code/Password option allows you to enter a mystery gift code. Once the code has been entered and verified, the gift will download to your game. For example, you want this option to get a Special Pikachu gift using the Mystery Gift code you received via email. Check Mystery Gifts The Check Mystery Gifts option will display a list of all Mystery Gifts you have obtained using either of the above methods. Check Poké Portal News The Check Poké Portal News option will provide you with up-to-date news from Nintendo on anything Mystery Gift related, so check back often! Pokémon Scarlet and Violet are available now on Nintendo Switch.

James Gunn, co-CEO of DC Studios, has given a lot of praise for David Corenswet, who will play Superman in the upcoming DC Universe reboot. Gunn has stated that Corenswet will “blow people away” due to his acting range and physicality. The director has praised Corenswet’s ability to excel in both comedic and dramatic roles, describing him as “the best physical action star I’ve probably ever worked with.” Gunn has worked with tons of action heroes, so it’s pretty amazing to hear something like that from him. David Corenswet is going to blow people the f*** away. He is the movie star that everyone dreams he could possibly be and I don’t think anyone really understands the depth of this guy’s talent – dramatically, comedically, he’s the best physical action star I’ve probably ever worked with except for Frank [Grillo]. James Gunn More Superheroes: Jenna Ortega May Return To MCU In Bigger Role Gunn has also expressed excitement about Rachel Brosnahan, who will star as Lois Lane. He describes her as “extraordinary” and noted that she delivered “the best audition tape of anyone who read.” Gunn has also commented on the “magic” that occurred during Corenswet and Brosnahan’s first screen test, saying they were “two of the most extraordinary, vibrant, and meticulous actors” he has worked with. Warner Bros. One year ago today David and Rachel screen-tested for Clark and Lois. When they first read together it was like magic. What a wonderful year it’s been with two of the most extraordinary, vibrant, and meticulous actors I’ve ever had the opportunity to work with. I can’t wait for you to see them on screen in just a little over a year. James Gunn The casting of Corenswet and Brosnahan has gotten a lot of excitement among fans, particularly after Henry Cavill’s departure as Superman. This looks like he will be a worthy replacement for Henry Cavill. Source: The Direct

Tom Hardy has addressed the rumors surrounding his potential return as Eddie Brock in the upcoming Spider-Man 4. There have been plenty of rumors about him leaving Venom to go to Spider-Man, but we finally have confirmation. While promoting the upcoming Venom: The Last Dance at Comicon, Hardy made it clear that he will not be appearing in the film at this point. However, the way he said it makes us think this is less of a personal choice. He sounds like if he was given an opportunity, he would not be against it. More Spider-Man: Tom Holland’s Spider-Man 4 Idea Was Rejected Because of Captain America 4 I don’t see him in the next Spider-Man movie because I’d have the script and I don’t have that. Well, it’s been seven years this day… I’ve absolutely loved playing Eddie and Venom. It’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life so it’ll be sad to see him go… I would like to fight Spider-Man. I would like to fight him right now. In a movie, 100%. I would never say never. Tom Hardy Sony However, his comments regarding Spider-Man 4 are noteworthy, especially because of the growing anticipation for a potential crossover between the two characters. Many fans have speculated that Hardy’s Eddie Brock could join forces with Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in a battle against Knull, the God of Symbiotes. This villain was introduced in Venom: The Last Dance and is expected to play a significant role in future installments. More Spider-Man: Tom Holland Isn’t Sure About His Future As Spider-Man Venom: The Last Dance writer and director Kelly Marcel, however, continues to suggest that the film merely marks the beginning of Knull’s story. She hinted that the film’s ending might set the stage for more exploration of the Symbiote universe. This could potentially open up new avenues for Eddie Brock’s involvement, even if he is not present in Spider-Man 4. It remains uncertain whether Hardy will ultimately return as Eddie Brock in any future Venom or Spider-Man films. However, now that it’s clear he wants to return, Sony only needs to get him signed. Source: CBM

Jenna Ortega, known for her roles in shows such as Wednesday and Scream, is rumored to be in talks to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). This rumor, shared by industry scooper on X (formerly Twitter), has sparked speculation about Ortega’s possible return to the MCU after her previous appearance in Iron Man 3. This possibility makes a whole lot of sense, even though Marvel Studios or her representatives have not confirmed Ortega’s potential new MCU role. The thing is that Ortega is currently doing very well in movies, and her career is at an all-time high. She also has a foot in the door from already being a character in the MCU. She was the Vice President’s Daughter in Iron Man 3. Even still, it is important to note that Marvel Studios frequently meets with various talents for different roles. This may be entirely true, but that doesn’t mean that Marvel will go through with it. They could just be scoping Ortega out and getting a feel for where she could fit, how much she’d cost, and how it’d affect the MCU. Ortega would be likely to meet with Marvel because being in a Superhero movie is something many actors likely want on their resume now. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures More Marvel: Tom Holland Isn’t Sure About His Future As Spider-Man Previously, rumors suggested that Ortega was considered for the role of White Tiger in Daredevil: Born Again, but this casting did not come to fruition. Ortega has a busy schedule ahead, and Wednesday doesn’t seem to be going under anytime soon, so any projects need to keep that schedule in mind. So, even with some confirmation, there’s that big hurdle for any studio. If the rumored talks progress further, Ortega’s potential involvement in the MCU would significantly add to her already impressive filmography. If anything, this would set her as an A-Lister. However, once again, there’s no confirmation either way. Source: MyTimeToShineHello

Marvel Studios has finally confirmed that Daredevil: Born Again will be the next R-rated type of project. The news of it has been back and forth, but with an official release date came a rating that is equivalent to R. The series set to debut on Disney+ on March 4, 2025, will be rated TV-MA. This marks the third MCU Disney+ series to receive an R-rating, following Echo and Marvel Zombies. The series will continue the story from Netflix’s original Daredevil series, reuniting Matt Murdock with both his allies and enemies, including Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin. It seems as brutal as most people would expect but with the same characters as before. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures The announcement of Daredevil: Born Again receiving an R-rating is a significant development for Marvel Studios. It shows that Disney is not afraid to push further into the R-rated areas since Echo and Deadpool & Wolverine came out. Both of those achieved critical acclaim and box office records, so it opens the door to even more movies and shows that should be for more mature audiences. More Marvel: Tom Holland’s Spider-Man 4 Idea Was Rejected Because of Captain America 4 The R-rating of Daredevil: Born Again suggests that Marvel Studios is willing to explore the Daredevil character’s darker and more mature aspects, which will give a lot more depth and complexity to his story. It also raises the possibility that future MCU projects may adopt a similar rating, further diversifying the studio’s output and catering to a wider audience. Daredevil: Born Again will see Kingpin, who rose to the position of New York City Mayor in Echo’s post-credits scene, face off against Daredevil once again. The series will also feature the return of Wilson Bethel’s Bullseye from Daredevil Season 3 and introduce a new antagonist, Muse. While the overarching plot for Season 1 remains unclear, Matt’s battles with Kingpin and these other adversaries will be central to his story. The series will mark Matt Murdock’s second appearance in the MCU since his adventures in the Defenders Saga were officially incorporated into the MCU canon. This means the future is bright for Daredevil. Source: Variety

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Tom Holland, best known for Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), has revealed that one of his ideas for a fourth Spider-Man film was rejected by Marvel Studios. Apparently, it was too similar to the plot of Captain America: Brave New World. Holland was speaking on the Rich Roll Podcast when he discussed his involvement in the MCU. He described how collaborative the process is, but also how some of his ideas have been rejected. He explained that the creative team at Marvel often has plans for the future of the franchise that might overlap with his own ideas, and he seemed to acknowledge that this was part of the process. I’ll come up with an idea, and they’ll say no you can’t do that because we’re doing that in the new Captain America movie. It’s really cool to just see how they’ve got this vision for the future. Tom Holland More from the interview: Tom Holland Isn’t Sure About His Future As Spider-Man Holland’s rejection was not a surprise to him. He seemed to understand that Marvel Studios has a specific vision for its franchise and is always planning ahead. Holland did not reveal the specifics of his rejected idea, but apparently, it’s good enough to be the direction of the MCU. He did say that he felt the script for Spider-Man 4 was worthy of the fans’ respect. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Zendaya and I sat down and read it together and we at times were bouncing around the living room like this is a real movie worthy of the fans’ respect. Tom Holland More casting news: Sebastian Stan Is Interested In Being The Riddler It is interesting to know, and hopefully, we’ll get some information on what that idea was after Captain America 4 comes out. It’s understandable that Holland wouldn’t tell us now, but hopefully, he will remember the story and we will see how it would work for Spider-Man instead of Captain America. Source: Rich Roll Podcast via SuperheroHype

Spider-Man actor Tom Holland, who is rumored to have a significant role in Avengers: Doomsday, has expressed a bit of confusion about the future of Spider-Man. Based on what he’s been saying, Holland’s future in the MCU is not set in stone. While Holland seems like he wants to continue playing Spider-Man, he has also said he wants to make sure any future appearances are for the right reasons. He is currently reflecting on his role in the MCU and the power that comes with it, noting that he has been in contact with Robert Downey Jr. regarding his return. Holland seems to be very thoughtful regarding the franchise. I think the biggest thing that I’m facing right now, which is without a shadow of a doubt the most first-world problem that anyone has ever experienced, is the power of choice, and it comes down to Spider-Man. When I signed my contract for ‘Spider-Man[: Homecoming]’, I signed a six-picture deal, I was 18 years old, I was more excited than I’d ever been about anything ever, and for the last 10 years I have been at the beck and call of Marvel [Studios] and Sony, and proudly so, it’s been the best experience of my life. Tom Holland More Marvel: Wiccan Actor Wants His Character To Lead The Avengers Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Holland’s future in the MCU is uncertain due to his desire to make sure future appearances are meaningful and his willingness to take control of his career. He has stated that he is now in a position where he can choose his projects and that he wants to make sure any future Spider-Man appearances are done for the right reasons. More Spider-Man: Venom 3 Directors End Knull Rumors I’m now at a juncture where I can say no, and now that I’ve been afforded that power, I’m struggling to figure out what is the right thing to do. It’s meant I’ve had to put my foot down in certain instances, which I haven’t been allowed to do in the past, and I think the learning curve that I’m on right now is dealing with that new sense of power, making sure that I don’t abuse it, but making sure that I do the best thing for me, rather than for the studio, and really the best thing for the character. I don’t want to make another movie for the sake of making it… It’s a wonderful place to be, but it is something that keeps me up at night… Tom Holland It really makes us wonder about whether we’ll continue seeing Holland’s Spider-Man. Source: Rich Roll Podcast via TheDirect

Sebastian Stan, known for his role as Bucky Barnes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, recently said he’d be interested in playing the Riddler in a future DC project. During an interview with Josh Horowitz, Stan shared that he auditioned for the role of Hal Jordan in 2011’s Green Lantern, ultimately losing out to Ryan Reynolds. Reflecting on the experience, Stan admitted that he was grateful for not getting the part, as he wasn’t sure he could have handled the level of attention that would have come with it. To be honest, we think Reynolds might have been glad to avoid Green Lantern, too. More DC: Joker: Folie a Duex Won’t Make Back Cost By Almost $200 Million Green Lantern was another one I screen-tested for. I remember getting there and it was, like, me, Justin Timberlake, Jared Leto, Ryan Reynolds, and maybe one other person. I’m looking at these guys going, ‘I’m f***ed. There’s no way this is happening for me.’ You come close and it wouldn’t happen, but in a way, looking back I’m almost glad it didn’t. Sebastian Stan Warner Bros. Pictures He acknowledged that the Riddler has already been portrayed on screen, with the most recent portrayal being by Paul Dano in The Batman. However, that doesn’t mean the real DCU’s Batman’s Ridler is taken. Remember that Robert Pattinson’s Batman is not part of James Gunn’s DCU. So Stan actually has a shot. More DC: James Gunn Has Idea For Wonder Woman Replacement I don’t know if Batman’s for me. Never say never, I don’t know. There are so many characters. I told you, I always had a soft spot for The Riddler but that one’s been done. Sebastian Stan While Stan’s interest in The Riddler is cool to hear, it’s important to note that there are no current plans for a project that would feature the character. The DC Universe is undergoing a significant transition under the leadership of Gunn and Peter Safran. If they do mention that the Ridler or even Batman is open, we’d guess that Stan will be one of the people going up for the role. Source: Josh Horowitz via CBM

James Gunn, the director of the upcoming Superman movie, has released a teaser image featuring the titular superhero alongside Krypto the Superdog. This image is the first official look at the character in the film, and for some, is the first time learning the character will be in the movie. The teaser shows Superman and Krypto sitting side-by-side on the moon, watching over Earth. Gunn revealed on Instagram that the character was inspired by his own dog, Ozu, who he adopted shortly after beginning work on the Superman script. Ozu, who came from a hoarding situation and had never encountered humans before, presented several challenges for Gunn. The dog’s unruly behavior, including destroying property and biting, led Gunn to imagine what life would be like if Ozu had superpowers. This thought seems to have ultimately shaped Krypto’s character and his inclusion in the movie’s story. View this post on Instagram A post shared by James Gunn (@jamesgunn) More DC: James Gunn Has Idea For Wonder Woman Replacement While the exact role of Krypto in the Superman movie is not known, but the dog is expected to play a significant part in the upcoming Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow film. Gunn stated that the character will make his on-screen debut in the Superman movie this summer. The teaser image is really nice to see, and will definitely make any fan excited. It offers a glimpse into the visual aesthetic and tone that Gunn is bringing to the Superman franchise. This is vastly different from Synder’s version, which some would say is far too dark for a boy scout hero like Superman. The film’s story will focus on Superman’s journey to reconcile his Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as Clark Kent. We expect it will do much better in setting up the DCU than the DCEU did in its universe. We hope to see more of Krypto soon, though, because it’s nice to see dogs with superpowers. Source: James Gunn on Instagram

Warner Bros. is facing a potential financial setback with the release of Joker: Folie à Deux. While the studio has not publicly acknowledged the movie’s financial performance, industry reports suggest that the sequel could cost the studio as much as $200 million due to its underwhelming box office performance. The movie, which had a reported production budget of $200 million, also incurred an estimated $100 million in marketing and distribution costs. This is not as normal as it seems because many movies tend to spend double the cost of making it to market. There may have been writing on the wall already. Warner Bros. To break even, the movie needs to gross $450 million globally. However, the film has only grossed $51.5 million domestically and $165 million worldwide. This is the most important time for a movie, and numbers this low show that it definitely isn’t going to reach anywhere close to $450 million. Experts predict that the film will likely only reach a lifetime gross of $210 to $215 million worldwide. More Joker: Joker 2 Director Getting Harassed After Sequel Flop Warner Bros. is likely going to rely on the home entertainment, scheduled for October 29, to help recoup some of their losses. That is actually where a lot of money used to come in for many movies. The theaters take so much of a percentage that the showings used to be more of a commercial for the DVDs. However, times have changed, and buying a physical version is no longer as popular as it once was. The potential profits from physical distribution will likely not be enough to offset the significant financial gap. The movie received mixed reviews, with some critics praising the performances and technical aspects of the film, while others criticized the film’s story and direction. Audiences also seemed to be divided on the movie, with some finding it to be a compelling and unique sequel, while others found it to be a disappointing and unnecessary follow-up to the original. This is a great example of a movie flop, and DC really doesn’t need that right now. Source: Variety

Joe Locke, who plays the character Teen in the Disney+ series Agatha All Along, has interesting ideas for his Wiccan character. In fact, his opinion would be that Wiccan plays a leading role in the new Avengers team. In an interview, Locke voiced his desire for Wiccan to play a prominent role in the MCU, even suggesting that he could eventually lead the Avengers. While the Young Avengers, a team that Wiccan is a member of in Marvel comics, it seems incredibly unlikely that Wiccan will have a leading role. The issue comes from the popularity of Agatha All Along, which, while it is watched, is not as popular as many other shows, and its watchtime couldn’t even beat Acolyte. That being said, a show being unpopular doesn’t mean that the characters are unpopular. Wiccan is likely coming to Avengers and has opportunities to really stand out there. More Marvel: Andrew Garfield Alludes To Spider-Man Return Talks In my ideal world, Billy would become the next head of the Avengers and be in every Marvel thing ever, but there are higher things at play… I had the most amazing experience filming on Agatha and being a part of the Marvel family and would love to do that until the day I die. But who knows? I don’t. I’m sure someone does. Joe Locke Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures We don’t see Agatha All Along popping up in viewership or becoming a must-see MCU show like WandaVision. While the idea of a character from that show playing a huge part in the MCU is a bit far-fetched, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Locke could continue to do great work and eventually his character could move up. It’s not crazy to see a character that was on the side become popular enough to lead, a lot like Loki. The only issue is that Spider-Man is a clear favorite to lead the Young Avengers. Source: Entertainment Weekly

Venom: The Last Dance will introduce the Marvel Comics villain Knull to the big screen. Many thought that Knull would be its main antagonist, but it seems like we were wrong. Director and co-writer Kelly Marcel came in to clarify things. Marcel said, “One movie could never do justice to Knull,” which shows that his story will extend beyond The Last Dance. This also tells us that this may be the way Spidey gets his symbiote suit in the MCU’s Spider-Man movies. It’d be silly to say this ruins the Venom movie or spoils anything because now we know that Knull surviving isn’t a big part of the movie. If anything, this gives us even more mystery because we want to know who exactly will be the antagonist. Sony The film is supposed to be the final part of Hardy’s Eddie Brock story in the franchise. Having Knull appear is a great way to get a version of Venom in the MCU’s Spider-Man. Marcel explained that they felt the need to establish the Venom character and his relationship with Eddie before introducing Knull. Although he’s not the main antagonist, his role is significant. More DC: Venom: The Last Dance Likely Has Multiple Post-Credit Scenes Marcel revealed that Knull’s role in The Last Dance will only be the beginning of his story. She explained that the film will explore the threat posed by Knull, but it will primarily focus on Eddie and Venom’s relationship. The film will see Eddie and Venom on the run, pursued by adversaries. It seems the real antagonists are the characters played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Juno Temple, who are part of a military-science complex, and are aware of the existence of symbiotes. While their characters have different agendas, they will be forced to cooperate with Eddie and Venom for the greater good, but we’ll find out more once the movie releases. Source: IGN Interview

James Gunn, co-CEO of DC Studios, has finally spoken up about replacing Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. This is definitely a surprise to many, but there is no guarantee that any actor will stay now that the universe has been rebooted. Gunn stated that he would only hire “professionals” for the role of Wonder Woman in the revamped DC Universe (DCU). This means he will not be holding open casting calls for the part. Gunn was asked about his casting process on the social media platform Threads and confirmed that while he has worked with lesser-known actors in the past, he prefers to work with experienced professionals. I have never only hired well-known actors. I’ve hired many, many actors in lead roles that were less well known than your example of Gal at the time of WW. But I do only hire professionals, same as I do with plumbers, surgeons, and masseuses. I think it’s fair, although fair isn’t my objective – my objective is telling stories the best I can. James Gunn Warner Bros. Gunn explained that his focus is on finding actors who can deliver the best performances, not on their level of fame or recognition. He stated that he only hires “professionals,” comparing his casting process to hiring qualified professionals in other fields, such as plumbers, surgeons, and masseuses. More Wonder Woman: Wonder Woman Actress Angry Over Reboot While he did not disclose who he intended to cast as the new Wonder Woman, Gunn clarified that he had not only hired well-known actors in the past. He has worked with actors in lead roles who were less well-known. The recasting of Wonder Woman is one of many changes being made to the DCU under Gunn and Peter Safran. The duo has already re-cast Superman, with David Corenswet replacing Henry Cavill. Other major roles, such as Lois Lane and Lex Luthor, have been recast with Rachel Brosnahan and Nicholas Hoult, respectively. That is not to say that there is no hope for Gal Gadot, as he may hire her again for the role. It all just depends on what he ends up deciding. Source: James Gunn on Threads

The CW’s Superman & Lois was canceled in February 2024, eight months before the release of its fourth season, despite its strong viewership and critical acclaim. The cancellation has sparked controversy among fans, with many blaming James Gunn and Peter Safran, the new heads of DC Studios. However, they aren’t at fault at all. Elizabeth Tulloch, who plays Lois Lane on the show, has defended Gunn. She cleared up the reasoning, saying the cancellation was because of a series of executive changes at The CW and Warner Bros. The CW was sold to Nexstar in 2022, and Warner Bros. brought in a new CEO, David Zaslav, shortly after. The shakeup at Warner Bros. also included a new leadership team for DC Comics. People keep putting the blame on Gunn and Safran, but the reality is The CW was sold to Nexstar, Warner Bros. had a new head in David Zaslav, and then also DC Comics had new heads. If you’re a Superman fan, be stoked about the movie and trust in his vision, because everything I think Gunn has directed has been great, and I think it’s going to be great. Elizabeth Tulloch Warner Bros. Tulloch stated that the show’s creators were initially told that Superman & Lois would run for seven seasons. While the cancellation was unexpected, she believes it was a result of these significant changes within the companies rather than a deliberate decision by Gunn and Safran, who are mainly focused on the movies. Brad Schwartz, the President of Entertainment at The CW, has confirmed that the show’s cancellation was tied to Gunn’s plans for a new Superman movie. Schwartz stated that The CW did not want a competing Superman product in the marketplace, suggesting that the network’s decision was influenced by a desire to avoid conflict with Gunn’s vision for the DC Universe. Source: Elizabeth Tulloch

Andrew Garfield has hinted at the possibility of talks regarding his return as Spider-Man but has not confirmed anything concrete. However, how he did it makes us believe Sony is trying to get him to redo his role. While promoting his upcoming film We Live in Time, Garfield was asked by podcast host Josh Horowitz about conversations he might have had with Sony regarding a potential return to the role. Garfield acknowledged that such discussions could be occurring, given the success of his appearance in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Garfield was cautious in his responses, avoiding any definitive statements or revealing specific details. He acknowledged the curiosity surrounding his future as Peter Parker, especially given the ongoing development of Spider-Man 4. The strangeness comes from how he says things. More Spider-Man: Spider-Man Will Come Back Before Fourth Movie, Reports Claim Yeah, of course, your assumption is not unfounded. If I was in your position, I can imagine going, ‘Yeah, he’s probably had some conversations,’ too, yeah… I understand in your position you’re going to be wondering, because it was such a success, that you’d kind of go, ‘Well they must be talking about it.’ Andrew Garfield Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Yet refused to say anything else. Garfield’s coy responses have only fueled speculation about his future in the Spider-Man franchise, though he stopped short of confirming or denying any involvement in ongoing discussions. His comments suggest that conversations regarding a potential return are likely taking place, but these discussions’ exact nature and outcome remain unclear. With Spider-Man 4 in development, the possibility of Garfield reprising his role as Spider-Man is highly intriguing to fans. Let’s not forget that he outright said he wouldn’t be in No Way Home, so he’s always open to denying anything the studio tells him to. More Marvel: Deleted Deadpool & Wolverine Scene Shows Secret Kiss Between Two Characters So we’ll have to wait a bit longer before seeing if he actually appears in the movie. Source: Josh Horowitz

Todd Phillips, director of the critically acclaimed Joker, has faced a lot of backlash following the release of its sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux. The musical film, which stars Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, has been met with widespread negative reception, earning a dismal 33% rating from critics and 31% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes. This makes Joker: Folie à Deux the lowest-scoring comic book movie ever on the platform, and its “D” CinemaScore further expresses the audience’s dissatisfaction. However, following the film’s UK premiere, Phillips shared photos on Instagram, where he was met with a wave of negative comments from fans. Many expressed their disappointment and anger towards the sequel, stating that it “ruined” their memories of the first film. Some criticized the film’s artistic choices, while others used generic insults to express their disapproval. Warner Bros. While the majority of the online discourse has been critical, some fans have defended the film, arguing that it was intended to be a commentary on society’s obsession with the Joker persona rather than Arthur Fleck himself. They suggest that the film accurately portrays how people often ignore the struggles of individuals and instead glorify the villainous aspects of their personalities. That makes sense, to be honest. More DC: James Gunn Shoots Down Batman Casting Rumor Phillips has stated that he is finished working with DC, indicating that he will not be directing any further films in the Joker franchise. However, the decision to make a sequel has proven controversial, as many critics and fans believe that the first film did not require a follow-up. The comments are pretty mean, so if you go there, be ready for some really cruel jokes at Phillips’ expense. Source: Todd Phillips Instagram, The Direct

DC Studios has scrapped plans for a third Wonder Woman film, which is much to the dismay of actress Connie Nielsen. Nielson portrayed Queen Hippolyta in the DC Extended Universe. Nielsen expressed her confusion regarding the decision, given the commercial success of the first Wonder Woman film in 2017, which earned over $800 million worldwide and garnered critical acclaim. However, it’s important to note that the sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, received a less enthusiastic reception. More DC: Wonder Woman Prequel Is Moving On Without Gal Gadot Even still, the franchise’s overall success and dedicated fanbase led to Warner Bros. and DC to initially greenlight a third film. However, James Gunn and Peter Safran, the newly appointed heads of DC Studios, opted for a fresh start to the entire universe, choosing to largely reboot the DC Universe, leaving many existing projects, including Wonder Woman 3, on the chopping block. Warner Bros. I think it’s crazy. I mean, frankly, I don’t understand it. [Wonder Woman] made $800 million just in the movie theaters, and it has an enormous and passionate, passionate fan base. These are spectacular films, and there’s just no reason I can understand whatsoever for not investing in that. If I were a business person, I would say that’s money on the table. It’s right there. Plus every time we’ve done it, [it was] with budgets that were way smaller than any of the other DC budgets. I really hope that they change their minds, and that they realize this is crazy. This is a billion dollars that is lying on the table. Connie Nielsen More DC: James Gunn Shoots Down Batman Casting Rumor Nielsen is rightly frustrated since the franchise as a whole was doing well. She argues that the financial success of the original Wonder Woman alone makes its cancellation a missed opportunity, particularly considering the film’s relatively low production budget compared to other DC projects. However, Wonder Woman doesn’t stand alone. It’s part of a universe made for the characters that must do well, too. Unfortunately, they didn’t, so Gunn needed to come in and reboot the whole thing. Sources: Den of Geek, Variety

Tom Holland is set to appear in another Marvel Cinematic Universe project before filming his fourth Spider-Man solo film, according to an industry insider. Holland is expected to play a “major role” in Avengers: Doomsday, which is scheduled for release on May 1, 2026. Production for this film is expected to begin in the second quarter of 2025, with filming taking place in London. Filming for Spider-Man 4 is expected to begin in the United Kingdom on May 25, 2025, and wrap in October of the same year. The film is scheduled to be released in July 2026, following Avengers: Doomsday and before Avengers: Secret Wars. More Spider-Man: Venom 3 Rumor May Have Spoiled Surprise Casting So basically, it seems like Spider-Man will make his return in another movie before his own. There are a ton of reports on what will happen in Spider-Man 4, and no one really knows for sure. There are many reports that scripts are changing, and confirmations of castings haven’t happened yet, so take everything there with a grain of salt. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures However, the report on Avengers: Doomsday states that Holland will have a more significant role in Avengers: Doomsday than he did in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Given that the film’s villain, Doctor Doom, will be played by Robert Downey Jr. and bear the same face as Tony Stark, Holland’s involvement in the film makes sense. More Spider-Man: Doctor Doom Coming To Spider-Man 4 According To Reports We can assume Holland will be a big part of the movie just because of his bond with Tony Stark. It’s unclear what the future holds for Holland’s Spider-Man beyond the Multiverse Saga. Additionally, the insider has stated that Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios are working on a deal for Holland to appear in more non-Spider-Man films. This would include future Avengers movies and potentially other MCU films. We’ll have to wait and see as more details come out for the coming movies. Source: Daniel Richtman

There is growing anticipation surrounding the potential post-credit scenes in the upcoming movie, Venom: The Last Dance. According to an online scooper, the film will feature more than one post-credit scene. The news comes as Venom: The Last Dance prepares for its release on October 25, 2024. This installment is poised to be the final chapter in the Venom franchise. The film’s trailer has generated significant buzz, particularly for its introduction of Knull, the God of Symbiotes. The two post-credits scenes will likely be nods to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) or Spider-Man. More Spider-Man: Vulture Actor Addresses Spider-Man 4 Rumors Post-credit scenes have become a common practice in superhero films, often serving as a teaser for future storylines or providing additional context to the main narrative. The first Venom film in 2018 also featured two post-credit scenes. One scene introduced Cletus Kasady, the villain for the sequel Venom: Let There Be Carnage. The second offered a glimpse into Sony’s Spiderverse projects. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Venom: Let There Be Carnage continued the trend with its own post-credit scenes. One scene depicted Tom Hardy’s Venom briefly crossing over to the main MCU timeline, Earth 616. This crossover was later acknowledged in the MCU film Spider-Man: No Way Home. Given the previous film’s successful use of post-credit scenes, we all want to know what is coming in these. More Venom: Venom: The Last Dance Reports Claim A Spider-Man Will Cameo We’ll have to wait and see, but since there are two and we know this is the end of the Venom saga, one is likely to deal with Spider-Man, while the other is likely to deal with Venom spinning something off. This may be where Tom Holland’s Spider-Man gets his symbiote suit. Since the Venom series is too profitable to just let die, Sony will likely use this to spin off another villain that fans can keep an eye out for. Luckily, we’re all going to be watching, so it could be a great launching point. Source: Cryptic4KQual

A new deleted scene from the Marvel movie Deadpool & Wolverine has been released online. This scene shows an unexpected romantic moment between two characters. Warning: Light spoilers for Deadpool & Wolverine The scene features Rob Delaney’s character, Peter, and Wunmi Mosaku’s character, Hunter B-15. The scene takes place after Peter and Hunter B-15 part ways for the evening. As they say goodbye, they share an unexpected kiss. Following this, Hunter B-15 uses her TemPad to create a Time Door, while Peter walks into his apartment to tell Kidpool and Headpool about his newfound feelings. "Daddy's in love" – B-15 and Peter share a kiss in this exclusive deleted scene from #DeadpoolAndWolverine pic.twitter.com/Zj9bNadf83 — The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) October 10, 2024 More Marvel: RDJ’s Doom Getting Strange Romance, Rumors Suggest The scene, while brief, adds a really interesting layer to the relationships explored in the film, particularly the romantic dynamic between Peter and Hunter B-15. This unexpected interaction was ultimately cut from the final film, but it offers a glimpse into the original storyline for developing certain character relationships. This isn’t much to go off of, but because these scenes keep getting released, we could assume that they’re canon. Deleted scenes normally get ignored or brought up sparingly, but many of these scenes seem to be deleted just because there wasn’t enough time in the movie to show them. If we assume that they were meant to give us more context, then they would be canon. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures More Marvel: Captain America Reportedly Setting Up Hulk Sequel Unfortunately, unless Ryan Reynolds or someone else at the studio clarifies, we have to assume these scenes didn’t happen. It’s a shame because the relationship between Hunter B-15 and Peter is pretty sweet to see. Maybe we’ll get some kind of context there in the future. It seems like there is a general fondness between the two characters, and we’d like to see more. Hopefully, we’ll see more deleted scenes release over time, but anyone curious can rent or own it when it comes out. It will be released on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD on October 22, 2024, which tends to come with deleted scenes. Source: The Hollywood Reporter

James Gunn, Co-CEO of DC Studios, has denied the rumors that the studio is looking for an aged Batman in the DC Universe (DCU). Gunn addressed the rumors in an Instagram story, stating that a news article claiming he was searching for a “middle-aged” Batman was “bullsh*t.” Gunn emphasized that casting for DC Studios projects generally doesn’t begin until the script is finalized. At this point, there’s not even a script ready to go for Batman. The rumor originated from internet scooper MyTimeToShineHello, who has a reputation for both accurate and inaccurate predictions regarding upcoming films. More DC: Wonder Woman Prequel Is Moving On Without Gal Gadot While Gunn has previously debunked rumors that later proved true, regarding Superman’s suit and Ultraman’s appearance in the upcoming Superman film, he maintains that this rumor about Batman is entirely fabricated. Remember when the Superman suit and Ultraman were "debunked." Let's just wait and see. pic.twitter.com/inN3mINEbD — MyTimeToShineHello (@MyTimeToShineH) October 10, 2024 The upcoming film Batman: The Brave and the Bold is expected to be the first introduction of the DCU’s Batman. As some reports have suggested, the project is not yet in advanced pre-production, and the script is not being written by Andy Muschietti, the film’s director, and Rodo Sayagues. More DC: Dark Knight Director Reportedly Fought Joaquin Phoenix Joker Ending It’s important to note that Matt Reeves’ The Batman films, starring Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne, exist in a separate Elseworlds universe, distinct from Gunn’s DCU. The same goes for The Joker movies with Joaquin Phoenix. Reeves has confirmed that his universe is not connected to the DCU, meaning Pattinson’s portrayal of Batman will not be incorporated into Gunn’s vision. Until we get some concrete evidence regarding DCU’s Batman, we will get many of these rumors instead of real confirmation. The best thing to do is to wait for a place to confirm or deny it before outright saying it’s true. Until it’s confirmed or denied by an official source, it should be taken with a grain of salt. Source: My Time To Shine Hello

Recent rumors have emerged regarding a possible romantic relationship between Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) and Doctor Doom in the upcoming film Avengers: Doomsday. This rumor, originating from online scooper My Time To Shine Hello, suggests that Wanda will have a significant role in both upcoming Avengers films and will share a great deal of screen time with Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom, potentially as his lover. Wanda has been confirmed to have been killed, but this could likely be a Wanda from a different Mutliverse. The rumor of Wanda’s involvement in Avengers: Doomsday has been enough to make fans think she’ll make a return. I hear Wanda will be a main player in both Avengers films Will share a lot of screen time with RDJ's Doom (as his lover?) pic.twitter.com/y59oBx5qt0 — MyTimeToShineHello (@MyTimeToShineH) October 9, 2024 The possibility of a romance between Wanda and Doctor Doom is very hard to believe. Doctor Doom does not belong to the main MCU timeline, and Wanda’s established love for Vision makes a romantic relationship with Doctor Doom unlikely. This is why many think these are people from two different universes. More Marvel: Captain America Reportedly Setting Up Hulk Sequel There are instances in the comics where Doctor Doom and Wanda become allies in pursuit of power. That’s one thing, but there’s no storyline where they fall in love. However, there’s even less of a basis for Tony Stark to become Doctor Doom, so we’re in uncharted territory anyway. These are just rumors, but they come from sources that tend to be right. However, we’ve heard too many rumors at this point and are thinking that maybe some are sent out to throw people off the real trail. More Marvel: Vulture Actor Addresses Spider-Man 4 Rumors Marvel Studios hasn’t even spoken about the return of Wanda, but we’re supposed to believe there will be so much built-up that there will be a romance? It makes almost no sense and would be hard to pull off well. We’d say not to believe this rumor if you hear about it. It seems too far fetched. Source: My Time To Shine Hello

Michael Keaton, known for his role as The Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming, has finally addressed the possibility of returning to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). In a recent interview, Keaton was asked about a potential appearance in the upcoming Spider-Man 4 and said he hasn’t had any conversations with Marvel about it. Notably, he seemed pretty bored with the idea. He said he doesn’t like talking to people. More Spider-Man: Venom: The Last Dance Reports Claim A Spider-Man Will Cameo It’s worth noting that Keaton’s initial appearance as The Vulture was intended for Spider-Man: No Way Home before his character was reintroduced in Morbius. In the film, Keaton’s Vulture is mistakenly sent to the Morbius universe and released from prison. He then tries to recruit the titular character for an unspecified team. Despite this, Keaton hasn’t confirmed any potential involvement with Spider-Man 4. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Josh Nizzi (@joshnizzi.art) Previous plans for Spider-Man: No Way Home involved Peter Parker visiting Adrian Toomes’ home with other villains like Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, and Electro. Concept art from that version of the film depicted Spider-Man working alongside The Vulture, with several variations of his flight suit. More Spider-Man: Doctor Doom Coming To Spider-Man 4 According To Reports It’s worth noting that Marvel isn’t against replacing the character’s actor. John Leguizamo, originally cast as The Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming before being replaced by Keaton, has spoken about the situation. He explained that while he hadn’t signed a contract, he had a verbal agreement with the studio. However, Keaton ultimately replaced him due to a last-minute decision by studio executives. Leguizamo was disappointed by the situation but ultimately chose to walk away, saying he didn’t want to be at a “party” where he wasn’t wanted. While Keaton hasn’t confirmed or denied his involvement in Spider-Man 4, his ambiguous answer leaves the possibility open. Fans will have to wait for official announcements from Marvel to learn more about his potential return and the direction of the upcoming film. Source: Screen Rant

Marvel Studios is rumored to be setting up a World War Hulk project with their upcoming film, Captain America: Brave New World. The movie is coming out on February 14, 2025, but will lead to more. This follows previous rumors from 2021 about a Hulk-focused film, which an insider later contradicted. The new rumors claim Marvel Studios has modified the ending of Captain America: Brave New World to tie the story more closely to the Multiverse Saga and lay the groundwork for a World War Hulk film. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures These changes reportedly involve the introduction of a new gamma monster, Red Hulk, played by Harrison Ford, alongside Tim Blake Nelson’s return as Samuel Sterns, (The Leader). The Leader has a history with Hulk blood was previously aligned with Bruce Banner. It is speculated that his villainous turn in the film could lead to the creation of Red Hulk and potentially other characters in the future. More Marvel: The Silver Surfer May Be The Next MCU Focus Apparently, the Serpent Society, a group of criminals, has been altered from half-cyborg to a group of normal humans with possible super-soldier strength. The group will be led by Giancarlo Esposito as Sidewinder, a character who possesses superpowers and is expected to appear in a Disney+ series after his big-screen debut. These changes appear to be shifting the focus of Captain America: Brave New World from a standalone story to a more important part of the Multiverse Saga. While it’s unclear when a World War Hulk project might be released, the film’s new direction may show the possibility of a potential release date sometime after Avengers: Secret Wars wraps up the Multiverse Saga. However, Universal still holds the distribution rights to the Hulk character, which makes it difficult for Disney to release a standalone Hulk movie without resolving those rights. If the film proceeds as rumored, it will likely be released sometime in 2027 or later. Source: DanielRPK

Christopher Nolan reportedly intervened in the original ending of the 2019 film Joker, starring Joaquin Phoenix. What would have been seen as a missed opportunity now feels like a relief. The original ending had Phoenix’s character, Arthur Fleck, carving his face in front of a crowd of rioters. Nolan, who directed the Dark Knight trilogy starring Christian Bale, objected to the scene, believing that only his Joker, played by Heath Ledger, should have the iconic face-carving moment. He was right. Warner Bros. Nolan’s influence on the Joker ending is notable due to his past work with Warner Bros. and his strong vision for the character of the Joker. Since Todd Phillips decided his joker wouldn’t actually be the joker, it feels like we avoided a situation where DC hurt Heath Ledger’s iconic performance. While this scene would have been good for the first movie, the second movie just ruins it. More DC: Wonder Woman Prequel Is Moving On Without Gal Gadot The sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux, sees the return of Phoenix as Arthur Fleck and introduces Lady Gaga as Harley Quinn. The film deviates from the original ending, and Nolan wasn’t there to save the day. We won’t spoil it but there is a scene that homages to Nolan’s version. The box office for this Joker movie is nowhere near enough to justify a sequel. This was obviously part of a trilogy, but based on the reception, we probably won’t be able to see what is planned for a third movie. There are few movie series that bomb so hard in the second movie that a third isn’t feasible, but it looks like Phillips’ Joker trilogy may have hit that criteria. We’ll see how things go, but we’re happy to know that Ledger’s performance won’t be tarnished with an homage from a poor man’s joker. We’ll have to see what comes from all of this. Source: Hollywood Reporter

New reports about the upcoming Venom: The Last Dance are circulating. Some are suggesting that we may not have seen the last of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as their respective Spider-Men. While many reports say that Tom Holland’s Peter Parker could be in Venom: The Last Dance, there are not concrete details. Many insiders have said that a Spider-Man should be in that movie because Holland is rumored to get the Symbiote suit in the near future. The suit’s acquisition is speculated to happen during the next movie or from Venom, having gone to Holland’s universe for a short time. Even with these rumors, Holland is not expected to appear in Venom: The Last Dance. However, there are some rumors that this movie will set up a multiverse chain that may feature Garfield and Maguire. Spider-Man 4 seems to be taking a more multiversal approach than its predecessor, Spider-Man: No Way Home. As more time goes on, more insiders are reporting that this won’t be a street-level movie. This suggests that a collaboration with Daredevil is unlikely, at least for now. More Spider-Man: Venom 3 Rumor May Have Spoiled Surprise Casting Knull, the powerful symbiote entity, will be wielding his All-Black sword, despite his appearance in Thor: Love and Thunder lacking the weapon. He will likely push the symbiotes to other universes, which could open the door to more multiverse adventures. Spider-Man 4 will likely feature a clash between the Spider-Men and a variety of symbiotes. Sony This is mostly speculation, but it’s based on a lot of reports. It is well known that Sony is putting a lot into Spider-Man, and the success of Holland with the MCU seems to prove it’s a formula that could work. Unfortunately, there have been many negative reports about the production of the movie, and we’ll have to wait and see what comes of it. For now, we have to wait until the new Venom movie releases so we can see what they’re building up in Spider-Man 4.

There are rumors circulating that Robert Downey Jr. will reprise his role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Doctor Doom in the upcoming Spider-Man 4. While no official confirmation from either Marvel or Sony has been released, the rumors have gained traction. The rumors come from industry scooper MyTimeToShineHello on X (formerly Twitter), who suggested that Downey Jr. would be playing Doctor Doom in Spider-Man 4. This could see Downey Jr. taking on a new role after playing Tony Stark/Iron Man in previous MCU movies. It also could give a reason for Peter not to hurt Doctor Doom. More Marvel: The Silver Surfer May Be The Next MCU Focus The film is also rumored to be titled Spider-Man: King in Black, with Knull, the God of Symbiotes, as the main antagonist. This would see the movie delve into multiversal storylines, potentially linking to the introduction of Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom. Knull is a huge figure in Marvel Comics and is known for creating the symbiotes and wielding the Black Necrosword. I can reveal that RDJ's Doctor Doom will have a role in Spider-Man 4 pic.twitter.com/5BeF3I48Su — MyTimeToShineHello (@MyTimeToShineH) October 7, 2024 This would be a great storyline. While Tom Hardy claims he’s done, Venom could always make an appearance in Spider-Man 4. According to industry scooper DanielRPK, Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom would come from the same universe as the Fantastic Four, linking him to the upcoming Fantastic Four: First Steps. This would further suggest the film’s multiversal focus, hinting at potential crossovers and collaborations with other MCU characters and storylines. While this is pretty interesting, at this point, Holland’s Spider-Man hasn’t stood on his own at all. There’s always been some connection to the MCU or Marvel movies that has strung him along. Spider-Man 4 was supposed to be his time to shine by himself, but that may not happen if these reports are to be believed. While we love MCU Spider-Man and are happy to see references to other movies, the other Avengers who got stand-alone movies seem to do just fine without needing the support of other Marvel heroes. Even the Venom movies could stand alone, yet not Spider-Man. We’ll see how Spider-Man 4 does overall.

DC Studios is moving forward with its planned Wonder Woman prequel series, Paradise Lost. The series, which was announced alongside other DCU projects in January, will explore Themyscira, the birthplace of Wonder Woman before the hero herself was born. Paradise Lost will not feature Gal Gadot as Diana, who portrayed the character in the previous DCEU films. James Gunn, co-CEO of DC Studios, has confirmed progress on the series. This indicates that the DCU plans to continue exploring the mythology of Wonder Woman despite the absence of Gal Gadot. While there has been no official announcement regarding a new live-action Wonder Woman movie or series starring a new actress, the development of Paradise Lost suggests that we may see a new Wonder Woman in the DCU. More DC: The Joker Box Office Is Criminally Low Fans should have expected this because even Henry Cavill has been replaced by a new Superman. There’s a big guarantee that other actors have replaced every member of the Justice League in the DCEU. Image: Warner Bros. Pictures It’s up to the fans to decide whether they like or hate this. There was a minority that did not like Gal Godot because some scenes seemed amateur. However, a few scenes don’t speak for a movie as a whole. She did a good job in her role as Wonder Woman, and a possible replacement isn’t because of her performance. More DC: Smallville Superman May Return We definitely expect every superhero to be replaced in the DCU unless it was a movie made under James Gunn himself. This is likely why Peacemaker was able to make it through the change. However, it’s open season for other superheroes. We’ll have to pay attention to see how things go from here, but it is likely that Gal Godot is out as Wonder Woman.

The sequel to the critically acclaimed Joker (2019) has underperformed in its opening weekend. It fell very short of initial projections and has been raising concerns about the future of the box office prospects. It seems like Joker: Folie à Deux may not see the sequel it’s hoping for. Joker: Folie à Deux opened to a domestic gross of $40 million over the weekend of October 4 to October 6, significantly lower than the $96.2 million debut of its predecessor. Initial box office predictions for Joker: Folie à Deux ranged from $115 million to $145 million. However, the film’s opening weekend performance fell considerably below these estimates, with Friday’s opening day grossing $20 million. The film’s weekend box office total of $81.1 million, combined with an international haul of $40 million, brought the global total to $121.1 million. While it secured the top spot at the box office, its performance is a far cry from the original’s cultural impact and critical acclaim. The sequel currently holds a 33% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a stark contrast to the 68% rating of the original. Warner Bros. Related: Hollywood Taking New Measures To Protect Actors From Angry Fans This disappointing performance comes against a backdrop of several recent box office disappointments for DC films, like Shazam! Fury of the Gods, Blue Beetle, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom. The Flash. Joker: Folie à Deux joins that list with a reported budget of $190 million to $200 million. So the film needs to earn at least $450 million to break even. This figure increases to $550 million to 600 million when accounting for marketing costs and theater chain revenue share. While there is potential for the film to gain traction in the coming weeks, the negative word-of-mouth and the upcoming release of Venom: The Last Dance on October 25, 2024 will likely shoot Joker: Folie à Deux even further down. The future of DC’s box office prospects hinges on the success of James Gunn’s upcoming Superman, set to premiere on July 11, 2025. This project is seen as a crucial step in the studio’s efforts to revive its superhero franchise and restore faith in the studio giant.

Tom Welling, best known for his role as Clark Kent in the television series Smallville, has been open about wearing Superman’s costume on the television screen. This comes after a decade-long absence from the role, following the series finale of Smallville in 2011. Welling has previously shown reluctance to fully embody Superman on screen and was usually a proponent of just showcasing Clark Kent’s journey to becoming Superman. While the finale of Smallville featured a brief glimpse of Superman, Welling has said that he felt it was more important to showcase Clark’s transformation. However, he’s told ComicBookMovie he’s grown warmer to the idea of taking on Superman. More DC: Ryan Reynold’s Green Lantern May Be Hurting The DCU In the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, Welling reprised his role. However, it didn’t give him an opportunity to wear the iconic Superman suit. However, in a recent interview, Welling revealed that his perspective has shifted. He mentioned that his two sons’ fascination with superheroes has led him to consider the possibility of donning the suit. Warner Bros. Obviously, many fans want Welling to become Superman in earnest. Given the recent trend of successful television show revivals, there is potential for Welling to reprise his role. This all depends on how much James Gunn wants to make alternate stories that could interfere with the reception of his Superman. It’s hard to say that it will come anytime soon. Despite the uncertainty surrounding potential projects, Welling’s willingness to return to the role of Superman is a big part of what will put him on the screen. He has also shown interest in reviving the series with an animated format alongside former co-star Michael Rosenbaum. So it shows he’s a team player and can get along with people, making things happen. This is an important step in getting a Welling Superman, and now it’s up to the studios to do their part and give him the opportunity. There’s no doubt it will be great to finally see Welling don the costume.

It’s clear that fans of Kenobi have been disappointed by the lack of news on a second season. The first season did very well, but Disney has been tight lipped. However, Ewan McGregor recently offered a positive update on the series’ future. At Los Angeles Comic-Con (via The Direct), McGregor revealed that the team behind the show is actively “exploring” the possibility of a second season. This comes after previous statements from Lucasfilm executives and the show’s director, Deborah Chow, suggested a second season was unlikely. McGregor specifically mentioned the potential for stories between the end of Obi-Wan Kenobi season one and Alec Guinness’ portrayal of the character in the original Star Wars films. He also expressed interest in wearing the armor from the Clone Wars series, which would allow for a reunion with Hayden Christensen, who played Anakin Skywalker in the prequel trilogy. Christensen and McGregor have already come together in Obi-Wan Kenobi season one, and it’s been memed to no end. More Movie News: The Silver Surfer May Be The Next MCU Focus Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Despite McGregor’s enthusiasm, Disney has yet to officially confirm or deny a second season of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Prior to McGregor’s comments, fans were led to believe that the series was intended as a limited series, with “The Complete Series” listed on Disney+ for the first season. However, Disney’s shifting release strategy and the recent lackluster performance of other Star Wars series like The Acolyte might get the studio to reconsider Kenobi. The show holds a strong fan following and is the third most popular Star Wars series on Disney+ behind The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett. They have already tried and failed to gain a fanbase with The Acolyte, so it may be a better idea to stick with what works. While there is no official confirmation yet, McGregor’s comments suggest that a second season of Obi-Wan Kenobi is not entirely out of the question. Fans eager for more adventures with Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi will have to wait for further announcements from Disney and Lucasfilm. We’ll have to wait and see if there is any more news to whether or not Kenobi will return, but we sure hope it will.

James Gunn’s reboot of the DC Universe may be facing some issues because of Ryan Reynolds’ 2011 Green Lantern film. Despite the success of Reynolds’ recent projects like Deadpool & Wolverine, his Green Lantern performance has become synonymous with the film’s critical and commercial failure. That’s right, this negative association with the character has led to some reluctance from actors to take on the role of Hal Jordan in the upcoming Lanterns series. Reportedly, stars like Josh Brolin, Matthew McConaughey, and Ewan McGregor were all considered for the part, but Brolin reportedly declined due to the baggage surrounding the character. We are unsure if the others also gave a similar no. Even though Reynolds has consistently poked fun at the film and offered a humorous perspective on the experience, his jokes have ultimately contributed to the perception of the Green Lantern character as a failure. The scene where he shot himself in Deadpool 2 hasn’t helped the new DCU. More DC: James Gunn Finally Addresses Mr. Freeze Movie Reports This idea of Green Lantern has apparently created a significant challenge for DC Studios because they are trying to establish a fresh take on the Green Lantern Corps in their new universe. To overcome the negative association, the studio has chosen Kyle Chandler, known for his role in Friday Night Lights, to portray Hal Jordan in the Lanterns series. However, the negative legacy of Green Lantern is still concerning. The film’s failure has limited the character’s presence in live-action, with only a brief appearance in Zack Snyder’s Justice League as John Stewart. The upcoming Lanterns series will be the first live-action Green Lantern project in over a decade, and the studio better do a great job if it hopes to overcome the stigma surrounding the character. Until it comes out, we just have to trust Green Lantern’s light (and a really good script).

Marvel Studios is reportedly moving forward with a Silver Surfer project, though it is unclear if it will focus on the original character, Norrin Radd, or the female version, Shalla-Bal. Rumors of a Silver Surfer project have been circulating for some time, but the rumor that it was dead in the water apparently wasn’t true. While there is no confirmed format or release date, insider Daniel Richtman reported that Matt Shakman, director of the upcoming Fantastic Four: First Steps, is involved as a producer. Shakman previously signed a multi-year deal with Marvel, potentially including directing episodes of a Silver Surfer Disney+ series or a Special Presentation. The Fantastic Four: First Steps film is set to introduce a female version of the Silver Surfer, Shalla-Bal. In the original Marvel Comics continuity, Shalla-Bal was the Empress of the planet Zenn-La and the first love of Norrin Radd. When Galactus arrived to devour their planet, Radd became his herald in exchange for saving Zenn-La. Later, Franklin Richards granted Shalla the same cosmic powers, which let her serve as a twin herald alongside Radd. More Marvel: Spider-Man Noir Set Photos Revealed Shalla-Bal in Fantastic Four: First Steps may suggest a possible focus on her in the spin-off. However, rumors have been going around that Garner will only appear once in the MCU. This would imply that the Silver Surfer project will focus on Norrin Radd. The Fantastic Four: First Steps film is currently in production in the U.K. Kevin Feige recently confirmed that the film will take place in an alternate universe, though the Fantastic Four are expected to appear in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. This means they are likely to eventually come over to the main MCU timeline. We’ll have to wait and see. Fantastic Four: First Steps is scheduled to be released in theaters on July 25, 2025.

Major Hollywood studios are reportedly forming “superfan” focus groups to address the growing concern of toxic fandom and online backlash, according to a report from Variety. The move comes as studios face increasing pressure from fans who actively voice their disapproval of franchise changes or deviations from the source material. The report highlighted a growing trend of studios engaging with dedicated fan communities to gauge potential reactions to marketing materials and even major plot points in upcoming franchise projects. These focus groups are designed to identify potential areas of contention and allow studios to adjust their creative and marketing strategies accordingly. This is so that studios can better craft their story to appeal to what would be a loud community. More Hollywood: Venom 3 Rumor May Have Spoiled Surprise Casting This doesn’t seem to be too much of a bad thing and is probably something studios should have been doing sooner. For so long, the idea was that the fanbase would come anyway, and it used to be okay to make them mad because they had no voice. Now, their voice can be loud, and it seems like it’s no longer okay to just disregard their opinion. Disney Entertainment There is also the issue that, while these measures can be good, they can stifle creativity. For those not old enough to remember when Heath Ledger was revealed to be the Joker in The Dark Knight, it wasn’t taken well. Plenty of people were saying he couldn’t play the role well, and I remember one comment being, “I won’t be able to watch without picturing him in Brokeback Mountain.” Yet, Heath Ledger is remembered as one of the best jokers. So, there are plenty of times when a vocal fan group is wrong. Unfortunately, there is some bad with this. Studios also feel the need to implement additional measures to protect their talent from online harassment. This includes social media training for actors and directors and the potential for studios to take over their social media accounts completely in cases where a character’s actions are deemed controversial or likely to incite negative fan reactions. Security firms are also being employed to protect talent from doxxing and online threats. Not being able to separate the actor from the character isn’t new at all, but it’s unfortunate that so many people stop complaining to the studio making the movie and go straight for the actors who are just doing their jobs.

Joker: Folie à Deux is the highly anticipated sequel to the 2019 Oscar-winning Joker, but despite so many fans wanting to see a sequel, it didn’t live up to the expectations. In fact, Rotten Tomatoes critics and audience seem to agree on the quality. Joker: Folie à Deux has received mixed reviews from both critics and audiences. The film’s Rotten Tomatoes score currently stands at 34% for critics and 36% for audiences, placing it firmly in “rotten” territory. The controversial musical elements, a departure from the first film’s dark and psychological tone, seem to be the primary source of criticism. While some reviewers praised the performances of Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, they found the musical segments jarring and inconsistent with the film’s overall narrative. More DC: James Gunn Finally Addresses Mr. Freeze Movie Reports Many critics seemed to have felt the musical numbers detracted from the film’s atmosphere and lacked coherence with the story. Some even compared the film’s musical elements to a “jukebox musical from hell.” Plenty of audiences had similar things to say, mostly expressing disappointment in the film’s unexpected musical direction. There are many who thought including musical numbers was unnecessary and detracted from the film’s overall experience. Warner Bros. Some viewers even commented that the musical elements made Arthur Fleck, the character played by Phoenix, appear less sympathetic and more of a loser. The inclusion of musical elements in the film had been met with skepticism even before the film’s release. While Gaga acknowledged the controversy, she defended the use of music as a means for characters to express their emotions beyond dialogue. Many would find that to be silly. While music can express others, The Joker isn’t the kind of person to do it in a way that isn’t silly. He’s been shown to sing, but it’s normally to make a joke about a situation or put an ironic twist. A musical is just strange. Unfortunately for Joker: Folie à Deux, while it seems to set up a sequel, we likely won’t see one after this reception.

Amiga Games

Arcade Paradise VR might initially come across as simple, and some might even find it a bit dull, but once it gets under your skin, it becomes a game that truly grows on you, emerging as one of the better management sims available in VR.

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California Games was simply outstanding, making it all the more astonishing how the sequel, California Games II, managed to mess everything up. There isn't a single likable aspect in the sequel, which perfectly exemplifies how the developer completely missed what made the original so great.

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There's a time for everything. Casual and family games might not be the main attraction for most PSVR2 owners, but they certainly help justify the purchase of the VR set to your better half.

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What does one write about if everything on the website is just too good?  Exactly, that's the time to bring out all the trash and while I had a top-rated "worst stinkers games" series here on the blog before, it just felt wrong to try and revive it as I felt it just dragged the blog down too much, but after a lot of feedback it is time to revive the concept, welcome back "stinkers".

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The idea of experiencing a first-person platformer in VR initially seemed daunting, but in truth, it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable VR experiences I've had in quite some time. Silky smooth framerate, excellent yet simple graphics set in a universe that I would never have visited if the world was flat. Could it truly be as remarkable as it sounds?

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Operation Serpens is finally coming to PlayStationVR2 on February 23rd, featuring #Online CO-OP , #Singleplayer, #Horde Mode, #Zombies and much more. Both Physical and digital versions will be available soon. Realism or not, the goal is to have fun. Will you be one of them?

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Gun Club came out for PSVR back in 2018 and it has been one of my most played VR games since then. Now 5 years later it has made its way onto the PSVR 2 and luckily its been updated perfectly to fit the new controllers, haptics and it even includes an reduced price for people which own the original PSVR version.

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Monsters Of Terror is one of those classics that most have forgotten a long , long time ago... Welcome back to yet another article hit the hit series " The Games We Never Talk About But Should" Do you remember it?

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The Alien franchise has left a long, deep acid burn on the video game medium ever since the release of the first film in 1979. Whether hiding in lockers in Alien Isolation, blasting waves of creatures in Aliens: Fireteam Elite, or guiding a Marine squad to tactical victory in Aliens: Dark Descent, the series’ rich […]

The Alien franchise has left a long, deep acid burn on the video game medium ever since the release of the first film in 1979. Whether hiding in lockers in Alien Isolation, blasting waves of creatures in Aliens: Fireteam Elite, or guiding a Marine squad to tactical victory in Aliens: Dark Descent, the series’ rich legacy has left plenty of room for creative interpretation. With Alien: Rogue Incursion, celebrated VR developer Survios is aiming to make another major contribution to the Alien gaming legacy. This big-budget, immersive PlayStation VR2 experience promises to make players feel like they’re actually inhabiting the dark, brooding world of the films, from navigating the shadowy hallways to wielding authentic Marine firepower against the titular threat. Ahead of the game’s launch on PS VR2 this December, we went hands-on with a pre-release build of this single-player survival-horror adventure. Here are some highlights of our experience. An immersive VR Alien fantasy Survios set out to make players feel firmly planted in the oppressive Alien universe, so don’t expect a cakewalk. Ammo and healing items are scarce, xenomorphs can deliver fatal one-hit blows, and hissing steam vents keep you on edge throughout. Rogue Incursion’s high-fidelity VR presentation is a knockout, with a level of visual detail and polish that puts it among the upper echelon of VR titles. You’ll know what we mean when you stare an encroaching alien in its dripping face and it feels like it’s mere inches away. The perfect organism Xenomorphs behave how you’d expect: they’re ominous and unpredictable. Sometimes they’ll slink through a doorway, upright and imposing. At other times they’ll drop to all fours, scuttling forward malevolently. They’re also highly mobile and seemed to take different routes depending on our position, clambering along walls and ceilings or dropping down from vents behind us. Knowing these threats can hit from any angle will keep your head swiveling as you scan the murky environments for threats, keeping your M41 pulse rifle trained on suspicious shapes lurking in the shadows. It all looks and feels ultra faithful to the first two films. On-body inventory The stakes are high, but Survios has you covered with a slick on-body inventory powered by the PS VR2’s Sense controllers. Reach over your right shoulder to grab your pulse rifle, clutch a healing stim from your left wrist, or draw a revolver from the holster on your hip. In just a few minutes, the intuitive inventory system became second nature, allowing us to keep our attention focused on encroaching hostiles and staying alive for a little while longer. There’s something moving and it ain’t us While there’s plenty of alien-blasting action, Rogue Incursion leaves ample room for quiet, tense moments where we bypassed locked doors or reprogrammed security discs to proceed further. Luckily, we were armed with the iconic Motion Tracker from the second film, and it’s something we quickly came to rely on. Reaching to our right bicep equipped the device, allowing us to track enemy (and ally) movements as we prowled the darkened corridors. This life-saving device can even be placed onto a surface to act as an extra set of eyes as you explore or reload your weapon. Don’t go off-world without it! Welcome to the retro-future The Alien universe’s technological aesthetic was solidified from the first moments we saw the Nostromo’s CRT computer monitors, chunky keyboards, and assorted analog gear. Survios pays thoughtful tribute to this tech, so expect to get up close and personal with plenty of 80’s-style gadgets in Rogue Incursion. The PDA tablet is a perfect example. Retrieved by reaching to your right arm, this handheld device can help you save your game and can be slotted into computers to download data. It also clunkily unfolds to reveal a large virtual touchscreen map, which in a clever touch can be scrolled through using your in-game finger. Elevator action Our hands-on session culminated in a frantic battle against waves of aliens as we waited for an elevator to arrive. We called on all of our gear and skills to hold the line. We blasted flammable barrels to ignite xenomorphs, under the watchful eye of our strategically placed Motion Tracker device. There were many intense close calls, usually forcing us to flee and heal or fumble fresh shells into our shotgun. Suddenly, a spiked tail burst through our chest, ending our game. But we didn’t dread a restart because the unpredictable actions of the aliens made each new attempt feel fresh and interesting. Devils in the details Survivos’s VR expertise was on full display throughout our play session. We were wowed by some of the small, thoughtful details that made the world feel complete, such as using your hand to wipe blood from our eyes or off a computer monitor. The game’s physicality is a huge asset, and as we grew accustomed to removing and replacing weapons and gear from our body, muscle memory took over and the feeling of reality crept in. Reloading a revolver? Press the Circle button to eject the cylinder and shake out the empty casings before reloading each individual bullet. Firing a pulse rifle? Be sure to stabilize the stock with your other hand, or the 10mm explosive-tip caseless rounds will launch into the ceiling instead of at the approaching alien. Needless to say, we were impressed. Get ready to step into the boots of space marine Zula Hendricks when Alien: Rogue Incursion deploys on PS VR2 on December 19.

When reimagining Black Iron Prison for a fast-action roguelike dungeon crawler, one of the first things we did was really let our designers run wild with the creatures in the game. We wanted a mix of familiar creatures from TCP and new baddies for players to battle — but everything had to make sense in […]

When reimagining Black Iron Prison for a fast-action roguelike dungeon crawler, one of the first things we did was really let our designers run wild with the creatures in the game. We wanted a mix of familiar creatures from TCP and new baddies for players to battle — but everything had to make sense in the crazy comic-inspired future-punk world of [Redacted], which launches on October 31 on PS5. We’ve crammed [Redacted] with enemies, so I’m just gonna share some of the studio’s favorites. Play Video First up are Danglers, these guys originated in The Callisto Protocol but we took [Redacted]’s big comic book paintbrush to them. Danglers usually spawn in packs and crawl toward you, exploding when they get close and dealing serious damage. They’re weak, so stronger weapons can one-shot these guys, and you can use the GRP or kick to knock them into other enemies. Sounds easy right? Well, In early rooms they’re easy to clear, but they will definitely sneak up on you when things get hectic. And they come in four different flavors. The basic Danglers do an area of effect damage, but the Lightning, Fire, and Cryo versions get a bit tricky – when they’re killed they explode and leave a large electrical, fire, or cryo hazard in their wake. Make sure you don’t box yourself in. Next there’s the Cybernetic Switcher. They’re completely new for [Redacted]. We dreamed these guys up to force players to change their tactics on the fly. Cybernetic Switchers are fast melee enemies that attack in groups. The catch is that they can alternate blocking melee and ranged attacks – forcing you to change up your combat approach mid-fight. Or, you know, you can just kick them off a ledge, that works too. The Dasher, as the name suggests, dashes. It’s one of our fastest enemies, dashing from point to point while unleashing melee attacks. There’s also a variant that foregoes melee attacks and leaves grenades in its wake. Their speed makes it hard to pin down and defeat them, so keep moving to avoid their attacks and bully them into submission when there’s an opening. You can also use the GRP to stagger them and get in close to finish them off quickly. The next three enemies we haven’t even shown before and are located in the final levels of the game, so you know they’re gonna be challenging. And they all work in concert to make those last rooms a hell of a battle – but we’ll give you some tips to get you ready. The Crazed Prisoners inhabiting the prison are physically weak opponents – but they aren’t necessarily there to hurt you directly as they actively create distance from you. They spread chaos by lobbing gravity grenades into the thick of battle that suck you toward the epicenter which allows other enemies to focus their attacks on a single point. That single point is you. Dash to break free of the effect or face defeat. I recommend you take these enemies out quickly, but watch your back because the next two enemies we’re looking at are likely there too. The Robot Shaman isn’t actually magic but it can feel that way sometimes because it buffs surrounding enemies by granting them shields that you have to get through before damaging them. But the Robot Shaman isn’t without damage-dealing powers. It deploys a large electric dome that deals damage if you’re caught inside. You’ll need to quickly balance handling the newly shielded enemies, staying within striking distance to damage the shaman but not so close you’ll be caught in its electric dome. And finally, one of the other big bads from The Callisto Protocol, the Two-Head. They’re slow but big and deadly. We tweaked these heavily throughout the game’s development. The Two-Head evolved from a melee-focused character to a deadly ranged enemy that creates a large area of effect damage with additional damage over time. Oh, and it disorients you for a few seconds. Dodge their ground-pound attacks and get behind them to deal heavier backstab damage to take them down quickly. I wish I could tell you about all the enemies because we’re just scratching the surface, but there are too many to go over here. The great thing is, if you pre-order for PS5, you can discover and experience them for yourself right this second. Otherwise, [Redacted] launches on October 31 on PS5.

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com! Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or download here Hey folks! This week the team got to sit down with Bioware Game Director Corinne Busche and Creative Director John Epler to talk Dragon Age: The Veilguard. We also discuss the newly released Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and Fear the Spotlight. Stuff We […]

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com! Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or download here Hey folks! This week the team got to sit down with Bioware Game Director Corinne Busche and Creative Director John Epler to talk Dragon Age: The Veilguard. We also discuss the newly released Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and Fear the Spotlight. Stuff We Talked About Next week’s release highlights: Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered | PS5 Dragon Age: The Veilguard | PS5 Life is Strange: Double Exposure | PS5 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 pre-launch overview Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered first look at bosses and new map details Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test launches on PS5 next week 10 great horror games available with PlayStation Plus Interview with Corinne Busche and John Epler (begins at 12:59) Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Fear the Spotlight Silent Hill 2 Theatrhythm Final Bar Line The Cast View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Kristen Zitani – Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Brett Elston – Content Communications Manager, SIE View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image O’Dell Harmon Jr. – Content Communications Specialist, SIE Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music. [Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]

Last week, we asked you to share gaming characters you’d like to dress up as for Halloween using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights: ForgottenJasmin shares a katana-riddled samurai with a basket for a helmet from Ghost of Tsushima: Legends. sorathluna shares a red-headed witch wearing an owl mask from Hogwarts Legacy. AkiraAoyama_VP shares […]

Last week, we asked you to share gaming characters you’d like to dress up as for Halloween using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights: ForgottenJasmin shares a katana-riddled samurai with a basket for a helmet from Ghost of Tsushima: Legends. sorathluna shares a red-headed witch wearing an owl mask from Hogwarts Legacy. AkiraAoyama_VP shares the quirky janitor Ahti from Control. BitarHector shares Aloy striking a pose in one of the Oseram blue and red beaded armors from Horizon Forbidden West. juniaxe shares Claire Redfield in her classic red leather jacket in Resident Evil 2. Kirill_Skulkin shares a hulking blue Space Marine armor set from Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week? THEME: Ghosts and Ghouls SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on October 30, 2024 Next week, we’re ready to get haunted. Share ghastly ghosts and (non-gory) ghouls from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

Gather your friends, grab your EMF Reader and prepare for spine-chilling ghost hunts because Phasmophobia is finally coming to PS5 and PS VR2 on October 29, 2024. Just in time for Halloween! Whether you’re an experienced ghost hunter or a new recruit eager to join the supernatural fray, we can’t wait to welcome everyone on […]

Gather your friends, grab your EMF Reader and prepare for spine-chilling ghost hunts because Phasmophobia is finally coming to PS5 and PS VR2 on October 29, 2024. Just in time for Halloween! Whether you’re an experienced ghost hunter or a new recruit eager to join the supernatural fray, we can’t wait to welcome everyone on PS5 and PS VR2, especially the latter. If you’re up to the task, ghost hunter, you’ll find a genuinely haunting and immersive experience waiting for you in virtual reality. Here’s a look at some of the standout features you can expect when you put on your PS VR2 headset. Foveated Rendering: Frights with performance in mind One of the key advantages of Phasmophobia on PS VR2 is the inclusion of foveated rendering. This innovative technology allows the game to deliver a higher, more stable framerate, ensuring that the intense moments of supernatural suspense stay smooth and immersive. How does it work? The PS VR2’s eye-tracking system detects exactly where you’re looking and focuses its processing power on rendering that area in full resolution. Everything in your direct line of sight is sharp and clear. This strategic allocation of resources leads to a significant boost in performance, meaning you can enjoy fluid, responsive gameplay even during the tensest ghost encounters. Crystal clear visuals at native PS VR2 resolution In addition to the performance boost from foveated rendering, Phasmophobia on PS VR2 benefits from the headset’s native resolution of 2000 x 2040 pixels per eye. That’s a lot of pixels packed into your ghost-hunting goggles! The game also runs at a 60Hz refresh rate with 120Hz reprojection, ensuring smooth visuals as you explore every eerie hallway, attic, and basement in search of evidence. Whether you’re identifying ghosts from EMF spikes, deciphering spirit box responses, or watching for ghostly apparitions, the added sharpness and clarity help bring each investigation to life in terrifying detail. A tool belt designed for ghost hunting One of the features exclusive to the PS VR2 version on the console version of Phasmophobia is the tool belt, which is designed to make ghost hunting more intuitive and streamlined in VR. Managing equipment is crucial to success, and with the tool belt, you’ll have access to up to three pieces of gear at a time. Need to swap out your EMF reader for a camera while holding on to a crucifix for protection? No problem. With the tool belt, swapping gear is as simple as reaching down, grabbing what you need, and staying focused on the paranormal activity around you. Cross-play with PS5 Players Ghost hunting is always better with friends, and Phasmophobia on PS VR2 makes sure you won’t be ghostbusting alone. PS VR2 players can team up with those on PS5 or PS5 Pro, creating a seamless cross-play experience for console gamers. Whether you’re diving into the investigation in VR or playing on a flat screen, you’ll be able to coordinate with your team, track evidence, and outwit dangerous ghosts together. The ability to play with friends across different PlayStation systems ensures that no one has to miss out on terrifying ghost hunts. Coming October 29, 2024 Mark your calendars, because Phasmophobia is bringing its blend of cooperative ghost hunting and hair-raising horror to PS5 and PS VR2 on October 29, 2024. Gather your friends, prepare your equipment, and get ready for the fright of your life! Add Phasmophobia to your wishlist today. Play Video

If there’s one thing we love here on Super Earth, it’s the truth. We’ve even got a whole Ministry dedicated to the creation, fine-tuning, and wide distribution of it. It’s about time we gave our Helldivers some Ministry of Truth-approved equipment to match our deep, enduring love of and commitment to the Truth. With these […]

If there’s one thing we love here on Super Earth, it’s the truth. We’ve even got a whole Ministry dedicated to the creation, fine-tuning, and wide distribution of it. It’s about time we gave our Helldivers some Ministry of Truth-approved equipment to match our deep, enduring love of and commitment to the Truth. With these tools, you will become one of Super Earth’s official Truth Enforcers. Play Video Being a Truth Enforcer means showing your allegiance to Super Earth’s superiority as the arbiters of truth. The best way to demonstrate loyalty? By carrying the PLAS-15 Loyalist plasma pistol. Come on, it’s got “loyal” in the name already. It also allows you to shoot semi-auto style, or you can charge it up for a shot with more kick. We have two infallible primary weapons available in Truth Enforcers, too. First up is the SG-20 Halt: a pump-action shotgun, similar to the Punisher, that can alternate between stun rounds and armor-penetrating flechette rounds. You can stun foes with accuracy and pierce through their lies with little arrows of veracity. If that’s not enough raw sincerity to take them out, you’ve also got the SMG-32 Reprimand, which is a heavy SMG. It also has a cool slap reload, just like in the accurate, true-to-life movies you love. It’s not enough to signal your Enforcer status with weapons alone, however. You’re also going to need some new Helldrip. For our light armor-loving comrades, you can tap into your bureaucratic spirit with the UF-16 Inspector in crisp, stain-free white with red accents and a coordinating cape, the “Proof of Faultless Virtue.” It’s giving overseer. Squad Leader. But let’s say you want something a little more hefty and protective, in which case I recommend the UF-50 Bloodhound medium armor and the “Pride of the Whistleblower” cape, picking up on those deep, official-looking reds. And because we want our Helldivers to stand strong against all who oppose the truth, both of these armors have the Unflinching passive, which reduces staggering when hit. Truth Enforcers also includes new cosmetic patterns for your hellpods, exosuits, and Pelican-1. The Inconspicuous Black Pattern looks as mysterious as it does ceremonial. Equip these and you’ll bring immediate order to the chaos of other divers in your squad. To fully walk the walk and demonstrate your commitment to Super Earth’s order to the team, you can equip the new player title, Free of Thought. You’ll also be able to secure the At Ease emote, giving your Helldiver a stoic, commanding, order-following vibe. This Enforcer isn’t the type to laugh at all these pull-my-finger emote jokesters on the squad. You know they need proper clearance and permits for that. Don’t worry–we didn’t forget about the booster, either. Have you ever wanted just a little bit more stamina on the battlefield? Have you ever thought, while being chased by a Terminid horde, I’d die to have just a bit more gas to go the distance. If that sounds like you, Helldiver, then I have some good news: the new Dead Sprint booster may drain your health once your stamina is at zero, but it will enable you to keep outrunning the enemy. The spread of truth and justice across the galaxy is a big job, Helldiver, but a real Truth Enforcer has the tools and the talent to do it. The Truth Enforcers Premium Warbond* lands on October 31! *Requires base game, paid purchase of Super Credits, and game progression to unlock.

‘Tis the season for demons – Halloween is the only time of the year where we can indulge the ghastly glee of throwing on a ghoulish costume and frightening the daylights out of each other without calling the authorities. Of course, sometimes you just want to experience the fun that comes with a great scare […]

‘Tis the season for demons – Halloween is the only time of the year where we can indulge the ghastly glee of throwing on a ghoulish costume and frightening the daylights out of each other without calling the authorities. Of course, sometimes you just want to experience the fun that comes with a great scare entirely within your own safe, four walls. Which is the perfect time to let your PlayStation transport you to a variety of otherworldly settings that will leave you clammy, spooked and smiling. There are plenty of bloodcurdlingly brilliant horror games across PS4 and PS5 that will do the trick or treat, but here’s a selection of our favorites which are currently available on PlayStation Plus that will deliver a wonderfully wild Halloween experience straight into your home…. no cursed video tape required. Dead Space | Electronic Arts PS5 Essential, Extra, and Premium (available until Nov 4) Play Video Sci-fi survival horror was given a new lease of blood-flecked life when EA’s instant classic originally space walked onto PS3 way back in 2008. Since then it’s had several spin-offs and sequels, but the 2023 remake on PS5 reconfirmed how atmospheric, tense and well-crafted Dead Space has always been. Staying alive against the terrifying Necromorphs of the dread ship Ishimura is an unforgettable experience, but remember: not all headshots will earn the expected results. You have been warned. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! | Serenity Forge PS5, PS4 Essential, Extra, and Premium (available until Nov 4) Play Video With its breezy anime style and colorful high school setting, you’d be forgiven for thinking this visual novel is innocent and even a little saccharine. But if Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! had a voice, it would be sinisterly laughing at such an understandable yet utterly misguided assumption. Beneath the cheery surface is an inventive, dark, fourth wall breaking psychological horror that spins its story in directions I promise you’ll never see coming. Seriously – this is not for the faint of heart. Resident Evil 2 (2019) | Capcom PS5, PS4 Extra and Premium Play Video Returning to the zombie-infested Raccoon City might have filled rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy and student Claire Redfield with fear, but the rest of us couldn’t wait for the stunning remake to hit PS4 and PS5. Capcom’s impressive dedication to updating the original’s visuals and gameplay while maintaining its jump scares and tension pays off, with Resident Evil 2 masterfully threading the eternally tricky, bloodstained needle of satisfying old and new survival horror fans alike. Inscryption | Daniel Mullins Games PS5, PS4 Extra and Premium Play Video Roguelike deck-building games aren’t typically the first genres that spring to mind when it comes to horror, but Inscryption mixes things up with intense narrative interludes and a shadowy dealer inside a claustrophobic cabin, creating a supremely unsettling atmosphere. Inscryption uses a sense of mystery and minimalism to not only draw you in, but also to keep you on edge – because it’s never just about the blinking, fluttering, oddly alive cards you’re playing with… Dead by Daylight | Behaviour Entertainment PS5, PS4 Extra and Premium Play Video Cat and mouse games are always more engaging when they’re played with friends, so Dead by Daylight leans into that concept in a brutal 4vs1 multiplayer horror set-up. Four of you take the role of survivors trying to escape the lone killer player in procedurally generated environments. If you’ve ever wanted to be in a playable slasher flick, Dead by Daylight delivers an abundance of gory glee. Dredge | Team17 PS5, PS4 Extra and Premium Play Video Even from its first few minutes of boat sailing gameplay, there’s something deeply unnerving about Dredge. After playing it for longer, you’ll soon realize what it is – pretty much everything. From its subtly eerie soundscape to the memorably odd characters you encounter, this off-kilter fishing adventure isn’t strictly a horror game but expertly plays with your imagination. A masterclass in building tension, Dredge dares you to explore its eldritch fever fringed world… and then entraps you with its compelling narrative. The Last of Us Part I | Sony Interactive Entertainment PS5 Extra and Premium Play Video Due to its world-beating TV adaptation, The Last of Us has become a multimedia phenomenon, but seeing where it all started it’s easy to see why its story has become such a powerful mainstay. Remaking the original and its expansion The Last of Us: Left Behind, this Naughty Dog action-adventure pulls no punches in a world ravaged by infected humans… and worse – uninfected, morally devastated people. A heartbreaking, genre-defining title. Siren | Sony Interactive Entertainment PS4 Premium Play Video Ghost stories are especially effective in video games, with Siren a testament to that – outmatching many big screen equivalents with its creeping tension and haunting horror. The stealth game’s secret weapon for scares is the ‘Sightjack’ ability, letting you see the world through the eyes of others, including the monstrous Shibito while you attempt to survive the cursed mountain village of Hanuda. It also means you can suffer a first-hand view of own gruesome demise if you’re not especially careful. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution | Skydance Interactive PS5, PS VR2 Premium Play Video There’s something terrifyingly intimate about horror games in virtual reality, so entering the already ruthless undead-laden world of The Walking Dead via PlayStation VR2 only ups the stakes. Naturally taking the form of a first-person shooter, this chapter opens up New Orleans for you to explore and survive in, whether it’s against the walkers, unhinged humans or the mythical serial slasher only known as the Axeman. Doom 3 | Activision PS4 Premium Acting as a more story-driven reboot of the original game, Doom 3 tosses you into a Hell-spawn ravaged Mars research facility, armed with a flashlight. Okay, and some instantly recognisable weapons, too. Switching the series to a slightly more measured, atmospheric tone compared to its more fast-paced roots, Doom 3 is the survival horror first-person shooter which helped inspire an entire genre, and still holds up many years after its initial release.

We’ve got some adventurous announcements to make for those who are eagerly awaiting the release of Monster Hunter Wilds on February 28! First, we invite you to participate in the Open Beta Test in October to traverse the dynamically-changing locales, examine the diverse ecology, and test your hunting skills on PlayStation®5. We will also be […]

We’ve got some adventurous announcements to make for those who are eagerly awaiting the release of Monster Hunter Wilds on February 28! First, we invite you to participate in the Open Beta Test in October to traverse the dynamically-changing locales, examine the diverse ecology, and test your hunting skills on PlayStation®5. We will also be offering special bonuses to those who participate. PlayStation®Plus subscribers will have early access to the Open Beta Test from Tuesday, October 29 at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00pm GMT+8 until Thursday, October 31 at 9:59am GMT+7 / 10:59am GMT+8. Those who are not PS Plus subscribers can also participate in the Open Beta Test from Friday, November 1 at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00am GMT+8 to Monday, November 4 at 9:59am GMT+7 / 10:59am GMT+8. Today, we’ll be sharing information about the newly released trailer, as well as special experiences you can enjoy on PlayStation®5. Make sure to watch until the end! Play Video Monster Hunter Wilds: 5th Trailer | The Black Flame| PlayStation®5 New locale – Oilwell Basin The Oilwell Basin is a new locale where the expedition team arrives. As the name implies, the area is brimming with oil wells, which will periodically burst into violent flames. Azuz, the Everforge In the Oilwell Basin, there’s a community that has settled around a large fire forge, where people skilled in the art of forging reside. Please look forward to what stories await you in Azuz. New monsters with unique ecology to discover in the Oilwell Basin The Black Flame A mysterious monster the people from Azuz call the “Black Flame.” Fanged Beast, Ajarakan With a distinct well-developed shell that covers its back, Ajarakan is active during the Inclemency of the Oilwell Basin, the Firespring, and turns into a sweltering red when it rubs its shell against itself. Brute Wyvern, Rompopolo A monster that inhabits areas with deep oil silts. As you may have noticed, monsters in the Oilwell Basin have adapted to the changing environment with their unique ecological anatomies. What did you think of the new trailer? What will the hunter and the expedition team witness in this area? Expect new findings, deeper mysteries, and a story that will expand into the vast reaches of the land. What you can experience in the Open Beta Test The Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test includes three pieces of content: Character Creation, the Story Trial, and the Doshaguma Hunt. Traverse the Windward Plains to experience a changing ecosystem rife with opportunity. Character Creation Identical to the full release, Character Creation in the Open Beta Test allows players to select their physique and other characteristics (physique does not affect the player’s ability to play the game). Character designs created in the Open Beta Test can be carried over to the full release of the game (game progress will not be carried over). During the Open Beta Test, you can redo Character Creation as many times as you like, so why not take this opportunity to create your favorite Hunter and Palico? Story Trial / Doshaguma Hunt In the Story Trial where you can experience the opening of the game, you will play through the beginning of the story in an uninterrupted and seamless experience to defeat Chatacabra, which also includes a basic tutorial. In the Doshaguma Hunt, take on the titular Doshaguma (alpha) that leads the herd. Both quests can be enjoyed in multiplayer using an SOS Flare to connect with other online players. If players are unable to gather, up to three NPC support hunters will join to assist in the hunt. The quest counter, which can be accessed by talking to Alma, the Handler, allows you to set the number of multiplayer players and other conditions in detail. You can set the number of players to four, or you can call one NPC support hunter and hunt alongside a Palico, etc. Open Beta Test Bonus By participating in the Open Beta Test, players will receive a Pendant and item pack that can be used to decorate their weapons and Seikret in the full release. These bonuses will be available as downloadable content. Enjoy decorating your weapons and Seikret in the full release of the game on February 28. Now let’s review the Open Beta Test schedule! PlayStation®5 PlayStation®Plus subscribers will have early access to the Open Beta Test from Tuesday, October 29 at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00pm GMT+8 A minimum of 18 GB of free space is required on the PlayStation®5. All PlayStation™Network account holders (Those who are not subscribed to PlayStation®Plus can also participate.) Date: Friday, November 1 at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00am GMT+8 until Monday, November 4 at 09:59am GMT+7 / 10:59am GMT+8. Pre-downloading is scheduled to begin at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00am GMT+8 on Thursday, October 31, 2024. A minimum of 18 GB of free space is required on the PlayStation®5. Start times may vary. For more information, please visit the official Monster Hunter Wilds website. Discover a special experience with PS5®. Today, we are also happy to reveal the DualSense wireless controller – Monster Hunter Wilds Limited Edition. Starting on November 22, 2024, players from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam will be able to pre-order the controller from select retailers for SGD 119 / MYR 419 / IDR 1,549,000 / THB 2,890 / PHP 4,890 / VND 2,399,000. The DualSense wireless controller – Monster Hunter Wilds Limited Edition will be available from February 28, 2025, day-and-date with the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds. Availability may vary by country/region, so be sure to check your local retailers. DualSense® Wireless Controller Haptic feedback Feel every moment in your hands with haptic feedback, which allows you to enjoy precisely expressed vibrations in a variety of scenes, from natural phenomena such as lightning strikes to the roar of a monster. Integrated speaker The controller’s Integrated speaker emits the sounds of the Seikret and other endemic life. You can hear the breath of nearby living creatures. Supports Tempest 3D audio technology With state-of-the-art acoustic technology, you can hear the pulse of nature and life as if you were surrounded by it. Adaptive triggers Another supported feature is adaptive triggers, which change the button resistance depending on the situation. The adaptive resistance allows players to zoom in and out of the map more intuitively and improves usability while exploring vast locales. Motion sensor The accelerometer and gyroscope allow intuitive camera operation. This improves maneuverability during Focus Mode and long-range weapon aim, making it easier to target monsters. Expect an immersive experience that only the PlayStation®5 version of Monster Hunter Wilds can provide. Summary That is all for today! Although gameplay in the Open Beta Test will be limited, we hope you will be able to experience the seamless immersive experience, the dynamically-changing environment, and realistic monster ecology. Monster Hunter Wilds is now available for pre-order. Make sure to get the Hunter Layered Armor, Guild Knight Set, and Hope Charm. Pre-ordering at PS Store will also include the PlayStation®Store exclusive pre-order bonus Monster Hunter Wilds Digital Mini Art Book. Hunters around the world, we’ll see you in the Open Beta Test! Monster Hunter Wilds will release on PlayStation®5 on Friday, February 28. Online multiplayer in the full version requires a PlayStation®Plus subscription. Broadband Internet access is required.

We’ve got some adventurous announcements to make for those who are eagerly awaiting the release of Monster Hunter Wilds on February 28! First, we invite you to participate in the Open Beta Test in October to traverse the dynamically-changing locales, examine the diverse ecology, and test your hunting skills on PlayStation 5. We will also […]

We’ve got some adventurous announcements to make for those who are eagerly awaiting the release of Monster Hunter Wilds on February 28! First, we invite you to participate in the Open Beta Test in October to traverse the dynamically-changing locales, examine the diverse ecology, and test your hunting skills on PlayStation 5. We will also be offering special bonuses to those who participate. PlayStation Plus members will have early access to the Open Beta Test from Monday, October 28, 8pm PT / Tuesday October 29 3am GMT, 12pm JST until Wednesday, October 30 at 7:59pm PT / Thursday October 31 2.59am GMT, 11.59am JST. Those who are not PS Plus members can also participate in the Open Beta Test from Thursday, October 31 8pm PT / Friday November 1 3am GMT, 12pm JST to Sunday, November 3 at 6:59pm PT / Monday, November 4 at 2.59am GMT, 11.59am JST. (Time adjusted for Daylight Savings Time.) Today, we’ll be sharing information about the newly released trailer, as well as special experiences you can enjoy on PlayStation 5. Make sure to watch until the end! Play Video New locale – Oilwell Basin The Oilwell Basin is a new locale where the expedition team arrives. As the name implies, the area is brimming with oil wells, which will periodically burst into violent flames. Azuz, the Everforge In the Oilwell Basin, there’s a community that has settled around a large fire forge, where people skilled in the art of forging reside. Please look forward to what stories await you in Azuz. New monsters with unique ecology to discover in the Oilwell Basin The Black Flame A mysterious monster the people from Azuz call the “Black Flame.” Fanged Beast, Ajarakan With a distinct well-developed shell that covers its back, Ajarakan is active during the Inclemency of the Oilwell Basin, the Firespring, and turns into a sweltering red when it rubs its shell against itself. Brute Wyvern, Rompopolo A monster that inhabits areas with deep oil silts. As you may have noticed, monsters in the Oilwell Basin have adapted to the changing environment with their unique ecological anatomies. What did you think of the new trailer? What will the hunter and the expedition team witness in this area? Expect new findings, deeper mysteries, and a story that will expand into the vast reaches of the land. What you can experience in the Open Beta Test The Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test includes three pieces of content: Character Creation, the Story Trial, and the Doshaguma Hunt. Traverse the Windward Plains to experience a changing ecosystem rife with opportunity. Character Creation Identical to the full release, Character Creation in the Open Beta Test allows players to select their physique and other characteristics (physique does not affect the player’s ability to play the game). Character designs created in the Open Beta Test can be carried over to the full release of the game (game progress will not be carried over). During the Open Beta Test, you can redo Character Creation as many times as you like, so why not take this opportunity to create your favorite Hunter and Palico? Story Trial / Doshaguma Hunt In the Story Trial where you can experience the opening of the game, you will play through the beginning of the story in an uninterrupted and seamless experience to defeat Chatacabra, which also includes a basic tutorial. In the Doshaguma Hunt, take on the titular Doshaguma (alpha) that leads the herd. Both quests can be enjoyed in multiplayer using an SOS Flare to connect with other online players. If players are unable to gather, up to three NPC support hunters will join to assist in the hunt. The quest counter, which can be accessed by talking to Alma, the Handler, allows you to set the number of multiplayer players and other conditions in detail. You can set the number of players to four, or you can call one NPC support hunter and hunt alongside a Palico, etc. Open Beta Test Bonus By participating in the Open Beta Test, players will receive a Pendant and item pack that can be used to decorate their weapons and Seikret in the full release. These bonuses will be available as downloadable content. Enjoy decorating your weapons and Seikret in the full release of the game on February 28. Now let’s review the Open Beta Test schedule*! PlayStation 5 PlayStation Plus members only: Early Access Dates: Monday, October 28, 8:00pm PT / Tuesday October 29 3am GMT, 12pm JST – Wednesday, October 30 at 7:59pm PT / Thursday October 31 2.59am GMT, 11.59am JST. Pre-downloading is scheduled to begin at 8pm PT on Sunday, October 27, 2024 / 3am GMT, 12pm JST Monday, October 28. A minimum of 18 GB of free space is required on the PlayStation 5. All PlayStation Network account holders (Those who are not subscribed to PlayStation Plus can also participate.) Thursday, October 31 8pm PT / Friday November 1 3am GMT, 12pm JST – Sunday, November 3 at 6:59pm PT / Monday, November 4 at 2.59am GMT, 11.59am JST. Pre-downloading is scheduled to begin at 8pm PT on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 / 3am GMT, 12pm JST Thursday, October 31. A minimum of 18 GB of free space is required on the PlayStation 5. *Start times may vary. For more information, please visit the official Monster Hunter Wilds website. Discover a special experience with PS5 with the DualSense Wireless controller: Haptic feedback Feel every moment in your hands with haptic feedback, which allows you to enjoy precisely expressed vibrations in a variety of scenes, from natural phenomena such as lightning strikes to the roar of a monster. Integrated speaker The controller’s Integrated speaker emits the sounds of the Seikret and other endemic life. You can hear the breath of nearby living creatures. Supports Tempest 3D audio technology With state-of-the-art acoustic technology, you can hear the pulse of nature and life as if you were surrounded by it. Adaptive triggers Another supported feature is adaptive triggers, which change the button resistance depending on the situation. The adaptive resistance allows players to zoom in and out of the map more intuitively and improves usability while exploring vast locales. Motion sensor The accelerometer and gyroscope allow intuitive camera operation. This improves maneuverability during Focus Mode and long-range weapon aim, making it easier to target monsters. Expect an immersive experience that only the PlayStation®5 version of Monster Hunter Wilds can provide. Summary That is all for today! Although gameplay in the Open Beta Test will be limited, we hope you will be able to experience the seamless immersive experience, the dynamically-changing environment, and realistic monster ecology. Monster Hunter Wilds is now available for pre-order. Make sure to get the Hunter Layered Armor, Guild Knight Set, and Hope Charm. Pre-ordering at PlayStation Store will also include the PlayStation Store exclusive pre-order bonus Monster Hunter Wilds Digital Mini Art Book. Hunters around the world, we’ll see you in the Open Beta Test! Monster Hunter Wilds will release on PlayStation 5 on Friday, February 28. Online multiplayer in the full version requires a PlayStation Plus subscription. Broadband Internet access is required.

Hello, our tiny No Man’s Sky team has a Halloween treat for our PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation VR players. Our last update saw players enjoying a nice chill time, as we added fishing to No Man’s Sky. Our next update couldn’t be more different. As we approach Halloween, we want to scare and […]

Hello, our tiny No Man’s Sky team has a Halloween treat for our PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation VR players. Our last update saw players enjoying a nice chill time, as we added fishing to No Man’s Sky. Our next update couldn’t be more different. As we approach Halloween, we want to scare and surprise players, and The Cursed is an unexpectedly creepy update for No Man’s Sky. Play Video The Cursed is a weird and unsettling gameplay event, where you’ll fight to keep a grip on reality while haunted by visions and voices from another dimension. Taking place in a sort of twilight universe, The Cursed straddles the boundary between one reality and the next. Here, time can shift unexpectedly, spinning from day to night at a vertigo-inducing rate. The new Boundary Herald Starship is your safe haven in this haunted universe. Our first flying saucer, is a gorgeous Giger-esque coil of tubes, pipeworks, and engines. Players must protect themselves against the weakening of the boundaries of reality. Your exosuit comes fitted with a specialized Anomaly Suppressor – maintaining this is the key to surviving while the universe begins to break down around you. As players struggle to navigate these haunted worlds, they may come face to face with the ghostly beings that drift across the boundaries. Sometimes these spectral anomalies merely observe, and sometimes they can turn much more hostile. These encounters provide players with new challenging enemies and boss battles, at a scale not seen before in No Man’s Sky. Travellers will not have access to hyperdrive technology, meaning no warping between star systems. Instead, interstellar travel requires careful planning and use of the ancient portal network. Haunting voices, leaking through from another dimension, will provide guidance, information, strange blueprints,and mystery. It is up to you to decide who these voices belong to, where they are coming from, and if they are to be trusted. The Cursed brings with it a host of exclusive spooky rewards, including a Cthulhu-esque Horror Exosuit customization, bioluminescent pets, and the ultimate reward, retrieved from the reality collapse, the UFO-like Boundary Herald Starship. Travel beyond the boundaries and fortify your mind against spectral anomalies – or succumb to the call of the world of glass. The expedition begins today, free for existing PlayStation players and will run for approximately two weeks. Our last update Aquarius, brought fishing to No Man’s Sky and proved very popular. For us, 2024 continues to be one of our most popular years since launch. In the coming weeks, we have several more surprises, including a specific release to take advantage of the incredible power of the PlayStation 5 Pro at launch. Our journey continues.

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The Alien franchise has left a long, deep acid burn on the video game medium ever since the release of the first film in 1979. Whether hiding in lockers in Alien Isolation, blasting waves of creatures in Aliens: Fireteam Elite, or guiding a Marine squad to tactical victory in Aliens: Dark Descent, the series’ rich […]

The Alien franchise has left a long, deep acid burn on the video game medium ever since the release of the first film in 1979. Whether hiding in lockers in Alien Isolation, blasting waves of creatures in Aliens: Fireteam Elite, or guiding a Marine squad to tactical victory in Aliens: Dark Descent, the series’ rich legacy has left plenty of room for creative interpretation. With Alien: Rogue Incursion, celebrated VR developer Survios is aiming to make another major contribution to the Alien gaming legacy. This big-budget, immersive PlayStation VR2 experience promises to make players feel like they’re actually inhabiting the dark, brooding world of the films, from navigating the shadowy hallways to wielding authentic Marine firepower against the titular threat. Ahead of the game’s launch on PS VR2 this December, we went hands-on with a pre-release build of this single-player survival-horror adventure. Here are some highlights of our experience. An immersive VR Alien fantasy Survios set out to make players feel firmly planted in the oppressive Alien universe, so don’t expect a cakewalk. Ammo and healing items are scarce, xenomorphs can deliver fatal one-hit blows, and hissing steam vents keep you on edge throughout. Rogue Incursion’s high-fidelity VR presentation is a knockout, with a level of visual detail and polish that puts it among the upper echelon of VR titles. You’ll know what we mean when you stare an encroaching alien in its dripping face and it feels like it’s mere inches away. The perfect organism Xenomorphs behave how you’d expect: they’re ominous and unpredictable. Sometimes they’ll slink through a doorway, upright and imposing. At other times they’ll drop to all fours, scuttling forward malevolently. They’re also highly mobile and seemed to take different routes depending on our position, clambering along walls and ceilings or dropping down from vents behind us. Knowing these threats can hit from any angle will keep your head swiveling as you scan the murky environments for threats, keeping your M41 pulse rifle trained on suspicious shapes lurking in the shadows. It all looks and feels ultra faithful to the first two films. On-body inventory The stakes are high, but Survios has you covered with a slick on-body inventory powered by the PS VR2’s Sense controllers. Reach over your right shoulder to grab your pulse rifle, clutch a healing stim from your left wrist, or draw a revolver from the holster on your hip. In just a few minutes, the intuitive inventory system became second nature, allowing us to keep our attention focused on encroaching hostiles and staying alive for a little while longer. There’s something moving and it ain’t us While there’s plenty of alien-blasting action, Rogue Incursion leaves ample room for quiet, tense moments where we bypassed locked doors or reprogrammed security discs to proceed further. Luckily, we were armed with the iconic Motion Tracker from the second film, and it’s something we quickly came to rely on. Reaching to our right bicep equipped the device, allowing us to track enemy (and ally) movements as we prowled the darkened corridors. This life-saving device can even be placed onto a surface to act as an extra set of eyes as you explore or reload your weapon. Don’t go off-world without it! Welcome to the retro-future The Alien universe’s technological aesthetic was solidified from the first moments we saw the Nostromo’s CRT computer monitors, chunky keyboards, and assorted analog gear. Survios pays thoughtful tribute to this tech, so expect to get up close and personal with plenty of 80’s-style gadgets in Rogue Incursion. The PDA tablet is a perfect example. Retrieved by reaching to your right arm, this handheld device can help you save your game and can be slotted into computers to download data. It also clunkily unfolds to reveal a large virtual touchscreen map, which in a clever touch can be scrolled through using your in-game finger. Elevator action Our hands-on session culminated in a frantic battle against waves of aliens as we waited for an elevator to arrive. We called on all of our gear and skills to hold the line. We blasted flammable barrels to ignite xenomorphs, under the watchful eye of our strategically placed Motion Tracker device. There were many intense close calls, usually forcing us to flee and heal or fumble fresh shells into our shotgun. Suddenly, a spiked tail burst through our chest, ending our game. But we didn’t dread a restart because the unpredictable actions of the aliens made each new attempt feel fresh and interesting. Devils in the details Survivos’s VR expertise was on full display throughout our play session. We were wowed by some of the small, thoughtful details that made the world feel complete, such as using your hand to wipe blood from our eyes or off a computer monitor. The game’s physicality is a huge asset, and as we grew accustomed to removing and replacing weapons and gear from our body, muscle memory took over and the feeling of reality crept in. Reloading a revolver? Press the Circle button to eject the cylinder and shake out the empty casings before reloading each individual bullet. Firing a pulse rifle? Be sure to stabilize the stock with your other hand, or the 10mm explosive-tip caseless rounds will launch into the ceiling instead of at the approaching alien. Needless to say, we were impressed. Get ready to step into the boots of space marine Zula Hendricks when Alien: Rogue Incursion deploys on PS VR2 on December 19.

When reimagining Black Iron Prison for a fast-action roguelike dungeon crawler, one of the first things we did was really let our designers run wild with the creatures in the game. We wanted a mix of familiar creatures from TCP and new baddies for players to battle — but everything had to make sense in […]

When reimagining Black Iron Prison for a fast-action roguelike dungeon crawler, one of the first things we did was really let our designers run wild with the creatures in the game. We wanted a mix of familiar creatures from TCP and new baddies for players to battle — but everything had to make sense in the crazy comic-inspired future-punk world of [Redacted], which launches on October 31 on PS5. We’ve crammed [Redacted] with enemies, so I’m just gonna share some of the studio’s favorites. Play Video First up are Danglers, these guys originated in The Callisto Protocol but we took [Redacted]’s big comic book paintbrush to them. Danglers usually spawn in packs and crawl toward you, exploding when they get close and dealing serious damage. They’re weak, so stronger weapons can one-shot these guys, and you can use the GRP or kick to knock them into other enemies. Sounds easy right? Well, In early rooms they’re easy to clear, but they will definitely sneak up on you when things get hectic. And they come in four different flavors. The basic Danglers do an area of effect damage, but the Lightning, Fire, and Cryo versions get a bit tricky – when they’re killed they explode and leave a large electrical, fire, or cryo hazard in their wake. Make sure you don’t box yourself in. Next there’s the Cybernetic Switcher. They’re completely new for [Redacted]. We dreamed these guys up to force players to change their tactics on the fly. Cybernetic Switchers are fast melee enemies that attack in groups. The catch is that they can alternate blocking melee and ranged attacks – forcing you to change up your combat approach mid-fight. Or, you know, you can just kick them off a ledge, that works too. The Dasher, as the name suggests, dashes. It’s one of our fastest enemies, dashing from point to point while unleashing melee attacks. There’s also a variant that foregoes melee attacks and leaves grenades in its wake. Their speed makes it hard to pin down and defeat them, so keep moving to avoid their attacks and bully them into submission when there’s an opening. You can also use the GRP to stagger them and get in close to finish them off quickly. The next three enemies we haven’t even shown before and are located in the final levels of the game, so you know they’re gonna be challenging. And they all work in concert to make those last rooms a hell of a battle – but we’ll give you some tips to get you ready. The Crazed Prisoners inhabiting the prison are physically weak opponents – but they aren’t necessarily there to hurt you directly as they actively create distance from you. They spread chaos by lobbing gravity grenades into the thick of battle that suck you toward the epicenter which allows other enemies to focus their attacks on a single point. That single point is you. Dash to break free of the effect or face defeat. I recommend you take these enemies out quickly, but watch your back because the next two enemies we’re looking at are likely there too. The Robot Shaman isn’t actually magic but it can feel that way sometimes because it buffs surrounding enemies by granting them shields that you have to get through before damaging them. But the Robot Shaman isn’t without damage-dealing powers. It deploys a large electric dome that deals damage if you’re caught inside. You’ll need to quickly balance handling the newly shielded enemies, staying within striking distance to damage the shaman but not so close you’ll be caught in its electric dome. And finally, one of the other big bads from The Callisto Protocol, the Two-Head. They’re slow but big and deadly. We tweaked these heavily throughout the game’s development. The Two-Head evolved from a melee-focused character to a deadly ranged enemy that creates a large area of effect damage with additional damage over time. Oh, and it disorients you for a few seconds. Dodge their ground-pound attacks and get behind them to deal heavier backstab damage to take them down quickly. I wish I could tell you about all the enemies because we’re just scratching the surface, but there are too many to go over here. The great thing is, if you pre-order for PS5, you can discover and experience them for yourself right this second. Otherwise, [Redacted] launches on October 31 on PS5.

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com! Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or download here Hey folks! This week the team got to sit down with Bioware Game Director Corinne Busche and Creative Director John Epler to talk Dragon Age: The Veilguard. We also discuss the newly released Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and Fear the Spotlight. Stuff We […]

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com! Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or download here Hey folks! This week the team got to sit down with Bioware Game Director Corinne Busche and Creative Director John Epler to talk Dragon Age: The Veilguard. We also discuss the newly released Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and Fear the Spotlight. Stuff We Talked About Next week’s release highlights: Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered | PS5 Dragon Age: The Veilguard | PS5 Life is Strange: Double Exposure | PS5 Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 pre-launch overview Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered first look at bosses and new map details Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test launches on PS5 next week 10 great horror games available with PlayStation Plus Interview with Corinne Busche and John Epler (begins at 12:59) Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero Fear the Spotlight Silent Hill 2 Theatrhythm Final Bar Line The Cast View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Kristen Zitani – Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image Brett Elston – Content Communications Manager, SIE View and download image Download the image close Close Download this image O’Dell Harmon Jr. – Content Communications Specialist, SIE Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music. [Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]

Last week, we asked you to share gaming characters you’d like to dress up as for Halloween using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights: ForgottenJasmin shares a katana-riddled samurai with a basket for a helmet from Ghost of Tsushima: Legends. sorathluna shares a red-headed witch wearing an owl mask from Hogwarts Legacy. AkiraAoyama_VP shares […]

Last week, we asked you to share gaming characters you’d like to dress up as for Halloween using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights: ForgottenJasmin shares a katana-riddled samurai with a basket for a helmet from Ghost of Tsushima: Legends. sorathluna shares a red-headed witch wearing an owl mask from Hogwarts Legacy. AkiraAoyama_VP shares the quirky janitor Ahti from Control. BitarHector shares Aloy striking a pose in one of the Oseram blue and red beaded armors from Horizon Forbidden West. juniaxe shares Claire Redfield in her classic red leather jacket in Resident Evil 2. Kirill_Skulkin shares a hulking blue Space Marine armor set from Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week? THEME: Ghosts and Ghouls SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on October 30, 2024 Next week, we’re ready to get haunted. Share ghastly ghosts and (non-gory) ghouls from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

Gather your friends, grab your EMF Reader and prepare for spine-chilling ghost hunts because Phasmophobia is finally coming to PS5 and PS VR2 on October 29, 2024. Just in time for Halloween! Whether you’re an experienced ghost hunter or a new recruit eager to join the supernatural fray, we can’t wait to welcome everyone on […]

Gather your friends, grab your EMF Reader and prepare for spine-chilling ghost hunts because Phasmophobia is finally coming to PS5 and PS VR2 on October 29, 2024. Just in time for Halloween! Whether you’re an experienced ghost hunter or a new recruit eager to join the supernatural fray, we can’t wait to welcome everyone on PS5 and PS VR2, especially the latter. If you’re up to the task, ghost hunter, you’ll find a genuinely haunting and immersive experience waiting for you in virtual reality. Here’s a look at some of the standout features you can expect when you put on your PS VR2 headset. Foveated Rendering: Frights with performance in mind One of the key advantages of Phasmophobia on PS VR2 is the inclusion of foveated rendering. This innovative technology allows the game to deliver a higher, more stable framerate, ensuring that the intense moments of supernatural suspense stay smooth and immersive. How does it work? The PS VR2’s eye-tracking system detects exactly where you’re looking and focuses its processing power on rendering that area in full resolution. Everything in your direct line of sight is sharp and clear. This strategic allocation of resources leads to a significant boost in performance, meaning you can enjoy fluid, responsive gameplay even during the tensest ghost encounters. Crystal clear visuals at native PS VR2 resolution In addition to the performance boost from foveated rendering, Phasmophobia on PS VR2 benefits from the headset’s native resolution of 2000 x 2040 pixels per eye. That’s a lot of pixels packed into your ghost-hunting goggles! The game also runs at a 60Hz refresh rate with 120Hz reprojection, ensuring smooth visuals as you explore every eerie hallway, attic, and basement in search of evidence. Whether you’re identifying ghosts from EMF spikes, deciphering spirit box responses, or watching for ghostly apparitions, the added sharpness and clarity help bring each investigation to life in terrifying detail. A tool belt designed for ghost hunting One of the features exclusive to the PS VR2 version on the console version of Phasmophobia is the tool belt, which is designed to make ghost hunting more intuitive and streamlined in VR. Managing equipment is crucial to success, and with the tool belt, you’ll have access to up to three pieces of gear at a time. Need to swap out your EMF reader for a camera while holding on to a crucifix for protection? No problem. With the tool belt, swapping gear is as simple as reaching down, grabbing what you need, and staying focused on the paranormal activity around you. Cross-play with PS5 Players Ghost hunting is always better with friends, and Phasmophobia on PS VR2 makes sure you won’t be ghostbusting alone. PS VR2 players can team up with those on PS5 or PS5 Pro, creating a seamless cross-play experience for console gamers. Whether you’re diving into the investigation in VR or playing on a flat screen, you’ll be able to coordinate with your team, track evidence, and outwit dangerous ghosts together. The ability to play with friends across different PlayStation systems ensures that no one has to miss out on terrifying ghost hunts. Coming October 29, 2024 Mark your calendars, because Phasmophobia is bringing its blend of cooperative ghost hunting and hair-raising horror to PS5 and PS VR2 on October 29, 2024. Gather your friends, prepare your equipment, and get ready for the fright of your life! Add Phasmophobia to your wishlist today. Play Video

If there’s one thing we love here on Super Earth, it’s the truth. We’ve even got a whole Ministry dedicated to the creation, fine-tuning, and wide distribution of it. It’s about time we gave our Helldivers some Ministry of Truth-approved equipment to match our deep, enduring love of and commitment to the Truth. With these […]

If there’s one thing we love here on Super Earth, it’s the truth. We’ve even got a whole Ministry dedicated to the creation, fine-tuning, and wide distribution of it. It’s about time we gave our Helldivers some Ministry of Truth-approved equipment to match our deep, enduring love of and commitment to the Truth. With these tools, you will become one of Super Earth’s official Truth Enforcers. Play Video Being a Truth Enforcer means showing your allegiance to Super Earth’s superiority as the arbiters of truth. The best way to demonstrate loyalty? By carrying the PLAS-15 Loyalist plasma pistol. Come on, it’s got “loyal” in the name already. It also allows you to shoot semi-auto style, or you can charge it up for a shot with more kick. We have two infallible primary weapons available in Truth Enforcers, too. First up is the SG-20 Halt: a pump-action shotgun, similar to the Punisher, that can alternate between stun rounds and armor-penetrating flechette rounds. You can stun foes with accuracy and pierce through their lies with little arrows of veracity. If that’s not enough raw sincerity to take them out, you’ve also got the SMG-32 Reprimand, which is a heavy SMG. It also has a cool slap reload, just like in the accurate, true-to-life movies you love. It’s not enough to signal your Enforcer status with weapons alone, however. You’re also going to need some new Helldrip. For our light armor-loving comrades, you can tap into your bureaucratic spirit with the UF-16 Inspector in crisp, stain-free white with red accents and a coordinating cape, the “Proof of Faultless Virtue.” It’s giving overseer. Squad Leader. But let’s say you want something a little more hefty and protective, in which case I recommend the UF-50 Bloodhound medium armor and the “Pride of the Whistleblower” cape, picking up on those deep, official-looking reds. And because we want our Helldivers to stand strong against all who oppose the truth, both of these armors have the Unflinching passive, which reduces staggering when hit. Truth Enforcers also includes new cosmetic patterns for your hellpods, exosuits, and Pelican-1. The Inconspicuous Black Pattern looks as mysterious as it does ceremonial. Equip these and you’ll bring immediate order to the chaos of other divers in your squad. To fully walk the walk and demonstrate your commitment to Super Earth’s order to the team, you can equip the new player title, Free of Thought. You’ll also be able to secure the At Ease emote, giving your Helldiver a stoic, commanding, order-following vibe. This Enforcer isn’t the type to laugh at all these pull-my-finger emote jokesters on the squad. You know they need proper clearance and permits for that. Don’t worry–we didn’t forget about the booster, either. Have you ever wanted just a little bit more stamina on the battlefield? Have you ever thought, while being chased by a Terminid horde, I’d die to have just a bit more gas to go the distance. If that sounds like you, Helldiver, then I have some good news: the new Dead Sprint booster may drain your health once your stamina is at zero, but it will enable you to keep outrunning the enemy. The spread of truth and justice across the galaxy is a big job, Helldiver, but a real Truth Enforcer has the tools and the talent to do it. The Truth Enforcers Premium Warbond* lands on October 31! *Requires base game, paid purchase of Super Credits, and game progression to unlock.

‘Tis the season for demons – Halloween is the only time of the year where we can indulge the ghastly glee of throwing on a ghoulish costume and frightening the daylights out of each other without calling the authorities. Of course, sometimes you just want to experience the fun that comes with a great scare […]

‘Tis the season for demons – Halloween is the only time of the year where we can indulge the ghastly glee of throwing on a ghoulish costume and frightening the daylights out of each other without calling the authorities. Of course, sometimes you just want to experience the fun that comes with a great scare entirely within your own safe, four walls. Which is the perfect time to let your PlayStation transport you to a variety of otherworldly settings that will leave you clammy, spooked and smiling. There are plenty of bloodcurdlingly brilliant horror games across PS4 and PS5 that will do the trick or treat, but here’s a selection of our favorites which are currently available on PlayStation Plus that will deliver a wonderfully wild Halloween experience straight into your home…. no cursed video tape required. Dead Space | Electronic Arts PS5 Essential, Extra, and Premium (available until Nov 4) Play Video Sci-fi survival horror was given a new lease of blood-flecked life when EA’s instant classic originally space walked onto PS3 way back in 2008. Since then it’s had several spin-offs and sequels, but the 2023 remake on PS5 reconfirmed how atmospheric, tense and well-crafted Dead Space has always been. Staying alive against the terrifying Necromorphs of the dread ship Ishimura is an unforgettable experience, but remember: not all headshots will earn the expected results. You have been warned. Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! | Serenity Forge PS5, PS4 Essential, Extra, and Premium (available until Nov 4) Play Video With its breezy anime style and colorful high school setting, you’d be forgiven for thinking this visual novel is innocent and even a little saccharine. But if Doki Doki Literature Club Plus! had a voice, it would be sinisterly laughing at such an understandable yet utterly misguided assumption. Beneath the cheery surface is an inventive, dark, fourth wall breaking psychological horror that spins its story in directions I promise you’ll never see coming. Seriously – this is not for the faint of heart. Resident Evil 2 (2019) | Capcom PS5, PS4 Extra and Premium Play Video Returning to the zombie-infested Raccoon City might have filled rookie cop Leon S. Kennedy and student Claire Redfield with fear, but the rest of us couldn’t wait for the stunning remake to hit PS4 and PS5. Capcom’s impressive dedication to updating the original’s visuals and gameplay while maintaining its jump scares and tension pays off, with Resident Evil 2 masterfully threading the eternally tricky, bloodstained needle of satisfying old and new survival horror fans alike. Inscryption | Daniel Mullins Games PS5, PS4 Extra and Premium Play Video Roguelike deck-building games aren’t typically the first genres that spring to mind when it comes to horror, but Inscryption mixes things up with intense narrative interludes and a shadowy dealer inside a claustrophobic cabin, creating a supremely unsettling atmosphere. Inscryption uses a sense of mystery and minimalism to not only draw you in, but also to keep you on edge – because it’s never just about the blinking, fluttering, oddly alive cards you’re playing with… Dead by Daylight | Behaviour Entertainment PS5, PS4 Extra and Premium Play Video Cat and mouse games are always more engaging when they’re played with friends, so Dead by Daylight leans into that concept in a brutal 4vs1 multiplayer horror set-up. Four of you take the role of survivors trying to escape the lone killer player in procedurally generated environments. If you’ve ever wanted to be in a playable slasher flick, Dead by Daylight delivers an abundance of gory glee. Dredge | Team17 PS5, PS4 Extra and Premium Play Video Even from its first few minutes of boat sailing gameplay, there’s something deeply unnerving about Dredge. After playing it for longer, you’ll soon realize what it is – pretty much everything. From its subtly eerie soundscape to the memorably odd characters you encounter, this off-kilter fishing adventure isn’t strictly a horror game but expertly plays with your imagination. A masterclass in building tension, Dredge dares you to explore its eldritch fever fringed world… and then entraps you with its compelling narrative. The Last of Us Part I | Sony Interactive Entertainment PS5 Extra and Premium Play Video Due to its world-beating TV adaptation, The Last of Us has become a multimedia phenomenon, but seeing where it all started it’s easy to see why its story has become such a powerful mainstay. Remaking the original and its expansion The Last of Us: Left Behind, this Naughty Dog action-adventure pulls no punches in a world ravaged by infected humans… and worse – uninfected, morally devastated people. A heartbreaking, genre-defining title. Siren | Sony Interactive Entertainment PS4 Premium Play Video Ghost stories are especially effective in video games, with Siren a testament to that – outmatching many big screen equivalents with its creeping tension and haunting horror. The stealth game’s secret weapon for scares is the ‘Sightjack’ ability, letting you see the world through the eyes of others, including the monstrous Shibito while you attempt to survive the cursed mountain village of Hanuda. It also means you can suffer a first-hand view of own gruesome demise if you’re not especially careful. The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners – Chapter 2: Retribution | Skydance Interactive PS5, PS VR2 Premium Play Video There’s something terrifyingly intimate about horror games in virtual reality, so entering the already ruthless undead-laden world of The Walking Dead via PlayStation VR2 only ups the stakes. Naturally taking the form of a first-person shooter, this chapter opens up New Orleans for you to explore and survive in, whether it’s against the walkers, unhinged humans or the mythical serial slasher only known as the Axeman. Doom 3 | Activision PS4 Premium Acting as a more story-driven reboot of the original game, Doom 3 tosses you into a Hell-spawn ravaged Mars research facility, armed with a flashlight. Okay, and some instantly recognisable weapons, too. Switching the series to a slightly more measured, atmospheric tone compared to its more fast-paced roots, Doom 3 is the survival horror first-person shooter which helped inspire an entire genre, and still holds up many years after its initial release.

We’ve got some adventurous announcements to make for those who are eagerly awaiting the release of Monster Hunter Wilds on February 28! First, we invite you to participate in the Open Beta Test in October to traverse the dynamically-changing locales, examine the diverse ecology, and test your hunting skills on PlayStation®5. We will also be […]

We’ve got some adventurous announcements to make for those who are eagerly awaiting the release of Monster Hunter Wilds on February 28! First, we invite you to participate in the Open Beta Test in October to traverse the dynamically-changing locales, examine the diverse ecology, and test your hunting skills on PlayStation®5. We will also be offering special bonuses to those who participate. PlayStation®Plus subscribers will have early access to the Open Beta Test from Tuesday, October 29 at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00pm GMT+8 until Thursday, October 31 at 9:59am GMT+7 / 10:59am GMT+8. Those who are not PS Plus subscribers can also participate in the Open Beta Test from Friday, November 1 at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00am GMT+8 to Monday, November 4 at 9:59am GMT+7 / 10:59am GMT+8. Today, we’ll be sharing information about the newly released trailer, as well as special experiences you can enjoy on PlayStation®5. Make sure to watch until the end! Play Video Monster Hunter Wilds: 5th Trailer | The Black Flame| PlayStation®5 New locale – Oilwell Basin The Oilwell Basin is a new locale where the expedition team arrives. As the name implies, the area is brimming with oil wells, which will periodically burst into violent flames. Azuz, the Everforge In the Oilwell Basin, there’s a community that has settled around a large fire forge, where people skilled in the art of forging reside. Please look forward to what stories await you in Azuz. New monsters with unique ecology to discover in the Oilwell Basin The Black Flame A mysterious monster the people from Azuz call the “Black Flame.” Fanged Beast, Ajarakan With a distinct well-developed shell that covers its back, Ajarakan is active during the Inclemency of the Oilwell Basin, the Firespring, and turns into a sweltering red when it rubs its shell against itself. Brute Wyvern, Rompopolo A monster that inhabits areas with deep oil silts. As you may have noticed, monsters in the Oilwell Basin have adapted to the changing environment with their unique ecological anatomies. What did you think of the new trailer? What will the hunter and the expedition team witness in this area? Expect new findings, deeper mysteries, and a story that will expand into the vast reaches of the land. What you can experience in the Open Beta Test The Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test includes three pieces of content: Character Creation, the Story Trial, and the Doshaguma Hunt. Traverse the Windward Plains to experience a changing ecosystem rife with opportunity. Character Creation Identical to the full release, Character Creation in the Open Beta Test allows players to select their physique and other characteristics (physique does not affect the player’s ability to play the game). Character designs created in the Open Beta Test can be carried over to the full release of the game (game progress will not be carried over). During the Open Beta Test, you can redo Character Creation as many times as you like, so why not take this opportunity to create your favorite Hunter and Palico? Story Trial / Doshaguma Hunt In the Story Trial where you can experience the opening of the game, you will play through the beginning of the story in an uninterrupted and seamless experience to defeat Chatacabra, which also includes a basic tutorial. In the Doshaguma Hunt, take on the titular Doshaguma (alpha) that leads the herd. Both quests can be enjoyed in multiplayer using an SOS Flare to connect with other online players. If players are unable to gather, up to three NPC support hunters will join to assist in the hunt. The quest counter, which can be accessed by talking to Alma, the Handler, allows you to set the number of multiplayer players and other conditions in detail. You can set the number of players to four, or you can call one NPC support hunter and hunt alongside a Palico, etc. Open Beta Test Bonus By participating in the Open Beta Test, players will receive a Pendant and item pack that can be used to decorate their weapons and Seikret in the full release. These bonuses will be available as downloadable content. Enjoy decorating your weapons and Seikret in the full release of the game on February 28. Now let’s review the Open Beta Test schedule! PlayStation®5 PlayStation®Plus subscribers will have early access to the Open Beta Test from Tuesday, October 29 at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00pm GMT+8 A minimum of 18 GB of free space is required on the PlayStation®5. All PlayStation™Network account holders (Those who are not subscribed to PlayStation®Plus can also participate.) Date: Friday, November 1 at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00am GMT+8 until Monday, November 4 at 09:59am GMT+7 / 10:59am GMT+8. Pre-downloading is scheduled to begin at 10:00am GMT+7 / 11:00am GMT+8 on Thursday, October 31, 2024. A minimum of 18 GB of free space is required on the PlayStation®5. Start times may vary. For more information, please visit the official Monster Hunter Wilds website. Discover a special experience with PS5®. Today, we are also happy to reveal the DualSense wireless controller – Monster Hunter Wilds Limited Edition. Starting on November 22, 2024, players from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam will be able to pre-order the controller from select retailers for SGD 119 / MYR 419 / IDR 1,549,000 / THB 2,890 / PHP 4,890 / VND 2,399,000. The DualSense wireless controller – Monster Hunter Wilds Limited Edition will be available from February 28, 2025, day-and-date with the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds. Availability may vary by country/region, so be sure to check your local retailers. DualSense® Wireless Controller Haptic feedback Feel every moment in your hands with haptic feedback, which allows you to enjoy precisely expressed vibrations in a variety of scenes, from natural phenomena such as lightning strikes to the roar of a monster. Integrated speaker The controller’s Integrated speaker emits the sounds of the Seikret and other endemic life. You can hear the breath of nearby living creatures. Supports Tempest 3D audio technology With state-of-the-art acoustic technology, you can hear the pulse of nature and life as if you were surrounded by it. Adaptive triggers Another supported feature is adaptive triggers, which change the button resistance depending on the situation. The adaptive resistance allows players to zoom in and out of the map more intuitively and improves usability while exploring vast locales. Motion sensor The accelerometer and gyroscope allow intuitive camera operation. This improves maneuverability during Focus Mode and long-range weapon aim, making it easier to target monsters. Expect an immersive experience that only the PlayStation®5 version of Monster Hunter Wilds can provide. Summary That is all for today! Although gameplay in the Open Beta Test will be limited, we hope you will be able to experience the seamless immersive experience, the dynamically-changing environment, and realistic monster ecology. Monster Hunter Wilds is now available for pre-order. Make sure to get the Hunter Layered Armor, Guild Knight Set, and Hope Charm. Pre-ordering at PS Store will also include the PlayStation®Store exclusive pre-order bonus Monster Hunter Wilds Digital Mini Art Book. Hunters around the world, we’ll see you in the Open Beta Test! Monster Hunter Wilds will release on PlayStation®5 on Friday, February 28. Online multiplayer in the full version requires a PlayStation®Plus subscription. Broadband Internet access is required.

We’ve got some adventurous announcements to make for those who are eagerly awaiting the release of Monster Hunter Wilds on February 28! First, we invite you to participate in the Open Beta Test in October to traverse the dynamically-changing locales, examine the diverse ecology, and test your hunting skills on PlayStation 5. We will also […]

We’ve got some adventurous announcements to make for those who are eagerly awaiting the release of Monster Hunter Wilds on February 28! First, we invite you to participate in the Open Beta Test in October to traverse the dynamically-changing locales, examine the diverse ecology, and test your hunting skills on PlayStation 5. We will also be offering special bonuses to those who participate. PlayStation Plus members will have early access to the Open Beta Test from Monday, October 28, 8pm PT / Tuesday October 29 3am GMT, 12pm JST until Wednesday, October 30 at 7:59pm PT / Thursday October 31 2.59am GMT, 11.59am JST. Those who are not PS Plus members can also participate in the Open Beta Test from Thursday, October 31 8pm PT / Friday November 1 3am GMT, 12pm JST to Sunday, November 3 at 6:59pm PT / Monday, November 4 at 2.59am GMT, 11.59am JST. (Time adjusted for Daylight Savings Time.) Today, we’ll be sharing information about the newly released trailer, as well as special experiences you can enjoy on PlayStation 5. Make sure to watch until the end! Play Video New locale – Oilwell Basin The Oilwell Basin is a new locale where the expedition team arrives. As the name implies, the area is brimming with oil wells, which will periodically burst into violent flames. Azuz, the Everforge In the Oilwell Basin, there’s a community that has settled around a large fire forge, where people skilled in the art of forging reside. Please look forward to what stories await you in Azuz. New monsters with unique ecology to discover in the Oilwell Basin The Black Flame A mysterious monster the people from Azuz call the “Black Flame.” Fanged Beast, Ajarakan With a distinct well-developed shell that covers its back, Ajarakan is active during the Inclemency of the Oilwell Basin, the Firespring, and turns into a sweltering red when it rubs its shell against itself. Brute Wyvern, Rompopolo A monster that inhabits areas with deep oil silts. As you may have noticed, monsters in the Oilwell Basin have adapted to the changing environment with their unique ecological anatomies. What did you think of the new trailer? What will the hunter and the expedition team witness in this area? Expect new findings, deeper mysteries, and a story that will expand into the vast reaches of the land. What you can experience in the Open Beta Test The Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test includes three pieces of content: Character Creation, the Story Trial, and the Doshaguma Hunt. Traverse the Windward Plains to experience a changing ecosystem rife with opportunity. Character Creation Identical to the full release, Character Creation in the Open Beta Test allows players to select their physique and other characteristics (physique does not affect the player’s ability to play the game). Character designs created in the Open Beta Test can be carried over to the full release of the game (game progress will not be carried over). During the Open Beta Test, you can redo Character Creation as many times as you like, so why not take this opportunity to create your favorite Hunter and Palico? Story Trial / Doshaguma Hunt In the Story Trial where you can experience the opening of the game, you will play through the beginning of the story in an uninterrupted and seamless experience to defeat Chatacabra, which also includes a basic tutorial. In the Doshaguma Hunt, take on the titular Doshaguma (alpha) that leads the herd. Both quests can be enjoyed in multiplayer using an SOS Flare to connect with other online players. If players are unable to gather, up to three NPC support hunters will join to assist in the hunt. The quest counter, which can be accessed by talking to Alma, the Handler, allows you to set the number of multiplayer players and other conditions in detail. You can set the number of players to four, or you can call one NPC support hunter and hunt alongside a Palico, etc. Open Beta Test Bonus By participating in the Open Beta Test, players will receive a Pendant and item pack that can be used to decorate their weapons and Seikret in the full release. These bonuses will be available as downloadable content. Enjoy decorating your weapons and Seikret in the full release of the game on February 28. Now let’s review the Open Beta Test schedule*! PlayStation 5 PlayStation Plus members only: Early Access Dates: Monday, October 28, 8:00pm PT / Tuesday October 29 3am GMT, 12pm JST – Wednesday, October 30 at 7:59pm PT / Thursday October 31 2.59am GMT, 11.59am JST. Pre-downloading is scheduled to begin at 8pm PT on Sunday, October 27, 2024 / 3am GMT, 12pm JST Monday, October 28. A minimum of 18 GB of free space is required on the PlayStation 5. All PlayStation Network account holders (Those who are not subscribed to PlayStation Plus can also participate.) Thursday, October 31 8pm PT / Friday November 1 3am GMT, 12pm JST – Sunday, November 3 at 6:59pm PT / Monday, November 4 at 2.59am GMT, 11.59am JST. Pre-downloading is scheduled to begin at 8pm PT on Wednesday, October 30, 2024 / 3am GMT, 12pm JST Thursday, October 31. A minimum of 18 GB of free space is required on the PlayStation 5. *Start times may vary. For more information, please visit the official Monster Hunter Wilds website. Discover a special experience with PS5 with the DualSense Wireless controller: Haptic feedback Feel every moment in your hands with haptic feedback, which allows you to enjoy precisely expressed vibrations in a variety of scenes, from natural phenomena such as lightning strikes to the roar of a monster. Integrated speaker The controller’s Integrated speaker emits the sounds of the Seikret and other endemic life. You can hear the breath of nearby living creatures. Supports Tempest 3D audio technology With state-of-the-art acoustic technology, you can hear the pulse of nature and life as if you were surrounded by it. Adaptive triggers Another supported feature is adaptive triggers, which change the button resistance depending on the situation. The adaptive resistance allows players to zoom in and out of the map more intuitively and improves usability while exploring vast locales. Motion sensor The accelerometer and gyroscope allow intuitive camera operation. This improves maneuverability during Focus Mode and long-range weapon aim, making it easier to target monsters. Expect an immersive experience that only the PlayStation®5 version of Monster Hunter Wilds can provide. Summary That is all for today! Although gameplay in the Open Beta Test will be limited, we hope you will be able to experience the seamless immersive experience, the dynamically-changing environment, and realistic monster ecology. Monster Hunter Wilds is now available for pre-order. Make sure to get the Hunter Layered Armor, Guild Knight Set, and Hope Charm. Pre-ordering at PlayStation Store will also include the PlayStation Store exclusive pre-order bonus Monster Hunter Wilds Digital Mini Art Book. Hunters around the world, we’ll see you in the Open Beta Test! Monster Hunter Wilds will release on PlayStation 5 on Friday, February 28. Online multiplayer in the full version requires a PlayStation Plus subscription. Broadband Internet access is required.

Hello, our tiny No Man’s Sky team has a Halloween treat for our PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation VR players. Our last update saw players enjoying a nice chill time, as we added fishing to No Man’s Sky. Our next update couldn’t be more different. As we approach Halloween, we want to scare and […]

Hello, our tiny No Man’s Sky team has a Halloween treat for our PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation VR players. Our last update saw players enjoying a nice chill time, as we added fishing to No Man’s Sky. Our next update couldn’t be more different. As we approach Halloween, we want to scare and surprise players, and The Cursed is an unexpectedly creepy update for No Man’s Sky. Play Video The Cursed is a weird and unsettling gameplay event, where you’ll fight to keep a grip on reality while haunted by visions and voices from another dimension. Taking place in a sort of twilight universe, The Cursed straddles the boundary between one reality and the next. Here, time can shift unexpectedly, spinning from day to night at a vertigo-inducing rate. The new Boundary Herald Starship is your safe haven in this haunted universe. Our first flying saucer, is a gorgeous Giger-esque coil of tubes, pipeworks, and engines. Players must protect themselves against the weakening of the boundaries of reality. Your exosuit comes fitted with a specialized Anomaly Suppressor – maintaining this is the key to surviving while the universe begins to break down around you. As players struggle to navigate these haunted worlds, they may come face to face with the ghostly beings that drift across the boundaries. Sometimes these spectral anomalies merely observe, and sometimes they can turn much more hostile. These encounters provide players with new challenging enemies and boss battles, at a scale not seen before in No Man’s Sky. Travellers will not have access to hyperdrive technology, meaning no warping between star systems. Instead, interstellar travel requires careful planning and use of the ancient portal network. Haunting voices, leaking through from another dimension, will provide guidance, information, strange blueprints,and mystery. It is up to you to decide who these voices belong to, where they are coming from, and if they are to be trusted. The Cursed brings with it a host of exclusive spooky rewards, including a Cthulhu-esque Horror Exosuit customization, bioluminescent pets, and the ultimate reward, retrieved from the reality collapse, the UFO-like Boundary Herald Starship. Travel beyond the boundaries and fortify your mind against spectral anomalies – or succumb to the call of the world of glass. The expedition begins today, free for existing PlayStation players and will run for approximately two weeks. Our last update Aquarius, brought fishing to No Man’s Sky and proved very popular. For us, 2024 continues to be one of our most popular years since launch. In the coming weeks, we have several more surprises, including a specific release to take advantage of the incredible power of the PlayStation 5 Pro at launch. Our journey continues.

An overwhelming 91% of financial services industry (FSI) companies are either assessing artificial intelligence or already have it in the bag as a tool that’s driving innovation, improving operational efficiency and enhancing customer experiences. Generative AI — powered by NVIDIA NIM microservices and accelerated computing — can help organizations improve portfolio optimization, fraud detection, customer Read Article

An overwhelming 91% of financial services industry (FSI) companies are either assessing artificial intelligence or already have it in the bag as a tool that’s driving innovation, improving operational efficiency and enhancing customer experiences. Generative AI — powered by NVIDIA NIM microservices and accelerated computing — can help organizations improve portfolio optimization, fraud detection, customer service and risk management. Among the companies harnessing these technologies to boost financial services applications are Ntropy, Contextual AI and NayaOne — all members of the NVIDIA Inception program for cutting-edge startups. And Silicon Valley-based startup Securiti, which offers a centralized, intelligent platform for the safe use of data and generative AI, is using NVIDIA NIM to build an AI-powered copilot for financial services. At Money20/20, a leading fintech conference running this week in Las Vegas, the companies will demonstrate how their technologies can turn disparate, often complex FSI data into actionable insights and advanced innovation opportunities for banks, fintechs, payment providers and other organizations. Ntropy Brings Order to Unstructured Financial Data New York-based Ntropy is helping remove various states of entropy — disorder, randomness or uncertainty — from financial services workflows. “Whenever money is moved from point A to point B, text is left in bank statements, PDF receipts and other forms of transaction history,” said Naré Vardanyan, cofounder and CEO of Ntropy. “Traditionally, that unstructured data has been very hard to clean up and use for financial applications.” The company’s transaction enrichment application programming interface (API) standardizes financial data from across different sources and geographies, acting as a common language that can help financial services applications understand any transaction with humanlike accuracy in just milliseconds, at 10,000x lower cost than traditional methods. It’s built on the Llama 3 NVIDIA NIM microservice and NVIDIA Triton Inference Server running on NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs. Using the Llama 3 NIM microservice, Ntropy achieved up to 20x better utilization and throughput for its large language models (LLMs) compared with running the native models. Airbase, a leading procure-to-pay software platform provider, boosts transaction authorization processes using LLMs and the Ntropy data enricher. At Money20/20, Ntropy will discuss how its API can be used to clean up customers’ merchant data, which boosts fraud detection by improving the accuracy of risk-detection models. This in turn reduces both false transaction declines and revenue loss. Another demo will highlight how an automated loan agent taps into the Ntropy API to analyze information on a bank’s website and generate a relevant investment report to speed loan dispersal and decision-making processes for users. Contextual AI Advances Retrieval-Augmented Generation for FSI Contextual AI — based in Mountain View, California — offers a production-grade AI platform, powered by retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and ideal for building enterprise AI applications in knowledge-intensive FSI use cases. “RAG is the answer to delivering enterprise AI into production,” said Douwe Kiela, CEO and cofounder of Contextual AI. “Tapping into NVIDIA technologies and large language models, the Contextual AI RAG 2.0 platform can bring accurate, auditable AI to FSI enterprises looking to optimize operations and offer new generative AI-powered products.” The Contextual AI platform integrates the entire RAG pipeline — including extraction, retrieval, reranking and generation — into a single optimized system that can be deployed in minutes, and further tuned and specialized based on customer needs, delivering much greater accuracy in context-dependent tasks. HSBC plans to use Contextual AI to provide research insights and process guidance support through retrieving and synthesizing relevant market outlooks, financial news and operational documents. Other financial organizations are also harnessing Contextual AI’s pre-built applications, including for financial analysis, policy-compliance report generation, financial advice query resolution and more. For example, a user could ask, “What’s our forecast for central bank rates by Q4 2025?” The Contextual AI platform would provide a brief explanation and an accurate answer grounded in factual documents, including citations to specific sections in the source. Contextual AI uses NVIDIA Triton Inference Server and the open-source NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM library for accelerating and optimizing LLM inference performance. NayaOne Provides Digital Sandbox for Financial Services Innovation London-based NayaOne offers an AI sandbox that allows customers to securely test and validate AI applications prior to commercial deployment. Its technology platform allows financial institutions the ability to create synthetic data and gives them access to a marketplace of hundreds of fintechs. Customers can use the digital sandbox to benchmark applications for fairness, transparency, accuracy and other compliance measures and to better ensure top performance and successful integration. “The demand for AI-driven solutions in financial services is accelerating, and our collaboration with NVIDIA allows institutions to harness the power of generative AI in a controlled, secure environment,” said Karan Jain, CEO of NayaOne. “We’re creating an ecosystem where financial institutions can prototype faster and more effectively, leading to real business transformation and growth initiatives.” Using NVIDIA NIM microservices, NayaOne’s AI Sandbox lets customers explore and experiment with optimized AI models, and take them to deployment more easily. With NVIDIA accelerated computing, NayaOne achieves up to 10x faster processing for the large datasets used in its fraud detection models, at up to 40% lower infrastructure costs compared with running extensive CPU-based models. The digital sandbox also uses the open-source NVIDIA RAPIDS set of data science and AI libraries to accelerate fraud detection and prevention capabilities in money movement applications. The company will demonstrate its digital sandbox at the NVIDIA AI Pavilion at Money20/20. Securiti Improves Financial Planning With AI Copilot Powering a broad range of generative AI applications — including safe enterprise AI copilots and LLM training and tuning — Securiti’s highly flexible Data+AI platform lets users build safe, end-to-end enterprise AI systems. The company is now building an NVIDIA NIM-powered financial planning assistant. The copilot chatbot accesses diverse financial data while adhering to privacy and entitlement policies to provide context-aware responses to users’ finance-related questions. “Banks struggle to provide personalized financial advice at scale while maintaining data security, privacy and compliance with regulations,” said Jack Berkowitz, chief data officer at Securiti. “With robust data protection and role-based access for secure, scalable support, Securiti helps build safe AI copilots that offer personalized financial advice tailored to individual goals.” The chatbot retrieves data from a variety of sources, such as earnings transcripts, client profiles and account balances, and investment research documents. Securiti’s solution safely ingests and prepares it for use with high-performance, NVIDIA-powered LLMs, preserving controls such as access entitlements. Finally, it provides users with customized responses through a simple consumer interface. Using the Llama 3 70B-Instruct NIM microservice, Securiti optimized the performance of the LLM, while ensuring the safe use of data. The company will demonstrate its generative AI solution at Money20/20. NIM microservices and Triton Inference Server are available through the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform. Learn more about AI for financial services by joining NVIDIA at Money20/20, running through Wednesday, Oct. 30. Explore a new NVIDIA AI workflow for fraud detection.

Financial losses from worldwide credit card transaction fraud are expected to reach $43 billion by 2026. A new NVIDIA AI workflow for fraud detection running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) can help combat this burgeoning epidemic — using accelerated data processing and advanced algorithms to improve AI’s ability to detect and prevent credit card transaction Read Article

Financial losses from worldwide credit card transaction fraud are expected to reach $43 billion by 2026. A new NVIDIA AI workflow for fraud detection running on Amazon Web Services (AWS) can help combat this burgeoning epidemic — using accelerated data processing and advanced algorithms to improve AI’s ability to detect and prevent credit card transaction fraud. Launched this week at the Money20/20 fintech conference, the workflow enables financial institutions to identify subtle patterns and anomalies in transaction data based on user behavior to improve accuracy and reduce false positives compared with traditional methods. Users can streamline the migration of their fraud detection workflows from traditional compute to accelerated compute using the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform and NVIDIA GPU instances. Businesses embracing comprehensive machine learning tools and strategies can observe up to an estimated 40% improvement in fraud detection accuracy, boosting their ability to identify and stop fraudsters faster and mitigate harm. As such, leading financial organizations like American Express and Capital One have been using AI to build proprietary solutions that mitigate fraud and enhance customer protection. The new NVIDIA workflow accelerates data processing, model training and inference, and demonstrates how these components can be wrapped into a single, easy-to-use software offering, powered by NVIDIA AI. Currently optimized for credit card transaction fraud, the workflow could be adapted for use cases such as new account fraud, account takeover and money laundering. Accelerated Computing for Fraud Detection As AI models expand in size, intricacy and diversity, it’s more important than ever for organizations across industries — including financial services — to harness cost- and energy-efficient computing power. Traditional data science pipelines lack the necessary compute acceleration to handle the massive volumes of data required to effectively fight fraud amid rapidly growing losses across the industry. Leveraging NVIDIA RAPIDS Accelerator for Apache Spark could help payment companies reduce data processing times and save on their data processing costs. To efficiently manage large-scale datasets and deliver real-time AI performance with complex AI models, financial institutions are turning to NVIDIA’s AI and accelerated computing platforms. The use of gradient-boosted decision trees — a type of machine learning algorithm — tapping into libraries such as XGBoost, has long been the standard for fraud detection. The new NVIDIA AI workflow for fraud detection enhances XGBoost using the NVIDIA RAPIDS suite of AI libraries with graph neural network (GNN) embeddings as additional features to help reduce false positives. The GNN embeddings are fed into XGBoost to create and train a model that can then be orchestrated with the NVIDIA Morpheus Runtime Core library and NVIDIA Triton Inference Server for real-time inferencing. The NVIDIA Morpheus framework securely inspects and classifies all incoming data, tagging it with patterns and flagging potentially suspicious activity. NVIDIA Triton Inference Server simplifies inference of all types of AI model deployments in production, while optimizing throughput, latency and utilization. NVIDIA Morpheus, RAPIDS and Triton Inference Server are available through NVIDIA AI Enterprise. Leading Financial Services Organizations Adopt AI During a time when many large North American financial institutions are reporting online or mobile fraud losses continue to increase, AI is helping to combat this trend. American Express, which began using AI to fight fraud in 2010, leverages fraud detection algorithms to monitor all customer transactions globally in real time, generating fraud decisions in just milliseconds. Using a combination of advanced algorithms, one of which tapped into the NVIDIA AI platform, American Express enhanced model accuracy, advancing the company’s ability to better fight fraud. European digital bank bunq uses generative AI and large language models to help detect fraud and money laundering. Its AI-powered transaction-monitoring system achieved nearly 100x faster model training speeds with NVIDIA accelerated computing. BNY announced in March that it became the first major bank to deploy an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with DGX H100 systems, which will help build solutions that support fraud detection and other use cases. And now, systems integrators, software vendors and cloud service providers can integrate the new NVIDIA AI workflow for fraud detection to boost their financial services applications and help keep customers’ money, identities and digital accounts safe. Explore the fraud detection NVIDIA AI workflow and read this NVIDIA Technical Blog on supercharging fraud detection with GNNs. Learn more about AI for fraud detection by visiting the NVIDIA AI Pavilion featuring AWS at Money 20/20, running this week in Las Vegas.

Artificial intelligence will be the driving force behind India’s digital transformation, fueling innovation, economic growth, and global leadership, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said Thursday at NVIDIA’s AI Summit in Mumbai. Addressing a crowd of entrepreneurs, developers, academics and business leaders, Huang positioned AI as the cornerstone of the country’s future. India has an Read Article

Artificial intelligence will be the driving force behind India’s digital transformation, fueling innovation, economic growth, and global leadership, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said Thursday at NVIDIA’s AI Summit in Mumbai. Addressing a crowd of entrepreneurs, developers, academics and business leaders, Huang positioned AI as the cornerstone of the country’s future. India has an “amazing natural resource” in its IT and computer science expertise, Huang said, noting the vast potential waiting to be unlocked. To capitalize on this country’s talent and India’s immense data resources, the country’s leading cloud infrastructure providers are rapidly accelerating their data center capacity. NVIDIA is playing a key role, with NVIDIA GPU deployments expected to grow nearly 10x by year’s end, creating the backbone for an AI-driven economy. Together with NVIDIA, these companies are at the cutting edge of a shift Huang compared to the seismic change in computing introduced by IBM’s System 360 in 1964, calling it the most profound platform shift since then. “This industry, the computing industry, is going to become the intelligence industry,” Huang said, pointing to India’s unique strengths to lead this industry, thanks to its enormous amounts of data and large population. With this rapid expansion in infrastructure, AI factories will play a critical role in India’s future, serving as the backbone of the nation’s AI-driven growth. NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang speaking with Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani at NVIDIA’s AI Summit in Mumbai. “It makes complete sense that India should manufacture its own AI,” Huang said. “You should not export data to import intelligence,” he added, noting the importance of India building its own AI infrastructure. Huang identified three areas where AI will transform industries: sovereign AI, where nations use their own data to drive innovation; agentic AI, which automates knowledge-based work; and physical AI, which applies AI to industrial tasks through robotics and autonomous systems. India, Huang noted, is uniquely positioned to lead in all three areas. India’s startups are already harnessing NVIDIA technology to drive innovation across industries and are positioning themselves as global players, bringing the country’s AI solutions to the world. Meanwhile, India’s robotics ecosystem is adopting NVIDIA Isaac and Omniverse to power the next generation of physical AI, revolutionizing industries like manufacturing and logistics with advanced automation. Huang’s also keynote featured a surprise appearance by actor and producer Akshay Kumar. Following Huang’s remarks, the focus shifted to a fireside chat between Huang and Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani, where the two leaders explored how AI will shape the future of Indian industries, particularly in sectors like energy, telecommunications and manufacturing. Ambani emphasized that AI is central to this continued growth. Reliance, in partnership with NVIDIA, is building AI factories to automate industrial tasks and transform processes in sectors like energy and manufacturing. Both men discussed their companies’ joint efforts to pioneer AI infrastructure in India. Ambani underscored the role of AI in public sector services, explaining how India’s data combined with AI is already transforming governance and service delivery. Huang added that AI promises to democratize technology. “The ability to program AI is something that everyone can do … if AI could be put into the hands of every citizen, it would elevate and put into the hands of everyone this incredible capability,” he said. Huang emphasized NVIDIA’s role in preparing India’s workforce for an AI-driven future. NVIDIA is partnering with India’s IT giants such as Infosys, TCS, Tech Mahindra and Wipro to upskill nearly half a million developers, ensuring India leads the AI revolution with a highly trained workforce. “India’s technical talent is unmatched,” Huang said. Ambani echoed these sentiments, stressing that “India will be one of the biggest intelligence markets,” pointing to the nation’s youthful, technically talented population. A Vision for India’s AI-Driven Future As the session drew to a close, Huang and Ambani reflected on their vision for India’s AI-driven future. With its vast talent pool, burgeoning tech ecosystem and immense data resources, the country, they agreed, has the potential to contribute globally in sectors such as energy, healthcare, finance and manufacturing. “This cannot be done by any one company, any one individual, but we all have to work together to bring this intelligence age safely to the world so that we can create a more equal world, a more prosperous world,” Ambani said. Huang echoed the sentiment, adding: “Let’s make it a promise today that we will work together so that India can take advantage of the intelligence revolution that’s ahead of us.”

Attention, recruits! It’s time to test combat skills and strategic prowess. Drop into the heart of the action this GFN Thursday with the launch of the highly anticipated first-person blockbuster Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, streaming in the cloud Oct. 24, 9pm PT. Plus, embark on an adventure to defend an empire in the Read Article

Attention, recruits! It’s time to test combat skills and strategic prowess. Drop into the heart of the action this GFN Thursday with the launch of the highly anticipated first-person blockbuster Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, streaming in the cloud Oct. 24, 9pm PT. Plus, embark on an adventure to defend an empire in the remake of the classic role-playing game (RPG), Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. These are part of the nine titles being added to GeForce NOW’s library of over 2,000 games. Members can also look forward to a new reward — a free in-game Stag-Heart Skull Sallet Hat — for the award-winning RPG The Elder Scrolls Online, starting on Thursday, Oct. 31. Get ready by opting into GeForce NOW’s Rewards program today. Mission Critical Answering the call. Get ready, soldiers — the next assignment awaits in the cloud. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is set against the backdrop of the Gulf War in the early 1990s, and will bring a thrilling Campaign, action-packed Multiplayer and a Zombies experience sure to thrill fans. The new game introduces the Omnimovement system to the franchise, allowing players to sprint, slide and dive in any direction, enhancing tactical gameplay across all modes. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 launches with 16 new Multiplayer maps and two Zombies maps — Terminus and Liberty Falls. In Multiplayer, the classic Prestige system makes a comeback, while the single player Campaign experience promises a gripping espionage narrative. With its blend of historical fiction, gameplay innovations and fan-favorite features, Black Ops 6 aims to deliver an intense Call of Duty experience that pushes the boundaries of the franchise. Prepare for adrenaline-fueled missions with an Ultimate GeForce NOW membership. These members get an advantage on the field with ultra-low-latency gaming, streaming from a GeForce RTX 4080 gaming rig in the cloud. Lucky Number Seven Peace was never an option. Save the Empire with a little help from the cloud — Romancing SaGa2: Revenge of the Seven is coming to GeForce NOW. Experience the full remake of Square Enix’s groundbreaking nonlinear RPG, Romancing SaGa2: Revenge of the Seven, first released in 1993 in Japan. The adventure includes both new and classic SaGa franchise features, complete with Japanese and English voiceovers, original and rearranged compositions, and much more. It’s an ideal entry point for new players and provides an amped-up experience for longtime fans. The game features the Seven Heroes, once hailed as saviors before the ancients feared their power and banished them to another dimension. Thousands of years have passed, and the heroes have become legends. Furious that humankind has forgotten their many sacrifices, they’ve now returned as villains bent on revenge. Members can join forces with characters from over 30 different classes featuring a wide variety of professions and races, each with their own favored weapons, unique abilities and effective tactics. Ultimate members can stream at up to 4K resolution with extended session lengths and more. Hircine’s Hunt … From the Cloud It’s not just a hat, it’s a legacy. A new game reward has arrived for GeForce NOW members. New and existing The Elder Scrolls Online players can dawn the rare Stag-Heart Skull Sallet Hat, a fierce antlered helm with untamed strength. It’s the perfect way for gamers to forge their legends in Tamriel and stand out during the Witches Festival. Members who’ve opted into GeForce NOW’s Rewards program can check their email for instructions on how to redeem it. Ultimate and Priority members can start redeeming the reward now, while free members will be able to claim it starting tomorrow, Oct. 25. It’s available through Sunday, Nov. 24, first come, first served. Play Today Members can look for the following games available to stream in the cloud this week: Worshippers of Cthulhu (New release on Steam, Oct. 21) No More Room in Hell 2 (New release on Steam, Oct. 22) Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven (New release on Steam, Oct. 24) Windblown (New release on Steam, Oct. 24) Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (New release on Steam, Battle.net and Xbox, available on PC Game Pass, Oct. 25) Call of Duty HQ, including Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Call of Duty: Warzone (Xbox, available on PC Game Pass) DUCKSIDE (Steam) Off the Grid (Epic Games Store) Selaco (Steam) What are you planning to play this weekend? Let us know on X or in the comments below. the cloud is calling, will you answer? — NVIDIA GeForce NOW (@NVIDIAGFN) October 23, 2024

Zoom, a company that helped change the way people work during the COVID-19 pandemic, is continuing to reimagine the future of work by transforming itself into an AI-first communications and productivity platform. In this episode of NVIDIA’s AI Podcast, Zoom CTO Xuedong (XD) Huang shares how the company is reshaping productivity with AI, including through Read Article

Zoom, a company that helped change the way people work during the COVID-19 pandemic, is continuing to reimagine the future of work by transforming itself into an AI-first communications and productivity platform. In this episode of NVIDIA’s AI Podcast, Zoom CTO Xuedong (XD) Huang shares how the company is reshaping productivity with AI, including through its Zoom AI Companion 2.0, unveiled recently at the Zoomtopia conference. Designed to be a productivity partner, the AI companion is central to Zoom’s “federated AI” strategy, which focuses on integrating multiple large language models. Huang also introduces the concept of “AUI,” combining conversational AI and graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to streamline collaboration and supercharge business performance. The AI Podcast · Zoom’s AI-First Transformation to Boost Business Productivity, Collaboration – Ep. 235 Time Stamps 6:49: The fundamental capabilities of generative AI 8:20: Zoom’s approach to AI, including the use of small language models 11:20: Zoom’s “federated AI” strategy, integrating multiple AI models 13:10: Introducing the concept of “AUI.” 20:00: Huang on how AI will impact productivity and everyday tasks 29:00: How Zoom helps business leaders understand AI and return on investment of AI projects 32:50: Huang’s near-term outlook on the development of AI You Might Also Like… How SonicJobs Uses AI Agents to Connect the Internet, Starting With Jobs – Ep. 233 Mikhil Raja, cofounder and CEO of SonicJobs, shares how the company has have built AI agents to enable candidates to complete applications directly on job platforms, without redirection, boosting completion rates. Raja delves deep into SonicJobs’ cutting-edge technology, which merges traditional AI with large language models, to understand and interact with job application web flows. Yotta CEO Sunil Gupta on Supercharging India’s Fast-Growing AI Market – Ep. 225 Sunil Gupta, cofounder, managing director and CEO of Yotta Data Services, talks about the company’s Shakti Cloud offering, which provides scalable GPU services for enterprises. Gupta also shares insights on India’s potential as a major AI market and the importance of balancing data center growth with sustainability and energy efficiency. Replit CEO Amjad Masad on Empowering the Next Billion Software Creators – Ep. 201 Amjad Masad, CEO of Replit, aims to bridge the gap between ideas and software using the latest advancements in generative AI. Masad talks about the future of AI and how it can function as a collaborator that can conduct high-level tasks and even manage resources. Subscribe to the AI Podcast Get the AI Podcast through iTunes, Google Play, Amazon Music, Castbox, DoggCatcher, Overcast, PlayerFM, Pocket Casts, Podbay, PodBean, PodCruncher, PodKicker, Soundcloud, Spotify, Stitcher and TuneIn. Make the AI Podcast better: Have a few minutes to spare? Fill out this listener survey.

ChatGPT marked the big bang moment of generative AI. Answers can be generated in response to nearly any query, helping transform digital work such as content creation, customer service, software development and business operations for knowledge workers. Physical AI, the embodiment of artificial intelligence in humanoids, factories and other devices within industrial systems, has yet Read Article

ChatGPT marked the big bang moment of generative AI. Answers can be generated in response to nearly any query, helping transform digital work such as content creation, customer service, software development and business operations for knowledge workers. Physical AI, the embodiment of artificial intelligence in humanoids, factories and other devices within industrial systems, has yet to experience its breakthrough moment. This has held back industries such as transportation and mobility, manufacturing, logistics and robotics. But that’s about to change thanks to three computers bringing together advanced training, simulation and inference. The Rise of Multimodal, Physical AI For 60 years, “Software 1.0” — serial code written by human programmers — ran on general-purpose computers powered by CPUs. Then, in 2012, Alex Krizhevsky, mentored by Ilya Sutskever and Geoffrey Hinton, won the ImageNet computer image recognition competition with AlexNet, a revolutionary deep learning model for image classification. This marked the industry’s first contact with AI. The breakthrough of machine learning — neural networks running on GPUs — jump-started the era of Software 2.0. Today, software writes software. The world’s computing workloads are shifting from general-purpose computing on CPUs to accelerated computing on GPUs, leaving Moore’s law far behind. With generative AI, multimodal transformer and diffusion models have been trained to generate responses. Large language models are one-dimensional, able to predict the next token, in modes like letters or words. Image- and video-generation models are two-dimensional, able to predict the next pixel. None of these models can understand or interpret the three-dimensional world. And that’s where physical AI comes in. Physical AI models can perceive, understand, interact with and navigate the physical world with generative AI. With accelerated computing, multimodal physical AI breakthroughs and large-scale physically based simulations are allowing the world to realize the value of physical AI through robots. A robot is a system that can perceive, reason, plan, act and learn. Robots are often thought of as autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), manipulator arms or humanoids. But there are many more types of robotic embodiments. In the near future, everything that moves, or that monitors things that move, will be autonomous robotic systems. These systems will be capable of sensing and responding to their environments. Everything from surgical rooms to data centers, warehouses to factories, even traffic control systems or entire smart cities will transform from static, manually operated systems to autonomous, interactive systems embodied by physical AI. The Next Frontier: Humanoids Robots Humanoid robots are an ideal general-purpose robotic manifestation because they can operate efficiently in environments built for humans, while requiring minimal adjustments for deployment and operation. The global market for humanoid robots is expected to reach $38 billion by 2035, a more than sixfold increase from the roughly $6 billion for the period forecast nearly two years ago, according to Goldman Sachs. Researchers and developers around the world are racing to build this next wave of robots. Three Computers to Develop Physical AI To develop humanoid robots, three accelerated computer systems are required to handle physical AI and robot training, simulation and runtime. Two computing advancements are accelerating humanoid robot development: multimodal foundation models and scalable, physically based simulations of robots and their worlds. Breakthroughs in generative AI are bringing 3D perception, control, skill planning and intelligence to robots. Robot simulation at scale lets developers refine, test and optimize robot skills in a virtual world that mimics the laws of physics — helping reduce real-world data acquisition costs and ensuring they can perform in safe, controlled settings. NVIDIA has built three computers and accelerated development platforms to enable developers to create physical AI. First, models are trained on a supercomputer. Developers can use NVIDIA NeMo on the NVIDIA DGX platform to train and fine-tune powerful foundation and generative AI models. They can also tap into NVIDIA Project GR00T, an initiative to develop general-purpose foundation models for humanoid robots to enable them to understand natural language and emulate movements by observing human actions. Second, NVIDIA Omniverse, running on NVIDIA OVX servers, provides the development platform and simulation environment for testing and optimizing physical AI with application programming interfaces and frameworks like NVIDIA Isaac Sim. Developers can use Isaac Sim to simulate and validate robot models, or generate massive amounts of physically-based synthetic data to bootstrap robot model training. Researchers and developers can also use NVIDIA Isaac Lab, an open-source robot learning framework that powers robot reinforcement learning and imitation learning, to help accelerate robot policy training and refinement. Lastly, trained AI models are deployed to a runtime computer. NVIDIA Jetson Thor robotics computers are specifically designed for compact, on-board computing needs. An ensemble of models consisting of control policy, vision and language models composes the robot brain and is deployed on a power-efficient, on-board edge computing system. Depending on their workflows and challenge areas, robot makers and foundation model developers can use as many of the accelerated computing platforms and systems as needed. Building the Next Wave of Autonomous Facilities Robotic facilities result from a culmination of all of these technologies. Manufacturers like Foxconn or logistics companies like Amazon Robotics can orchestrate teams of autonomous robots to work alongside human workers and monitor factory operations through hundreds or thousands of sensors. These autonomous warehouses, plants and factories will have digital twins. The digital twins are used for layout planning and optimization, operations simulation and, most importantly, robot fleet software-in-the-loop testing. Built on Omniverse, “Mega” is a blueprint for factory digital twins that enables industrial enterprises to test and optimize their robot fleets in simulation before deploying them to physical factories. This helps ensure seamless integration, optimal performance and minimal disruption. Mega lets developers populate their factory digital twins with virtual robots and their AI models, or the brains of the robots. Robots in the digital twin execute tasks by perceiving their environment, reasoning, planning their next motion and, finally, completing planned actions. These actions are simulated in the digital environment by the world simulator in Omniverse, and the results are perceived by the robot brains through Omniverse sensor simulation. With sensor simulations, the robot brains decide the next action, and the loop continues, all while Mega meticulously tracks the state and position of every element within the factory digital twin. This advanced software-in-the-loop testing methodology enables industrial enterprises to simulate and validate changes within the safe confines of the Omniverse digital twin, helping them anticipate and mitigate potential issues to reduce risk and costs during real-world deployment. Empowering the Developer Ecosystem With NVIDIA Technology NVIDIA accelerates the work of the global ecosystem of robotics developers and robot foundation model builders with three computers. Universal Robots, a Teradyne Robotics company, used NVIDIA Isaac Manipulator, Isaac accelerated libraries and AI models, and NVIDIA Jetson Orin to build UR AI Accelerator, a ready-to-use hardware and software toolkit that enables cobot developers to build applications, accelerate development and reduce the time to market of AI products. RGo Robotics used NVIDIA Isaac Perceptor to help its wheel.me AMRs work everywhere, all the time, and make intelligent decisions by giving them human-like perception and visual-spatial information. Humanoid robot makers including 1X Technologies, Agility Robotics, Apptronik, Boston Dynamics, Fourier, Galbot, Mentee, Sanctuary AI, Unitree Robotics and XPENG Robotics are adopting NVIDIA’s robotics development platform. Boston Dynamics is using Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab to build quadrupeds and humanoid robots to augment human productivity, tackle labor shortages and prioritize safety in warehouses. Fourier is tapping into Isaac Sim to train humanoid robots to operate in fields that demand high levels of interaction and adaptability, such as scientific research, healthcare and manufacturing. Using Isaac Lab and Isaac Sim, Galbot advanced the development of a large-scale robotic dexterous grasp dataset called DexGraspNet that can be applied to different dexterous robotic hands, as well as a simulation environment for evaluating dexterous grasping models. Field AI developed risk-bounded multitask and multipurpose foundation models for robots to safely operate in outdoor field environments, using the Isaac platform and Isaac Lab. The era of physical AI is here — and it’s transforming the world’s heavy industries and robotics. Get started with NVIDIA Robotics.

To improve AI efficiency and security in sovereign cloud environments, NVIDIA and F5 are integrating NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs with the F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes for application delivery and security. The collaboration, announced today at the NVIDIA AI Summit in Mumbai, India, is ideal for industries with strict data governance, privacy or compliance requirements and Read Article

To improve AI efficiency and security in sovereign cloud environments, NVIDIA and F5 are integrating NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs with the F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes for application delivery and security. The collaboration, announced today at the NVIDIA AI Summit in Mumbai, India, is ideal for industries with strict data governance, privacy or compliance requirements and addresses the growing demand for scalable AI infrastructure. “We’re working with NVIDIA to enable industries to deploy scalable, secure AI solutions faster, with better performance, all while ensuring data remains protected,” said Ahmed Guetari, vice president and general manager, service provider at F5. The collaboration aims to help governments and industries manage sensitive data while accelerating AI application delivery. The sovereign cloud market is projected to reach $250 billion by 2027, according to IDC. Meanwhile, ABI Research projects the market for foundation models will be $30 billion by 2027. Sovereign clouds are built to meet strict data privacy and localization requirements. They’re critical for industries handling sensitive data, such as telecommunications and financial services, as well as government agencies. F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes deployed on NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs offers a secure and compliant AI networking infrastructure, allowing industries to adopt advanced AI capabilities without compromising data privacy. By offloading tasks like load balancing, routing and security to the BlueField-3 DPU, F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes efficiently routes AI prompts to LLM instances and reduces energy use. This ensures scalable AI performance while optimizing GPU resource utilization. NVIDIA NIM microservices, which accelerate the deployment of foundation models, will also benefit from the collaboration thanks to more efficient AI workload management. The combined solutions from NVIDIA and F5 promise enhanced security and efficiency, key for industries transitioning to cloud-native infrastructures. With these innovations, industries in highly regulated sectors can scale AI applications securely and confidently, meeting the highest standards for data protection. Editor’s note: The figures on the global sovereign cloud market come from IDC’s “Worldwide Sovereign Cloud Market Forecast, 2022–2027” report, Doc # US49695922, published in November 2023. The data on the generative AI software market are courtesy of ABI Research’s “Gen AI Software” report, MD-AISG-101, published in July 2024.

India is becoming a key producer of AI for virtually every industry — powered by thousands of startups that are serving the country’s multilingual, multicultural population and scaling out to global users. The country is one of the top six global economies leading generative AI adoption and has seen rapid growth in its startup and Read Article

India is becoming a key producer of AI for virtually every industry — powered by thousands of startups that are serving the country’s multilingual, multicultural population and scaling out to global users. The country is one of the top six global economies leading generative AI adoption and has seen rapid growth in its startup and investor ecosystem. More than 2,000 India-based startups are part of NVIDIA Inception, a free program designed to accelerate startup innovation and growth through technical training and tools, go-to-market support and opportunities to connect with venture capitalists through the Inception VC Alliance. At the NVIDIA AI Summit, taking place in Mumbai through Oct. 25, around 50 India-based startups are sharing AI innovations delivering impact in fields such as customer service, sports media, healthcare and robotics. These Inception members will be showcasing their solutions onsite in the Startup Pavilion, in panel discussions and in a startup pitch session. Startups can also attend a reverse pitch session where venture capital firms share their vision for the next wave of innovation. Conversational AI for Indian Railway Customers Bengaluru-based startup CoRover.ai already has over a billion users of its LLM-based conversational AI platform, which includes text, audio and video-based agents. “The support of NVIDIA Inception is helping us advance our work to automate conversational AI use cases with domain-specific large language models,” said Ankush Sabharwal, CEO of CoRover. “NVIDIA AI technology enables us to deliver enterprise-grade virtual assistants that support 1.3 billion users in over 100 languages.” CoRover’s AI platform powers chatbots and customer service applications for major private and public sector customers, such as the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, the official provider of online tickets, drinking water and food for India’s railways stations and trains. Dubbed AskDISHA, after the Sanskrit word for direction, the IRCTC’s multimodal chatbot handles more than 150,000 user queries daily, and has facilitated over 10 billion interactions for more than 175 million passengers to date. It assists customers with tasks such as booking or canceling train tickets, changing boarding stations, requesting refunds, and checking the status of their booking in languages including English, Hindi, Gujarati and Hinglish — a mix of Hindi and English. The deployment of AskDISHA has resulted in a 70% improvement in IRCTC’s customer satisfaction rate and a 70% reduction in queries through other channels like social media, phone calls and emails. CoRover’s modular AI tools were developed using NVIDIA NeMo, an end-to-end, cloud-native framework and suite of microservices for developing generative AI. They run on NVIDIA GPUs in the cloud, enabling CoRover to automatically scale up compute resources during peak usage — such as the moment train tickets are released. Watch CoRover’s session live at the AI Summit or on demand, and learn more about Indian businesses building multilingual language models with NeMo. Powering the Future of Sports Media VideoVerse, founded in Mumbai with offices in six countries, has built a family of AI models to support content creation in the sports media industry — enabling global customers including the Indian Premier League for cricket, the Vietnam Basketball Association and the Mountain West Conference for American college football to generate game highlights up to 15x faster and boost viewership. “Short-form video highlights that can be easily shared on social media can also help lesser-known sports gain audience attention and grow their fanbases,” said VideoVerse CEO Vinayak Shrivastav. “AI-assisted content creation makes it feasible for emerging sports like longball and kabbadi to raise awareness with a limited marketing budget.” VideoVerse’s enterprise solution, called Magnifi, uses AI technologies such as vision analysis, natural language processing and optical character recognition to streamline editing workflows by detecting players, identifying key moments and tracking ball movement across multiple camera angles. Magnifi also adjusts video sizes automatically for horizontal and vertical formats across laptops, tablets and phones, ensuring the primary action remains centered in the frame. VideoVerse uses NVIDIA CUDA libraries to accelerate AI models for image and video understanding, automatic speech recognition and natural language understanding. The company runs its custom AI models on NVIDIA Tensor Core GPUs for inference. Watch VideoVerse’s session live at the AI Summit or on demand. Rewriting the Narrative of Enterprise Efficiency Mumbai-based startup Fluid AI offers generative AI chatbots, voice calling bots and a range of application programming interfaces to boost enterprise efficiency. Its AI tools can access an organization’s knowledge base to provide teams with insights, reports and ideas — or to help accurately answer questions. Fluid AI’s chatbots can be applied in customer service to increase agent productivity and reduce response times, generating accurate outputs in real time. Or, organizations can choose to deploy them with sales and customer-facing teams, using them for tasks like creating slide decks in under 15 seconds. Fluid AI taps NVIDIA NIM microservices, the NVIDIA NeMo platform and the NVIDIA TensorRT inference engine to deliver a complete, scalable platform for developing custom generative AI for its customers. The company is also exploring the use of NVIDIA Riva microservices to develop a voice experience for its chatbots that will help significantly reduce latency and offer higher-fidelity experiences. Its AI models run on NVIDIA GPUs in the cloud. “Our work with NVIDIA has been invaluable — the low latency and high fidelity that we offer on AI-powered voice calls come from the innovation that NVIDIA technology allows us to achieve,” said Abhinav Aggarwal, founder of Fluid AI. Watch Fluid AI’s session live at the AI summit or on demand. Providing Data Work to Bridge the Digital Divide Karya, based in Bengaluru, is a smartphone-based digital work platform that enables members of low-income and marginalized communities across India to earn supplemental income by completing language-based tasks that support the development of multilingual AI models. Nearly 100,000 Karya workers are recording voice samples, transcribing audio or checking the accuracy of AI-generated sentences in their native languages, earning nearly 20x India’s minimum wage for their work. Karya also provides royalties to all contributors each time its datasets are sold to AI developers. “By fairly compensating these communities for their digital work, we are able to boost their quality of life while supporting the creation of multilingual AI tools they’ll be able to use in the future,” said Manu Chopra, CEO of Karya. Karya’s work helps enterprises accelerate the data design and collection process, enabling the creation of deployable AI solutions that cater to non-English speakers in India. The company will use NVIDIA NeMo and NVIDIA NIM to build its AI platform, which offers custom AI model training and pretrained models tailored to customers’ business needs. Businesses and research centers can purchase the datasets Karya collects to train diverse, multilingual AI models. For example, Karya is working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to build the largest gender-intentional, open-source AI dataset in Indic languages yet. Karya is employing over 30,000 low-income women participants across six language groups in India to help create the dataset, which will support the creation of diverse AI applications across agriculture, healthcare and banking. Watch Karya’s session live at the AI Summit or on demand. For more from the AI Summit, watch NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang’s fireside chat with Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries.

Information technology giants including Infosys, TCS, Tech Mahindra and Wipro are teaming with NVIDIA to accelerate AI adoption. They’re creating new jobs and training nearly half a million developers for the era of AI. This great upskill is introducing a new wave of opportunity. IT is a leading Indian export, and IDC reports that the Read Article

Information technology giants including Infosys, TCS, Tech Mahindra and Wipro are teaming with NVIDIA to accelerate AI adoption. They’re creating new jobs and training nearly half a million developers for the era of AI. This great upskill is introducing a new wave of opportunity. IT is a leading Indian export, and IDC reports that the Indian domestic IT & Business Services market was valued at $14.5 billion in 2023. Now, India’s technology leaders are taking on an expanded role as the industry shifts from providing IT services to consulting with global clients to meet the demand for front-office AI applications. “In the coming years, IT service investments will be driven by interest in gen AI,” said Harish Krishnakumar, senior market analyst of IT Services at IDC India. “Enterprises will continue engaging with IT service providers to develop potential use cases and POCs and also to transform and manage their complex IT infrastructure and applications.” Agents of Innovation India’s IT consulting giants are helping clients deploy AI with custom-built solutions that use the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform. Clients can use these generative AI applications that include virtual agents that can learn, reason and take action to drive new levels of productivity and foster breakthroughs to help solve complex challenges across healthcare, climate, agriculture, manufacturing and more. Consulting experts are creating custom models with NVIDIA NeMo and deploying AI in production with NVIDIA NIM microservices. Using NVIDIA NIM Agent Blueprints — including a new blueprint for customer service announced today at the NVIDIA AI Summit in India — consultants are helping global clients tailor AI agents for their unique needs. NeMo Curator is playing a key role in enabling consulting experts to train highly accurate sovereign AI for India and neighboring Southeast Asian countries. With NeMo Curator, consulting companies are processing high-quality data at scale in these low-resource languages and generating synthetic data to augment their existing datasets. With NVIDIA RAPIDS, they’re accelerating data analytics to create a robust foundation for AI development and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). As manufacturing leaders seek to use physical AI to scale production, efficiency and safety, leading consulting firms are also tapping into the NVIDIA Omniverse Enterprise development platform to create industrial AI digital twins. Consulting Leaders Create New Job Opportunities in AI Goldman Sachs forecasts that AI has the potential to automate up to 20% of work tasks in emerging economies, including India. NVIDIA’s technology consulting partners are helping professionals and clients get ready for these AI-driven opportunities with full-stack NVIDIA AI. Infosys uses NVIDIA AI Enterprise for Infosys Topaz, an AI-first set of offerings, to help businesses quickly adopt and integrate generative AI into their operations. It has set up an NVIDIA Center of Excellence that’s spearheading the reskilling of employees, development of solutions and adoption of NVIDIA technology across enterprises. Tata Consultancy Services features NVIDIA AI Enterprise software in its industry solutions for automotive, manufacturing, telecommunications, financial services, retail and many other industry verticals. It has trained 50,000+ AI associates to help clients develop and implement AI strategies that are scalable, sustainable and responsible. Tech Mahindra offers the Tech Mahindra Optimized Framework built on NVIDIA AI Enterprise to advance sovereign large language model frameworks and bring generative AI into mainstream enterprise applications. As part of the framework, Tech Mahindra will establish a Center of Excellence and introduce Project Indus 2.0, an advanced Hindi-based AI model that uses a new NIM microservice for the Nemotron-4-Hindi 4B model. It has reskilled over 45,000 employees through its AI proficiency framework. Wipro has built its Wipro Enterprise Generative AI Studio with NVIDIA AI Enterprise to accelerate industry-specific use cases for supply chain management, marketing campaigns, contact center agents, financial services, retail and more. It has trained more than 225,000 employees — nearly its entire workforce — to be ready to serve AI client demands. Faster Fixes: NIM Agent Blueprint for Customer Service Debuts to Speed Resolution The new NIM Agent Blueprint for customer service can help India’s consulting leaders quickly build custom AI virtual assistants for call center clients. These AI virtual assistants can recommend solutions to resolve issues and help people efficiently serve customers. Powered by NVIDIA NIM microservices and RAG, the blueprint shows how to build a solution that supports context-aware, multi-turn conversations and can provide general and personalized Q&A responses based on structured and unstructured data. Using NVIDIA NeMo Guardrails, developers can ensure that the AI virtual agents stay on topic. NVIDIA’s consulting partners can help customers tailor the customer service agent blueprint to build unique virtual assistants using their preferred AI model — including sovereign LLMs from India-based model makers — and efficiently run it in production on the infrastructure of their choice with NVIDIA NIM. Try the new NVIDIA NIM Agent Blueprint for free or get notified of the upcoming release of a downloadable version of the blueprint. To learn more, watch the NVIDIA AI Summit India keynote with NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang. Editor’s note: IDC figures and statement courtesy of IDC, “Worldwide Semiannual Services Tracker,” April 2024, and IDC: India’s IT Services Market Grows by 6.6% in 2023 as Enterprises Focus on Critical Projects, press release from June 2024.

India’s leading cloud infrastructure providers and server manufacturers are ramping up accelerated data center capacity. By year’s end, they’ll have boosted NVIDIA GPU deployment in the country by nearly 10x compared to 18 months ago. Tens of thousands of NVIDIA Hopper GPUs will be added to build AI factories — large-scale data centers for producing Read Article

India’s leading cloud infrastructure providers and server manufacturers are ramping up accelerated data center capacity. By year’s end, they’ll have boosted NVIDIA GPU deployment in the country by nearly 10x compared to 18 months ago. Tens of thousands of NVIDIA Hopper GPUs will be added to build AI factories — large-scale data centers for producing AI — that support India’s large businesses, startups and research centers running AI workloads in the cloud and on premises. This will cumulatively provide nearly 180 exaflops of compute to power innovation in healthcare, financial services and digital content creation. Announced today at the NVIDIA AI Summit, taking place in Mumbai through Oct. 25, this buildout of accelerated computing technology is led by data center provider Yotta Data Services, global digital ecosystem enabler Tata Communications, cloud service provider E2E Networks and original equipment manufacturer Netweb. Their systems will enable developers to harness domestic data center resources powerful enough to fuel a new wave of large language models, complex scientific visualizations and industrial digital twins that could propel India to the forefront of AI-accelerated innovation. Yotta Brings AI Systems and Services to Shakti Cloud Yotta Data Services is providing Indian businesses, government departments and researchers access to managed cloud services through its Shakti Cloud platform to boost generative AI adoption and AI education. Powered by thousands of NVIDIA Hopper GPUs, these computing resources are complemented by NVIDIA AI Enterprise, an end-to-end, cloud-native software platform that accelerates data science pipelines and streamlines development and deployment of production-grade copilots and other generative AI applications. With NVIDIA AI Enterprise, Yotta customers can access NVIDIA NIM, a collection of microservices for optimized AI inference, and NVIDIA NIM Agent Blueprints, a set of customizable reference architectures for generative AI applications. This will allow them to rapidly adopt optimized, state-of-the-art AI for applications including biomolecular generation, virtual avatar creation and language generation. “The future of AI is about speed, flexibility and scalability, which is why Yotta’s Shakti Cloud platform is designed to eliminate the common barriers that organizations across industries face in AI adoption,” said Sunil Gupta, cofounder, CEO and managing director of Yotta. “Shakti Cloud brings together high-performance GPUs, optimized storage and a services layer that simplifies AI development from model training to deployment, so organizations can quickly scale their AI efforts, streamline operations and push the boundaries of what AI can accomplish.” Yotta’s customers include Sarvam AI, which is building AI models that support major Indian languages; Innoplexus, which is developing an AI-powered life sciences platform for drug discovery; and Zoho Corporation, which is creating language models for enterprise customers. Tata Supports Enterprise AI Innovation Across Industries Tata Communications is initiating a large-scale deployment of NVIDIA Hopper architecture GPUs to power its public cloud infrastructure and support a wide range of AI applications. The company also plans to expand its offerings next year to include NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. In addition to providing accelerated hardware, Tata Communications will enable customers to run NVIDIA AI Enterprise, including NVIDIA NIM and NIM Agent Blueprints, and NVIDIA Omniverse, a software platform and operating system that developers use to build physical AI and robotic system simulation applications. “By combining NVIDIA’s accelerated computing infrastructure with Tata Communications’ AI Studio and global network, we’re creating a future-ready platform that will enable AI transformation across industries,” said A.S. Lakshminarayanan, managing director and CEO of Tata Communications. “Access to these resources will make AI more accessible to innovators in fields including manufacturing, healthcare, retail, banking and financial services.” E2E Expands Cloud Infrastructure for AI Innovation E2E Networks supports enterprises in India, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S with GPU-powered cloud servers. It offers customers access to clusters featuring NVIDIA Hopper GPUs interconnected with NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking to help meet the demand for high-compute tasks including simulations, foundation model training and real-time AI inference. “This infrastructure expansion helps ensure Indian businesses have access to high-performance, scalable infrastructure to develop custom AI models,” said Tarun Dua, cofounder and managing director of E2E Networks. “NVIDIA Hopper GPUs will be a powerful driver of innovation in large language models and large vision models for our users.” E2E’s clients include AI4Bharat, a research lab at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras developing open-source AI applications for Indian languages — as well as members of the NVIDIA Inception startup program such as disease detection company Qure.ai, text-to-video generative AI company Invideo AI and intelligent voice agent company Assisto. Netweb Servers Advance Sovereign AI Initiatives Netweb is expanding its range of Tyrone AI systems based on NVIDIA MGX, a modular reference architecture to accelerate enterprise data center workloads. Offered for both on-premises and off-premises cloud infrastructure, the new servers feature NVIDIA GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips, delivering the computational power to support large hyperscalers, research centers, enterprises and supercomputing centers in India and across Asia. “Through Netweb’s decade-long collaboration with NVIDIA, we’ve shown that world-class computing infrastructure can be developed in India,” said Sanjay Lodha, chairman and managing director of Netweb. “Our next-generation systems will help the country’s businesses and researchers build and deploy more complex AI applications trained on proprietary datasets.” Netweb also offers customers Tryone Skylus cloud instances that include the company’s full software stack, alongside the NVIDIA AI Enterprise and NVIDIA Omniverse software platforms, to develop large-scale agentic AI and physical AI. NVIDIA’s roadmap features new platforms set to arrive on a one-year rhythm. By harnessing these advancements in AI computing and networking, infrastructure providers and manufacturers in India and beyond will be able to further scale the capabilities of AI development to power larger, multimodal models, optimize inference performance and train the next generation of AI applications. Learn more about India’s AI adoption in the fireside chat between NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang and Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, at the NVIDIA AI Summit.

In vast warehouses, Addverb’s robots work tirelessly, picking, sorting and delivering products with precision. Across frozen Oslo, Norway, Ottonomy’s Yeti robots assist in navigating icy streets as part of a trial with Posten Norge for urban deliveries, while in sun-soaked Madrid, they autonomously cruise bustling avenues, supporting last-mile delivery services. AI-powered robots are revolutionizing industries Read Article

In vast warehouses, Addverb’s robots work tirelessly, picking, sorting and delivering products with precision. Across frozen Oslo, Norway, Ottonomy’s Yeti robots assist in navigating icy streets as part of a trial with Posten Norge for urban deliveries, while in sun-soaked Madrid, they autonomously cruise bustling avenues, supporting last-mile delivery services. AI-powered robots are revolutionizing industries worldwide, and Indian innovators — like Addverb, Ati Motors and Ottonomy — are leading the charge, powered by NVIDIA’s accelerated computing, simulation, robotics and AI platforms. According to ABI Research, the installed base for industrial and commercial robots is projected at 5.4 million units by 2024, with annual shipments expected of 1.3 million. By 2030, these numbers are forecast to grow significantly, with over 15 million installed robots and more than 4 million annual shipments. This explosive growth represents a massive opportunity for India, a country known for its software and engineering expertise. Companies like Ottonomy, with its cutting-edge Ottobot 2.0 featuring swerve-drive technology, are pushing the boundaries of automation. As members of the NVIDIA Inception program for startups, over 25 robotics companies — such as Xmachines, Machani Robotics, Drishti Works, ANSCER Robotics and Orangewood Labs — are driving innovations across sectors like industrial automation, healthcare and smart cities. These startups are scaling quickly, transforming industries both locally and globally. The NVIDIA AI Summit in Mumbai will highlight how NVIDIA’s platforms are enabling the next wave of robotics advancements. Here’s a look at key players putting NVIDIA technologies to work across India and beyond. Addverb: Driving Global Robotics Innovation From its Noida headquarters, Addverb is setting new standards in industrial automation with the launch of Bot-Verse, a large-scale facility capable of producing 100,000 robots annually. At the AI Summit, Addverb will showcase how the NVIDIA Isaac Sim and Omniverse platforms are used to create digital twins of real-world environments, enabling the testing and optimization of robots with synthetic data. The NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX and TensorRT platforms also power Addverb’s robots, enhancing their ability to perform complex warehouse tasks with greater efficiency and reduced downtime. High-profile clients rely on Addverb’s automation solutions to significantly boost operational efficiency. Ottonomy: Redefining Last-Mile Delivery Ottonomy is currently using the NVIDIA TensorRT deep learning inference library along with NVIDIA Jetson working with its Contextual AI software to make it more robust for running robots in dynamic environments. Its latest creation, Ottobots, features swerve-drive technology, enabling zero-radius turns for smooth navigation in tight spaces, indoors and out. With headquarters in California and R&D in Noida, India, Ottonomy is making waves, particularly in the healthcare, retail, food and beverage, and e-commerce delivery markets. Its autonomous delivery systems are deployed at customers across North America, Europe and the Middle East. Ati Motors: Pioneering Autonomous Vehicles in India Ati Motors, based in Bengaluru, is redefining autonomous vehicle technology with its focus on industrial-grade autonomous electric vehicles, which are built with NVIDIA Isaac Sim and NVIDIA Jetson for edge AI. The company, which recently completed a $10.83 million Series A funding round, is driving innovation in industrial automation, particularly within the automotive and manufacturing sectors. Ati Motors’ Sherpa line of electric autonomous vehicles is designed to operate in complex environments such as factories and warehouses, using advanced AI for precision navigation and real-time decision-making. The Sherpa autonomous mobile robots can navigate challenging terrains, including outdoor and rugged industrial environments, all without requiring modifications to existing infrastructure. This allows seamless integration into diverse operational settings, from factory floors to open yards, enhancing efficiency without disrupting existing workflows. For instance, the Sherpa Lifter benefits from NVIDIA Isaac Sim’s realistic physics-based simulations for training and testing before real-world deployment. The synthetic data generated in Isaac Sim enables comprehensive testing of Sherpa Lifter’s critical functions, enhancing its robustness and precision in varied factory environments. NVIDIA Robotics Technologies Transforming Industries Powered by NVIDIA’s world-class AI and robotics platforms, these and other innovators across India are transforming industries from e-commerce to smart cities. India’s vibrant robotics and edge AI ecosystem includes members of the NVIDIA Partner Network providing AI services, product design and manufacturing and sensor solutions to accelerate time to market for robotics developers and customers globally. As more companies embrace these cutting-edge technologies, India is rapidly becoming a global leader in automation and robotics. Tune in to the livestream of NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang at the NVIDIA AI Summit India or catch sessions on-demand. Learn more about NVIDIA robotics and edge AI.

Manufacturers and service providers in India are adopting NVIDIA Omniverse to tap into simulation, digital twins and generative AI to accelerate their factory planning and drive automation for more efficient operations. India’s exports have surged in recent years as the nation positions itself to be the next global industrial manufacturing powerhouse. Automotive, industrial machinery, electronics, Read Article

Manufacturers and service providers in India are adopting NVIDIA Omniverse to tap into simulation, digital twins and generative AI to accelerate their factory planning and drive automation for more efficient operations. India’s exports have surged in recent years as the nation positions itself to be the next global industrial manufacturing powerhouse. Automotive, industrial machinery, electronics, textiles, chemicals and pharmaceuticals are among the sectors expected to help drive India’s exports to $1 trillion by 2028, according to Bain & Company. As India’s manufacturing industry continues to soar, manufacturers are embracing AI for digitization of processes and robotics to scale their operations and meet growing global demands. This wave of manufacturing automation, harnessing Omniverse to build virtual warehouses and production facilities to enable the next era of industrial and physical AI, was on full display this week at the NVIDIA AI Summit India, taking place in Mumbai through Oct. 25, from major industrial names like Ola Electric, Reliance Industries, Tech Mahindra, and TCS. Ola Accelerates Electric Scooter Production With Omniverse Ola Electric, the largest electric scooter maker in India, announced it has developed the Ola Digital Twin platform on NVIDIA Omniverse. The company said that the ODT platform has helped it achieve 20% faster time to market from design to commissioning for its manufacturing operations Built on NVIDIA Isaac Sim, the Ola Digital Twin platform taps into core Omniverse technologies like OpenUSD for data interoperability, RTX for physically-based rendering, and generative AI for accelerated world building to generate synthetic data or training autonomous mobile robots and robotic arms. Ola is using the digital twin platform to plan and build its next-generation Future Factory — India’s largest integrated and automated electric two-wheeler manufacturing plant — in only eight months. The platform helped provide insights for factory and construction planning, as well as for quality inspection systems, manufacturing processes and safety training. The company is also using the digital twin to compare real and simulated environments, assisting with predictive maintenance. Reliance Industries Adopts Omniverse for Solar Panel Factory Planning Reliance Industries, a leading industrial conglomerate in India with businesses in energy, petrochemicals, natural gas, retail, entertainment, telecommunications, mass media and textiles, is embracing Omniverse for planning its new solar panel factory in Jamnagar, India. Supporting the company’s goal of reaching net-zero carbon status by 2035, the 5,000-acre integrated photovoltaic manufacturing plant is meant to be India’s largest solar gigafactory. Reliance is using Omniverse to develop applications for managing 3D data, virtual collaboration, simulation and optimized operations, as well as data integration for planning, design, automation, operation, sustainability and training of their workforce for soon to be commissioned Giga factories in Jamnagar, India. The company is also using Omniverse to develop OpenUSD-based, SimReady virtual factory assets, including the factory building, manufacturing equipment, robots, kinematics, and material and product models, and it’s running simulations for logistics and human workers. Leading System Integrators Help India Manufacturers Embrace Industrial AI System integrators play a crucial role in helping India’s largest manufacturers use NVIDIA technology to build the country’s next generation of manufacturing plants. Consulting leaders such as Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Tech Mahindra are developing industrial AI applications and services on Omniverse to help manufacturers develop digital twins for accelerated factory planning, optimized processes, robotics training and large-scale automation. TCS announced it’s working on a suite of digital twin solutions built on NVIDIA Omniverse that enable manufacturers to design, simulate, operate and optimize their products and production facilities across multiple sectors. Use cases cover nearly every aspect of heavy manufacturing — from building virtual factories for real-time factory planning and monitoring, to creating digital twins of aircraft components for immersive training and predictive maintenance. TCS also uses Omniverse to simulate autonomous vehicles, enabling automotive companies to simulate and validate complex driving scenarios without the need for physical testing. Meanwhile, its smart farming digital twin integrates real-world physics to simulate farming scenarios that help improve equipment performance. In addition, TCS launched its TCS Manufacturing AI for Industrials, a generative AI solution built on the NVIDIA AI Enterprise platform, which includes NVIDIA NeMo for building and managing the AI application lifecycle, to turn general-purpose large language models (LLMs) into manufacturing expert AI agents capable of providing real-time, industry-specific insights across clients’ various production facilities. These agentic AIs can be connected to virtual factories, developed on Omniverse, to augment facility planning, design, and operations. Tech Mahindra, a global leader in technology consulting, announced it is establishing a center of excellence enabled by NVIDIA AI Enterprise and Omniverse. It is targeted at helping drive advances in sovereign LLM frameworks, agentic AI and physical AI. Tech Mahindra’s Center for Excellence uses NVIDIA Omniverse to develop connected industrial AI digital twins and physical AI applications for clients across sectors, including manufacturing, automotive, telecommunications, healthcare, banking, financial services and insurance. Other leading system integrators such as Wipro and Infosys are also building solutions using the NVIDIA AI stack and expanding into physical AI with Omniverse.

Life sciences and healthcare organizations across India are using generative AI to build applications that can deliver life-saving impacts — within the country and across the globe. Among such leading organizations are research centers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) and the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIIT-Delhi), intelligent life sciences Read Article

Life sciences and healthcare organizations across India are using generative AI to build applications that can deliver life-saving impacts — within the country and across the globe. Among such leading organizations are research centers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) and the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IIIT-Delhi), intelligent life sciences company Innoplexus and AI-led medical diagnostics platform provider 5C Network. Central to their work are NVIDIA NIM microservices, including the new Nemotron-4-Mini-Hindi 4B microservice for building sovereign AI applications and large language models (LLMs) in the Hindi language. The Nemotron-4 Hindi model delivers the highest accuracy across benchmarks in 2 billion to 8 billion model-size categories for Hindi. With the Indian healthcare market projected to grow from about $180 billion last year to $320 billion by 2028, the new AI model has the potential to dramatically improve healthcare accessibility and efficiency. To gear up for such growing demands — and to help more patients faster — the Indian government is significantly investing in building foundational AI models designed and developed within the country, including for healthcare, through initiatives like the IndiaAI Mission. Members of the Indian healthcare ecosystem are leading the charge by advancing neuroscience research, combating antibiotic resistance, accelerating drug discovery, automating diagnostic scan analysis and more — all with AI’s help. IIT Madras Advances Neuroscience Research With AI The IIT Madras Brain Centre is advancing neuroscience research by imaging whole human brains at a cellular level across various ages and brain diseases, and using AI to analyze these vast petabyte-sized primary datasets. The work is opening new avenues for understanding brain structure and function, as well as how they change in disease conditions, accelerating research that could lead to life-saving discoveries. To make information about the brain more accessible to STEM students and researchers, the center is developing an AI chatbot — using the Nemotron-4 Hindi NIM microservice — that can answer neuroscience-related questions in Hindi. This builds upon the center’s existing NVIDIA AI-powered knowledge-exploration framework, called Neuro Voyager. Developed using visual question-answering models and LLMs, Neuro Voyager lets researchers submit queries related to brain images and provides highly accurate answers using multimodal information retrieval. IIT Madras developed Neuro Voyager using both real-world data from research publications and synthetic data. Using NVIDIA NeMo Retriever, a collection of NIM microservices for information retrieval, the team achieved a 30% increase in accuracy through fine-tuning of the embedding model and further refinement of the framework. For the tool’s answer-generation portion, the researchers tapped the Llama 3.1 70B NVIDIA NIM microservice, running on NVIDIA DGX systems, which accelerated LLM inference 4x compared with the native model. IIIT-Delhi-Led Consortium Fights Antimicrobial Resistance Using Generative AI, NVIDIA DGX A research group at IIIT-Delhi is using the Nemotron-4 Hindi model to collect antibiotic prescription patterns in local languages, including Hindi. Antimicrobial resistance — among the world’s greatest threats to global health — occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time, no longer responding to treatment and increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. IIIT-Delhi researchers predict that AI-guided antimicrobial stewardship will be a key component of preventing the tens of millions of deaths that could be caused by antimicrobial resistance between 2025 and 2050. The researchers’ AI-powered data integration and predictive analytics tool, AMRSense, improves accuracy and speeds time to insights on antimicrobial resistance. Powered by NVIDIA NeMo platform-based natural language processing, AMRSense is designed to be used in hospital and community settings. This collaborative solution between IIIT-Delhi and a consortium of other research institutions placed second out of over 300 entries in the Trinity Challenge, a competition that calls for data-driven solutions to help tackle global health threats. IIIT-Delhi is also using NVIDIA DGX systems to build foundation models that can further hone its workflows. 5C Network Uses NVIDIA NIM, MONAI for AI-Powered Medical Imaging Bengaluru- and Coimbatore-based 5C Network’s Bionic suite of medical imaging tools, based on computer vision and LLMs, is helping transform radiology reporting by reading, detecting and analyzing medical scans and generating comprehensive medical notes that provide actionable insights to support clinicians in decision-making. Used across India’s largest hospital groups and several marquee hospitals, Bionic detects pathologies in scans, such as lung lesions in X-rays or brain masses in MRIs. It then provides detailed measurements of abnormalities, such as the size, volume or density of lesions to assess disease severity and treatment planning. Finally, Bionic compiles the data into clear, actionable reports with suggested next steps, such as further testing or specialist referrals. Bionic was developed using the open-source MONAI framework, the NVIDIA TensorRT ecosystem of application programming interfaces for high-performance deep learning inference, and the NVIDIA NeMo platform for custom generative AI. Using the Nemotron-4 Hindi NIM microservice, 5C Network is now enhancing its client app, which allows patients to ask questions about radiology reports and receive quick, accurate responses in simplified Hindi. https://blogs.nvidia.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/5C-Network-Bionic.mp4 Innoplexus Analyzes Protein Interactions With NVIDIA NIM Innoplexus, a member of the NVIDIA Inception program for cutting-edge startups, has built an AI-powered life sciences platform for drug discovery powered by NVIDIA NIM, including the AlphaFold2 NIM microservice. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) is critical to pathogenic and physiologic mechanisms that trigger the onset and progression of diseases. This means understanding PPI can help facilitate effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Innoplexus performs large-scale PPI predictions up to 500x faster than traditional methods. The company’s platform can analyze 200 million protein interactions in just seconds, tapping into NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPU acceleration. Using NVIDIA NIM microservices, Innoplexus generates synthetic patient data to boost its AI models and performs virtual screenings of 5.8 million small molecules in less than eight hours — 10x faster than without NIM. Plus, the microservices help Innoplexus identify the most effective, safest drugs within a given set of therapeutic agents with 90% accuracy. Using the new Nemotron-4 Hindi model, Innoplexus is developing a tool that will let users easily access and understand information about Ayurveda, a system of traditional medicine native to India, based on Hindi content from key repositories. Another Innoplexus LLM application, built with the new Hindi model, explains details about user prescriptions and medical reports — based on photos of them — in easy-to-understand terms. NVIDIA NIM microservices are available as part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform. Developers can get started with them for free at ai.nvidia.com. In addition, global system integrators including Infosys, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Tech Mahindra and Wipro are collaborating with NVIDIA to help life sciences and healthcare companies accelerate their generative AI adoption. Learn more about the latest in generative AI and accelerated computing at the NVIDIA AI Summit in India, and subscribe to NVIDIA healthcare news.

Namaste, vanakkam, sat sri akaal — these are just three forms of greeting in India, a country with 22 constitutionally recognized languages and over 1,500 more recorded by the country’s census. Around 10% of its residents speak English, the internet’s most common language. As India, the world’s most populous country, forges ahead with rapid digitalization Read Article

Namaste, vanakkam, sat sri akaal — these are just three forms of greeting in India, a country with 22 constitutionally recognized languages and over 1,500 more recorded by the country’s census. Around 10% of its residents speak English, the internet’s most common language. As India, the world’s most populous country, forges ahead with rapid digitalization efforts, its enterprises and local startups are developing multilingual AI models that enable more Indians to interact with technology in their primary language. It’s a case study in sovereign AI — the development of domestic AI infrastructure that is built on local datasets and reflects a region’s specific dialects, cultures and practices. These projects are building language models for Indic languages and English that can power customer service AI agents for businesses, rapidly translate content to broaden access to information, and enable services to more easily reach a diverse population of over 1.4 billion individuals. To support initiatives like these, NVIDIA has released a small language model for Hindi, India’s most prevalent language with over half a billion speakers. Now available as an NVIDIA NIM microservice, the model, dubbed Nemotron-4-Mini-Hindi-4B, can be easily deployed on any NVIDIA GPU-accelerated system for optimized performance. Tech Mahindra, an Indian IT services and consulting company, is the first to use the Nemotron Hindi NIM microservice to develop an AI model called Indus 2.0, which is focused on Hindi and dozens of its dialects. Indus 2.0 harnesses Tech Mahindra’s high-quality fine-tuning data to further boost model accuracy, unlocking opportunities for clients in banking, education, healthcare and other industries to deliver localized services. Tech Mahindra will showcase Indus 2.0 at the NVIDIA AI Summit, taking place Oct. 23-25 in Mumbai. The company also uses NVIDIA NeMo to develop its sovereign large language model (LLM) platform, TeNo. NVIDIA NIM Makes AI Adoption for Hindi as Easy as Ek, Do, Teen The Nemotron Hindi model has 4 billion parameters and is derived from Nemotron-4 15B, a 15-billion parameter multilingual language model developed by NVIDIA. The model was pruned, distilled and trained with a combination of real-world Hindi data, synthetic Hindi data and an equal amount of English data using NVIDIA NeMo, an end-to-end, cloud-native framework and suite of microservices for developing generative AI. The dataset was created with NVIDIA NeMo Curator, which improves generative AI model accuracy by processing high-quality multimodal data at scale for training and customization. NeMo Curator uses NVIDIA RAPIDS libraries to accelerate data processing pipelines on multi-node GPU systems, lowering processing time and total cost of ownership. It also provides pre-built pipelines and building blocks for synthetic data generation, data filtering, classification and deduplication to process high-quality data. After fine-tuning with NeMo, the final model leads on multiple accuracy benchmarks for AI models with up to 8 billion parameters. Packaged as a NIM microservice, it can be easily harnessed to support use cases across industries such as education, retail and healthcare. It’s available as part of the NVIDIA AI Enterprise software platform, which gives businesses access to additional resources, including technical support and enterprise-grade security, to streamline AI development for production environments. Bevy of Businesses Serves Multilingual Population Innovators, major enterprises and global systems integrators across India are building customized language models using NVIDIA NeMo. Companies in the NVIDIA Inception program for cutting-edge startups are using NeMo to develop AI models for several Indic languages. Sarvam AI offers enterprise customers speech-to-text, text-to-speech, translation and data parsing models. The company developed Sarvam 1, India’s first homegrown, multilingual LLM, which was trained from scratch on domestic AI infrastructure powered by NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs. Sarvam 1 — developed using NVIDIA AI Enterprise software including NeMo Curator and NeMo Framework — supports English and 10 major Indian languages, including Bengali, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu. Sarvam AI also uses NVIDIA NIM microservices, NVIDIA Riva for conversational AI, NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM software and NVIDIA Triton Inference Server to optimize and deploy conversational AI agents with sub-second latency. Another Inception startup, Gnani.ai, built a multilingual speech-to-speech LLM that powers AI customer service assistants that handle around 10 million real-time voice interactions daily for over 150 banking, insurance and financial services companies across India and the U.S. The model supports 14 languages and was trained on over 14 million hours of conversational speech data using NVIDIA Hopper GPUs and NeMo Framework. Gnani.ai uses TensorRT-LLM, Triton Inference Server and Riva NIM microservices to optimize its AI for virtual customer service assistants and speech analytics. Large enterprises building LLMs with NeMo include: Flipkart, a major Indian ecommerce company majority-owned by Walmart, is integrating NeMo Guardrails, an open-source toolkit that enables developers to add programmable guardrails to LLMs, to enhance the safety of its conversational AI systems. Krutrim, part of the Ola Group of businesses that includes one of India’s top ride-booking platforms, is developing a multilingual Indic foundation model using Mistral NeMo 12B, a state-of-the-art LLM developed by Mistral AI and NVIDIA. Zoho Corporation, a global technology company based in Chennai, will use NVIDIA TensorRT-LLM and NVIDIA Triton Inference Server to optimize and deliver language models for its over 700,000 customers. The company will use NeMo running on NVIDIA Hopper GPUs to pretrain narrow, small, medium and large models from scratch for over 100 business applications. India’s top global systems integrators are also offering NVIDIA NeMo-accelerated solutions to their customers. Infosys will work on specific tools and solutions using the NVIDIA AI stack. The company’s center of excellence is also developing AI-powered small language models that will be offered to customers as a service. Tata Consultancy Services has developed AI solutions based on NVIDIA NIM Agent Blueprints for the telecommunications, retail, manufacturing, automotive and financial services industries. TCS’ offerings include NeMo-powered, domain-specific language models that can be customized to address customer queries and answer company-specific questions for employees for all enterprise functions such as IT, HR or field operations. Wipro is using NVIDIA AI Enterprise software including NIM Agent Blueprints and NeMo to help businesses easily develop custom conversational AI solutions such as digital humans to support customer service interactions. Wipro and TCS also use NeMo Curator’s synthetic data generation pipelines to generate data in languages other than English to customize LLMs for their clients. To learn more about NVIDIA’s collaboration with businesses and developers in India, watch the replay of company founder and CEO Jensen Huang’s fireside chat at the NVIDIA AI Summit.

Large language models (LLMs) are reshaping productivity. They’re capable of drafting documents, summarizing web pages and, having been trained on vast quantities of data, accurately answering questions about nearly any topic.

Editor’s note: This post is part of the AI Decoded series, which demystifies AI by making the technology more accessible, and showcases new hardware, software, tools and accelerations for GeForce RTX PC and NVIDIA RTX workstation users. Large language models (LLMs) are reshaping productivity. They’re capable of drafting documents, summarizing web pages and, having been trained on vast quantities of data, accurately answering questions about nearly any topic. LLMs are at the core of many emerging use cases in generative AI, including digital assistants, conversational avatars and customer service agents. Many of the latest LLMs can run locally on PCs or workstations. This is useful for a variety of reasons: users can keep conversations and content private on-device, use AI without the internet, or simply take advantage of the powerful NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPUs in their system. Other models, because of their size and complexity, do no’t fit into the local GPU’s video memory (VRAM) and require hardware in large data centers. However, Iit i’s possible to accelerate part of a prompt on a data-center-class model locally on RTX-powered PCs using a technique called GPU offloading. This allows users to benefit from GPU acceleration without being as limited by GPU memory constraints. Size and Quality vs. Performance There’s a tradeoff between the model size and the quality of responses and the performance. In general, larger models deliver higher-quality responses, but run more slowly. With smaller models, performance goes up while quality goes down. This tradeoff isn’t always straightforward. There are cases where performance might be more important than quality. Some users may prioritize accuracy for use cases like content generation, since it can run in the background. A conversational assistant, meanwhile, needs to be fast while also providing accurate responses. The most accurate LLMs, designed to run in the data center, are tens of gigabytes in size, and may not fit in a GPU’s memory. This would traditionally prevent the application from taking advantage of GPU acceleration. However, GPU offloading uses part of the LLM on the GPU and part on the CPU. This allows users to take maximum advantage of GPU acceleration regardless of model size. Optimize AI Acceleration With GPU Offloading and LM Studio LM Studio is an application that lets users download and host LLMs on their desktop or laptop computer, with an easy-to-use interface that allows for extensive customization in how those models operate. LM Studio is built on top of llama.cpp, so it’s fully optimized for use with GeForce RTX and NVIDIA RTX GPUs. LM Studio and GPU offloading takes advantage of GPU acceleration to boost the performance of a locally hosted LLM, even if the model can’t be fully loaded into VRAM. With GPU offloading, LM Studio divides the model into smaller chunks, or “subgraphs,” which represent layers of the model architecture. Subgraphs aren’t permanently fixed on the GPU, but loaded and unloaded as needed. With LM Studio’s GPU offloading slider, users can decide how many of these layers are processed by the GPU. LM Studio’s interface makes it easy to decide how much of an LLM should be loaded to the GPU. For example, imagine using this GPU offloading technique with a large model like Gemma 2 27B. “27B” refers to the number of parameters in the model, informing an estimate as to how much memory is required to run the model. According to 4-bit quantization, a technique for reducing the size of an LLM without significantly reducing accuracy, each parameter takes up a half byte of memory. This means that the model should require about 13.5 billion bytes, or 13.5GB — plus some overhead, which generally ranges from 1-5GB. Accelerating this model entirely on the GPU requires 19GB of VRAM, available on the GeForce RTX 4090 desktop GPU. With GPU offloading, the model can run on a system with a lower-end GPU and still benefit from acceleration. The table above shows how to run several popular models of increasing size across a range of GeForce RTX and NVIDIA RTX GPUs. The maximum level of GPU offload is indicated for each combination. Note that even with GPU offloading, users still need enough system RAM to fit the whole model. In LM Studio, it’s possible to assess the performance impact of different levels of GPU offloading, compared with CPU only. The below table shows the results of running the same query across different offloading levels on a GeForce RTX 4090 desktop GPU. Depending on the percent of the model offloaded to GPU, users see increasing throughput performance compared with running on CPUs alone. For the Gemma 2 27B model, performance goes from an anemic 2.1 tokens per second to increasingly usable speeds the more the GPU is used. This enables users to benefit from the performance of larger models that they otherwise would’ve been unable to run. On this particular model, even users with an 8GB GPU can enjoy a meaningful speedup versus running only on CPUs. Of course, an 8GB GPU can always run a smaller model that fits entirely in GPU memory and get full GPU acceleration. Achieving Optimal Balance LM Studio’s GPU offloading feature is a powerful tool for unlocking the full potential of LLMs designed for the data center, like Gemma 2 27B, locally on RTX AI PCs. It makes larger, more complex models accessible across the entire lineup of PCs powered by GeForce RTX and NVIDIA RTX GPUs. Download LM Studio to try GPU offloading on larger models, or experiment with a variety of RTX-accelerated LLMs running locally on RTX AI PCs and workstations. Generative AI is transforming gaming, videoconferencing and interactive experiences of all kinds. Make sense of what’s new and what’s next by subscribing to the AI Decoded newsletter.

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang joined the king of Denmark to launch the country’s largest sovereign AI supercomputer, aimed at breakthroughs in quantum computing, clean energy, biotechnology and other areas serving Danish society and the world. Denmark’s first AI supercomputer, named Gefion after a goddess in Danish mythology, is an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD driven Read Article

NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang joined the king of Denmark to launch the country’s largest sovereign AI supercomputer, aimed at breakthroughs in quantum computing, clean energy, biotechnology and other areas serving Danish society and the world. Denmark’s first AI supercomputer, named Gefion after a goddess in Danish mythology, is an NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD driven by 1,528 NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core GPUs and interconnected using NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking. Gefion is operated by the Danish Center for AI Innovation (DCAI), a company established with funding from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, the world’s wealthiest charitable foundation, and the Export and Investment Fund of Denmark. The new AI supercomputer was symbolically turned on by King Frederik X of Denmark, Huang and Nadia Carlsten, CEO of DCAI, at an event in Copenhagen. Huang sat down with Carlsten, a quantum computing industry leader, to discuss the public-private initiative to build one of the world’s fastest AI supercomputers in collaboration with NVIDIA. The Gefion AI supercomputer comes to Copenhagen to serve industry, startups and academia. “Gefion is going to be a factory of intelligence. This is a new industry that never existed before. It sits on top of the IT industry. We’re inventing something fundamentally new,” Huang said. The launch of Gefion is an important milestone for Denmark in establishing its own sovereign AI. Sovereign AI can be achieved when a nation has the capacity to produce artificial intelligence with its own data, workforce, infrastructure and business networks. Having a supercomputer on national soil provides a foundation for countries to use their own infrastructure as they build AI models and applications that reflect their unique culture and language. “What country can afford not to have this infrastructure, just as every country realizes you have communications, transportation, healthcare, fundamental infrastructures — the fundamental infrastructure of any country surely must be the manufacturer of intelligence,” said Huang. “For Denmark to be one of the handful of countries in the world that has now initiated on this vision is really incredible.” The new supercomputer is expected to address global challenges with insights into infectious disease, climate change and food security. Gefion is now being prepared for users, and a pilot phase will begin to bring in projects that seek to use AI to accelerate progress, including in such areas as quantum computing, drug discovery and energy efficiency. “The era of computer-aided drug discovery must be within this decade. I’m hoping that what the computer did to the technology industry, it will do for digital biology,” Huang said. Supporting Next Generation of Breakthroughs With Gefion The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI) is in the pilot and aims to deliver faster and more accurate weather forecasts. It promises to reduce forecast times from hours to minutes while greatly reducing the energy footprint required for these forecasts when compared with traditional methods. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen are tapping into Gefion to implement and carry out a large-scale distributed simulation of quantum computer circuits. Gefion enables the simulated system to increase from 36 to 40 entangled qubits, which brings it close to what’s known as “quantum supremacy,” or essentially outperforming a traditional computer while using less resources. The University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark are working together on a multi-modal genomic foundation model for discoveries in disease mutation analysis and vaccine design. Their model will be used to improve signal detection and the functional understanding of genomes, made possible by the capability to train LLMs on Gefion. Startup Go Autonomous seeks training time on Gefion to develop an AI model that understands and uses multi-modal input from both text, layout and images. Another startup, Teton, is building an AI Care Companion with large video pretraining, using Gefion. Addressing Global Challenges With Leading Supercomputer The Gefion supercomputer and ongoing collaborations with NVIDIA will position Denmark, with its renowned research community, to pursue the world’s leading scientific challenges with enormous social impact as well as large-scale projects across industries. With Gefion, researchers will be able to work with industry experts at NVIDIA to co-develop solutions to complex problems, including research in pharmaceuticals and biotechnology and protein design using the NVIDIA BioNeMo platform. Scientists will also be collaborating with NVIDIA on fault-tolerant quantum computing using NVIDIA CUDA-Q, the open-source hybrid quantum computing platform.

AI chatbots use generative AI to provide responses based on a single interaction. A person makes a query and the chatbot uses natural language processing to reply. The next frontier of artificial intelligence is agentic AI, which uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems. And it’s set to enhance productivity Read Article

AI chatbots use generative AI to provide responses based on a single interaction. A person makes a query and the chatbot uses natural language processing to reply. The next frontier of artificial intelligence is agentic AI, which uses sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning to autonomously solve complex, multi-step problems. And it’s set to enhance productivity and operations across industries. Agentic AI systems ingest vast amounts of data from multiple sources to independently analyze challenges, develop strategies and execute tasks like supply chain optimization, cybersecurity vulnerability analysis and helping doctors with time-consuming tasks. How Does Agentic AI Work? Agentic AI uses a four-step process for problem-solving: Perceive: AI agents gather and process data from various sources, such as sensors, databases and digital interfaces. This involves extracting meaningful features, recognizing objects or identifying relevant entities in the environment. Reason: A large language model acts as the orchestrator, or reasoning engine, that understands tasks, generates solutions and coordinates specialized models for specific functions like content creation, vision processing or recommendation systems. This step uses techniques like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) to access proprietary data sources and deliver accurate, relevant outputs. Act: By integrating with external tools and software via application programming interfaces, agentic AI can quickly execute tasks based on the plans it has formulated. Guardrails can be built into AI agents to help ensure they execute tasks correctly. For example, a customer service AI agent may be able to process claims up to a certain amount, while claims above the amount would have to be approved by a human. Learn: Agentic AI continuously improves through a feedback loop, or “data flywheel,” where the data generated from its interactions is fed into the system to enhance models. This ability to adapt and become more effective over time offers businesses a powerful tool for driving better decision-making and operational efficiency. Fueling Agentic AI With Enterprise Data Across industries and job functions, generative AI is transforming organizations by turning vast amounts of data into actionable knowledge, helping employees work more efficiently. AI agents build on this potential by accessing diverse data through accelerated AI query engines, which process, store and retrieve information to enhance generative AI models. A key technique for achieving this is RAG, which allows AI to tap into a broader range of data sources. Over time, AI agents learn and improve by creating a data flywheel, where data generated through interactions is fed back into the system, refining models and increasing their effectiveness. The end-to-end NVIDIA AI platform, including NVIDIA NeMo microservices, provides the ability to manage and access data efficiently, which is crucial for building responsive agentic AI applications. Agentic AI in Action The potential applications of agentic AI are vast, limited only by creativity and expertise. From simple tasks like generating and distributing content to more complex use cases such as orchestrating enterprise software, AI agents are transforming industries. Customer Service: AI agents are improving customer support by enhancing self-service capabilities and automating routine communications. Over half of service professionals report significant improvements in customer interactions, reducing response times and boosting satisfaction. There’s also growing interest in digital humans — AI-powered agents that embody a company’s brand and offer lifelike, real-time interactions to help sales representatives answer customer queries or solve issues directly when call volumes are high. Content Creation: Agentic AI can help quickly create high-quality, personalized marketing content. Generative AI agents can save marketers an average of three hours per content piece, allowing them to focus on strategy and innovation. By streamlining content creation, businesses can stay competitive while improving customer engagement. Software Engineering: AI agents are boosting developer productivity by automating repetitive coding tasks. It’s projected that by 2030 AI could automate up to 30% of work hours, freeing developers to focus on more complex challenges and drive innovation. Healthcare: For doctors analyzing vast amounts of medical and patient data, AI agents can distill critical information to help them make better-informed care decisions. Automating administrative tasks and capturing clinical notes in patient appointments reduces the burden of time-consuming tasks, allowing doctors to focus on developing a doctor-patient connection. AI agents can also provide 24/7 support, offering information on prescribed medication usage, appointment scheduling and reminders, and more to help patients adhere to treatment plans. How to Get Started With its ability to plan and interact with a wide variety of tools and software, agentic AI marks the next chapter of artificial intelligence, offering the potential to enhance productivity and revolutionize the way organizations operate. To accelerate the adoption of generative AI-powered applications and agents, NVIDIA NIM Agent Blueprints provide sample applications, reference code, sample data, tools and comprehensive documentation. NVIDIA partners including Accenture are helping enterprises use agentic AI with solutions built with NIM Agent Blueprints. Visit ai.nvidia.com to learn more about the tools and software NVIDIA offers to help enterprises build their own AI agents.

At ROSCon in Odense, one of Denmark’s oldest cities and a hub of automation, NVIDIA and its robotics ecosystem partners announced generative AI tools ,simulation, and perception workflows for Robot Operating System (ROS) developers. Among the reveals were new generative AI nodes and workflows for ROS developers deploying to the NVIDIA Jetson platform for edge Read Article

At ROSCon in Odense, one of Denmark’s oldest cities and a hub of automation, NVIDIA and its robotics ecosystem partners announced generative AI tools ,simulation, and perception workflows for Robot Operating System (ROS) developers. Among the reveals were new generative AI nodes and workflows for ROS developers deploying to the NVIDIA Jetson platform for edge AI and robotics. Generative AI enables robots to perceive and understand the context of their surroundings, communicate naturally with humans and make adaptive decisions autonomously. Generative AI Comes to ROS Community ReMEmbR, built on ROS 2, uses generative AI to enhance robotic reasoning and action. It combines large language models (LLMs), vision language models (VLMs) and retrieval-augmented generation to allow robots to build and query long-term semantic memories and improve their ability to navigate and interact with their environments. The speech recognition capability is powered by the WhisperTRT ROS 2 node. This node uses NVIDIA TensorRT to optimize OpenAI’s Whisper model to enable low-latency inference on NVIDIA Jetson, resulting in responsive human-robot interaction. The ROS 2 robots with voice control project uses the NVIDIA Riva ASR-TTS service to make robots understand and respond to spoken commands. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory independently demonstrated ROSA, an AI-powered agent for ROS, operating on its Nebula-SPOT robot and the NVIDIA Nova Carter robot in NVIDIA Isaac Sim. At ROSCon, Canonical is demonstrating NanoOWL, a zero-shot object detection model running on the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano system-on-module. It allows robots to identify a broad range of objects in real time, without relying on predefined categories. Developers can get started today with ROS 2 Nodes for Generative AI, which brings NVIDIA Jetson-optimized LLMs and VLMs to enhance robot capabilities. Enhancing ROS Workflows With a ‘Sim-First’ Approach Simulation is critical to safely test and validate AI-enabled robots before deployment. NVIDIA Isaac Sim, a robotics simulation platform built on OpenUSD, provides ROS developers a virtual environment to test robots by easily connecting them to their ROS packages. A new Beginner’s Guide to ROS 2 Workflows With Isaac Sim, which illustrates the end-to-end workflow for robot simulation and testing, is now available. Foxglove, a member of the NVIDIA Inception program for startups, demonstrated an integration that helps developers visualize and debug simulation data in real time using Foxglove’s custom extension, built on Isaac Sim. New Capabilities for Isaac ROS 3.2 NVIDIA Isaac ROS, built on the open-source ROS 2 software framework, is a suite of accelerated computing packages and AI models for robotics development. The upcoming 3.2 release enhances robot perception, manipulation and environment mapping. Key improvements to NVIDIA Isaac Manipulator include new reference workflows that integrate FoundationPose and cuMotion to accelerate development of pick-and-place and object-following pipelines in robotics. Another is to NVIDIA Isaac Perceptor, which features a new visual SLAM reference workflow, enhanced multi-camera detection and 3D reconstruction to improve an autonomous mobile robot’s (AMR) environmental awareness and performance in dynamic settings like warehouses. Partners Adopting NVIDIA Isaac Robotics companies are integrating NVIDIA Isaac accelerated libraries and AI models into their platforms. Universal Robots, a Teradyne Robotics company, launched a new AI Accelerator toolkit to enable the development of AI-powered cobot applications. Miso Robotics is using Isaac ROS to speed up its AI-powered robotic french fry-making Flippy Fry Station and drive advances in efficiency and accuracy in food service automation. Wheel.me is partnering with RGo Robotics and NVIDIA to create a production-ready AMR using Isaac Perceptor. Main Street Autonomy is using Isaac Perceptor to streamline sensor calibration. Orbbec announced its Perceptor Developer Kit, an out-of-the-box AMR solution for Isaac Perceptor. LIPS Corporation has introduced a multi-camera perception devkit for improved AMR navigation. Canonical highlighted a fully certified Ubuntu environment for ROS developers, offering long-term support out of the box. Connecting With Partners at ROSCon ROS community members and partners, including Canonical, Ekumen, Foxglove, Intrinsic, Open Navigation, Siemens and Teradyne Robotics, will be in Denmark presenting workshops, talks, booth demos and sessions. Highlights include: “Nav2 User Meetup” Birds of a Feather session with Steve Macenski from Open Navigation LLC “ROS in Large-Scale Factory Automation” with Michael Gentner from BMW AG and Carsten Braunroth from Siemens AG “Integrating AI in Robot Manipulation Workflows” Birds of a Feather session with Kalyan Vadrevu from NVIDIA “Accelerating Robot Learning at Scale in Simulation” Birds of a Feather session with Markus Wuensch from NVIDIA “On Use of Nav2 Docking” with Open Navigation’s Macenski Additionally, Teradyne Robotics and NVIDIA are co-hosting a lunch and evening reception on Tuesday, Oct. 22, in Odense, Denmark. The Open Source Robotics Foundation (OSRF) organizes ROSCon. NVIDIA is a supporter of Open Robotics, the umbrella organization for OSRF and all its initiatives. For the latest updates, visit the ROSCon page.

NPR explores the latest in games and gaming culture — from the latest digital titles to what's on our tabletops.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has superb combat and charismatic companions but if you're hoping for a return to the series' origins, you'll be disappointed.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard has superb combat and charismatic companions but if you're hoping for a return to the series' origins, you'll be disappointed. (Image credit: Andy Bickerton/BioWare)

If you've spent the day canvassing and just need to take a breather, here are three games that have hit the spot recently for our pop culture critic.

If you've spent the day canvassing and just need to take a breather, here are three games that have hit the spot recently for our pop culture critic. (Image credit: Richard A. Brooks)

The success of Silent Hill 2, and the announcement of several other projects, begs the question: How serious is Konami about revitalizing its most beloved franchises?

The success of Silent Hill 2, and the announcement of several other projects, begs the question: How serious is Konami about revitalizing its most beloved franchises? (Image credit: David McNew)

Calling all foragers! The new board game Undergrove, co-designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and Mark Wootton, is all about the symbiotic relationships between trees and fungi. Players assume the role of mature Douglas fir trees and partner with mushrooms, which represent the mycorrhizal network.

P.S. If the name "Elizabeth Hargrave" sounds familiar — she also designed the bird-collecting game Wingspan.

Have another science-backed board game you'd like us to play? Email us at shortwave@npr.org!

Calling all foragers! The new board game Undergrove, co-designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and Mark Wootton, is all about the symbiotic relationships between trees and fungi. Players assume the role of mature Douglas fir trees and partner with mushrooms, which represent the mycorrhizal network. P.S. If the name "Elizabeth Hargrave" sounds familiar — she also designed the bird-collecting game Wingspan. Have another science-backed board game you'd like us to play? Email us at shortwave@npr.org!

'Jamboree' feels scattered and altogether too eager to please. But while the game's a mixed bag, it's still one of the best in the chaotic Nintendo series.

'Jamboree' feels scattered and altogether too eager to please. But while the game's a mixed bag, it's still one of the best in the chaotic Nintendo series. (Image credit: Nintendo)

The Nintendo Museum opens in Kyoto, Japan, today. Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto never expected the company to make the museum, since it has an ethos of letting its games speak for themselves.

The Nintendo Museum opens in Kyoto, Japan, today. Mario and Zelda creator Shigeru Miyamoto never expected the company to make the museum, since it has an ethos of letting its games speak for themselves. (Image credit: Anthony Kuhn)

Nintendo's latest game is the first to truly star Zelda in the series that has borne her name since 1986. It boasts innovative mechanics but is still a little too linked to the past.

Nintendo's latest game is the first to truly star Zelda in the series that has borne her name since 1986. It boasts innovative mechanics but is still a little too linked to the past. (Image credit: Nintendo)

NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Amanda Cote of Michigan State University about Princess Zelda being cast as the protagonist for the first time in a main "Legend of Zelda" game.

NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Amanda Cote of Michigan State University about Princess Zelda being cast as the protagonist for the first time in a main "Legend of Zelda" game.

NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks with NPR Gaming lead James Mastromarino about the new PS5 and what the next generation of consoles says about the industry.

NPR's Ayesha Rascoe talks with NPR Gaming lead James Mastromarino about the new PS5 and what the next generation of consoles says about the industry.

Games. Culture. Criticism.

In this episode, Brad covers: Shogun Showdown Helldivers 2 Rogue Sentry Stilt Fella Thronefall …And more! You can also hear the show on iTunes and Spotify! Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

HIGH The environments and movement combine for immaculate vibes.

LOW The free-flowing movement can get out of control.

WTF The protagonist’s eyes make it look like he’s possessed.

Floating Above Paradise HIGH The environments and movement combine for immaculate vibes. LOW The free-flowing movement can get out of control. WTF The protagonist’s eyes make it look like he’s possessed. I don’t think there is a game that embodies the spirit of Hayao Miyazaki and the Studio Ghibli movies more than Europa — but instead of being a cheap copy, it carves its own path through stunning environments, whimsical gameplay, and a thoughtful message about mankind’s relationship with the natural world. Europa is a 3D platformer where the player begins as Zee, an artificial boy equipped with a magical levitation device strapped to his back. With this jetpack full of whimsy, Zee gets to explore the idyllic paradise that is Europa, an extraplanetary colony meant to be mankind’s next utopia. Along the way, Zee collects pages of a journal from his dead father that guide him through this world as he uncovers the mystery of what happened to this abandoned paradise planet. As his father’s narration via journal explains, Europa was a human utopia long in the making. Europa was supposed to be a place where humans could live without worry, but all that Zee can see are long-abandoned ruins without a trace of human activity. The only things left are the “gardeners” — a legion of AI-powered robots that made the planet liveable. The player gets to see thousands of these gardeners along their journey, as they’ve evolved into life forms that resemble Earth’s animals. I got to see herds of real deer along herds of robotic deer living together in harmony with flocks of mechanical birds flying above me. All of these lifeforms live in the paradise that is Europa. It’s a world filled with peaceful environments taken straight out of a painting. Rolling hills, snowy mountaintops, endless oceans filled with bioluminescent life – it’s a miracle that all of these locations fit into this game cohesively, yet it’s crafted so seamlessly that I didn’t bat an eye. However, traveling in this environment takes some getting used to. With Zee’s jetpack, he can hover just above the ground, charge up a tall jump, or fly across entire areas with the help of hundreds of pockets of energy (to keep his flight sustained) scattered around the world of Europa. Abundance and flow are critical gameplay themes in Zee’s journey, as every part of Europa’s movement ties into each other, and I was never far from another ball of energy I could use to power up a new flight, and I would often find myself chaining power jumps into hovers into longer flights as I flung myself across sections of the map. At times this movement is clunky, since it’s difficult to slow Zee down and change direction when he reaches breakneck speeds, but since there’s no penalty in the form of losing health or “dying” if Zee gets blown off course, it’s fairly easy to reorient him. A core theme of the story is how mankind interacts with the natural world, and Zee feels like an integral part of the environment he is exploring, frictionlessly flowing in and out of areas. It’s like Zee is a leaf on the wind, and we’re just riding the current. Zee’s journey isn’t just leaping and bounding around the world, though. Between every major area are usually a few simple puzzles and some collectibles for Zee to pick up. Featured treasures include items that boost the capacity of Zee’s jetpack and hidden emeralds that are the side collectibles of Europa. These emeralds reward player exploration and experimentation, and I wasn’t able to get even half of the forty available. However, I was able to complete all the puzzles around Europa. Despite their simplicity, there were a few ideas that really stood out amongst other 3D platformers, including rotating platforms, disappearing blocks, and keys filled with energy scattered away from their appropriate keyholes. They’re all a bit rough around the edges, but they achieve their purpose in Europa’s overall narrative. That said, with only about six hours of total runtime, it’s unclear what these puzzles could have looked like with a few permutations thrown in the mix for a longer experience. In a larger sense, what Europa is, more than anything else, is simple — yet not in a way that detracts from the overall experience. It’s incredibly focused in trying to show an idyllic paradise that happened to fail because of human hubris. The puzzles don’t need to be complex stratagems that take more than five minutes to solve. Some of the best moments in the campaign involve Zee simply flying around the world, carefree and exploring how alive Europa can be. Interspersed with the wonders of this natural world is narration from Zee’s father. Rarely do I think that narration adds to an experience in a videogame, but Europa’s does the clever thing where they don’t tell the player exactly what they’re seeing, but they fill in the gaps where the player has questions. The writers lay out the story along Miyazakian principles of capitalism, exploitation, and destruction of the natural world eloquently, but in an innovative plot that flows between these themes. All of this is told by the deceased narrator, Zee’s father, who was supposed to be the architect of this paradise, yet ultimately found more happiness in his relationship with Zee. Despite its simplicity, Europa establishes itself as a whimsical, wondrous experience floating through the wilds of a fallen utopia. I won’t forget it anytime soon. Rating: 7.5 out of 10 — Jack Dunn Disclosures: The game was developed and published by Helder Pinto, Novadust Entertainment, and Chozabu (Alex PB). It is currently available on PC and Switch. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 6 hours were devoted to the game, and it was completed. There are no multiplayer modes. Parents: This game has an ESRB rating of E for Mild Fantasy Violence. There is no combat in the game, but the main character does have to dodge energy blasts from hostile turrets and mechanical birds that try to knock him out of the sky. Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind options. Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles in the game, and no audio cues are required for gameplay. The subtitles can be resized into 7 different sizes. The game is fully accessible. Remappable controls: Controls are fully remappable.

Hey folks, a quick update regarding the So Videogames Podcast here.

Hey folks, a quick update regarding the So Videogames Podcast here. Apparently, something went VERY wrong with the show’s feed over at Apple podcasts. I had a number of folks e-mail me and say that the show either disappeared, or that the show’s entire backlog disappeared and they weren’t sure what was happening. Frankly I wasn’t sure either and I’m still not sure, but after a couple days of trying to work through this, it seems like the only fix available to me was to abandon the old feed and then resubmit SVG as a “brand new” show. So, if you listen to podcasts via the Apple service, you might have to unsubscribe from SVG, do a search and then re-subscribe to the new feed. People who have done this reported that the show has been restored to normal and that there are no further problems. As far as I know, all other podcast services were unaffected, this blip seems specific to Apple. Apologies for the inconvenience!!!

HIGH Easy-to-learn mechanics and beautiful pixel art.

LOW Progression isn’t interesting.

WTF Nobunaga being a heart in a trenchcoat.

Movement Over Deckbuilding HIGH Easy-to-learn mechanics and beautiful pixel art. LOW Progression isn’t interesting. WTF Nobunaga being a heart in a trenchcoat. TRANSCRIPT: Hi everyone! Eugene Sax here with another review from GameCritics.com! It feels like I hear about a new roguelike deckbuilder every day. It’s a popular genre in the indie sphere, which means finding quality titles among the mountain of releases can be daunting. Shogun Showdown, developed by Roboatino, is the next one to come down the pike and eager to stand above the rest. Shogun Showdown is a 2D pixel-based, turn-based roguelike deckbuilder, with the ultimate goal of stopping an evil Shogun and the dark ritual they’re trying to complete. Players move back and forth and attack using cards in their customizable deck to defeat waves of enemies and bosses. As players defeat foes, they’ll earn money to purchase upgrades and items like health potions, shield potions, or damage-causing items like poison vials that affect all enemies on the field. Attacks can come from either the left or the right, so players must be aware of incoming foes — it’s important to be aware of distances, direction and what attack they’re performing. Some cards offer strikes, like a sword swing or an arrow shot, but some are more focused on movement — with the right card, the character can dash across all open tiles, or use a grapple hook to pull the nearest enemy toward them. All actions take a single turn — things like moving one space, turning around, priming an attack (more on this later) or executing an attack, and enemies will act at the same time. Luckily, players can see what enemies plan to do before they do it, so taking that information and planning appropriate actions is key. So as a concept, this all sounds great and I expected to love Shogun Showdown, but it just didn’t hit like I thought it would. The entire experience feels slow, and it largely has to do with how attacks work. In a design that’s pretty different from most games of this type, Shogun Showdown asks players to prepare attacks before executing them. It’s the “priming an attack” that I mentioned a minute ago. This means that every attack ultimately takes two turns to happen in most cases, and that’s assuming the enemy is already in range and the player is facing the proper direction. If not, that takes even more time. To be fair, players can prepare multiple attacks to be used at once, but this still made the action slow to a crawl, even for a turn-based game. Another issue is that progression just didn’t feel satisfying. As a roguelike, each run is unique but there’s an overall, persistent level of progression in the systems. One type is to upgrade shops with additional item slots so there are more choices each time the player visits. There are different kinds of shops and they all must be upgraded separately, even though it seems like they all stock the same few items. Another kind of progression here is unlocking new cards for future runs. While some of the options feel unique, like the grapple hook that pulls enemies or the crossbow that takes a turn to reload, many of the additional choices amount to slightly different movements or effects that feel similar to cards I already have in my inventory. There just wasn’t enough to keep things feeling interesting and fresh on later runs. I didn’t have a lot to look forward to, and had little reason to deviate from earlier strategies that were proven successful. My last hope was that unlocked characters would offer different strategies to keep me interested, but the ones I gained access to didn’t feel different enough, even though they are different. The Wanderer can switch places with the opponent, the Ronin can push an enemy across open tiles, and the Jujitsuka can throw an enemy from behind her into an enemy in front of her. Each one also starts with different cards, but they don’t have cards unique to them. Ultimately, there wasn’t much reward in finally getting someone new to play, only to find that each new face played similarly to the last. It’s also worth noting that after defeating the Shogun once, additional difficulties unlock that give enemies more health and limit the resources earned in battle. However, this didn’t really make play feel different or more difficult — it just made it even slower. On the plus side, I do have to note that the pixel art is well crafted. Each arena has a lot of visual depth to it, so each fight feels like a duel right out of a samurai movie and every scene was picturesque, whether I was clashing with enemies on a dock over a still lake in a moonlit harbor, or in a mountain temple where spilled blood mixed with falling snow. And, atmosphere aside, I do want to call out that all of Shogun Showdown‘s UI including cards, character models, cooldowns and health trackers, are all easily readable at a glance. Kudos for that. While I appreciate that Shogun Showdown distills the roguelike experience down to its essence, the overall speed of play is too slow thanks to preparing attacks and dealing with facing during fights, and this pacing is a big problem for a roguelike since they’re built on frequent runs and repeat plays. Even so, there’s a lot to like here for fans of the theme, or for roguelike players wanting something a little different. I’m guessing Shogun Showdown will be someone’s favorite roguelike this year, it just won’t be my favorite. For me: Shogun Showdown gets 7.5 pixelated blood flicks out of 10. Disclosures: This game is developed by Roboatino and published by Goblinz Publishing and Gamera Games. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 7 hours of play were spent playing the game, and the multiple runs were completed. There are no multiplayer modes. Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Blood and Violence. Players will control a warrior and attack enemies with swords, arrows, kunai, and other weapons. There is pixelated blood when enemies or the player are killed. Some enemies will explode into fire, which can hit both the player and enemies. Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are present. Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are subtitles, but they are not resizable. Audio serves aesthetic purposes and is not needed for gameplay. The game is fully accessible. Remappable controls: Controls are completely remappable.

Recently the GT Racing gaming chair company reached out to GameCritics with an offer of a chair for review, and as I was in the market for a new one, it seemed like a great opportunity to cover something a little outside of our usual game reviews.

Recently the GT Racing gaming chair company reached out to GameCritics with an offer of a chair for review, and as I was in the market for a new one, it seemed like a great opportunity to cover something a little outside of our usual game reviews. Disclosure: the “GT Racing Ace Series ACE-PRO“ chair featured here (MSRP $249.99) was provided to GameCritics free of charge for purpose of review. Upon arrival, the chair was easy to assemble. It had a little bit of ‘IKEA instruction syndrome‘ going on, but nothing terrible, and I had the whole thing figured out and put together in a little under 20 minutes. Easy and basically painless. Once the chair was assembled and I had the first proper sit-down, it was a little disappointing to find that it was quite firm with very little padding. The armrests are especially tough, and I found that I tried to avoid putting my arms on them because their firm surface was uncomfortable for long periods. The chair comes with two pillows that are not attached to the unit itself, one for the neck and one for the lower back. The neck pillow that has a strap to secure it around the top of the chair, but there are only a few positions it can be in, with very little modification. Fortunately, it was able to be in a place that worked for me, and it did help keep my head in a comfortable position. The lower back pillow is of a good size and shape, and I did try to utilize it when I was sitting in the chair, but it has no strap nor any fastening at all. So, as is common for chairs of this kind, every time I would reach over for a drink or for my headphones, the pillow would slightly dislodge, requiring adjustment. Some type of Velcro fastener or similar solution would be ideal — it would be great to be able to place both pillows where I wanted them and then to have them stay exactly there. Side note, I’d say that both of the pillows are required. I removed both and sat in the chair to see what it was like, and it was quite uncomfortable. Without those additions, the contours of the chair in its base state are not good. On the underside, the ACE-PRO as two levers, one for height and one for tilt. The height lever functions as a normal office chair does — get out of the chair while pulling the lever and the chair raises up, sit in the chair and pull the lever and the chair goes down. All good. The other lever triggers the backrest. It certainly works, but almost too well. When pulling the lever, it feels as though the back drops out like a trapdoor and you go straight into freefall if you’re not ready to hold yourself up — there’s no easing back controlled by the chair itself. The website advertises this chair as one that is suitable for sleeping (to recover after an all-night online session?) so the back reclines and has a footrest underneath the seat that extends, but this was never feasible or comfortable. I am by no means a tall person, but I never used the footrest while sitting in the chair, as my feet felt more comfortable resting on the ground. When the chair was in the sleeping position, the foot rest at full extension only came out to the middle of my calves (at best) so it was awkward and felt a bit precarious for napping. I appreciate that reclining is an option and maybe it would be better for people even shorter than I am (like, for kids, perhaps?) but I didn’t find either of these features to be useful or practical. In terms of material, I think the chair looks sharp. The coverings feel as though they are of a high quality, and they seem to be fairly stain-resistant. This chair also has two Bluetooth speakers embedded into the rear of the chair back so you can hook game audio or music, getting sound not only get it from the screen that you’re facing, but from behind you as well. It’s a neat feature although it did feel a bit strange that the speakers were pointing backwards and not forwards towards my head, but there was no difficulty with the volume. I thought they worked well, and although I did not use them very much, they are a nice and pleasantly surprising addition, for sure. I realize everyone’s preferences are different, but I’ve tried several gaming chairs so far and most of them feel as though they fall on the ‘too-firm’ side for me personally. Maybe I like chairs softer than the average person, but this felt too much like being at the office and not enough like I was comfortable at home. When both pillows are in a good position it would support someone well, but the armrests did feel a bit too tough to lean on for long. That said, the speakers are a nice feature and the materials, overall, do feel high quality. The ACE-PRO its certainly better than some I’ve tried, but due to the general lack of padding and reliance on the pillows to be comfortable, it’s tough to imagine it as my preferred chair for gaming sessions. For more information on GT Racing chairs, please visit their website.

In this episode, Brad covers: Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Metaphor: ReFantazio Faith: the Unholy Trinity The Night is Grey Shogun Showdown Europa …And more! You can also hear the show on iTunes and Spotify! Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

HIGH Excellent execution on a strong concept.

LOW Some cheap-shot ambushes. A few of the bosses are rough going.

WTF So ultimately, professional sports are to blame?

A Crowded House HIGH An excellent concept that brings new flavor to soulslikes. LOW Some cheap-shot ambushes. A few of the bosses are rough going. WTF So ultimately, professional sports are to blame? While its success was far from guaranteed when the genre launched, there’s no question that soulslikes are here to stay. This style of play built around third-person combat, stamina management, environmental exploration and generally ‘difficult’ combat was a breath of fresh air when Demon’s Souls burst onto the scene, and it’s now a force in the industry. However, not only is it a tough formula to nail, there are too many who follow in FromSoft’s footsteps without bringing much to the table besides mimicry. While it’s generally a bad idea to try and out-Souls the Souls people, there’s plenty of room in the genre for others to experiment, expand and grow. For me, the most successful entries have been those that struck out in a new direction. For example, Nioh added a bit of loot drop and complexity to its weapon systems, and Hollow Knight moved things to the 2D plane. While it’s a bit rough around the edges, I’d say Deathbound from Trialforge Studio is another one who’s carved out a space for themselves. Deathbound starts by putting the player in the shoes of Therone Guillaumen, a sword-and-shield officer in the Church of Death — and surprisingly, he is one of the bad guys. The opening cinematic shows Therone and his troops laying waste to a city populated by refugees, senior citizens and children — and no one is spared. It’s a shocking start. Another surprise is that despite vague medieval vibes, Deathbound takes place in a post-apocalyptic setting. Every area the player journeys through is based on the ruins of modern-day sports stadiums, parking garages, city streets and more. The mysterious ”first men” are gone, and we’re fighting through what’s survived in their wake. These elements are already a strong start, but things only get better when the main mechanic of Deathbound is revealed — Therone won’t be the only person living in his body, nor the only person that the player will control. After pressing on through the ruins, it’s not long before Therone encounters a dead body that stands out from the rest, this one harboring a glow. Upon getting closer, the glow integrates itself into him and transplants a new consciousness, now taking residence inside his skull. After this second personality (an assassin named Anna) is on board, the player is free to switch between the two at will, and with the push of a button, Therone’s entire body transforms into Anna’s slender, shadowy shape. However, this isn’t just a simple stat and weapon change — no, the two have wildly different movesets. Where one can parry and strike tactically, the other walks silently and can backstab for great damage. Anna’s also equipped with a crossbow to shoot enemies at a distance, but Therone can block and tank hits — something fragile Anna must avoid at all costs. It takes very little time to realize how different the characters are, and it only gets more diverse from there. As the campaign goes on, the player will accumulate a total of seven characters to learn and experiment with, each one offering something unique. I don’t want to spoil the surprise so I won’t list them all here, but players can look forward to things like casting spells from a great distance, using a spear to get the upper hand on close-up fighters, and more. Each new tenant in Therone’s head has their own history, background, thoughts and feelings. Each is introduced with a brief cutscene explaining the story of their life, and as Deathbound goes on, it becomes clear that many of the characters knew each other in one way or another. So, when all of these entities end up sharing space in one skull, they bicker and fight or agree and support according to who they were in life. Apart from being narratively interesting, there are mechanical implications and how they’re arranged in the UI matters. If two who hate each other are placed adjacent in the menu, they’ll have a ‘conflict’ which can either debuff, or give a hate-fueled buff. If two who support each other are side by side, it’s often a strong buff. Adding even more strategy, it quickly becomes a matter of which character works best in each level, and of those potential choices, which characters complement the other ones currently active, both in terms of team composition and amicability. The end result is that the player will frequently switch between characters, moment-to-moment, as each situation demands. Keeping a shield up and creeping through and unexplored hallway is always a good strategy, and when a nearby guard is seen to have his back to the player, to get the drop on him is a great feeling. When combat breaks out, it’s easy to select one of the other characters and leverage their individual strengths. It’s also worth noting that attacking while switching between characters in a key aspect in Deathbound, and one that’s not emphasized it as much as it should be. Many games have tried something similar — a player might start an attack with weapon A and then switch to weapon B for bonus damage or to continue a combo, but I rarely find it worth the hassle of doing. However, it’s crucial here as the act of switching gives players brief invincibility and the attack following a switch is supercharged, so not only will the player avoid hits, they’ll also be doing more damage than usual. Many bosses are practically unbeatable without leveraging this trick, so the devs certainly lean into the system they’ve created. Another aspect where Deathbound breaks away from the soulslike formula is in storytelling. Not only are there multiple characters within (and without) Therone’s head, the script is unrolled in a straightforward, clear manner. Puzzling together bits from item descriptions or watching Vaati’s latest lore video are not necessary to understand what’s going on here — motivations are clear, the story is not a half-told conundrum, and there’s no problem following the dialogue, all of which I found to be quite welcome. Perhaps some people feel like obfuscated storytelling is core to a soulslike, but I sure don’t. I’ve spent much time talking about the virtues of Deathbound so far, and it’s certainly one of the games I’ve enjoyed most this year, but it’s not a perfect experience. A common criticism is that it’s a bit weak, visually, with simple character models and a lo-fi world. There are also rough edges elsewhere, such as a few places where it’s not clear how to advance forward, and there are a handful of enemy encounters and ambushes that could stand some ironing out. And, as was said earlier, a few bosses are basically impossible until the player realizes character switching is key. The experience can come across as unusually rough for 2024, but I’m the kind of person who prioritizes interesting concepts and heart above polish, so none of these things dampened my enjoyment much. While I’m definitely a soulslike fan, I don’t need every game in the genre to follow the formula that FromSoft has laid out, and I’m glad that there are studios like Trialforge who are willing to do something different. The foundations are familiar enough to appeal to anyone who enjoys these kinds of experiences, but those looking for a little different will be pleasantly surprised. I appreciate what Deathbound brought to the table, and I look forward to whatever Trialforge does next. Rating: 8 out of 10 Disclosures: This game is developed by Trialforge Studios and published by Tate Multimedia. It is currently available on PC/XB/PS5. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 12 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes. Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood, Strong Language, and Violence. The combat here is pretty standard soulslike fare — swords, spears and such. However, there are a few scenes of people being tortured and put to death, and there are bodies who seem to have undergone some ‘difficult times’ before death sprinkled throughout. I don’t recall any particular instances of language but I’m sure it was in there. Colorblind Modes: There no colorblind modes available in the options. Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is accompanied by subtitles that cannot be resized or altered. As with many soulslikes, there are some audio cues which reveal the presence of hidden enemies or incoming attacks, and these cues do not have visual components. As such, the player will almost certainly receive some surprise strikes or be ambushed occasionally. Therefore, it is not fully accessible. Remappable Controls: No, this game’s controls are not remappable but there are several presets to choose from.

HIGH Finding the final crystal skull.

LOW Repeatedly being teleported deep enough to have the air crushed out of my lungs.

WTF Finding out what Bait is made out of.

I Hunger! HIGH Finding the final crystal skull. LOW Repeatedly being teleported deep enough to have the air crushed out of my lungs. WTF Finding out what Bait is made out of. I kept playing Feed the Deep. That doesn’t happen often. I try to only play things that have an ending, so that once I’m done, I can move on — but I kept playing Feed the Deep. Even after every mode had been completed, I kept playing. After defeating every challenge, I kept playing. Even after wrapping up every secret and unlocking the true ending, I kept playing. Part of this can be attributed to a pre-existing love of the setting. An exploration-focused 2D roguelite, Feed The Deep is set in the deep ocean, and as a general rule, I’ll play any game about underwater exploration – especially with a horror theme, such as it offers. And what a theme it is. Deep in the ocean, a horrible creature lurks. Impossibly huge and unimaginably malevolent, it poses a threat to all human civilization, and it cannot be destroyed, only appeased — and appeasing it is the player’s job. Obtain a piece of bait and deliver it to the creature, calming it… until its hunger starts to grow again. This grim work is accomplished mostly by careful searching and upgrading. The narrative establishes that things are getting dire for humanity – they’ve already been forced to move to floating cities as the oceans rose, and constant monster attacks are taking their toll. Not only is the player required to find the bait and deliver it to the Deep, they also have to search out gold and energy in underground caves in order to pay for the upgrades they’ll need to survive. As with most underwater titles, limited air supply is the primary antagonist. Also deadly is the dark. There are monsters to be found, but they’re less dangerous than getting lost and running out of oxygen. The player’s flashlight — even when fully upgraded — doesn’t penetrate far into the abyss, and many surfaces are covered with patches of silt that destroy visibility completely. With these factors in mind, navigation is the key gameplay mechanic, so most threats are built around damaging the player’s ability to tell where they’re going. Taking a hit from an enemy will rotate the screen a random amount, forcing the player to either watch which way air bubbles rise, or drop a heavy item to see which way is down. Rushing back to an air pocket is usually a good idea when threatened, but some enemies are able to teleport the player to a random place on the map, which means reaching even temporary havens becomes a nightmarish ordeal. However, Feed the Deep isn’t satisfied with offering this already-compelling core experience. No, each of the seven modes available offer meaningful changes to gameplay that completely upend how the player deals with the labyrinths. One offers a glut of monsters and automated cannons, but arms the players with respawning bombs which allow them to tunnel their way through cave walls. Another robs the player of air pockets and forces them to constantly search for power cells to keep their rebreather going. Perhaps the most devious mode hides the bait somewhere among a warehouse worth of boxes and challenges the player to figure out which crates have key items and which are packed with deadly beasts. There’s an oppressive tone that pervades Feed the Deep‘s gameplay. With poor visibility in the dark caves and walls that seem closer every time the flashlight swings between them, players never get a chance to relax and feel like they’re doing well. Hit points are extremely limited and the air reserve can’t be raised much higher than two minutes, so a single mistake can ruin any run, and Muscat does a great job of riding the edge of unfairness. Likewise, maps are just big enough that so that their randomization upon starting a new run doesn’t seem too inconvenient– the player can get a sense of their layout in just a couple of minutes, but there’s plenty of room to surprise with hidden threats and secret supplies. Even the story is unusually good for the genre. There’s almost no dialogue – just a few exchanges between the player and their controller back at base. Most of the story is offered via dozens of text logs, two or three of which spawn during a dive. They offer surprisingly compelling glimpses into Feed the Deep‘s backstory, chronicling the lengths humanity went to in order to find a way to survive the creature’s threat, and their questioning whether survival is worth the price they’re asked to pay. Likewise, the path to unlocking the true ending is one of the most intriguing I’ve come across in ages, as it asks the player to engage with a series of Gameboy-style minigames that don’t just have to be completed, but also played in unexpected ways to reveal their secrets. A great roguelite doesn’t just ask players to keep coming back for more, it creates a gameplay loop so satisfying that it makes it impossible to stay away. It makes players desperate to delve back into its world over and over again to experience every potential way the world can be reshaped. Feed the Deep, with its simple controls and bold graphical style, achieves this as well as any roguelite I’ve played — I’m still diving back into the depths, feeding the Deep over and over. Rating: 8 out of 10 Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Luke Muscat. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. The game has no multiplayer modes. Parents: The game was not reviewed by the ESRB, but I’d say it’s roughly a T thanks to Cartoon Violence. If it weren’t for the bleak theme I’d call it an E10, but as cute as the graphical style might be, this is still a game about feeding a horrible monster to keep it from destroying humanity. Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options. Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: There are no audio cues that will affect gameplay, I played the game largely without audio and had no trouble whatsoever. All story information is delivered via text. The game is fully accessible. Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable.

HIGH This is the smoothest, most visually appealing Madden to date.

LOW Not enough changes to modes and features.

WTF Is the physics model really called “BOOM Tech”?

Time To Go Back To School? HIGH This is the smoothest, most visually appealing Madden to date. LOW Not enough changes to modes and features. WTF Is the physics model really called “BOOM Tech”? “Maybe next year.” Fans of gaming’s most venerable sports series have said these words each September for the better part of a decade. I should know, I’m one of them. This year, the Madden NFL series takes another incremental step forward. Improvements are there. Enhancements are there. And Madden NFL 25 is often stunning visually. But will that be enough for jaded players? First, I need to address the $69 elephant in the room — many football gamers just invested in EA Sports College Football 25 and from what I can gather, they’re enjoying the immersion, pageantry, and true-to-life detail the title offers. After a few weeks of enjoying the pomp and circumstance of the college game, a new NFL title might feel a little flat and faceless, even though Madden is arguably better than ever. I’ll start with the most important factors — Madden NFL 25 is gorgeous. Player models inch ever closer to leaving the uncanny valley, with noticeable improvements in animations, both when controlling a player and on NPCs throughout the field. Unlike previous editions, the juke moves and leaps aren’t overly exaggerated to excite players. Rather, they’re more accurate to a player’s real-life abilities and playstyle. For a change, I didn’t find myself trying to have stocky RBs attempt to leap for circus catches — that isn’t their game, and EA Sports brings reality to life once more. In turn, Madden NFL 25 just feels… intuitive. In past editions, the complicated thumb gymnastics often made it difficult for casual fans to make the most of the title. Some would call it “arcade-like” but as an increasingly middle-aged person, I never felt overwhelmed by the streamlined control scheme. I even took my skills online more than a few times. Now, I didn’t even come close to winning these matchups, but I felt more competitive — an accomplishment in itself. The audio offering is a bit of a mixed bag. While I enjoyed having multiple commentary teams joining stalwarts Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis, the new pairings pale in comparison to the veterans. The new voices have far fewer original comments and seem to repeat themselves more than usual. One of the big knocks against Madden NFL 25 so far has been its notable lack of new modes and features. In my opinion, this is great news. So many prior Madden titles were buried in marketing lingo and fabricated buzzwords. This year, it seems like the developers chose to fine-tune the existing game and make good on past promises. I applaud this level of commitment — by and large, it works. And in the case of Franchise Mode, it far exceeds its predecessors. I have long lamented the decreased attention given to Franchise Mode, but this year the mode is arguably the biggest highlight. From the moment players dive in, they enjoy a refined (but in-depth) management experience, allowing them to control as much or as little of the team as they want. While some people might want to keep their focus on the field, those who dig deeper will be rewarded with expanded scouting, detailed coaching mechanics, elaborate player and team builder, and even a “Coach Carousel” feature that lets users modify coaching staffs for better results. As a result, team morale and player development become more active parts of the experience. Superstar, the story-driven narrative mode, largely succeeds by taking a “less is more” approach. For starters, EA delivers new rewards, themed programs, and the ability to transfer an avatar’s style and skills across Ultimate Team Franchise and live game modes. In an even nicer touch, a successful graduate from College Football 25 can find their way to Madden’s NFL Draft Night, creating a tremendous feeling of continuity and reward. Despite all of the above, the mode’s story and interaction have been (mercifully) pared back to basic interactions, press conferences, and text conversations. It’s hardly the most immersive storyline, but it far surpasses maudlin, overdone underdog stories. For that, I’m thankful. Ultimate Team is… well… Ultimate Team. But, to be fair, EA has expanded the offering to include updated H2H rankings, AI-driven solo seasons, and other new ways to put your best 11 to work. It’s still a microtransaction bonanza, but kudos to the developers for trying to inject a wealth of new content into a previously tired mode. Other than these leaps forward, most of the other advancements live under the hood. Improved FieldSense controls on both offense and defense, more impactful hits from the BOOM Tech stick controls, more powerful Momentum Meters, and a litany of tweaks to menus and presentation. Again, those who believe the hype on the game box might not be impressed, but I was. Also, longtime readers of Gamecritics know we take accessibility very seriously. EA Sports has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to implementing accessible controls into its titles, but Madden NFL 25 is the best example yet. Customization options include the ability to adjust icon size, text size, colorblind modes, and several control schemes designed to accommodate individual needs. On a broader scale, the game also includes more detailed tutorials and guides to help new players learn the ins and outs of various gameplay mechanics. This ensures that even those unfamiliar with the Madden series can jump in and enjoy the experience. Kudos across the board, to all involved with making this happen. Online, Madden NFL 25 performed admirably. Last year’s laggy menus are a thing of the past, replaced by snappy lobbies, short wait times, and virtually no latency on decent broadband connections. Oh sure, the rage quitters and play spammers are still out in force, but at least they won’t be whining about lag and balance issues this time around. At this point in the review, most fans are likely wondering one thing — is Madden NFL 25 worth the money this year? The answer is undoubtedly “yes” as long as you didn’t also just purchase College Football 25. Even with the vast improvements Madden NFL 25 has on display, it’s fundamentally very similar to its undergraduate counterpart, and its professional atmosphere isn’t always as enjoyable as a collegiate gameday. For those who’ve spent a month immersed in the pageantry of the college game, it might be hard to get excited for a less unique version of that same title. But for those who have waited a few years for an improved, upgraded football experience, the new Madden will be a revelation. Rating: 8 out of 10 Disclosures: This game is published by EA Sports and developed by EA Orlando. It is available on XBO/X/S, PC and PS4/5. This game copy was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 11 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed. Approximately 4 hours of play were devoted to online multiplayer. Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E. This is a realistic representation of full-contact professional football. Some tackling animations and injuries may concern some parents. Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are available in the Game Settings menu. Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Madden NFL 25 features subtitles, speech-to-text, and numerous tactile feedback features in all modes. (See examples above) The game is easily playable without sound and is fully accessible. Remappable Controls: No, the game’s controls are not remappable.

In this episode, Brad covers: Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess Bloodless Necro Story Besiege Nano Apostle Neva …And more! You can also hear the show on iTunes and Spotify! Please send feedback and mailbag questions to SoVideogamesPODCAST (at) gmail (dot) com, or post them in the comments section below. Thanks!

Fixes, Tutorials and Guides for Games

Minecraft is a popular sandbox video game enjoyed by millions worldwide, but it seems like Minecraft Launcher Error Code 0x87e5003a is giving headaches to a wide range number of fans. If you are facing this error, don’t worry; this guide will walk you through some proven methods to fix it and get you back to […]

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Minecraft is a popular sandbox video game enjoyed by millions worldwide, but it seems like Minecraft Launcher Error Code 0x87e5003a is giving headaches to a wide range number of fans. If you are facing this error, don’t worry; this guide will walk you through some proven methods to fix it and get you back to your block-building adventures. What is Minecraft error code 0x87e5003a? When encountering the Minecraft Launcher Error Code 0x87e5003a, users are often met with a pop-up error message indicating that the game failed to start, accompanied by the error code. This particular error code emerges and presents the gamer with the following message: “This game is already running. If you just quit the game, it should be ready to launch again in a moment”. While this could potentially be a passing glitch, more often than not, this generally indicates that the ability to partake in the game will remain unavailable even following a waiting period. How can I fix Minecraft Launcher Error Code 0x87e5003a? Check the live status Force closing the game Use an old Minecraft Launcher Reinstall Minecraft 1. Check the live status Open a web browser on your device. In the search bar, type Minecraft server status or a similar query and press Enter. From the search results, select a reliable website or service that offers real-time or updated information about Minecraft server status. Popular options include Minecraft Server Status or Mojang Status. On the chosen website, you may need to enter the server address (IP address or domain) you want to check. Click on the Check or Submit button to initiate the server status check. The website will then provide you with details about the server’s current status, whether it’s online, offline, or experiencing any issues. Review the information presented on the website to understand the current status of the Minecraft server. It might also display additional details about server performance and any ongoing incidents. If you want to cross-reference the information, you can also check official Minecraft community forums, social media accounts, or other community-driven platforms for updates on server status. 2. Force closing the game Time needed: 2 minutes It seems like forcing closing any active related instances is one of the best solutions to get rid of our today’s issue. Use the following keyboard shortcut: Windows + X Choose Task Manager. Make sure you’re in the Processes tab. Search for Minecraft or Minecraft Launcher, then select it, and click on the End task button. Restart your PC or console and check if you managed to get rid of the Minecraft Launcher Error Code 0x87e5003a. 3. Use an old Minecraft Launcher If the error persists on your display, you might consider utilizing the previous version of the Minecraft launcher. If you lack familiarity with this option, you can access the Minecraft alternatives to acquire comprehensive details, along with discovering alternative Minecraft launchers. 4. Reinstall Minecraft Hit the Windows key, then type Control Panel, and open the first result. Under the Programs section, choose to Uninstall a program. Locate and click on Minecraft in the list of installed apps, then click on the Uninstall button, just as we show you with the LoL example in the picture below. Follow the on-screen prompts to remove Minecraft from your system. After uninstalling, open the Microsoft Store and search for Minecraft. Click on the Install button to download and install Minecraft again. Once the installation is complete, launch the game to see if the error is resolved. Related articles: Minecraft Won’t Update: How to Force it to Update Properly Minecraft Packet Loss: How To Fix & Avoid It For Good Minecraft Error Code Creeper: Fix It Effortlessly Minecraft Error 403: How To Fix It Using Quick Solutions Minecraft Exception_Access_Violation 0xc0000005: How To Fix By following the methods mentioned in this guide, you should now be able to fix the Minecraft Launcher Error Code 0x87e5003a. Now, you can dive back into the fascinating world of Minecraft and enjoy your adventures without any hindrance. Happy gaming! In case you encounter any additional questions, feel free to leave a comment in the dedicated section below. The post Minecraft Launcher Error Code 0x87e5003a: Try These Fixes appeared first on Games Errors.

Fortnite has captivated millions of players with its exciting gameplay and vibrant world. However, encountering errors, like Fortnite Error code 0, can be frustrating and disrupt your gaming experience. It seems like this error is pretty popular among worldwide users, so have no fear! There are plenty of solutions to fix it without effort. In […]

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Fortnite has captivated millions of players with its exciting gameplay and vibrant world. However, encountering errors, like Fortnite Error code 0, can be frustrating and disrupt your gaming experience. It seems like this error is pretty popular among worldwide users, so have no fear! There are plenty of solutions to fix it without effort. In this comprehensive guide, we will walk you through various troubleshooting steps to help you fix Error 0 and get back to the Battle Royale action. How can I fix the Fortnite error code 0? Before getting into our main solutions, we recommend trying these fast fixes: Check your system specifications to see if it is meeting at least the minimum requirements to run the game. Because this error might occur due to missing or corrupted files, you should verify the integrity of game files in Epic Games Launcher. Now, in case you didn’t manage to solve the problem, move to the following solutions: Check the game server status Update the game Reset network settings Temporarily disable your antivirus software or any unnecessary apps 1. Check the game server status Navigate to the official Epic Games status website and check if the Fortnite status is Operational. You can also try to visit the official Fortnite social media channels and search for any notifications pertaining to server downtime or scheduled maintenance. If there’s a server issue, you may need to wait until it’s resolved. In the meantime, you can follow Fortnite’s social media for updates. 2. Update the game Open your Epic Games Launcher client. From the bottom left window pane, choose Settings. Go to the Manage Games section, then ensure to checkmark the box next to the Allow Auto-Updates option. Expand the menu for Fortnite, then make sure it has its Auto-update box checked. 3. Reset network settings Time needed: 3 minutes Resetting your network settings seems to be one of the most efficient solutions to fix Fortnite error code 0. Use the following keyboard shortcut to open Windows Settings: Windows + I. From the left window pane, click on the Network & Internet option. Then, look at the right side of the window and choose Advanced network settings. Now, navigate to Network reset. Once you reach the new window, click on the Reset now button. In the pop-up window, confirm the process by clicking on Yes. Wait a bit, then restart your PC. 4. Temporarily disable your antivirus software or any unnecessary apps Simultaneously press these keys: Windows + X. Select Task Manager from the pop-up menu. Make sure you’re in the Processes tab. Select each app/program you don’t necessarily need, then choose to End task. The error code 0 in Fortnite could refer to a variety of issues, such as problems with game files, network connectivity, or other technical glitches. Some users might suggest disabling antivirus software as a way to rule out the possibility that the antivirus is interfering with the game’s functionality. Related articles: How to Make Fortnite Run Better on PC: 7 Expert Tips to Try Fortnite This Client is Not Compatible: Why & How to Fix Fortnite Successfully Logged Out: Fix It in 3 Minutes Fortnite Unexpected Error Occured on Xbox: How to Fix Fortnite Update Stuck at 100% Xbox One [Easy Fix] Fortnite Error code 0 can be a minor setback, but with the troubleshooting steps provided in this guide, you should be able to fix the issue and jump back into the action-packed world of Fortnite. The below comment section is dedicated to you, so make sure you use it in case of having any other related questions or curiosities. The post Fortnite Error Code 0: Fix It Now appeared first on Games Errors.

Fortnite is a highly popular and addictive online battle royale game played by millions of players worldwide, but the 0xc0000005 error seems to sometimes generate headaches among fans. Like any other software, it can encounter various errors and issues that disrupt the gaming experience. The 0xc0000005 error is one of the most common occurrences for […]

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Fortnite is a highly popular and addictive online battle royale game played by millions of players worldwide, but the 0xc0000005 error seems to sometimes generate headaches among fans. Like any other software, it can encounter various errors and issues that disrupt the gaming experience. The 0xc0000005 error is one of the most common occurrences for some players. If you’re facing this error while trying to play Fortnite, don’t worry! This guide will walk you through several troubleshooting steps to help you resolve the issue and get back into the game. What is error code 0xc0000005 in games? Error code 0xc0000005 is a common Windows error that can occur when running various applications, including games. This error is officially known as the Access Violation error and indicates that an application attempted to access a memory address that it was not allowed to access. In simpler terms, it means that a program tried to read or write to a memory location that it doesn’t have permission to use, resulting in a crash or termination of the application. There are several reasons why this error can occur in games: Corrupted Game Files: If some game files are corrupt or missing, the game may try to access an invalid memory location, triggering the 0xc0000005 error. Outdated or Incompatible Drivers: Graphics drivers, audio drivers, or other hardware drivers that are outdated or incompatible with the game can lead to memory access issues. Faulty RAM: Problems with your computer’s RAM (Random Access Memory) can cause memory access violations in games, resulting in the error code 0xc0000005. Third-Party Software Interference: Certain third-party software, such as antivirus programs or system optimizers, may interfere with the game’s memory allocation and cause access violation errors. Compatibility Issues: Some games may not be fully compatible with certain versions of Windows or specific hardware configurations, leading to access violation errors. How can I fix the error code 0xc0000005 in Fortnite? Before going deeper into the main solutions, we suggest first ensuring these quick steps: Check if your system meets at least the minimum requirements to run Fortnite. Verify the game files on Epic Games Launcher, by using our expert guide. Now, if none of the above options worked, let’s discover some additional solutions you can try to get rid of the Fortnite 0xc0000005 Error. Update your drivers Run an SFC scan Scan PC with Windows Defender Disable third-party software 1. Update your drivers Time needed: 5 minutes Simultaneously hit the Windows and X keys, then choose Device Manager from the shown menu. Now, look for the Disk drivers section, then double-click on it. Once the section is expanded, right-click on the needed component, then choose to Update driver. Now, choose to Search automatically for drivers (Just as we show you in the example below). Wait until the process is completed, then check if our today’s issue is gone. 2. Run an SFC scan Hit the Windows key, type cmd, then choose to Run as administrator. In the opened window, type the following code, then press Enter: SFC/scannow Because the process might take a while, we recommend being patient until it is completed. 3. Scan the PC with Windows Defender Navigate to Windows Settings by using this keyboard shortcut: Windows + I. Go to Privacy & Security, then to Windows Security. Choose Virus & threat protection. Scroll down until you see the Current Threats option, then choose to perform a Quick Scan. You can also go for Scan options. There, you’ll find multiple alternatives from which you can choose. Initiate the scanning process. After completion, restart your system and follow additional instructions for virus removal in case any is detected. Then, run Fortnite and check if you’ve managed to get rid of the 0xc0000005 error. 4. Disable third-party software Open Task Manager by pressing simultaneously the following keys on your keyboard: Ctrl + Shift + Esc. There, make sure you’re in the Processes tab. Then, look for any app or program you don’t necessarily need or use while running Fortnite, and choose to End Task. Related articles: How to Make Fortnite Run Better on PC: 7 Expert Tips to Try Fortnite Successfully Logged Out: Fix It in 3 Minutes Fortnite This Client is Not Compatible: Why & How to Fix Fortnite Unexpected Error Occured on Xbox: How to Fix Encountering the Fortnite 0xc0000005 Error can be frustrating, but armed with the right troubleshooting steps, you can swiftly overcome this hurdle and get back to the exhilarating world of Fortnite. In case of facing any additional questions, feel free to use the comment section listed below. The post Fortnite 0xc0000005 Error: Try These Fixes appeared first on Games Errors.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (MW3) is a cornerstone of the CoD franchise, offering intense multiplayer action and a gripping campaign. However, the gaming experience can sometimes be ruined by various errors, one of which is the notorious Dev Error 12502. This technical problem can stop players in their tracks, leaving many to wonder […]

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (MW3) is a cornerstone of the CoD franchise, offering intense multiplayer action and a gripping campaign. However, the gaming experience can sometimes be ruined by various errors, one of which is the notorious Dev Error 12502. This technical problem can stop players in their tracks, leaving many to wonder about its nature and, more importantly, how to fix it. In this guide, we’ll explore what Dev Error 12502 is and provide you with reliable methods to get you back into the action as swiftly as possible. What is Dev Error 12502 in MW3? Dev Error 12502 is a common issue that players of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 might encounter. This error generally signifies a problem related to the game’s files or settings that prevents it from running smoothly. It can be triggered by a variety of factors, including corrupted game files, outdated graphics drivers, or incorrect game settings. How Can I Fix MW3 Dev Error 12502? To resolve Dev Error 12502 and restore your gaming experience, consider the following preliminary solutions: Run the game as an administrator Close unnecessary background tasks Repair the game files Table of contents 1. Update the game 2. Adjust Your System’s Paging File Size 3. Disable Game Overlays 1. Update the game Updating your game is a crucial step in resolving MW3 Dev Error 12502, as developers often release patches to fix bugs and improve game performance. Here’s how you can ensure that Modern Warfare 3 is up to date: Open Your Game Launcher: Begin by launching the platform you use to play MW3, such as Steam, Battle.net, or your console’s home screen. These platforms typically manage game updates automatically. Navigate to Your Game Library: In your game launcher, locate your library or list of owned games. Here, you’ll find Modern Warfare 3 among your collection. Check for Updates: Highlight Modern Warfare 3 and look for any prompts or options indicating an available update. Launchers like Steam and Battle.net display update statuses directly on the game’s library entry. For consoles, selecting the game usually prompts an update check. Initiate the Update Process: If an update is available, you’ll typically see an “Update” button or similar. Click or select this to start downloading the update. On consoles, updates may start automatically upon selecting the game or may require you to confirm the update. Wait for the Update to Complete: Download and installation times will vary based on the update’s size and your internet connection speed. Ensure the process completes without interruption. On PC, avoid using other bandwidth-intensive applications to speed up the download. Launch the Game: After the update is installed, open MW3 to check if Dev Error 12502 has been resolved. Updated game versions often include fixes for common errors and might resolve your issue directly. Keeping MW3 and your game launcher updated ensures you have the latest content and fixes. If automatic updates are disabled in your launcher, consider enabling them to automatically receive these improvements in the future. 2. Adjust Your System’s Paging File Size Adjusting your system’s paging file size can be an effective way to fix MW3 Dev Error 12502, especially if the error is related to insufficient system memory. Follow these detailed steps to adjust your paging file size for Windows: Press Windows Key + R: This will open the Run dialog box. In the box, type sysdm.cpl and press Enter. This command opens the System Properties window. Navigate to Advanced System Settings: Once the System Properties window is open, click on the “Advanced” tab. Here, you’ll find performance, user profiles, and startup and recovery options. Access Performance Settings: Under the Performance section, click on “Settings” to open the Performance Options window. This window allows you to adjust various settings related to your computer’s performance. Modify Virtual Memory: In the Performance Options window, switch to the “Advanced” tab, and then click on “Change” under the Virtual memory section. Virtual memory is where your computer supplements its physical RAM by temporarily storing data on the hard drive. Adjust Paging File Size: By default, the “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives” option is selected. Uncheck this box to manually adjust the paging file size. Then, select the drive where your game is installed (typically the C: drive). Set Custom Size: After selecting the drive, choose the “Custom size” option. Here, you will input the initial size (MB) and maximum size (MB) for your paging file. It’s recommended to set the initial size to the amount of RAM your system has and the maximum size to double the amount of RAM. However, these values can vary based on your system’s specifications and the requirements of the game. Apply and Set: After entering your custom sizes, click on “Set” and then “OK” to apply the changes. You may be prompted to restart your computer for the changes to take effect. Restart Your Computer: Save any open files and close all applications, then restart your computer. This will ensure that the changes to the virtual memory settings are properly applied. Launch the Game: Once your computer has restarted, try launching MW3 again to see if the Dev Error 12502 has been resolved. Adjusting the paging file size can help accommodate games that require a lot of memory, like MW3, especially if you’re running several applications simultaneously or have limited RAM. If you’re unsure about the best settings for your system, it’s a good idea to consult Windows’ recommendations in the Virtual Memory window or seek advice from a knowledgeable source to avoid system instability. 3. Disable Game Overlays Disabling game overlays can significantly improve game performance and potentially resolve MW3 Dev Error 12502. Many gaming applications provide overlays that offer convenient features like FPS counters, instant messaging, and live streaming, but they can also cause conflicts or use valuable resources. Here’s how to disable the most common game overlays: For Nvidia GeForce Experience: Launch Nvidia GeForce Experience: Open the GeForce Experience application on your computer. Access the Settings: Click on the gear icon in the upper right corner to go to the settings. Disable In-Game Overlay: Find the “In-Game Overlay” option and toggle it off. This will disable the overlay that GeForce Experience provides in games. For Discord: Open Discord: Start the Discord app on your PC. Go to User Settings: Click on the cog icon near your username at the bottom left to access settings. Navigate to Overlay Settings: Select “Overlay” in the App Settings section. Toggle Off the Overlay: Ensure the “Enable in-game overlay” option is toggled off to disable Discord’s game overlay. For Steam: Open Steam: Launch the Steam client. Access Settings: Click on “Steam” in the upper left corner, then “Settings”. Find the In-Game Settings: Go to the “In-Game” tab in the settings menu. Disable the Steam Overlay: Uncheck the box labeled “Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game”. For Xbox Game Bar (Windows 10/11): Open Settings: Press the Windows key and type “Settings”, then press Enter. Navigate to Gaming: Click on “Gaming” to access the game bar settings. Go to Xbox Game Bar: Select “Xbox Game Bar” from the side menu. Toggle Off: Ensure the “Enable Xbox Game Bar for things like recording game clips, chatting with friends, and receiving game invites” is set to Off. For AMD Radeon Software: Launch AMD Radeon Software: Open the software through your desktop or search function. Access the Settings: Look for the gear icon or a similar settings menu. Disable Overlay: Find the overlay option and toggle it off to disable AMD’s overlay feature. After disabling these overlays, restart your game to see if Dev Error 12502 persists. Turning off these features can not only solve compatibility issues but also free up resources for a smoother gaming experience. If you’re not using a particular overlay feature, keeping it disabled during gameplay is generally a good practice. Conclusion Tackling Dev Error 12502 in Modern Warfare 3 feels a bit like detective work, doesn’t it? You’ve got your list of potential problems—outdated game versions, mischievous system settings, those sneaky overlays—and it’s all about patiently ruling them out one by one. The key is to keep calm and troubleshoot on, starting with the basics like ensuring your game is up to date, then maybe diving into the more techy stuff like tweaking your virtual memory settings if needed. And, if you ever feel lost, remember that Activision’s official support is like the detective’s handbook, always there to guide you with the latest insights. By methodically following these steps, you’re not just trying to fix an error; you’re ensuring your gaming setup is as robust as can be, ready for uninterrupted action. Here’s to smoother gaming ahead! The post How to Fix Dev Error 12502 in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 appeared first on Games Errors.

The Call of Duty series has been a staple of the first-person shooter genre, offering players intense combat scenarios and a rich, narrative-driven experience. However, like any complex games, it’s not immune to technical problems. One such issue that has been a thorn in players’ sides is the MW3 Dev Error 5433, especially within the […]

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The Call of Duty series has been a staple of the first-person shooter genre, offering players intense combat scenarios and a rich, narrative-driven experience. However, like any complex games, it’s not immune to technical problems. One such issue that has been a thorn in players’ sides is the MW3 Dev Error 5433, especially within the game’s zombie mode.. This error can abruptly halt your gaming session, leaving you searching for solutions. What is Dev error 5433 in Modern Warfare 3? Dev Error 5433 in Modern Warfare 3 typically indicates an issue within the game’s system that prevents it from operating correctly. Such errors usually relate to problems with game files, graphics settings, system configurations, or compatibility issues with hardware or drivers. How to fix Dev error 5433? To fix Dev Error 5433, try disconnecting and then reconnecting your internet connection. This quick fix has helped some users, although it may not be a long-term solution. Additionally, run the game as an administrator and remove unnecessary background tasks. Table of contents 1. Verify the game files 2. Update the game 3. Update Windows & Drivers 4. Set Game Priority to High 5. Optimize your internet connection 1. Verify the game files Corrupted game files are a common cause of MW3 Dev Error 5433. Regularly checking the integrity of your game files can help prevent this issue. Here’s a simplified process: Open your game launcher and locate the executable file for MW3. Right-click on the file and choose “Properties.” Navigate to the “Local Files” tab within the Properties window. Select the option to “Verify the integrity of game files.” Allow the launcher to check and repair any corrupted files. Restart your game after the verification process to see if the error has been resolved. This method ensures your game files are intact and can often clear up errors related to file corruption. 2. Update the game Ensuring your game is up to date is another key strategy in resolving MW3 Dev Error 5433. Game developers frequently release updates that fix bugs and errors. Follow these steps to update the game: Open the game launcher (like Steam, Battle.net, or the console’s home screen). Navigate to Modern Warfare 3 in your game library. Look for any available updates. If there’s an update option, select it to initiate the update process. Wait for the update to download and install, which may take some time, depending on the size of the update and your internet speed. Once the update is complete, launch the game to see if the error persists. Keeping the game updated ensures you have the latest fixes and game improvements, potentially resolving the Dev Error 5433 and enhancing your gaming experience. 3. Update Windows & Drivers Keeping your operating system and drivers up-to-date is crucial for fixing MW3 Dev Error 5433. Updates often include patches for software bugs that could be causing the error. Here’s how to go about it: Update Windows: Go to Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update, and click on “Check for updates.” Install any available updates and restart your computer. Update Drivers: Specifically, your graphics card drivers should be kept up to date. You can do this by visiting the manufacturer’s website (e.g., NVIDIA, AMD, Intel) and downloading the latest driver for your model. Alternatively, you can use the device manager in Windows to check for driver updates. These updates can enhance system compatibility and performance, potentially resolving the Dev Error 5433 in MW3. 4. Set Game Priority to High Adjusting the game’s priority to high in your system’s task manager can potentially resolve MW3 Dev Error 5433 by allocating more system resources to the game. Here’s a simplified guide: Launch Modern Warfare 3. Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager. Go to the “Details” tab, find the game process (it might be listed as ModernWarfare3.exe or something similar). Right-click on the game process, hover over “Set priority,” and then select “High.” This action tells your computer to prioritize MW3’s operations over less critical processes running in the background, which could smooth out performance issues and mitigate the dev error. 5. Optimize your internet connection Optimizing your internet connection can play a critical role in preventing MW3 Dev Error 5433, especially in online play where a stable connection is vital. Here’s how to ensure your internet is in the best shape for gaming: Wired Connection: If possible, use a wired connection instead of Wi-Fi. Ethernet connections are generally more stable and offer faster speeds. Restart Your Router: Simply turning your router off for a minute and then back on can refresh your connection and improve stability. Limit Bandwidth Usage: Ensure no other devices are using the network for bandwidth-heavy tasks like streaming or downloading large files while you play. Update Router Firmware: Check your router’s manufacturer website for firmware updates that can improve performance and security. Adjust Game’s Bandwidth Settings: Some games allow you to limit how much bandwidth they use. Lowering these settings can make your connection more stable. Use a Gaming VPN: A VPN designed for gaming can sometimes reduce ping and packet loss by routing your traffic more efficiently than your ISP. Contact Your ISP: If you consistently have connection issues, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may be able to help optimize your connection or troubleshoot problems on their end. By following these steps, you’re not just addressing Dev Error 5433 but also enhancing your overall online gaming experience. Fixing Dev Error 5433 on PS5 Restart Your PS5: Sometimes, a simple restart can clear temporary glitches causing the error. Check for Game Updates: Ensure MW3 and your PS5 system software are up to date. Go to the game on your dashboard, press the options button, and select ‘Check for Update.’ Rebuild Database: Boot your PS5 in Safe Mode and select the ‘Rebuild Database’ option. This can fix issues without deleting your data. Reinstall the Game: If the error persists, try uninstalling and then reinstalling MW3. This can resolve corrupted game data issues. Improve Internet Connection: Use a wired connection if possible and restart your router to ensure a stable online experience. Adjust PS5 Settings: Some users find that tweaking network settings or restoring default settings in the PS5 can help. These steps target the common causes of Dev Error 5433 on PS5, focusing on system and game software health, as well as network stability. Conclusion Navigating through the annoyance of Dev Error 5433, whether on PS5 or PC, requires a mix of system checks, game updates, and internet optimization. Each suggested solution targets a potential root cause, from software glitches and outdated files to unstable network connections. Implementing these fixes not only aims to resolve the specific error but also enhances the overall gaming experience by ensuring your system and network are optimized for performance. Remember, persistence is key; if one solution doesn’t work, move on to the next until you find the right fix for your situation. Happy gaming, and may your sessions be error-free! The post MW3 Dev Error 5433: How To Fix It Easily appeared first on Games Errors.

Many believe that Gaming and Esports industry has taken a hard hit as the offices reopened after COVID-19, and the downfall of this industry has begun. While we can say this about just the Esports industry, the Gaming industry is still booming, and if you are wondering how big it is, you can have a […]

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Many believe that Gaming and Esports industry has taken a hard hit as the offices reopened after COVID-19, and the downfall of this industry has begun. While we can say this about just the Esports industry, the Gaming industry is still booming, and if you are wondering how big it is, you can have a look at the comparison between the revenue generated by the Movie Industry, which is widely considered as the wealthiest entertainment sector vs. Gaming Industry. Gaming vs. Movie Industry Revenue: Which Is Bigger? Gaming vs. Movie Industry Revenue Comparison. (Image via S-GAME/Universal Pictures) As per the report by SuperData Research, the Gaming Industry was valued at $159.3 billion in 2020; however, on the other side, the Movie Industry was worth $19.1 billion, which makes the Gaming Industry around eight times bigger than the Movie Industry. Moving forward in 2022, even though the global games market took a small hit of -5.1%, as per Newzoo, it was still the second biggest entertainment industry after the TV industry as it was worth $182.9 billion and once again surpassed the revenue generated by the Movie and Music Industry combined. Global Games Market Revenue in 2022. (Image via Newzoo) Some of the highest-selling video games include Animal Crossing, GTA 5, Minecraft, Call of Duty, and more; however, mobile games had the highest percentage of revenue (around 50% in 2022, as per Newzoo) among all. The reason behind this is the portability of mobile devices and their affordability compared to other gaming devices available out there. There are a bunch of other factors that contribute to the success of the Gaming Industry in comparison to the Movie Industry. One of the biggest factors is the immersive and attractive experience games offer. Unlike watching movies, playing video games will let you control your character in the game and experience the stories as you like, making it a more immersive experience than just consuming content through eyes and ears. Apart from this, it’s a social platform that will connect players from around the world and let them make friends across countries which is not possible in movies. Even in 2023, Activision Blizzard’s Diablo 4 made over $666 Million in just five days after its launch that became their fastest-selling game till date, while on the other hand, Modern Warfare 2 grossed $1 billion in 10 days after it got released, giving us an idea on how well the industry is performing. Global Games Market Revenue Forecast till 2025. (Image via Newzoo) Not only this but as per Newzoo’s report, the Gaming Industry will be worth $206.4 billion by 2025. Thus, it is safe to say that the Gaming Industry massively dominates the Movie Industry and is only projected to grow in the coming years. Related articles: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: What is Different? Japanese Games VS Western Games: Understanding the Key Differences Diablo 4 Monetization: Microtransactions Discovered by Fans Diablo 4 Release: 5 Most Irritating Issues You May Encounter The post Gaming vs. Movie Industry Revenue: Striking Revenue Gap Revealed appeared first on Games Errors.

Apex Legends vs Fortnite. Which one is more popular and better? This question can arise in your mind. But, without proper analysis, it’s not possible to answer. Both of these games are known for their amazing multiplayer experience. But that’s not the complete story. We have looked far deeper than you can imagine and found […]

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Apex Legends vs Fortnite. Which one is more popular and better? This question can arise in your mind. But, without proper analysis, it’s not possible to answer. Both of these games are known for their amazing multiplayer experience. But that’s not the complete story. We have looked far deeper than you can imagine and found many surprising facts. In this analytical article, you will learn about fantastic stats, facts, and graphics that will satisfy your curiosity. Note: We’re excited to share an excellent article comparing Apex Legends and Fortnite. Our dedicated writer spent an incredible 10 hours crafting this outstanding research piece. The extensive research and knowledge poured into this exceptional article will captivate you. Apex Legends vs. Fortnite: A complete overview of Popularity Before we dive deeper, we should have some idea about the nature of these two games: System requirements Both of these games have apparent system requirements that give us a clear idea about the optimization level of these titles. Here are the system requirements for Apex Legends: Processor: Core i3 6th Gen/AMD FX-4350 or Better RAM: 6GB Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GT 640/Radeon HD 7730 Disk Space: 22 GB+ Operating System: Windows 7 or higher After knowing the required specifications, you can see that a PC with basic hardware can run Apex Legends without any problem. Even the obsolete Windows 7 OS is also compatible. Though we don’t know for how long Windows 7 support will exist. Looking at Fortnite, we can see that this game is also compatible with PCs with basic hardware. Here are the system requirements for Fortnite: Processor: Core i3 3rd Gen RAM: 8GB Graphics Card: Intel HD 4000 on PC/AMD Radeon Vega 8 Disk Space: Not specified, but maybe around 40 GB Operating System: Windows 10 64-bit or Mac OS Mojave 10.14.6 Unlike Apex Legends, Fortnite doesn’t run on Windows 7. Also, it needs more disk space. But AL needs at least 6th gen Intel core i3 processor, whereas Fortnite can be played using the older i3 3rd gen processor. In fact, gamers can play both of these titles on very basic computers with minimum GPU power. Gameplay Mechanics Although both of these titles have many similarities, some key differences have made them unique from each other. Apex Legends is a First-Person shooter game, while Fortnite is Third-Person. This characteristic has created many more contrasts, particularly in the shooting, movement, and overall game mechanics. Fortnite has a built-in defense against enemy shootings. But, in the AL, the player needs to be more skillful to protect themself from enemy shooters. The movement mechanics in Fortnite is very basic. You can easily move and play. However, in Apex Legends, a gamer must be an expert and do more to move and fight. Both of these titles with cross-platform play capacity. Also, these two are getting regular updates which improve the stability and add new features to the game. Now, at this point, AL and Fortnite are not the same compared to the time when these were released. Total number of gamers Currently, Apex Legends have a total of approximately 136 million registered accounts and 114,580,698+ active players. On the other hand, Fortnite holds an estimated around 550 million registered accounts and 234,546,282+ active gamers. We have tagged a gamer active if he/she has played the game within the last 30 days. We may not get the whole story after seeing the active players. So, we have made some very specific statistics that represent the changes in the number of total players over the years in different ways. Source: ActivePlayer.IO, EsportsDriven Total number of registered gamers over the last 4 years: Here are the data of total registered player accounts in Million since 2019: Year Apex Legends Fortnite 2019 70 250 2020 90 350 2021 100 390 2022 130 450 2023 136 550 For your convenience, we have featured a graph that gives you a clear view of the total number of players in millions on both Apex Legends and Fortnite. The number in the above graph represents the total number of registered players in both games. This statistic may not be 100% accurate as no precise data is available on the official sources. So, based on the many unofficial sources and our analysis, we have estimated these numbers. The latest data is not precisely available on any recognizable forums or sources. So, we have made our estimation for 2023’s data in some cases. Source: reuters.com, Business of Apps, Statista The number of active gamers changes every month: In the following graph, you can see the number of active players over the years in every month. It shows the trend of the popularity of Fortnite and Apex Legends. The above graph is clearly showing that Apex Legends is slowly gaining popularity. On the other hand, Fortnite is losing its place even though it’s still the most popular battle royal game and far ahead of AL. However, to understand the scene from an even closer position, you should look at the other factors featured in the next parts of this post. Peak players by year: We may see different data if we look at the number of players who are active in the peak hour. Year Apex Legends Fortnite 2020 13,093,785 191,302,008 2021 67,563,911 338,845,462 2022 99,458,463 312,730,506 2023 17,333,097 71,906,471 The following smooth line graph shows the trend of active peak players over the last three years. However, we can exclude the 2023 part, as it’s the middle of the year. The above statistic clearly shows that if we exclude 2023, the number of active peak players of Apex Legends’ is increasing. But the opposite is happening for Fortnite. This information is based on the data available on ActivePlayer.IO. We have used data till April 2023. Average time spent by players: There is no exact data available about the average time spent by players on both of these games. However, according to various unofficial sources, on average, for both Apex Legends and Fortnite, gamers spent a few hours a week on these games. In Fortnite, most of the active players spend 6-10 hours a week; on Apex Legends, it’s around 7 or 8 hours. Platform preferences: Both Fortnite and Apex Legends are available on mobile, PC, and console. If we look at Fortnite, we can see that 69% of players play it on Console, which includes both Xbox and PlayStation. The PS is the most popular platform for this title, with around 40% of gamers. 46% of the players play on smartphones, and 28% play on PC. This percentage seems wrong to you. It is because some players play this title on both PC and Console or even all of these three platforms. Apex Legends’ player count per device has not yet been released by any official or unofficial channel. So, we are unable to give you an insight. Geographical distribution for Apex Legends and Fortnite: Undoubtedly, these two games are very popular around the world. In the USA, Apex Legends has 38.92% of its total number of players; for Fortnite, it’s 21.63%. We have also collected the percentage of other mentionable countries as well. Based on it, we can easily find an estimated number of gamers playing these titles in specific countries. And we did it. After calculation, we have found the following data Country Apex Legends Fortnite USA 44M 51M UK 8.2M 12.1M Russia 6.7M 18M Brazil 6.3M 13M For your convenience, we have made the following graph. It will help to understand the popularity of these two games in the countries mentioned in the above table: We can see that both of these games are very popular in the USA. Apex’s user count is particularly closer to Fortnite in this country. So, we don’t know if Fortnite can hold its position in the United States of America in the upcoming years or not. Demographical distribution for Apex Legends and Fortnite: 62.7% of Fortnite players are young. They belong to the 18-24 years age group. The 25-34 years age group’s percentage is 22.5, and the 35-44 is 12.7. On the other hand, Apex Legends doesn’t have this many statistics available. However, according to various sources, most of the players are below 18. The 18-34 age group has a significant number of players. The Apex Legends also don’t have any clear statistics on player count based on gender. But, it is indeed a male dominant FPS multiplayer where a significant number of gamers are also female. In Fortnite, 72.4% are male players, and 27.6% are female. Source: Exploding Topics Number of tournaments and prize pools for Apex Legends and Fortnite Each year, gamers attend tournaments for both Apex Legends and Fortnite. Some of these events are official. Here are some interesting stats and graphs about these events: The total number of tournaments: According to the Esports Charts, both Apex and Fortnite had many official and unofficial tournaments. The following tables show the number of tournaments for these two games from 2019 to 2022. Year Fortnite Apex Legends 2019 58 28 2020 109 155 2021 54 268 2022 72 293 2023 7 73 The above table shows that the number of Apex Legends tournaments is increasing each year. Even as of May 2023, this game has more tournaments held compared to Fortnite. In the following column chart, we have excluded the data from 2023. It will help to compare the number of the tournament for these two games over the last few years. Source of information: Esports Chart’s Apex Legends and Fortnite page. Prize Pool: Apex Legends vs Fortnite: If we look at the total prize pool per year for these two popular multiplayer games, we find the following data: Year Apex Legends Fortnite 2019 $2.1M $51.9M 2020 $6.6M $5.24M 2021 $5.3M $5.75M 2022 $1.71M $12.62M 2023 $2.27M $0.5M We can see that the tournament prize pool is very attractive for these two games. Fortnite is ahead. But Apex Legends’ ones are also impressive. The above data is based on the information found on Esports Chart. There may be errors as no precise information is available now. Revenue and Profit Margins: Since the release of Apex Legends, EA has made over 2 billion USD revenue from this game. Fortnite is much ahead. It’s making several billion a year. Here is the list of revenue in billion for these two popular battle royal games per year: Year Apex Legends Fortnite 2019-2020 0.4 5.1 2020-2021 0.6 5.8 2021-2022 1 6 The following scatter chart will help to understand the increasing trend in terms of revenue: For this statistic, we have used information from Thcsngogiatu.edu.vn, Demand Sage, Epic Games, and Statista. We have excluded the year 2023 as no complete data is available for this year yet. There is no clear information about the profit for these two titles. However, It’s hard to determine which one is more successful in increasing revenue. According to The Verge, Fortnite made $9 billion in revenue in its first two years, which is much higher than Apex’s 2 Billion in the first three years. During that period, Battle Royal games experienced a sudden spike in popularity which is also a factor. Most popular skin and character Two of these Battle Royal games have a wide range of choices when it’s skin and characters. If we look at the Apex Legends, Pathfinder, Octane, Wraith, Bangalore, Bloodhound, and Ballistic, are the most picked characters. On the other hand, if we look at Fortnite, The Foundation, Jonesy, The Visitor, Leviathan, Midas, The Reaper Fortnite Skin, Drift, etc., are very popular. Source: Dexerto, SportsKeeda, Fiction Horizon. Most viewed and streamed content If we look at the most viewed content for Fortnite, we find Travis Scott and Fortnite Present: Astronomical (Full Event Video) as the most watched content on any platform. It has gained 204 Million views. On Twitch, Fortnite Esports (0.372M views) and Kid jerks off in the Fortnite arena (0.86M views), getting the highest views. For Apex Legends, 【悲報】釈迦、漏らす – Twitch (1.99M views), LOVE_FuryXD Dies!?! (0.46M views); these are the two most popular Twitch content. If we compare the top 3 most watched videos on Twitch related to these two battle royale games, we can see the following data: Rank Fortnite Apex Legends 1 863,669 1,984,064 2 372,305 459,372 3 351,263 331,306 For your convenience, here is the graphical representation: To get an even better idea, we can have a look at the following graph based on the average views in thousand on Twitch: The above graph shows how the average monthly view counts have changed over the last three years. We can see that since January 2020, Apex Legends’ content has gotten more average views than Fortnite. Source: twitchmetrics.net and buzzrank.io, TwitchTracker Average Time-to-Kill (TTK) and Time-to-Survive (TTS) Determining the average TTK and TTS for these two games is tricky, as these depend on several factors. For Apex Legends, killing a player with 200 HP health takes 2.7 seconds on average and 2.4 seconds for 175 HP. For Fortnite, no such information is available right now. If we look at the Time-to-Survive data on Apex Legends, it may vary from player to player. Generally, a player’s survival time can be from a few seconds to several minutes. Fortnite is from a few to 20+ minutes, depending on many things. Factors that work behind the Popularity Apex Legends: We will find some interesting facts behind the scene of Apex Legends’ popularity. These are: Surprise release and announcement: Apex Legends was launched suddenly and surprised everyone. At that time, Fortnite and some other battle royal games were going through prime time. Apex Legends was a new addition with many unique and different features. That attracted young gamers. As a result, it gained a large player base within a few weeks of its release. Influencer partnerships: EA has partnered with many influencers and streamers for Apex Legends. This battle royal game was a very attractive choice for their many followers. Free-to-play model: Since Apex Legends was launched as a free-to-play game, anyone could test this title. Therefore, this title got a considerable player base within a short time. Other factors: Else, active social media presence, developer responsiveness to the players’ feedback, in-game rewards, and the amazing gameplay mechanisms developed by Respawn Entertainment hugely contributed to Apex Legends’ popularity. Fortnite: Like Apex Legends, Fortnite also got the advantage of being a free-to-play game. Apart from this, the following factors also have a significant role in its popularity: Early access and beta testing: The Fortnite beta was released before releasing the full version. That created hype among battle-royale lovers. Celebrity endorsements: To gain more player base, Epic Games have made deals with several mentionable celebrities like DJ Marshmello, Keanu Charles, Travis Scott, and many other people. Often we saw that gamers were playing Fortnite with celebrity skins and faces. In-game events and collaborations: Fortnite held many in-game events and collaborated with many popular franchises, including Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, etc., to bring their skins, themes, and characters into the game. Community Engagement: Epic Games’ engagement with the Fortnite community effectively increased player engagement. Cross-platform: One of the coolest things is Fortnite is available on multiple platforms, and gamers can have a cross-play facility, which also has increased its popularity. Else, cultural impact and social media integration, in-game challenges, community-created content, etc., have made a huge impact on Fortnite’s popularity. Fortnite has made a huge contribution to the increasing battle royal game in the industry. Apex Legends is not too far. While Epic Games is still enjoying the benefits of owning the most popular battle royal title even in 2023, EA is making its strategy to make its title more attractive and unique. We may see many interesting changes in the upcoming years when we compare Apex Legends vs Fortnite. But, the truth is Fortnite is still the most played and popular battle royal title in the industry. The post Apex Legends vs. Fortnite: Assessing Popularity in 2023 appeared first on Games Errors.

Packet loss severely impacts Counter Strike 2 and its players globally. Experiencing high ping and packet loss while playing CS2 can lead to frustrating delays and lagging. Aware of this problem, I made this guide to show you how to fix CS 2 Packet Loss. Unfortunately, I dealt with this problem a few times since […]

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Packet loss severely impacts Counter Strike 2 and its players globally. Experiencing high ping and packet loss while playing CS2 can lead to frustrating delays and lagging. Aware of this problem, I made this guide to show you how to fix CS 2 Packet Loss. Unfortunately, I dealt with this problem a few times since CS:GO turned into Counter Strike 2, but the solutions below helped me fix it in no time. What causes packet loss in CS2? Playing CS2 can be incredibly frustrating if you’re experiencing high ping and packet loss. These issues can cause lag and delay, making it difficult or impossible to play the game smoothly. Various factors could cause packet loss: Server issues Slow and unstable internet connection Corrupted game files DNS server issues Too many programs running in the background How do I fix packet loss in CS2? To fix packet loss in CS2, first make sure that your internet connection works as it should without any interruptions. We recommend starting with these simple steps: Check the Counter Strike 2 service status page. If servers have issues, you must wait until the servers are fully operational. Power cycling your network device. Ensure that your internet connection is steady and without any interruptions. Check with your ISP to see if the issue is on their side of the connection or above them in the network distribution company. Verify and repair game files. If you still encounter packet loss in Counter Strike 2, apply these tips: Update your network driver Flush your DNS Use launch options for the game Use a VPN 1. Update your network driver Packet loss in CS2 may indicate that you are using an outdated network driver. I encountered this problem on one of my older devices. To fix it, update your network driver as follows: Press the Win + R keys to open the Run dialog box. Type; “devmgmt.msc” and hit Enter to open Device Manager. Double-click on the Network adapters to expand. Right-click on your network card, and select Update driver. Follow the on-screen guide for installing the latest network driver. Disclaimer: We are affiliated with the following Driver Update Tool. We suggest utilizing PC HelpSoft to streamline the laborious process of updating your computer’s system drivers. This tool automates the task, guaranteeing a quicker and more dependable solution without requiring manual updates or scouring the internet for authentic drivers. ⇒PC HelpSoft 2. Flush your DNS If you are experiencing packet loss in Counter Strike 2, you can attempt to resolve the issue by flushing your DNS to clear the cache. This will remove any saved IP addresses and DNS records that may be causing connectivity issues. Follow these steps: 1. Press Win+R to show the Run dialog box. 2. Type; “cmd” and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter keys to open Command Prompt as administrator. 3. Type “ipconfig /flushdns” and press Enter. 4. Type “ipconfig /registerdns” and press Enter. 5. Type “ipconfig /release” and press Enter. 6. Type “ipconfig /renew” and press Enter. 7. Type “netsh winsock reset” and press Enter. 8. Reboot the PC, launch CS2, and check if the issue is gone. 3. Use launch options for the game Time needed: 1 minute We recommend entering commands in the game launch options that promote an efficient and stable connection to optimize the communication between your PC and the CS2 server. Open Steam launcher Right-click on the CS2 and choose Properties. Set Launch Options Enter the following command in the Launch Options: rate 128000 cl_cmdrate 128 cl_interp 0 cl_interpratio 1 cl_lagcompensation 1 Relaunch Steam Play CS2 to check if the issue is gone. 4. Use a VPN Improve your gaming experience with a reliable VPN like ExpressVPN. It can lower ping, avoid packet loss, and provide fast and stable connectivity. Choose from many servers in different countries for playing with friends online. It should be noted that a VPN can solely enhance your ping if your ISP imposes limits on your connection. 1. Download and install ExpressVPN. 2. During installation, provide your email address; you will get the code to access your ExpressVPN dashboard. 3. Click on Sign In. 4. Connect to a desired server. 5. Launch CS 2 and check if the issue is gone. Do you still have CS2 packet loss? Then, consider these extra methods: Update Windows to the latest version. Update DirectX, .NET Framework, and VCRedist. Update CS 2 Close unnecessary apps and downloads that are running in the background. Temporarily disable Windows firewall or antivirus. If you use WiFi, disable any devices that reduce your bandwidth. Use a wired connection instead of a wireless one. Use public DNS servers like Google’s. Reinstall CS2 Perform clean boot. Conclusion If you’re playing CS 2 and experiencing packet loss, it’s recommended that you first check for any server or internet connection issues. Other possible solutions include flushing your DNS, updating your network driver, using launch options for the game, disabling any unnecessary background apps, or utilizing a trustworthy VPN service. If you have any additional solutions, feel free to add them to the comments. We will test them on our devices, and add them to the list. The post Fix CS2 Packet Loss Easily [Simple Instructions] appeared first on Games Errors.

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Another remake of the acclaimed 2009 original, Steins;Gate Re:Boot will feature enhanced visuals and new story elments.

Visual novels are not always to everyone’s liking, but genre fans will happily tell you that Steins;Gate remains one of its best offerings to date- and soon, we’ll be getting another enhanced version of it. MAGES has announced Steins;Gate Re:Boot, which is yet another remake of the original Steins;Gate, which launched back in 2009. The new version of the visual novel will retain the original’s art style, but will freshen things up by enhancing the visuals and adding in new story content. Exactly how comprehensive those additons and enhancements will be remains to be seen. Steins;Gate Re:Boot is scheduled to come out sometime in 2025 in Japan. There’s no word yet on when exactly it will release, or what platforms it is supposed to release for, nor has a Western release been officially confirmed yet, but presumably, additional details will be shared in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned for further updates as more information becomes available.

Undead-fueled multiplayer mode Infected arrives on Tuesday, with fan favourite map Nuketown coming later in the week.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is now a few days old, but as is always the case with the franchise, there’s plenty of content that developer Treyarch has in the pipeline that it intends to add to the game over the coming weeks and months. Some of it, in fact, is already almost here. Taking to Twitter, Treyarch revealed that it will be adding a new mode and map to Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 this week. More specifically, zombies-infested multiplayer mode Infected will become available to all players starting tomorrow, Tuesday, while fan favourite series staple map Nuketown is also set to arrive later this week, on Friday. Both are, of course, going to be familiar additions for series fans, but they’re also welcome additions. Upon its launch last week, though Black Ops 6 saw some criticism from players on Steam, it also attracted a sizeable audience on the platform, seeing a peak of over 306,000 concurrent players, surpassing the numbers for Modern Warfare 2 and Modern Warfare 3. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is available on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Xbox One, PS4, and PC. Launch was only the beginning. Tomorrow, the Infected are coming to play. Nuketown joins the party on Friday. LFG. pic.twitter.com/asOkRVvHbC — Treyarch (@Treyarch) October 28, 2024

The next Mass Effect won't feature a stylized art style similar to the upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard, project director Michael Gamble has said.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s long-awaited release is right around the corner, which means the next Mass Effect is soon going to become developer BioWare’s next main project. The sci-fi RPG is, of course, still presumably quite a ways off, which means there’s much that we aren’t going to know about it for some time to come. One thing that the project’s lead has confirmed, however, that visually, the game is going to differ from the upcoming Dragon Age in one key way. Responding to a fan on Twitter, in addition to expressing his disagreement over Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s art style being likened to Pixar, Michael Gamble – Project Director on the next Mass Effect – stated that the sci-fi RPG’s next instalment is going to feature a photorealistic aesthetic similar to its predecessors, rather than the stylized look of The Veilguard. “Mass Effect is photorealistic and will be as long as I’m running it,” Gamble wrote. Little is know about the next Mass Effect, other than the fact that BioWare is currently in the early stages of developing it, and is using Unreal Engine 5 to build the game. Series fans are hopeful that the upcoming N7 Day – i.e. November 7 – will bring more reveals from BioWare, just as last year’s N7 Day did with a brief teaser trailer. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days and weeks. Leaks have claimed that the next Mass Effect game might not launch until as late as 2029. Read more on that through here. I'm not sure I agree with the Pixar thing, but Mass Effect is photorealistic and will be as long as i'm running it. — Michael Gamble (@GambleMike) October 28, 2024

The first-person shooter saw a peak of over 306,000 concurrent players on Steam over its first weekend, surpassing Modern Warfare 2 and 3's launch numbers.

As one of the biggest gaming franchises in existence, Call of Duty never fails to attract a sizeable audience, and even though Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has attracted some criticism from players on Steam since its release last week, the first-person shooter also seems to be attracting a sizeable audience, even when compared to its predecessors. As per SteamDB, over the weekend following its release, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 saw a peak of of over 306,000 concurrent players on Steam. That’s higher than what both of its immediate predecessors managed upon their respective releases, with 2022’s Modern Warfare 2 seeing a peak of over 263,000 concurrent players, and last year’s Modern Warfare 3 enjoying a peak of over 190,000 players. Given the fact that for the first time ever, Black Ops 6 is also available via PC Game Pass, that’s a particularly impressive number, and does suggest that the game could be enjoying similarly strong numbers on other platforms as well. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Xbox One, and PS4.

Codenames Thief and Stealth possess unique abilities, with the latter having tools to "stalk the battlefield" and take advantage.

Rumors have circulated about Bungie’s Marathon for months, including a pivot to featuring playable heroes. Director Joe Ziegler seemingly confirmed this in a recent Developer Update, dubbing them Runners and noting that they possess a “small subset of abilities.” Two such Runners were revealed in new concept art – Thief and Stealth (which are codenames). While the former didn’t receive much information, Ziegler noted how her central theme is “creepily peeking around the corner in sort of that quiet moment before she makes her move.” It makes her sound more like an assassin, and there are apparently “a lot of hilarious stories that come from it but also very, very crazy moments that this character contributes to the game.” If the name wasn’t a dead giveaway, Stealth is more of a stealth-focused Runner. Deception is a core utility trait that they embody. “They have the tools to stalk the battlefield and show up in ways that allow them to kind of take advantage.” Ziegler noted that it’s a “little strong” right now, but “by the time we get it to all of you, I’m sure it’ll be in a good place.” Marathon is in development for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC and is available to wishlist on adjoining storefronts. It doesn’t have a launch date, but Bungie wants to expand playtests next year to accommodate its community. There will be more details later, so stay tuned for updates.

On Xbox Series S, the co-op horror title will run at 1080p and 60 FPS, while on PlayStation VR2, it will target 2000x2400 resolution per eye, with a 60Hz refresh rate.

After repeated delays, Phasmophobia’s console release is finally almost here, and ahead of its arrival on new platforms, developer Kinetic Games has revealed details on the co-op horror title’s technical targets on all consoles. On both PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, features two modes, both targeting 4K/60 FPS, presumably with the native resolution being lower in the Performance Mode. Meanwhile, Xbox Series X also features a 120 FPS option, which isn’t available on PS5. On Xbox Series S, Phasmophobia will run at 1080p and 60 FPS, with no other graphics mode being available. Finally, on PlayStation VR2, the game will run at a native resolution of 2000×2400 per eye, at a 60Hz refresh rate and 120Hz reprojection rate. Phasmophobia is currently available on PC, and launches for consoles on October 29. The game has sold over 20 million units since its early access launch in 2020, Kinetic Games recently announced. Ghost Hunters, we have some vital information for you. PS5, PS VR 2 & Xbox Series X/S specifications for #Phasmophobia can be found in the image below. Wishlist now via our website: https://t.co/JswXVo2sOQ pic.twitter.com/lkK0L3NF7k — Phasmophobia (@PlayPhasmo) October 26, 2024

"We're looking to add a significant amount of players to each of our milestones as we're going forward," says director Joe Ziegler.

Bungie’s Marathon has been the subject of much discussion over the past several months, especially following reports of troubled development and director Christopher Barrett’s removal. However, in a new Developer Update video, current director Joe Ziegler revealed details on the project’s state and upcoming plans. Regarding 2025, the extraction shooter’s rumored launch year, Ziegler revealed that the team is “expanding our playtests a little bit wider and wider. We’re looking to add a significant amount of players to each of our milestones as we’re going forward, and some of these big inflections are opportunities for you all to join us.” While he didn’t specify exactly when these playtests would begin, Ziegler revealed that Marathon is available to wishlist on various platforms, which is the best way to keep track of updates. Steam and PlayStation Store pages are currently up, with the Xbox Store still to follow. Bungie looking at expanding playtests next year instead of a full launch could lend some credence to rumors about it missing the 2025 internal target. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier revealed last August that sentiment around it is “not great,” though its current state remains to be seen. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Once again, protagonist Max Caulfield stars in one of Life is Strange's most gripping outings to date.

The Life is Strange series has told several strong stories with unforgettable characters across its multiple instalments, but chances are, if you ask a series fan what their favourite entry is, they’re going to go with the original. Dontnod Entertainment and Square Enix’s 2015 original still holds a special place in the hearts of many, and with Life is Strange: Double Exposure, developer Deck Nine – the current custodian of the franchise – has undertaken the responsibility of delivering a sequel, with beloved protagonist Max Caulfield stepping back into the limelight. The decision to go back to Max and make a direct follow-up to the original game raised more than a few eyebrows, with many wondering how Double Exposure would be able to not only justify its own existence, but also do justice to the original by telling a new story around Max that feels strong enough to stand toe-to-toe with what we’ve experienced in the past. And while nothing will ever have the sort of impact that the original Life is Strange did nearly a decade ago, I can confidently say that Double Exposure is a worthy sequel. It’s a welcome return for Max, a meaningful follow-up to her original story, and an excellent new entry in the franchise, telling what might be one of its strongest stories to date. "While nothing will ever have the sort of impact that the original Life is Strange did nearly a decade ago, I can confidently say that Double Exposure is a worthy sequel. It’s a welcome return for Max, a meaningful follow-up to her original story, and an excellent new entry in the franchise, telling what might be one of its strongest stories to date." Set ten years after the original, in Double Exposure, we find Max at Caledon University in Vermont, where she works as the resident photographer, the days of her time manipulation powers long in the past, but still a very distinct memory. The peace and quiet she has found in her life, however, is soon upended when she finds her best friend Safi dead in the snow, following which her old powers awaken again, but this time allowing her not to rewind time, but two jump between two different timelines- her own timeline, and one where Safi isn’t dead. Now, she hopes to use her powers to not only find out who killed her friend, but try and prevent the same from happening in the other timeline- all with the knowledge that the last time she relied too much on her time manipulation powers, things did not end well. The setup is a gripping one, and the game does an incredible job of stacking layer upon layer as it hones in on its central mystery, and on more than a few occasions, it caught me by surprise with its twists and reveals. Just as crucial to the game’s storytelling strengths, meanwhile, is Double Exposure’s cast of characters. There’s Max herself, of course, who continues to be a wonderfully endearing character, just as she was in the series’ debut outing, while she’s surrounded by a diverse cast of excellently developed personalities. From instantly lovable friends to complicated characters with complicated pasts to those that you simple love to hate to everything in between, Double Exposure’s cast is packed with several strong, well-written, and wonderfully acted characters who each leave their own mark and earn their place in the story. But though Double Exposure’s story does largely serve as a self-sufficient one that doesn’t really require any prior reading, this is, at the end of the day, Max Caulfield’s second big adventure- so how well does it serve the role of being a sequel? On that front, I think the game does a good job of balancing between being a standalone entry and following up on the first game. Without going into spoilers for either of the two instalments, Double Exposure does take both of the first Life is Strange’s endings into account, allowing you to choose which of the two you want to go with, and from that point forward, by and large, Max’s life in Arcadia Bay – from her history with Chloe to her time rewind powers – is largely background stuff that you’ll find plenty of references to in texts, journal entries, conversations, and what have you, while the game sets up its own largely separate story. "Double Exposure effectively toes the line between telling its own story for newcomers to enjoy without having to worry about required reading, and telling a story that will returning fans will find sufficiently rewarding." Of course, that’s not quite as true in the back half of the game, where the story does start throwing in stronger and more overt elements that are tied directly to Max’s time in Arcadia Bay- which is about as much as I can say without going into spoilers. Suffice to say, by and large, I think Double Exposure effectively toes the line between telling its own story for newcomers to enjoy without having to worry about required reading, and telling a story that will returning fans will find sufficiently rewarding. The game’s choice-and-consequence mechanics, meanwhile, are also typically strong. Life is Strange games have never failed to stick the landing in that area, and Double Exposure doesn’t disappoint either. On more than a few occasions, the game threw me into moments of decision where I genuinely had to take pause and think about the choices I was being presented with, and about what the potential ramifications of my actions would be, and that was true not only with big, weighty decision, but also relatively more intimate and less significant choices. That’s not to say the game has no storytelling issues. As has often been the case with this franchise over the years, Double Exposure isn’t always the best written game. To be fair, it certainly is one of the series’ better written entries, and as is usually the case with the Deck Nine instalments, the dialog largely feels pretty organic and natural. There are times, however, where some of the interactions between characters can feel a bit awkward or stilted, while the game also does tend to occasionally rely on mildly frustrating contrivances to create what feels like unearned tension or drama. That doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, it’s quite noticeable, and it does hurt the credibility of the rest of the story in turn, even if it’s by a little bit. "On more than a few occasions, the game threw me into moments of decision where I genuinely had to take pause and think about the choices I was being presented with, and about what the potential ramifications of my actions would be." On the gameplay front, Double Exposure plays exactly the way you’d expect a Life is Strange game to play. Caledon University is a strongly realized setting, and walking around in its snowy environments across two timelines is usually quite enjoyable, whether you’re investigating interesting things in your surroundings, engaging in conversations with any number of characters, finding optional items and collectibles, or simply strolling through pleasant environments. Max’s new time powers, meanwhile, also elevate the gameplay in their own way. Max has the ability to jump between two timelines, while she can also see and hear across timelines into whichever one she isn’t currently in at the moment. Both of those powers are used for puzzles time and again, and though things never get too complicated, Double Exposure does keep finding ways to make Max’s powers fun and engaging to use. In fact, “simple yet engaging” is a perfect way to describe the gameplay experience here as a whole, which, again, is exactly what you’d expect from a Life is Strange game. Visually, meanwhile, Double Exposure is largely an impressive game. It won’t take your breath away by any means, but from the environments to the character models to their animations, the game does look pretty sharp for the most part. It does have its rough edges – I’ve run into texture pop-in issues, animation bugs, and some undeniably creepy facial movements during conversations – but nothing that comes close to being game-breaking in any way (in my experience, at least). "Life is Strange: Double Exposure is an excellent sophomore outing for beloved protagonist Max Caulfield." Life is Strange: Double Exposure is an excellent sophomore outing for beloved protagonist Max Caulfield. Given how sacred so many still hold the original, it was no surprise that there was some skepticism out there there over whether Deck Nine would be able to deliver a sequel that doesn’t just feel like a cheap, nostalgia-baiting cashgrab, but that is very much not the case. Double Exposure earns and justifies its existence from second one, and tells a gripping tale that will keep you hooked until the credits have rolled. This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.

Here are some more details you should know about Dragon Age: The Veilguard ahead of its imminent release.

We’ve spoken quite a bit about Dragon Age: The Veilguard leading up to its launch, but there’s so much that BioWare and EA have revealed about the long-awaited action RPG, which means there’s still plenty that we haven’t covered yet. As we count the days down until its release, then, here, we’re going to go over a few more key details that you should know about Dragon Age: The Veilguard. TRANSMOG It’s become abundantly clear that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is going to offer plenty of depth and flexibility in its RPG mechanics, but what about players who also want to pay attention to the cosmetic side of things? Thankfully, BioWare has confirmed that the game will feature a “robust” transmog system for both protagonist Rook and all of your companions, which means you can equip the stats and looks of any armour piece separately. BESPOKE ARMOUR Let’s speak about gear a while longer, because there’s some interesting things to cover here. For instance, there are several gear and armour pieces in the game that have been designed exclusively for specific classes, factions, or even characters. That means you’ll find armour in The Veilguard that will only be equippable by certain characters depending on the aforementioned factors (or even a specific character exclusively). ABILITY QUEUING Though The Veilguard’s combat is going to be more streamlined than past Dragon Age titles with party members no longer being directly controllable, it will allow for complexity in its action in various ways. For instance, with the action paused and the ability wheel pulled up, while issuing commands, you can queue abilities and combos for you and your companions, and then watch it all be triggered in real-time once the action resumes. LEVEL CAP In any RPG (or, really, any game that lets you level up), there’s an undeniable appeal to leveling up your character the most they possibly can be- so exactly what’s the cap that we should expect in Dragon Age: The Veilguard? Well, it seems like there’ll be plenty of room for growth, with BioWare confirming a level cap of 50. That’s the highest it’s ever been in a Dragon Age (though technically, Dragon Age 2 did let you hit Level 50 with certain in-game exploits). COMPANION BONDS Forging and improving bonds with its vast and varied cast of characters is going to be a big part of the experience in The Veilguard, clearly, and there’s going to be several ways to do that. Of course, approvals and disapprovals for your actions will affect that, like in previous games, but new to The Veilguard, simply having a companion in your party when you finish a quest will also improve your bond with them, separate from whether or not they agree with your actions. Which characters you take into the field with you will be something you’re going to want to think carefully about, then. COMPANION PROGRESSION The Veilguard’s customization and progression mechanics are looking plenty layered and nuanced, as we’ve touched on, and while protagonist Rook is obviously going to dominate proceedings on that front, you will have plenty of decisions to make for your companions’ growth as well. In addition to their gear loadout, each companion will also have their own skill tree, and while these won’t be as expansive as Rook’s own skill trees, they will still have plenty of options on offer. THE CARETAKER’S WORKSHOP The Veilguard’s Lighthouse looking like a promising hub location – an area where BioWare has traditionally excelled anyway – and this is going to be one of several facilities available there. In a nutshell, the Caretaker’s Workshop is where, using specific resources, you’ll be able to level up your gear and weapons, which in turn will unlock new enchantments. Meanwhile, the Workshop’s own rank will also impact the quality of gears that you find in the world or at other vendors. A TRUCKLOAD OF DIALOG Any modern AAA RPG of this scale is going to have a a ridiculous amount of recorded dialogue – especially when there’s so much variation possible based on player choice – and sure enough, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is confirmed to be BioWare’s biggest game on that front, with over 140,000 lines of recorded dialogue (of which 60,000 are for protagonist Rook alone, who has four different voice options, each with 15,000 lines of dialog). In comparison, Dragon Age: Inquisition had about 80,000 lines of dialogue, while Mass Effect: Andromeda had about 65,000. ACCESSIBILITY OPTIONS The greater drive for improvements in accessibility in games have been heartening to see in recent years, and Dragon Age: The Veilguard is making big promises in this area, too, with an expansive suite of accessibility tools offered. HUD and UI elements are customizable, there’s different options available for subtitles, cinematics, and more, while a number of settings are also available for everything from exploration and combat to controls, audio, and more. ARACHNOPHOBIA Anachrophobia mode has often been offered with games as part of their acessibity options in recent years, allowing those with a particular fear of spiders (which, let’s face it, is more than a little understandable) to remove those critters from their games. Dragon Age: The Veilguard won’t have that because, interestingly enough, the game has no spiders at all, which isn’t something you expect to hear about a traditional high fantasy setting. There will, of course, be those who will miss their presence, seeing as spiders have always appeared as enemies in Dragon Age in the past. PC FEATURES Many will be playing BioWare’s newest action RPG on PC, and the developer is promising plenty of features for those on the platform. Support is confirmed for Nvidia’s DLSS 3, AMD’s FSR 2, and Intel’s XeSS, as well as for 21:9 ultrawide monitors. Other features and options on PC include an FoV slider, uncapped frame rates, full HDR support, Nvidia Reflex support, vsync, and much, much more. ULTRA AND RAY TRACING SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Those looking to play The Veilguard on the highest possible settings will need a beefy rig, unsurprisingly. To play the game on Ultra, which will run either at 4K/60 FPS without ray tracing or at 4K/30 FPS with ray tracing, you’ll need either an i9-12900K or a Ryzen 9 7950X, along with either a GeForce RTX 4080 or a Radeon RX 7900 XTX, 12 GB of VRAM, and 16 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, to play the game at 1440p/60 FPS with ray tracing enabled, you’ll need either an i9-9900K or a Ryzen 7 3700X, along with either a GeForce RTX 3080 or a Radeon RX 6800XT, 10 G of VRAM, and 16 GB of RAM. STEAM Frustratingly enough, there’s a number of publishers out there who just can’t seem to get it through their heads that releasing on PC and not being native to Steam is one of the stupidest possible things you can do as a publisher. Thankfully, EA got the memo. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is confirmed to be fully native to Steam, which means you’re not going to have to link it with your EA account, which has often been te case in the past (and has always been a big headache). STEAM DECK Alongside being Steam native, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is also Steam Deck Verified, which, of course, means it is fully optimized for Valve’s portable device. That means those who wish to play the action RPG on the go will have the chance to do so right from day one. PRICING EA adopted the new $70 standard pricing the moment it got the chance to do so, which means that’s the price Dragon Age; The Veilguard’s standard edition is available at- but, as is often the case with modern AAA games, that price only applies to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. On PC, meanwhile, the game is being sold at a price of $60.

Reviews are flooding in for BioWare's long-awaited fantasy action RPG, and by and large, impressions are positive.

The wait for Dragon Age: The Veilguard has been long, and after a decade of anticipation, with the fantasy action RPG’s release right around the corner, its first batch of reviews has gone live, with impressions from critics so far being quite positive. At the time of writing, Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s PS5 version has an aggregate score of 84 on Metacritic based on 33 reviews, while the PC version stands at 78 after 10 reviews. In one of the most positive reviews of the game, Eurogamer awards it a 5/5, saying, “From head to toe, wing to wing, The Veilguard is exquisitely realised and full of sophistication across systems and storytelling. It’s warm and welcoming, funny and hopeful, gentle when it needs to be, and of course it’s epic – epic in a way I think will set a high bar not only for BioWare in years to come but for role-playing games in general. This is among the very best of them.” IGN’s review, meanwhile, is similarly positive, awarding the game a score of 9/10, and concluding, “Dragon Age: The Veilguard refreshes and reinvigorates a storied series that stumbled through its middle years, and leaves no doubt that it deserves its place in the RPG pantheon. Enjoyable action combat, a fantastic cast of allies with sweeping story arcs all their own, top-notch cinematics, and moving, nuanced character writing are the wings on which this triumphant dragon soars, pulling out all the stops in a whirlwind tour of Northern Thedas and capping it with a terrific finale that’s built on memorably tough choices and consequences.” Forbes’ review is also full of praise for the action RPG, by and large, with a score of 8.5/10. It reads, “Is this the game Dragon Age fans have waited a decade for? I have no idea. Maybe not. But for me, someone who couldn’t get through any of the other games, I often couldn’t wait to play more of The Veilguard. It could have used some editing, more gameplay complexity and maybe some sharper writing in parts, but it did many things well and I enjoyed my time with it quite a bit.” Other reviews, however, are somewhat more mixed. Awarding the game a score of 3/5, VGC writes, “Within the modern action RPG space, Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels fine. It’s a game that is never overtly bad, but it’s also only ever very fleetingly amazing. We particularly enjoyed its cast, but the majority of things you’re asked to do with them are disappointingly repetitive. There are moments of spectacle, and longer main missions that show potential, but overall we were left feeling like BioWare hasn’t evolved with the times.” Giving it the same score of 3/5, The Guardian’s similarly mixed review says, “There is plenty to like about Veilguard, but I sometimes had to dig deep to look past its flaws, from repetitive gameplay to a story that doesn’t know how to bring everything together. It’s a perfectly enjoyable RPG, then, but an underwhelming Dragon Age game.” Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches on October 31 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

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Do not read this review if you do not want to hear spoilers for the new 2024 Joker 2: Joker folie à deux. Again this will contain spoilers Leave now this is your last warning. Spoiler Warning: This review contains major spoilers and personal reflections on Joker: Folie à Deux. We went to see Joker:...

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Welcome to Fields of Mistria, a game that captures the essence of ’90s JRPGs and fuses it with the best elements of farming sims to create a unique, cozy experience. From the moment you step into its pixel-perfect world, the game feels like a nostalgic journey back in time, yet it offers a fresh twist...

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Top 20 80s Anime with Complex Relationships and Tragic Romance The 1980s was a golden era for anime, offering a range of series that delved into the depths of human emotions, complicated relationships, and often tragic romances. For fans of intricate storytelling, these anime are a must-watch. Here are the top 20 80s anime that...

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I’ve had the Steam Deck since its launch, and it’s been a mostly positive experience. However, a few quirks and challenges remain. Here’s my take after using it for a few years. Finding The Sims 4 CC Custom Content Mod Folder One thing that many players, especially Sims 4 fans, might wonder is where to...

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Introduction: My husband and I have always dreamed of retiring to a place where magic fills the air. For us, that means Orlando, Florida – with a Disney World annual pass in hand for daily park visits! But with two cats and a dog in tow, figuring out how to retire to Disney World has...

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As someone born in 1981, I proudly identify with the Oregon Trail Generation, a unique microgeneration that bridges the gap between Generation X and Millennials. We grew up during a transformative time, experiencing both an analog childhood and a digital adolescence. This distinct upbringing has shaped our perspectives, interests, and lifestyles in fascinating ways. The...

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Hey ghost-hunters and treasure-seekers! Grab your Poltergusts, because Luigi is back in Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD on the Nintendo Switch! As a long-time fan of this series, from the spooky days of the original on the GameCube to the thrills of the arcade version at my local Dave and Busters, I was super excited to...

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1. InZOI • Release Date: Late 2024• Platform: PC• Details: A life simulation game where players control Zois, engaging in daily activities, customization, and open-world exploration. 2. Virche Evermore: -EpiC: lycoris- • Release Date: November 7, 2024• Platform: Nintendo Switch• Details: An otome visual novel exploring tales of despair and salvation on the island of...

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If you love visual novels as much as I do, you probably already know how deeply moving and beautifully crafted the original “Kanon” is. I played the original release with an English translation patch because, back then, it was never officially published in North America. Fast forward to now, and I couldn’t be more thrilled...

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The Gaming Blog

Gamers 4 Harris consists of gaming professionals from video games, board games, and tabletop games. They represent the creators behind the puzzles, board games, card games, roleplaying games, and video games we love, as well as game journalists and reviewers. They are artists who bring imagination to life and the people who help run the […]

Gamers 4 Harris consists of gaming professionals from video games, board games, and tabletop games. They represent the creators behind the puzzles, board games, card games, roleplaying games, and video games we love, as well as game journalists and reviewers. They are artists who bring imagination to life and the people who help run the businesses that produce these games. They are storytellers, organizers, journalists, and reviewers. They also endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States. You can find their site here and look at their efforts on behalf of the Harris/Walz campaign. It’s rare to see people from various gaming industries come together to endorse a candidate. We here at Gnomestew try to keep our content focused on gaming, but in this election, the stakes are unlike any other. One of the things we’ve learned from gaming is to make sure the stakes are understood before anyone commits to an action. So let’s do that. When the 45th president was in office, he stacked the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court with judges who blatantly ruled in favor of political ideology over the law. They dealt a massive blow to the bodily autonomy of women across the United States by striking down Roe v. Wade. Not only did this open the way for multiple states to enact “trigger laws,” which were passed in advance so they could go into effect if Roe v. Wade were ever stuck down, but it has emboldened many of those states to enact laws that let them harass women and criminalize their ability to leave their states. Far beyond allowing states to make abortion illegal, many of these laws have made every pregnant woman a potential criminal if she dares to cross state borders. Upon hearing about the Roe v. Wade ruling, Trump said, “I killed Roe.” He was referencing the fact that it was his additions to the Supreme Court that allowed Roe to be overturned. If Trump returns to office, he will appoint even more judges to the federal court. Three justices are in their 70s, and it’s conceivable that Trump would be able to add even more justices. The reversal of Roe v. Wade has caused members of other marginalized communities to question whether or not their own rights will be taken away with the stroke of a pen. Justice Clarence Thomas has indicated that he is willing to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the ruling that granted LGBTQIA+ people the same rights of marriage that straight people have enjoyed. If you’ve never woken up wondering if a handful of people in DC have decided that you’re no longer married to your spouse or no longer eligible to be a parent to your adoptive child, then we are glad for you, but we also ask you to have empathy for the people that will wake up wondering that every day if Trump is in office. Do we know what we would face if our 45th President became the 47th? The Republican party let Trump guide their platform at this year’s convention. Trump outlined 20 tenets, including: Three that demonize immigrants Two exuberantly promote deportation Two on reversing the minimal gains we’ve made in environmental policy Two on suppressing trans people and making it illegal to acknowledge their existence One threatens to deport people for protesting, without mentioning their citizen status Trump has said he would be a “tyrant on day one,” that the solution to crime is to give the police 24 hours of unaccountable violence, and that the military should be used to handle “radical left-lunatics.” Some claim this is hyperbole, but remember the following: Trump openly encouraged a riot to keep the 2020 election from being ratified, once said he was so popular he could kill someone in Times Square and still get elected, and had his lawyer argue to the Supreme Court that he could order the assassination of a political rival, and should be immune to prosecution. Our former president has already stated his intentions of crying foul about the election and has begun building a narrative of election fraud. Those judges appointed by Trump could rule on some of the cases he’ll undoubtedly try to bring to court. That almost feels like the rules are stacked against us, which is why it’s crucial for Harris not just to win but win by a decisive margin, making it hard to deny the election results. Gaming means so much to us. Role-playing games allow us to express our creativity, socialize with friends, and are a fantastic tool for promoting empathy. We play for hours and hours, putting ourselves in someone else’s place and picturing what it would be like to be someone other than ourselves. That empathy is more valuable than ever. The world needs us to feel connected to one another and support those who need it most. We have found so many friends through roleplaying games. We know people staying in this country, wondering if their next comment will get their papers revoked and see them deported. We have friends who would not have been able to be married years ago, some of the most loving people we have known. Their families are threatened. We have friends who already struggle to live their lives the way they should be able to, and they’re scared that they’ll need to spend the rest of their lives afraid to talk about who they are. We agree with Gamers 4 Harris, and we hope they can reach out to the audiences that appreciate what they do, helping them realize how important this election is. This action has consequences; it doesn’t look like we’ll get to attempt it again if we fail. What can you do to help? The simple answer is to vote on November 5th. Unfortunately, the actual act of voting has become more difficult. Voter rolls have been purged and tampered with over the course of the last year – in Texas alone, 1.1 million voters were removed from the registry. That’s why it’s vital you confirm your registration status before November. Even if you’ve been removed, there’s still time in most states to register before the elections. Check your voter registration status here. Register to vote in your state here.

A few months ago, I restructured my evenings to prioritize some new activities over others. One of those activities was to have time to think creatively. Several times a week, I take 30 minutes to sit and think creatively about a topic. Most evenings the topic I am thinking about is RPGs, either my current […]

A few months ago, I restructured my evenings to prioritize some new activities over others. One of those activities was to have time to think creatively. Several times a week, I take 30 minutes to sit and think creatively about a topic. Most evenings the topic I am thinking about is RPGs, either my current game, future games, or RPG theory. The activity has been wonderful and I have had several useful thoughts and ideas to put towards my current campaign. I cannot recommend dedicated creative thinking enough. So let me tell you about how I set it up and what I do. What is Creative Thinking? For my loose definition, creative thinking is having original thoughts or using my imagination focused on a given topic. (That last part is self-imposed because I wanted to spend a session thinking about one thing, not bouncing around from idea to idea) I did not want to be overly restrictive about what topics I could or could not think about, but I did have a few ground rules: This could be brainstorming for a session, but not documentation for any current session notes. It could not pertain to my day job (I am setting up some creative thinking time at my day job for that work). Beyond that, anything was game. I was concerned that without a topic when I sat down, I would not think of something, so I made a short list of possible ideas to work on. I wrote them on index cards and keep them with my notebook (see below), this way I can grab them and flip through them for inspiration. Writing Tools Here is where I had a few more restrictions. The first was that this is not journaling. Journaling, especially if you frequent Pinterest or TikTok can at times overly focus on the product of the journaling, with the use of stickers, sketches, formatting, etc. I wanted these sessions to be raw and unfinished – the fewest barriers between my thoughts and the paper. For this, I use a notebook that is separate from my other notebooks. I repurposed an old Traveller’s Notebook with a single notebook insert (square ruled). I also purchased my favorite pen, to make my writing quick and smooth (Uniball Jetstream ballpoint pen 0.7mm). There are a few rules about the notebook: It is designed to be messy. Cross things out, misspell things… it does not matter. The goal is to get ideas flowing. The book is not to be a reliable archive. At any point, an old notebook can be thrown away because nothing of value should be in it. If something written down is important to archive, then it’s transcribed to one of my more reliable documentation systems (OneNote). If something is actionable, such as a to-do, that gets copied out to my to-do list of choice (Remember the Milk). There are a few reasons for this. The first is that I did not want to make any other major investments into notebooks. I repurposed an old one, and any notebook could be used for this task. I also did not want another place I had to go looking for ideas, so the notebook was not to be the final destination for any usable ideas. The Thinking Session My thinking sessions are 30 minutes long, three times a week. I do them earlier in the evening so that I am not too tired. I often do them right after dinner. My session takes place under good lighting, with a comfortable chair and writing surface (my couch, and a lap desk). To help keep focus, I like to have music playing during these sessions, my favorite being the Lofi Girl. I set a timer…the session is never less than 30 minutes, but can go over if I am on a roll. At the start of the session, or earlier in the day, I pick a topic. If I don’t have one, then I shuffle the cards to see what grabs my attention. With a topic selected, I get comfortable, gather my tools, turn on some music, and start my timer. During the session, I have periods of writing, periods of thinking, and some light research. When I am writing it is as freeform as possible. I am not looking to be accurate but rather to capture ideas to paper. Research comes in the form of Google searches from my phone, checking my campaign notes, or looking at rule books. I can use my phone for this, but no checking of email or social media. At the end of the session, I will highlight or flag any items that are worth archiving or need to go into my to-do list. Thinking for your Game There are many things about your game that you can use this time for. This unstructured creative time is a great canvas to start building how your campaign arc will flow. One of my favorite uses is for my current campaigns, to think about the larger campaign arcs and what else is going on in the game. This unstructured creative time is a great canvas to start building how your campaign arc will flow. Use this time to think about what the main plot will be, then how it will be broken down into sessions, and how to create linkages between the characters and the different elements present in the arc. Tap into your character backgrounds and your session notes to pull together details. This time is also great for worldbuilding, be it for your current campaign or a future campaign. You can think about any number of campaign elements and work them out during a session. Then transfer that info back to your campaign notebook. This time is also a great space to think about your future campaigns. Take time to think about what you want from a future campaign. What system might work best? You can also use the time to work on issues at your table. You can do some brainstorming and problem-solving to figure out how to solve those issues. I have been working out some ideas about how to create a better atmosphere of appreciation at the table. Make it a Habit Once you do this you will see the value. The trick is how to make it a habit. There are many ways to build a habit, and you may know what works best for you. I will share with you how I was able to make it one for me: Prioritize time in your schedule for the activity. As I mentioned above, I do this early in the evening when my energy is high, around 8:00 pm. Make it comfortable. Have a nice place to work, have nice tools to work with. This will help to make the work enjoyable. Do it multiple times to reinforce the activity. I have a goal of three sessions per week. I don’t always hit this goal, depending on my other responsibilities during the week. Track your sessions. I use a habit tracker on my phone (Streaks for iOS) to help log when have a session and to track how well I am doing. Thinking It Through Life is busy, and the truth is, we are often too busy to think things through. At the same time, when given some time, space, and focus, our minds can create amazing things. By carving out some time in your life for creative thought, you can harness that mind to help improve your game. Do you have a dedicated time for thinking? Do you have favorite tools or music? What do you like to think about?

https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/GC_199_Spookygames_Final.mp3 Join Ang along with Jared and JT as they talk about how to bring the spooky to your table as we get deep into the Halloween season. Links: The Carnival’s Children Veiled Fate Shard’s Halloween Sale The Between Backerkit

https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/GC_199_Spookygames_Final.mp3 Join Ang along with Jared and JT as they talk about how to bring the spooky to your table as we get deep into the Halloween season. Links: The Carnival’s Children Veiled Fate Shard’s Halloween Sale The Between Backerkit

Every October, for the last few years, I’ve been trying to watch 31 horror movies that I haven’t seen before. Some of the most consistently enjoyable horror movies that I’ve seen since I’ve been doing this have been horror anthologies. Creepshow, Trick ‘r Treat, the original V/H/S, and the Mortuary Collection have been some of […]

Every October, for the last few years, I’ve been trying to watch 31 horror movies that I haven’t seen before. Some of the most consistently enjoyable horror movies that I’ve seen since I’ve been doing this have been horror anthologies. Creepshow, Trick ‘r Treat, the original V/H/S, and the Mortuary Collection have been some of my favorite things to watch in the last few years. Why am I reminiscing about horror anthologies at the beginning of an RPG review? Today’s review is looking at No Time to Scream, a collection of Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition adventures, each designed to run about an hour and featuring an adventure with an internal countdown. Disclaimer I received my copy of No Time to Scream from Chaosium as a review copy. I have not had the opportunity to run or play any of these scenarios. I have a decent amount of experience with Call of Cthulhu, but mainly as a player. No Time to Scream Authors B. W. Holland, Bridgett Jeffries, C. L. Werner, with James Coquillat, and Mike Mason Editing and Development James Coquillat and Mike Mason Copy Editing Lawrence Gale and Ken Austin Art Direction Mike Mason with James Coquillat Cover Art Nicholas Grey Interior Art Hannah Elizabeth Baker, Erik Davis-Heim, Heikki Korhonen, Alice Morelli, Alex Ngo, Riley Spalding, and John Sumrow Layout Chandler Kennedy Proofreading Susan O’Brien Cartography and Handouts Miska Fredman Call of Cthulhu Creative Director Mike Mason Clear Credit B. W. Holland wrote “A Lonely Thread” with additional writing by James Coquillat. Bridgett Jeffries wrote “Aurora Blue” with additional writing by Mike Mason. C. L. Werner wrote “Bits and Pieces” with additional writing by Mike Mason and James Coquillat. Editorial by Mike Mason with James Coquillat. Internal Screaming This review is based on the PDF version of the product, which includes the following files: Investigator’s Pack (121 pages) Keeper Map Pack (7 pages) NPC Portrait Pack (3 pages) Plain Text Pack (4 pages) Player Handouts Pack (15 pages) PreGens (37 pages) No Time to Scream PDF (106 pages) The No Time to Scream PDF, Player Handouts Pack, the NPC Portrait Pack, and the Keeper Map Pack are what you would expect from their titles. The Plain Text Pack has the same information from the handouts but without the formatting that makes them look like handwritten notebook pages, newspaper articles, or telegrams. The scenarios have built-in hooks for the pre-generated characters, and the 37-page Pregens PDF has the twelve characters on character sheets. Each character takes up three pages, including a final lined page for notes. The 121-page Investigator’s Pack includes the eight pregens from the first two scenarios, again, but this time with a masculine and feminine presenting portrait for each. These pregens have broad backgrounds that tie to the adventures but aren’t given specific names or pronouns. The final adventure has four precisely detailed pre-generated characters, which include their names and more detailed histories. In addition to presenting all of the pre-generated characters from the Pregens PDF with portraits included, they also all have a plain white background version of the character sheets versus the weathered tan backgrounds of the other character sheets. Investigating the Adventures The adventure PDF is divided into an Introduction, the three adventures, and the appendices. The introduction explains how these adventures are meant to be played. All of the adventures in this product are short adventures designed to run in around an hour, and the investigators in each adventure are under some kind of time crunch. These adventures are also designed to be usable with either the core rules or the Call of Cthulhu Starter Set. All the adventures are assumed to occur in the 1920s-1930s era. There aren’t any conversion notes. Two out of the three scenarios might be able to be adapted to other times with some work; the third scenario is firmly rooted in its Prohibition Era setting. The Preparation & Running the Game section discusses what the adventures assume, such as the players having some time to familiarize themselves with the details on the pregen investigators and to customize the areas that are left blank. It also touches on the importance of building similar connections that the pregens have if the group decides to use their player characters for these adventures. There is also a section about managing spotlight time and utilizing safety tools to ensure everyone at the table feels comfortable with what is introduced into the scenario. Because these adventures can be used as adventures that can work with only the Starter Set, a few of the rules of the complete game are quickly summarized in light of how they will work in these adventures. This includes a few paragraphs on the following topics: Using Luck Skill Rolls Bonus & Penalty Dice Combat Sanity Insanity “Read Aloud” Text, Obscure, & Obvious Clues We’ll touch on this in the individual adventures, but the Sanity rules have some tweaks in these adventures to customize the reactions to individual pre-gen characters. The final section talks about how some clues are meant to be found to ensure the PCs can advance the story, while other clues add context and may allow the PCs to be better prepared. Each of the adventures has the following sections: Scenario Structure About the Investigators Keeper Information The Scenario Structure breaks down what the Keeper should be doing and when and gives an assumed amount of time for each activity. For example, it might have a section that says, “Investigate X (10 minutes).” About the Investigators will detail how each investigator is tied to the scenario, which is important for the Keeper to remember and for the player to note. It’s also important to know what should be added to the background of existing or newly created investigators. Keeper Information will explain background information that only the Keeper should know. It will explain what is happening and present a synopsis of the primary NPCs important to the scenario. From here on out, we’re going to be touching on some spoilers for the individual scenarios, so if you want to be surprised by the contents of these adventures, or you are likely to be a player in one of these, you may want to skip what’s coming next. Chapter 1: A Lonely Thread This scenario assumes that the player characters all know an archaeologist who is a part-time instructor at Miskatonic University. The archaeologist has begun to uncover some information about the Mythos, so all of the contacts are students who have attended his classes, other archaeologists, and/or people who have run across some Mythos strangeness and have been communicating with him about these mysteries. The professor regularly invites guests to his home; in this case, he’s interested in showing off the strange “otherworldly” thread-like material he has found. The problem is that by the time the PCs arrive at his home, the threads have multiplied into a parasite made of thousands of them, which burrow into the nervous system of a host and puppet them. The thread parasite doesn’t have access to the professor’s memories, so it will be vague and trying to guess how to react to the people invited to the home. The mystery and the timetable that the Investigators are working against involve the fate of the professor’s housekeeper. The parasite has placed her in a cocoon to mutate her into a more suitable, dangerous host body. If the PCs take too much time, she is fully metamorphosed into a form that is probably way too powerful for the investigators to handle. If they move fast enough, they may be able to save the professor if they can separate him from the parasite attached to his body. This adventure includes a few ways to advance time in the game’s setting, providing the ticking clock that the investigators are working against. The suggestions include assuming that time is up with about 20 minutes left in the scenario and running the adventure in “real-time,” which in the case of this scenario would be three hours, or keeping track of each major investigative action the investigators take, advancing an hour each time two major investigative actions have been taken. I thought it was hilarious that there is a sidebar on “what if the PCs just want to burn everything down,” which I find is a very common reaction to almost any stimulus in a Call of Cthulhu scenario. I appreciate that some of this provides guidelines on using Luck to see how well the fire solves the problem. I like that the PCs can potentially save the professor, but I was sad that the housekeeper will always be a casualty of the parasite. It does make me wonder how this would play out if you reversed the scenario, with the professor gestating into the host body and the housekeeper trying to keep the PCs from finding him. Each pre-generated character has customized sanity effects, including an option for their Involuntary Actions and Bouts of Madness. While I’m not always comfortable with leaning too heavily on deteriorating mental health as a consequence, I’m even less comfortable with individuals with unique backgrounds and personalities randomly developing stress responses, so I like that these are tailored to the characters. Chapter 2: Bits & Pieces Remember when we were talking about horror anthology movies? A lot of those movies have one segment that, while still horrific, is almost comically over the top compared to the tone of the other segments. That’s this adventure. In this case, the investigators find out that their friend, a doctor, has started to obsess over a corpse he was working on. When the investigators show up to check on him, they find out that his obsession led him to follow the corpse to the morgue attached to a local teaching hospital. Because he sounds highly disturbed, and because friends don’t let friends obsess over corpses, the investigators will likely find their friend. When they arrive at the morgue, they find their friend bleeding out from a scalpel wound, and animated body parts are running free in the morgue. Hands, legs, torso, head, and internal organs have scattered to different parts of the morgue, waiting until daylight to escape. If even one part of the body escapes, it will eventually regenerate into the sorcerer, who sacrificed himself as an offering to Nyarlathotep for more power. The PCs have a chance to save their doctor friend from the scalpel wound, and he should be able to make things that are somewhat obvious into being very obvious. There is a furnace where the Investigators destroy body parts, but some of the body parts can turn the power to the furnace off. Possibly, my favorite scene that the PCs may stumble across is the dismembered head making a phone call, trying to get the police to arrive so they can open the morgue’s doors to allow the body parts to escape. I love this scenario very much, just for the over-the-top nature of hunting animated, dismembered body parts through a morgue. That said, the information that the PCs should get that is marked either as obvious or obscure feels more detached from the literal clues that the PCs find. For example, the doctor, even if he’s dying, may say, “Don’t let them get out.” The obvious clue is “the investigators know that they need to hunt the body parts through the morgue and destroy them,” but that obvious clue doesn’t seem to give them all of that information, just that there is something out there that shouldn’t get out. It feels like explaining that opening the doors to either the morgue or the hospital lacks the clear “this would be a huge mistake” explanation that the investigators may need, other than just asking the players to accept the concession. Unlike the previous scenario with more specific time-tracking material, this has a broader discussion of pacing and when to explain that time has moved forward. There is an example of a typical night of hunting the body parts, which is a lot like how Monster of the Week scenarios lay out what will happen if the Investigators don’t directly stop the monster’s plans. While it’s not explicit, if you’re used to Monster of the Week, the “A Sample Hunt” sidebar will give you a good idea of how to pace this scenario, advance the timeline, and introduce complications. Chapter 3: Aurora Blue When I mentioned that horror anthology movies often have an almost comically over-the-top segment, many of those anthologies also have a more serious segment and are concerned with conveying a more resonant message than other stories in the same anthology. This is that scenario. In this instance, the PCs are all playing Investigators who work for the Bureau of Prohibition in the 1930s. They are closing in on a still producing a new alcohol that’s flooding the market in the States and that still is located in the Alaska wilderness. They aren’t just random law enforcement, however. They are a group of marginalized agents who have pulled together to try to do something important as a last-ditch effort to show why they deserve respect. This is the scenario that’s the hardest to adapt to newly made or existing investigators because not only are the madness effects tailored to the individual investigators, but there are places in the adventure where each character will have a flashback to an event that has happened to them, that underscores why they need to force their superiors to respect them. There is a sidebar discussing the care that’s necessary when portraying real-world issues around marginalized people. I like that this has that sidebar and refers Keepers to Harlem Unbound for its section on “Racism: Reality and The Game.” Harlem Unbound is a great supplement, and I’m happy whenever it’s mentioned as a resource. While the adventure mentions the 2019 movie The Colour Out of Space, some of the mutated fruits, insects, and animals remind me of scenes in Annihilation, especially a scene where the investigators run into a mutated moose and her offspring. Keepers should practice using the description of the mutated fruit in this adventure because if you had told me that rotting, misshapen fruit could be that disturbing, I would not have believed you. Those mutated fruits are being used to make Aurora Blue, a very popular gin, but they are also highly likely to damage the mind and body. Once the agents track down the cabin where the still is located, they will encounter the horror show of dead and mutated family members. There is also a child who has become linked to the Colour Out of Space that has been causing local mutations, who has resisted the mutations and mental damage done to the rest of the family. Most of the clues in this adventure are Obvious clues, meaning the PCs shouldn’t have to make a check to find them. That makes sense because the raid is relatively straightforward once the investigators find the cabin, and the investigation just gives them a heads-up on some of the dangers of the cabin or the current state of the family’s patriarch. That said, I wish there had been an obvious clue that would let the investigators know that Missy has at least a chance to survive breaking the link with the Colour if they take her far enough away. It’s extremely difficult to do anything that can harm the Colour Out of Space, and I’m not sure most groups will seize upon blowing up the still to harm it with an explosion. It feels like it may be best to just focus on “you shut down the still; you need to run from that thing because you can’t hurt it.” Obvious Clues They have a lot of utility, whether you just want a night of gaming, a convention scenario, or even something to run to follow up your exploration of the Starter Set before you dive into the complete rules. This comes from a person who has the bias of playing a lot of Call of Cthulhu at conventions, but I love how focused these scenarios are. While they still maintain the weirdness and danger of Mythos stories, they also avoid the feeling that “investigators are always doomed” that some people have about Call of Cthulhu. There is a nice range of tone and feel in these adventures. The customized sanity effects are a powerful selling point, as are the clearly called out Obvious and Obscure clues. Obscure Clues The second and third scenarios don’t have the same clear examples of when advance time is available in the scenarios, which can still be navigated. It feels like it could be difficult to convey exactly why the PCs can’t access the doors leaving the morgue just using the descriptions as written in the second scenario, and some of the Obvious clues feel like they require the Keeper to provide what the Investigators should infer in addition to what the clues they find say. I would have liked the scenario of dealing with the Colour out of Space to be either more obvious or shifted to the alternative presented in the adventure, where the Colour just can’t be harmed. Even if it doesn’t guarantee a happy ending, I wish Missy’s fate could be assessed with a little more surety so the investigators can make an informed decision. Recommended—If the product fits your broad gaming interests, you are likely to be happy with this purchase. This is a solid anthology of adventures. They have a lot of utility, whether you just want a night of gaming, a convention scenario, or even something to run to follow up your exploration of the Starter Set before you dive into the complete rules. The scenarios are evocative enough that I’d even say they are worth looking at even if you play other monster hunting/investigating games and you adapt these scenarios without the mechanical elements. While they mention being hour-long scenarios, I’d still allow for at least a two-hour slot if you’re using these for convention slots. There are a few places where a Keeper may want to draw some lines a little more directly, and in a few places, you may want to make sure the stakes and the consequences of various decisions are transparent. But I don’t have a problem recommending this to anyone who is a fan of supernatural investigation RPGs.

"Only make them roll when its interesting" is solid GMing advice, but it can be hard to figure out which rolls will be interesting. At least, it's something I struggled with until just a few weeks ago. Here's what I discovered about how knowing the stakes of the scene will help you know when to call for rolls from your players.

“Only make the players roll when the results are interesting.” I try to take that advice to heart, but I also take it one step further – I figure my players should only roll when failure would be interesting. And while, on the surface, that sounds like perfectly reasonable advice to me, when I stop and think about it there is one big problem that always trips me up in the heat of a good session – how do I know when the roll will be interesting? Well, a couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of recording a podcast with Ang and Carl about stakes – GnomeCast Episode 198: How Do You Like Your Stakes? – and while we were talking about things like player agency, respecting the power of backstories, and how to offer meaningful choices, it all clicked for me. Interesting rolls are rolls that – if failed – raise the stakes! Worry About Failures, Not Successes Consider this scenario: your court wizard is trying to figure out how an elusive phantom thief has stolen the queen’s diamond from a locked vault, seemingly without a trace. You ask them to make a knowledge check. You’ve planned for what happens if they succeed – you’ve figured out the clues that will put them on the trail and allow them to capture the culprit. But, really, in the moment of that roll, you shouldn’t worry about what happens if they succeed. After all, you already know what’s going on with the thief. Why they’re stealing royal gems. How they’re pulling off their heists. Presumably, you figured all that out during your session prep. What you should worry about is what happens if they fail, because if the answer to that question is “nothing,” well then the stakes of the scenario are gonna die right then and there and start stinking up the session like microwaved fish. Every chance you give the players to fail – in other words, every time you ask them to roll the dice – should be a chance to make the story more interesting by way of the consequences of their failures. It’s consequences, after all, that propels most stories in new and interesting directions. It’s what the game books mean when they say “fail forward.” If a failed roll results in nothing happening, then we’ve halted all forward momentum and entered a kind of stasis (and as any Mage: The Ascension player out there knows, stasis = badness). Failing forward, though, keeps us tumbling down the hill to our inevitable conclusion and (hopefully) a big finish. Easy concept to grasp. Difficult concept to pull off. The trick, though, lies in knowing your stakes. Medium Rare There are two kinds of (sometimes overlapping) stakes I try to focus on in the moment when I’m running a game: situational stakes and personal stakes. SITUATIONAL STAKES are the ticking clocks counting down during the course of your encounter, session, or campaign. The bombs are about to go off. The villagers are about to be sacrificed. The jewels are about to be stolen by that phantom thief. Situational stakes typically apply to the entire party of adventurers and are closely tied to the main plot of the story. “Will the detectives catch the serial killer before he takes his next victim?” That’s a situational stake. But situational stakes don’t have to be big things. In fact, the stakes in any given moment of an encounter are probably much smaller (if no less important). For example: picking the lock on your cell before the guard gets back from his lunch break, or maybe lying to your boss about why you’re always falling asleep in meetings (so he doesn’t find out you’re moonlighting as a masked vigilante). PERSONAL STAKES are similar to situational stakes (and depending on the story, they’re likely to overlap), but personal stakes are less focused on the over-arching plot and more focused on the characters, their backstories, and their personal motivations. Every chance you give the players to fail should be a chance to make the story more interesting Failing to catch every Pokémon. Disappointed your ancestors. Flubbing your prom-posal and getting laughed at by half the school. These are all personal stakes. Do they make a difference in the grand scheme of things? Probably not. Do they make a difference in the lives of your characters? You bet your ass they do! (One could argue that the closer the Venn diagram of Situational and Personal stakes is to a circle, the better your story is, but YMMV. For more ways you can make this happen, check out this article.) Going Up So, now that we know our stakes, how do we raise them? This is where we have to get mean because you’ve got to identify ways in which the situation can get worse. Twist those screws. Make their lives harder. – Maybe that manifests in more physical danger to their characters. A monster shows up; more monsters show up; a meteor shows up, and it’s falling straight at them. – Time pressure is another good way to turn up the heat. The proverbial bomb ticks closer to zero. – Don’t forget about emotional damage! This reminds you of the time you disappointed your father right before he died in that wildebeest stampede. Back to the Dice This brings us back to the original question – when do you ask for a roll from your players? The answer is, as we’ve been discussing, “when it raises the stakes if they fail.” Now we know what it means to do that. We ask ourselves what important aspect of the story could be enhanced with a failed roll, and if the answer is “nothing,” then don’t call for a roll! In systems that have skill lists, it’s tempting to have your players roll their skills for everything. After all, they invested those points during character creation. They might as well get use out of them, right? If they dumped a lot of points into investigation, and you just hand out the clues, then it kind of feels like they wasted their points on the ability to find those clues. But if the roll’s not important, it’s okay to just let them succeed based on their previous experience and expertise in the subject matter. Let them be competent and succeed without effort. It’s a great way to make them feel like the heroes of the story, after all. In Practice So, let’s go back to that knowledge check example. Since you’ve already prepared your notes, you already know what happens in the event of a success. You’ve determined the roll is important because if the wizard investigator doesn’t figure out how the phantom thief pulled off the heist, the thief will strike again and steal a priceless artifact this time. You also know, thanks to the character’s background, that the wizard learned everything they know about forensic magic from their ex-girlfriend, who runs her own detective agency. So now you have options for raising the stakes in an interesting way, and instead of a “no, you can’t figure that out” on a failure, you could raise the personal stakes by saying, “The magic resonance is familiar, but the only person you know who could decipher the meaning is your ex-girlfriend.” Or, you could raise the situational stakes and say something like, “You figure out how the thief did it, but it takes you the whole day, and by the time you realize they’re using the Magic Boots of Wall Walking, they’ve already snatched the next diamond.” It’ll take practice to get into the habit of asking for rolls this way (lord knows I haven’t perfected my technique yet) but as you fail, I guarantee, you’ll be failing forward.

If you give me the ability to customize something, whether its fonts, colors, formatting, whatever, I’m going to end up spending way too much time playing with those options. Even when I know this is the case, it doesn’t stop me. The best thing I can do is to find a tool that lets me […]

If you give me the ability to customize something, whether its fonts, colors, formatting, whatever, I’m going to end up spending way too much time playing with those options. Even when I know this is the case, it doesn’t stop me. The best thing I can do is to find a tool that lets me spend all that effort on customizing something that I’ll actually use, instead of letting me drift into setting up something I won’t use for months, if even then. I’m mentioning this because I’ve spent a lot of time seeing what I can and can’t customize on a VTT platform recently, so I wanted to touch base on what I’ve learned so far. I’m going to talk a bit about Shard Tabletop today, a VTT platform that is customized specifically to work with 5e SRD games. Disclaimer While I started exploring Shard VTT on my own for a while, I received several products from both Lazy Wolf Studios and Shard Tabletop to look at for review. I made purchases and started my customizations before I received those items. I have run a session on Shard, and I have been a player multiple times on Shard. How Did I Get Here? My exploration of Shard is something that’s has started and stopped multiple times, and then went into high gear more recently. During the sheltering at home days, I was avoiding VTTs as long as I could, but eventually, I realized I was going to need to learn how to game on a VTT if I was going to get the gaming in that I wanted. There were three main VTTs that I looked at, Fantasy Grounds, Roll20, and Shard. I’m going to avoid direct comparisons where I can, but I did want to touch on why I didn’t end up using Shard Tabletop from the beginning. I played a D&D campaign on Fantasy Grounds as a player. It did a lot of things I liked, which weren’t easy to do on other platforms. For example, I loved that you could actually target a token, and the VTT would keep track of your success and failure without the DM even getting involved, and you could apply damage directly. That said, there were things I never felt were intuitive (adding gear to a character sheet), and other things that felt like it just had one more step than it needed to have, and that extra step was easy to forget. I reminded me of some of the software I’ve worked with working in data in the education field. I spent a lot of time playing though some scenarios on Shard Tabletop. The biggest mark against it, at the time, was that it could only run 5e SRD, and I was running multiple systems. I wanted something that was going to have tools for multiple game systems, but I came back to Shard multiple times to run “simulations,” where I was able to see how different characters fared against different monsters. Roll20 won out. I don’t know that its more intuitive than Fantasy Grounds, but I would say that some of the unintuitive aspects of Roll20 were clustered together in a few places, rather than spread out across the interface. It had a decent range of official product support, as well as the character sheets, which made it useful for games that didn’t have official support. In some cases, these character sheets made it must faster to roll dice pools or count successes. Because I had been happy with Shard for my “simulation” scenarios, I talked to Ang detailing what I liked about the platform but mentioned that it didn’t have official D&D support. Ang used it way more than I did and learned the ins and outs of importing characters and building out monsters and encounters. I returned to Shard Tabletop because I wanted to start playing with characters and options with Tales of the Valiant, especially making characters at different levels and using the heritage and lineage system. While there are multiple platforms that were included as options for VTT support, only Alchemy and Shard Tabletop had their implementations up and running. Since I was already somewhat familiar with Shard, I went there to start exploring options in the Black Flag Reference Document. I liked what I saw, but my current D&D campaign was on Roll20, I had all of my official content on Roll20, and even though I could get Kobold Press material on Shard, that would require me to purchase everything that I owned over again for a new platform, and I wasn’t thrilled with that prospect. Playtesting and Frustration with Roll20 I did some playtesting of the D&D 2024 rules as various Unearthed Arcana documents came out, but not as much as I would have liked. Part of the problem with this is that if I wanted to use Roll20, I had to build out the class/subclass/species options individually on the character sheets. Nothing was persistent. A new class, subclass, or spell would only exist on the character sheet where you customized it. I couldn’t keep up with that, especially when there were more and more spells included in the playtests. I had the same problem with the Tales of the Valiant playtest documents I received from the crowdfunding campaign. That became even more frustrating because I could just use the base class and change a few things that were different. Because subclass levels were changing, I had to remove and replace several features. There were also an increasing number of companies releasing playtest material, most of which would have to be built feature by feature for each pregenerated character. I could duplicate the character and change things around, but it still felt like I was putting a lot of work into one specific character sheet, not into that campaign. Even some of the custom items from different publishers may or may not work as well as official options. For example, the Kobold Press Witch and Theurge classes were included if you purchased Deep Magic Volume 1 and 2, but the spells available to those classes and several class features weren’t functioning as expected. The Subscription Model Before we get into some of the newer subscriptions, it’s probably important to touch on Shard Tabletop’s subscription levels. You can use the basic functions of the site without a subscription, but you don’t get access to the expanded 5e OGL options included in the subscriptions. It also determines how much you can share with your players. These levels include: Adventurer–$2.99/month Gamemaster–$5.99/month Gamemaster Pro–$9.99/month Adventurer lets you do some customization. You can get fancier dice, you can have two campaigns active at the same time, and you get a bunch of the race, subclass, spells, and feats that Shard offers, which are mostly options that Kobold Press has allowed them to use for these purposes. This option gives you unlimited characters. If you don’t have a subscription, you’re limited to six. You can only share what you own in one campaign (but you can only have two active to begin with). You also get the ability to customize your character sheet with different borders, colors, and images. Gamemaster expands the number of campaigns you can have active at once to six, you can swap out tokens to customize appearances, and you don’t have access to free products in the Marketplace unless you have this option. You also get access to a split screen mode that lets you display the player view when you are using Shard for an in-person game.There is also a watch mode available where you can let others watch your game as it unfolds. You can share what you own in five different campaigns. Gamemaster Pro gives you an unlimited number of campaigns that you can have active. You can do additional customizations with your tokens, like borders or multiple images you can switch between. The watch mode allows the watchers to interact with people in the game. If you are comfortable creating art elements within the parameters used by the site, you can create your own custom token elements and dice. I’ve got the Gamemaster Pro subscription, in part because I like setting up a lot of “potential” campaigns to test options out, and I don’t want to worry about exceeding the number that I can have. I haven’t done much with creating borders or dice myself, but Ang, awesome person that she is, created some custom dice for me, and I have purchased borders from places the DriveThroughRPG, so I can have the special borders around my legendary creatures. It’s an affection I picked up from my World of Warcraft days, so it’s fun to be able to do something like that in a tabletop game. I haven’t done anything with view sharing options, but even though we haven’t been playing in person, we have played with the split screen options in the game that Chris is running for Ang and me. Company Subscriptions The newest subscriptions offered by Shard Tabletop are company specific subscriptions. Currently, the following companies have subscription models on the site: A Tiny Living Room Kobold Press Troll Lord Games Underground Oracle Publishing I can’t really speak to the other bundles, but I have subscribed to the Kobold Press bundles. And I did say bundles, because Kobold Press has multiple tiers to their subscription models. It’s probably worth mentioning that Kobold Press has a ton of material on the site, so there is a decent amount of material in these bundles. Gamemaster Subscription Kobold Hoard Subscription Player Subscription All these bundles have new items have had items added to them over time. There are still a few special products that are released that do go into any bundles, but the only example I have for this so far is the Free RPG Day adventure digital version that has been released on Shard. The Gamemaster subscription includes the campaign setting material, sourcebooks, and adventures. It also includes the Tales of the Valiant Monster Vault. It’s worth noting that while there have been several shorter adventures released for Tales of the Valiant, most of these items are pre-Black Flag RD 5e SRD material. That’s not a giant hurdle for most of these products, although some of the sourcebooks with subclasses are a bit trickier, and older spells are split out into the new, broader spell lists. The Kobold Hoard Subscription includes the material from Kobold Press’ discontinued Warlock zine, as well as some of the short supplements from the website. These also include the blog article products that get reformatted and released after some playtesting and development. The Player Subscription includes all of the player facing books that Kobold Press has released for the 5e SRD, including the “thematic” player guides (Southlands, Underworld, etc.), and the larger player facing sourcebooks Kobold Press has released, including the Midgard Heroes Handbook and the Tome of Heroes, as well as Deep Magic Volume 1 and 2. These sources are a little trickier to use, since they include a lot of subclasses and feats that don’t fit the Tales of the Valiant format, but converting isn’t insurmountable. If you’re interested in Tales of the Valiant, this is the option that gets you the Player’s Guide options, as well as the recently released Lineages and Heritages Volume 1. This is what got me to commit to setting up a campaign to play on Shard. This lets me have access to the Kobold Press material that I currently have for Roll20, and don’t want to purchase over again. Revisiting Playtesting One of the things that made Shard more attractive for playtesting scenarios is that you can create classes, subclasses, spells, feats, talents, species, lineages, or heritages and save them, making them available over and over once you build out that game option. As an example of some of the playtesting options I have entered into Shard, I’ve entered the Ghostfire Gaming Monster Hunter class, as well as the Worlds Beyond Number Witch class. You can also save other game elements, like monsters, which is possible in other VTTs as well. You can also create handouts for your players that you can make available for your players, which can be something like an in-game entry in a book that’s relevant to the campaign, or a document summarizing your campaign’s house rules. How Do I Get What’s Out Here, In There? Books do what you expect them to do when you purchase items from the marketplace, meaning there are pages you can read, where you can click to the next section and read the next topic. Books can also be used to facilitate importing information. If you put a spell or a monster stat block into a book, and you import that book, Shard can convert that information into game elements that can be saved and used like any other item of that type. You can’t just drop any information in and hope Shard will figure it out, but it is easier than I anticipated. You need to make sure that certain sections of the stat block or rules elements have a certain header type associated with it, and if you want an expression in the text to allow you to click on it to roll dice, you need to bold that section of the text. I’ve had a lot of luck importing monsters and spells using this method. If you get the hang of what formatting goes to what section, you may get a simpler monster to just work as soon as you click on that section and then click on the option for Shard to convert it. Even more complicated monsters usually look pretty usable and may only require a little bit of cutting and pasting to make sure some information that ended up in the wrong section goes in the stat block where it belongs. You can attempt to import things like classes or subclasses, but I’ve had a lot less luck getting those to work well, and the amount of reworking I’ve had to do has just convinced me to just copy a similar class or subclass and then add and delete the options I want to see. When you are creating classes and subclasses, if you name a feature something similar to a feature you already have saved, there is a lightbulb icon that you can click, which shows you all of the similarly named rules elements, which you can click on to import that into the current class. This is handy for something like making a front-line fighting class that you want to give the class the fighting style feature that many of them get, or when you want to give a class an ability from another class in a subclass. The modeling features are very robust, but in some cases, they are also very specific. You can easily just drop in a description of what the ability does, but you can also link in everything that the ability does and apply those effects, if you add all the bells and whistles. You can do more complicated things, like having a class feature that lets you pick three specialized class features, each one working in a slightly different way. You can also create custom versions of classes, swapping out abilities that you want to change, but when you still want that class to count as the class you are modifying. One thing to keep in mind is that if you do something like this, you may want to save this as a separate class with a distinct name, even if it’s something like Fighter (House Ruled), because if you save any changes to a rules element, when there are updates to those classes, they won’t populate. You still won’t automatically get them in your custom class, but if you’re using the standard fighter in another game you play in, and you are only using your custom fighter in one of multiple campaigns you are running, the standard fighter will get updated regularly. One of the best features that Shard had doesn’t work anymore, and that’s the import function from D&D Beyond. At one point in time, you could post a link to your D&D Beyond character, and Shard could look at your character and convert it over to working in Shard. Some features didn’t work perfectly, but it did an amazing job of bringing most of the functionality over, including copying the classes, subclasses, feats, spells, or species that aren’t present in Shard. You still needed to own those things on D&D Beyond, but once you have that character set up, you could bring it over with very little difficulty, and even be able to level the character up with those options. Unfortunately, the 2024 implementation on D&D Beyond has broken this function. Shard Tabletop has created a number of rules packages that emulate some of the subclasses from Xanathar’s, or Tasha’s, for example, but you need to connect a few dots and rename some things, since they don’t bring in information directly from those sources. Campaign Setup Another series of customizations you can make is to allow very specific things into your campaign. This is extremely powerful compared to some options that you can use to customize campaign options on other platforms. D&D Beyond never seems to filter out exactly what you want to filter out, and Roll20 can exclude or include an entire source, but you can’t go into the individual options in the book and restrict specific spells or feats, for example. Shard has multiple ways to customize information that appears in your campaign. Extensions are broad sets of rules, which might include or exclude a few things that aren’t meant to work with that implementation. For example, the 5e SRD might be one extension, Esper Genesis might be another, and Black Flag RD may be another. If you directly modify an extension, you can customize your campaign, but as with classes above, that keeps the extension from getting updated when updates are released. Which means if you’re going to be tweaking things, you may want to make a copy of the extension and give it a unique name. Once you add that into your campaign, your extension has a number of packages, the best example of which are all the rules bundled into a specific product. You can exclude any of these packages, but if you like some of the options from that package, you can also set preferred or restricted content. When you do this, you can restrict that handful of spells you really don’t like from that one book that you want to include, for example. If you’re obsessive like me, you can also do things like adding unique languages to the Extension or remove languages that you don’t want to be available in the game. Are you, like me, annoyed that Ignan, Auran, Aquan, and Terran are all just dialects of Primordial? Then you can remove Primordial as an option. If you add an ancient language that was just recently rediscovered, you can add those in as well. There are a few options that live in all of the Extensions, even if they aren’t a default in that set of rules. For example, you can turn on Luck from the Black Flag RD versus Inspiration in the 2014 5e SRD. Going back to my playtest examples, it’s really easy to restrict options in a playtest campaign so that you are testing the material with a closed set of options, rather than throwing everything official and third party at your playtest at the same time. Ongoing Adventures When I was setting up my testbeds in Shard, I didn’t fully understand the assumed way to utilize this function. I just opened a map, added tokens to the map, and then ran the combat. For the published adventures, you open a blank book. You can detail whatever notes you need to have to run your game, and then you add the map to the book. On the map, you can then pin encounters to the map. When you click on the pinned encounters, you can start running the encounter. In addition to what you can do when you just add tokens to a map that you’ve imported, building an encounter lets you add inactive participants that you can activate, for example if there is a possibility for reinforcements to show up. Additionally, you can add treasure packets to the pinned encounter, which you can reveal once the PCs interact with where that treasure is located, and the treasure can be automatically distributed across all the PCs when you end the encounter. You can also assign XP at the end of the encounter based on the monsters you have added to the encounter, and within the encounters, you can also add additional XP amounts detached from the creatures in the encounter. Most of the spells have an icon attached to them that lets you drop a token on the map showing the spell’s area of effect, but the GM can also drop templates of different sizes on the map. These have their own icon to click on, rather than sorting through artwork to find the templates, although if you have special artwork for your tokens, you’ll need to pull those out of your artwork normally. There is an area where you can click on to start the encounter, and all the creatures the GM has added to the map will automatically roll their initiative and line up. The PCs can all roll their initiative themselves, and then they slot into the encounter in order. If you click on the spell you are casting, the initiative tracker will keep track of how long the spell has been in effect, as well as if it requires concentration. That’s extremely handy as a reminder. Additionally, whenever you have a condition, your token has an icon attached to it, and you’ll see the name of the condition by your character’s name. It’s also really easy to assign custom conditions, which can be handy for on-the-fly narrative elements you want to make sure to track. Making Characters If you’re making a character from inside the campaign, the campaign options will limit what you can use for that PC. If you build a PC outside of the campaign, you won’t have those items restricted, but the GM has to allow the character to join the campaign. So, if you want to make sure you’re not using something that your group has already agreed to exclude, you want to make sure to go into the campaign you have access to first, then create the character from there. What’s very interesting is how Shard has implemented the Tales of the Valiant rules. When you first create the character, you get a dropdown asking for what ruleset you are using, the 5e SRD or the Black Flag RD. Regardless of if you pick the 2014 5e SRD or the Black Flag RD, you have a few decision options that lets you pull in things from either ruleset. For example: You can choose either Race or Lineage and Heritage You can choose 5e SRD backgrounds or Black Flag RD, which gives you a talent. You can pick a class from either ruleset, for example, the 5e SRD Cleric or the Black Flag RD Cleric Subclasses are attached to the class, meaning you can’t pick subclasses that aren’t designed for that version of the class to use with that class. Because you get feats or talents based on when those come up in your class progression, which one you have access to will be based on the class you picked, but if you picked the Black Flag RD background and then picked the 5e SRD class, you could still pick up a single talent that is related to the background. If you’re making a 2014 5e SRD character, and you pick a species that is from a source that still assigns character ability boosts, you have the option to change your ability score boosts to whatever ability scores you want. If you picked the Black Flag RD, you get the slightly larger standard array or point buy option, but if you then use a 5e SRD species with that, you get the +1/+2 from that option, so if you are going to mix and match, makes sure you know all of the interactions that are going on. In addition to customizing the rules, if you have one of the subscriptions, you can make some modifications to your character sheet. Everything will stay in the same place no matter how you modify it, but you can change things like the background color, whether outline elements are rounded or squared, and change what color the fonts are based on themes. You can also upload artwork that you can use as background to your character sheet as well. There is a section for “heroic abilities,” which is a collection of special abilities that a character may pick up as part of a campaign, rather than as part of character progression. There is also an icon for shape changing which lets you replace your stat block while you are transformed, as well as a section of the character sheet where you can assign companions or other NPCs the PCs may have access to in the campaign. Practical Experience In our Heroes of Hovel’s Way campaign, Chris has created custom subclasses for us, as well as building out companions and NPCs. Ang and I both have the companion characters assigned to our character sheets, where we can click on them and bring up their stats, when we need to run them in class. We’ve also got a custom spell added into the campaign as well. Ang and I have added custom dice for our characters, as well as using custom tokens. Every ability I’ve used so far that gets reset on a short or long rest has reset on that rest. When rolling for attack damage, you can reroll individual dice that are displayed. I’m playing a paladin, so I can click on a box to add in my smite damage when I burn a spell slot. The GM can hover over a token and assign damage based on a list of recent rolls. I did some customization for my Tales of the Valiant game, which I’m running in the Thrones and Bones setting. For example, I swapped around some of the languages, and I restricted some of the lineages and heritages that are available. In the notes section of the characters, I could post how they arrived at the beginning of the adventure we were playing. Because I had more players than the adventure assumes, I added a few extra characters to an encounter, and it took virtually no effort to do so. It’s also been easy to navigate the adventure using the index for the book that appears next to where the page information appears. Before we settled on Thrones and Bones for our game, I was adding in additional Kobold Press material that hasn’t appeared on the site yet, like the Tales of the Valiant options available in Campaign Builder: Castles and Crowns. I didn’t get stumped too often as I was adding the lineages, heritages, or subclasses that appear in that book. For someone that spends hours thinking about what dials to turn and what new material from various products to include in a campaign, I love to add bits and pieces as I have ideas about what I would like to do with those new widgets. I used to write fairly detailed campaign documents spelling out what was and wasn’t going to be used in the campaign, sometimes explaining how some of the books we wanted to use were on the table, but some specific options inside it are off limits. I can focus a lot more on other topics like theme, lines and veils, and people and locations the PCs want to include in the game. A Note on Finding What You Want Most functions that interact with images have an internet search associated with it. If you look for a token for a monster, you can use a single click to search the web based on the name of the game object. For example, I imported Strahd’s stat block as a test, and it was very easy to find an image of Strahd. It was also very easy to find alternate artwork of a swarm of bats, which I could switch to when Strahd changes form. I could also find general map terrain easily using simple search terms. If you find terrain images you can create a grid at whatever scale you want, and if you have a gridded map, there is a template you can use to measure the size of your grid that resizes the map based on that template and where you line it up. All this works well, and if you’re not running a professional game, or raising money for your actual play based on streaming your videos, its probably not a problem. That said, there are tons of resources for maps in the Marketplace, as well as frames and token images. It’s also worth noting that all of the 5e SRD creatures have assigned images that are pretty functional as well. What I’m Really Enjoying There are a number of functions I really like on Shard that make it very attractive to use to run a 5e SRD based game. Customizing available character options Easily modified standard content Subscription options if you want access to Kobold Press material Powerful import tools for monster and spell stat blocks Easy to modify encounters Quick transition into initiative Damage and conditions are easily applied Easy to interact with rerolls that interact with dice pools Can save customized game elements to be used persistently Highly customizable character sheet appearance Automatically assign treasure and XP Can save completed encounters to a journal to be referenced later Ability to create a custom ruleset from multiple options Can upload sounds and play them during encounters Developers active on the Discord and quick to respond not just to bugs, but modeling questions What I Wish I Didn’t Have to Contend With There are still some aspects of the VTT that I’m not particularly deft at navigating, and there are some things I wish were available or worked differently. No official D&D support Limited 3rd party 5e SRD support Learning curve to understand some of the terminology in the ruleset It’s easy to pull spells or monsters from a different ruleset than intended Limited tools for controlling sound clips, outside of manually starting and stopping No 3-D capability, which makes it look a little less shiny than other VTTs No dynamic lighting, so all visibility on maps must be done manually Easy to accidentally mass delete items from your personalize content (ask me how I know) Its easy to accidentally mark artwork as a different type of artwork, locking it out of what you want to use it for (for example, marking something as a background instead of a map) The map and encounter building tools work well, but you need to understand books and how adventures are structured to utilize it Final Thoughts I said a long time ago that a VTT built for a specific RPG is going to be better for running that game than one that tries to accommodate multiple, potentially very different game systems. Shard is a proof of concept of that statement. I’m really impressed with what I can do with Shard. I said a long time ago that a VTT built for a specific RPG is going to be better for running that game than one that tries to accommodate multiple, potentially very different game systems. Shard is a proof of concept of that statement. Like a lot of robust toolsets, there are times you can get lost in the options, but I feel more like it’s a matter of understanding terminology instead of learning a structure that is overly cumbersome. I would love to see more 3rd party 5e SRD companies convert material for this VTT. I realize that takes time and effort, but I feel like the people at Shard understand how to implement what appears in these supplements better than some other VTTs that sometimes feel like they are snowed under trying to get a large number of systems and supplements to play nice in their system. If you want a 5e VTT that lets you pick up and go, I can almost recommend Shard, but that’s going to depend on what products you want available in your campaign. If you want to engage with Kobold Press material, you’re solid. If you’re a fan of some of the other 3rd party 5e SRD companies that have been gaining momentum over the last few years, or you really want official D&D content, I don’t know if the ease of use in game will offset time you need to take to set things up, even if you can set things up exactly the way you want them. But if you’re the type of person that has a favorite font, and you know exactly how big you want your cells to be in a spreadsheet, and you have default conditional formatting you like to apply, I think this is going to be something that will be very rewarding (it’s me, I’m talking about me).

“I’m just following the rules” is often the GM’s version of “I’m just doing what my character would do.” The rules of your game are not objective or unbiased, so you can't be either of those things when arbitrating RAW. In the latest installment of Earning Their Trust, we'll look at how you can be unbiased yet fair and work with your players to create an unforgettable game.

And here we come to the end, the final article in the Earning Their Trust series (see parts one and two, respectively.) This is the last planned entry into the series, but like nearly every one-shot I’ve ever planned to run “in a single evening, I swear” the series might go over. That’s future Josh’s problem to worry about, though. Today, I want to tackle the idea of the GM as the blind arbiter of the rules, and how taking on that role can impact the trust your players have in you and your game. This is Not a Perfect World In a perfect world, every rule of every RPG system would be clear and unambiguous. The game developers would know exactly what they wanted to communicate and would do so with precision and in such a way as to be completely obvious when read by the players the very first time. Alas, we live in a world where even the roundness of our planet is (somehow) debated, and the languages we use to relay rules are about as precise as a clutch of ferrets writhing inside a trench coat. To that end, I would say that as a GM, there is no way you can be a completely objective judge of the rules and the system. After all, how can you be expected to make objective decisions when the rules themselves are not objective? Game developers do not write rules systems to create a perfectly fair simulation of a (made-up) reality. They write them to create a very particular kind of experience. D&D simulates traveling through dungeons and beating up monsters with your friends. Call of Cthulhu simulates investigating cosmic horrors and slowly (or not so slowly) losing control of your mental faculties…with your friends. Pasión de las Pasiones simulates over-the-top extra dramatic soap operas. With your friends. Isn’t “I’m just following the rules” the GM’s version of “I’m just doing what my character would do?” The point is that in order to simulate these experiences, the rules, as they’re written, cannot be objective. They have to prefer the desired experience. And so, as a GM, you can’t be objective either. I would argue, in fact, that you shouldn’t be, but we’ll get to that in a moment. The other part of the simulation I want to call out is the part where you do all of these things with your friends. Unless we’re talking about solo RPGs or journaling games, TTRPGs are social games. And your friends, I’m guessing, want to play a game with their friend too. Not a passionless judge beholden to the rules as written. If that were the case, you could all just play Baldur’s Gate 3 again. Punitive Parent VS “Cool Mom” GM The problem with viewing the GM as the impartial arbiter is that the GM creates the situations and scenarios the players have to overcome to begin with. They can’t be an unbiased judge because there’s no third party in this equation. There’s the players, and there’s the GM. There’s an inherent power imbalance if the person who put them in the situations is also in charge of making the rulings about those situations. Now, you might try to ignore the reality of that imbalance and think to yourself, “This doesn’t apply to me. I’m able to remove my emotional connection to the campaign scenarios I spent hours creating and make fair and balanced rulings.” But I promise you, at some point – despite your best intentions – there will come a day when you have to say to your players, “I’m sorry it went that way for you, but I’m just following the rules.” And really, isn’t “I’m just following the rules” the GM’s version of “I’m just doing what my character would do?” Of course, on the flip side of that, you’ve got what I call the “Cool Mom GM.” You know, the one who’s not like all those other GMs. They let you take sips of their wine and give you magical artifact weapons when you’re still level two. They also never let anything bad happen to their players, regardless of what the rules say. This play style might be fun for a little while, but eventually, players will get bored if all they do is – as DJ Khaled says – win, win, win, no matter what. So where does that leave us? Well, following the rules you set out at the start of a game – including your choice of systems, the house rules of your table, and the boundaries set forth in session zero – will, without a doubt, help you earn your players’ trust, but knowing how and when to break the rules will help you keep it. Let’s look at how to do that. Bringing Balance to the Force How do you use the rules in a fair but biased way? You lean into the experience. Like I said above, TTRPG rules aren’t written to be reality simulators. They’re written to be experience simulators. In other words, you’ve got to use the – dare I say it – spirit of the rule, not the letter. What does that look like? Well, let’s take an example from Pathfinder 2nd Edition (pre-remaster). There was a lot of debate over the wording in the death and dying subsystem about when and how the wounded condition was applied. The rules could be read one of two ways, and depending on how they were read, the system was a lot more or a lot less deadly. So, how do you use the experience simulation to make your ruling? Ask yourself the kind of Pathfinder game you’re running. Is your campaign a high adventure with lots of swashed buckles and feats of derring-do? Rule for the more lenient interpretation. If, on the other hand, you’re going for a gritty campaign where the threat of death is omnipresent. Well, the choice is simple. Not every ruling you make will be this clear cut, but if the experience – not the RAW – is your guiding light, then you’ll be able to navigate the turbulent seas. And, if you do this with consideration to your players’ characters and the stories they’re building (see the first and second parts in this series), then you’re going to solidify the trust you’ve been building up the whole campaign. In Conclusion, Your Honor When it comes right down to it, it’s all about showing your players that you’re working with them to interpret the rules of your game, not against them. That doesn’t mean saying yes to everything they ask for or assuming that their interpretation is correct and yours is wrong. It means knowing when a rule interpretation benefits the story you’re building. Together. I think you’ll find, when everyone at the table has trust in each other, those stories are going to be freakin’ epic.

At my table, a few weeks ago, the characters were outside the lair of a nefarious being, preparing to breach and assault. Before they did, one of the players announced that they wanted their character to do a quick recon, a very prudent idea. I was just about to request a Sneak check when I […]

At my table, a few weeks ago, the characters were outside the lair of a nefarious being, preparing to breach and assault. Before they did, one of the players announced that they wanted their character to do a quick recon, a very prudent idea. I was just about to request a Sneak check when I paused and decided against a roll, and instead just told him what he found by scouting. The sneak check would have been interesting to see if they did or did not get seen by the guards, but the better action for the evening was inside the lair – not having some skirmish outside. So I handwaved the roll to move the action along. I did it because I have recently begun to think that not everything in a game needs a roll. Let’s talk about it. The Nature Of Rolling We should start by talking about what a roll does in a game. It applies to a skill check and holds for a combat roll, save, etc. When the game mechanics require us to roll a die, an element of uncertainty is introduced into the scene. The die emulates the somewhat randomness of life and is often buffered by bonuses representing our skill, acumen, etc, to make what would be totally random somewhat more predictable. Randomness creates uncertainty and in turn, creates excitement. We don’t know what will happen when we let go of that die. Will it be a success or a failure? That excitement creates emotional investment, in a very similar way that the roll of dice in a Craps game or the release of the Roulette ball does in gambling. If an RPG had no rolls, it would lack that excitement of uncertainty. Conversely, if you have to roll for everything it can be tedious. This is why many games tell you that you don’t need to make an Agility check to walk across the street. Only Roll When Its Interesting Over time, we evolved a GMing convention which has made its way into the mechanics of more modern games. It states something along the lines of, “Only roll when both success and failure are interesting.” Solid convention. Let’s consider it the 101 level. The idea behind this convention is that if only one outcome of a roll is exciting, then you have a 50% chance of the roll being exciting vs it being boring. I have personally experienced this in a Pathfinder game (not its fault) where I tried three times to force a door of a storeroom open, and upon finally doing it, found out it only contained some grain. Honestly, neither outcome was exciting, and it came off like a giant waste of time. Not All Interesting Rolls Are Equally Interesting Let’s jump up to the 201 level and say that even if both outcomes are interesting, a given roll may not be as interesting as another roll soon. Go back to my intro. Scouting around the lair is an interesting roll, if successful you are not seen and gain some useful information. If failed, you are seen by guards and a fight ensues. It’s interesting and a valid check to call for at the table. But… Once the party enters the lair, there is a whole bunch of cool encounters awaiting them, with cool opponents, etc. Those checks to move through the lair and to fight those creatures are far more exciting. That said, we could amend our interesting roll rule to say something like: Only roll when both success and failure are the most interesting things to happen in the next few minutes. The main point of this evolution of thought is to maintain focus on the main plot of the story and to help the main plot progress. This tool streamlines extraneous encounters, potential red herrings (from failed rolls), and roadblocks to the story. It is best used when you want to drive the game forward. Only roll when both success and failure are the most interesting things to happen in the next few minutes. It works well when you are time-constrained, like in a convention game, or you want to get into the “meat” of the story. Some Other Reasons Not To Roll Let’s go to the 301 level and talk about some other reasons why you may just want to pass on an interesting roll. These reasons all have the same effect as above, to move us closer to the “good stuff”, but also support some other parts of the game. Don’t call for that interesting roll (roll for brevity) when… It distracts from the plot If one of the outcomes of the roll will send the players down a tangent that pulls them away from the main storyline, which could result in significant time spent doing something other than moving the main plot forward “If you fail this roll, you will attract the attention of the city guard, and you will have to fight or evade them before you can get into the temple” It breaks the genre of the game Game settings sometimes have genre conventions, things that we expect to happen because of the genre we are in. If the roll is going to potentially break with the genre, then pass “You are a group of ninjas sneaking onto a roof at night. Roll to see if you are heard” If it is something reasonable the character can do This is an evolution of the idea of not requiring a character to make an Agility test to cross the street. The idea is that if a character is reasonably competent in something, just give them the successful outcome. I find this especially useful in knowledge/skill checks. “Your character has a 75% in art history. Yea…this painting is a forgery”. There Are Other Ways To Solve This Problem Not calling for rolls is a tool, like a screwdriver. It does not solve every case that comes up in a game, rather it solves some cases. There are other techniques for making rolls more interesting or relevant, like re-framing the check or changing the stakes. Sometimes it is better to use those in your session. When they are, use them. Or Don’t Use the Screwdriver Your personal preference as a GM or player may be to make all the interesting checks and see where the game unfolds. This is a more organic approach, leaning into the natural randomness of the game. There is nothing wrong with that approach. That style of play can be less focused but equally fun. Make a…nah nevermind The die roll is a key part of most RPGs. The roll is a moment of uncertainty, that can bring about excitement and drive emotional investment in the game. There is nothing quite like a nat 20. Game systems often give good guidelines for when to call for rolls, but most only give the 101 instructions. With time and an understanding of the flow of games, you can use the 201 and 301 versions of this rule to move the story towards more interesting action. Do you call for every interesting roll, or do you let some pass? What kinds of rolls are you more likely to let pass?

Join Ang, Josh and Carl Lehman as they talk about setting stakes for your games and how to keep your players and their characters invested and involved.

https://polygamero.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/GC_198_Stakes_final.mp3 Join Ang, Josh and Carl Lehman as they talk about setting stakes for your games and how to keep your players and their characters invested and involved. LINKS: The MMO Acronym Accident Fabula Ultima Symphony Entertainment The Last Journey Home Stream Obsidian

While it’s sometimes fun to flip open a bestiary or monster manual to find a random monster to throw at the PCs, when you’re planning a boss for your party to face, it’s best to put some thought and care into the selection. You might even go so far as to make the boss of […]

While it’s sometimes fun to flip open a bestiary or monster manual to find a random monster to throw at the PCs, when you’re planning a boss for your party to face, it’s best to put some thought and care into the selection. You might even go so far as to make the boss of the adventure a full-fledged and statted-out NPC using the typical character creation rules instead of relying on the sparse monster stat block in the book. How much prep you put into the boss is up to you, and is, quite honestly, an entirely different article than this one. Regardless of how much prep you put into the boss, they should support the themes of your story, have their own styles, speak in a recognizable manner, and have a reason to be the leader of the mooks the PCs will be facing. Support Your Theme Bosses should be thematic as well. The boss (or bosses) of your adventure should support the overall theme and tone of the story you’re presenting to your players. If you have an adventure about rescuing a kidnapped ice pixie, then having a fire-based boss as the main opponent would feel appropriate because of the opposing forces at play. However, if you have a gang of intelligent raiders capable of intricate planning and execution of their schemes, then having a lower-intelligent creature (like an ogre) as the leader of the raiders wouldn’t quite make sense. If your theme is one of romance, then a swashbuckling, sword-wielding, bright-eyed person might fall right in line with reflecting the themes and tones of your story. If you’re going more for space-based horror, then the boss might be the queen xenomorph that has infested a space station or colony. Style and Affectations Add some style to your bosses! Let’s talk about two different appearances and styles using the examples I just put in the prior section. The swashbuckling swordsman (or swordswoman) will likely have fancy, bright, ornate clothing to go along with their flashy sword moves. There will be layers of clothing that are different colors and hues, but the combination of colors won’t clash or look gaudy (to most people). The colors will look wonderful and amazing on them. Something that catches the eye, really. They’ll most likely have a handkerchief readily available for dabbing at minor wounds or wiping away tears from a heartbroken lover. They’ll be kind and gentle in all appearances and approaches…. Until it’s time to draw blood, then they’ll be deadly serious. The queen xenomorph, on the other hand, will be all scales and carapace and fangs and acidic drool. Odds are, the xenomorphs will blend in with the darkness of space, which means they’ll be black and shades of dark gray, except for their teeth, which will clearly show in dim light. The queen will most likely not speak the PCs language, if she speaks at all. She might be intelligent, but incapable of forming proper words with her fang-filled mouth. Just because she can’t speak doesn’t mean she’s at animalistic intelligence. Speech Patterns Speech patterns aren’t just accents. I’m with Phil in this area in that I can’t do quality accents for a great length of time, so I don’t try at all. However, there’s more to speech patterns than the accents. Word choice, emphasis, and inflection can play into establishing a character’s style and imprinting on the players’ memories. If you’ve ever read the Darksword trilogy (technically there are now 4 books, not counting the RPG effort) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, then you’ll be aware of speech patterns from a few different characters. Saryon is hesitant, halting even, in his speech because he lacks confidence. Joram speaks bluntly and to the point because of how he was raised. There is one character that when you see his dialogue, you know it’s him. That’s Simkin. He is, I’m pretty sure, the only character in all that lengthy tale that uses the word, “egad,” in his dialogue. There are other examples as well. When you read Simkin’s dialogue, you just know who is speaking because of the word choices and cadence of speech. What does this have to do with your boss? Well, you can make the boss stand out by letting most NPCs and mooks and such have similar speech patterns, but break the mold and have your boss speak in a different manner. Give them some flair or special way of talking. A way that allows the PCs to identify them in just a few syllables. It’ll drive home the uniqueness and special nature of the boss. Leadership Who is in charge? Why? Why is the boss the boss? Why are they leading? The best way to approach this is to give them a driving purpose and goal (along with some motivations, eh?) that are more important and powerful than those of the lieutenants and mooks that follow the leader. People tend to follow leaders that have a clear vision and purpose. If someone is “in charge” but doesn’t really have a desire to drive a mission or objection forward, they’re probably not going to be “in charge” for very long. Nature abhors a vacuum. Likewise, followers abhor a lack of leadership and direction. This means you need to give your mooks a reason to follow the leader into perilous situations. Otherwise, the foundation of your story will crack, crumble, and sag. Conclusion I hope you enjoyed this sixth installment of this series. We’re about halfway through now, and I’m looking forward to talking about the mooks that follow your boss in next month’s article.

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This week, YouTuber Rosanna Pansino found moldy cheese in Lunchlys, the Lunchables competitor that counts MrBeast and Logan Paul among its creators. Also, developer Fntastic, which made waves last year when its game The Day Before, once one of the most wishlisted games on Steam, was released and found to be nothing…

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It’s the final weekend of October as time marches on, and you might be spending your weekend at Halloween parties or mentally preparing for Dragon Age: The Veilguard next week. But if you’re not doing any of the above, you might have an open couple of days to get some game time in. There are some pretty big games out…

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The MCU’s favorite web-crawler will return to theaters in 2026. Spider-Man 4 will debut shortly after Avengers: Doomsday that year, with star Tom Holland confirming that production will begin mid-2025.

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Surprise! According to Steve Asbell, the head of Disney-owned 20th Century Studios, Predator Badlands isn’t the only Predator film releasing in 2025. Oh, and we might get another Alien Vs. Predator film, too.

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Greater Rifts had a major place in the endgame of Diablo III, and Diablo IV has its own version; The Pit Of The Artificer. While The Pit has been around previously, the unlocks and rewards have changed in the last couple of months. If you are getting into the endgame, here is how you can unlock these short, difficult,…

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One thing to know about me is that I love a costume with a concept. Halloween, when you’re an adult, is no longer about candy, it’s about serving and wowing people with your commitment to the bit. The holiday is still a week away, so it’s still anyone’s game, but it’s one Sonic the Hedgehog fan’s race to lose right…

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Fallout Day, a holiday made up in celebration of the in-game date that the bombs dropped and ushered in the post-apocalyptic era of the popular RPG series, has come and gone. This year, Bethesda used the occasion to make a slew of announcements about the immediate future of Fallout 76, the now-good MMO that the studio…

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EA Sports College Football 25 was a hit before it was even fully released. It went on to become the best-selling game of the year so far, beating out Helldivers 2 and and Madden NFL 25. Now, it’s taking a victory lap with another massive update and the addition of an in-game generative AI tool.

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The Saw series is best known for its elaborate death traps. By the time the series was ending its original seven-film run in 2010, Jigsaw’s elaborate mechanisms designed to mutilate and maim people the serial killer deemed worthy of such torment had become as much characters as their victims. Despite Saw X’s…

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Team Fortress 2 launched back in 2007 and since then Valve has continued to update the class-based FPS, though not always as frequently as fans might want. And during all those updates over nearly two decades, a bug involving Blu Team Scout’s pants being the wrong color was never fixed. That changed yesterday.

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Starting a new show on Netflix is always a gamble. The streamer has a habit of just gruesomely canceling shows, even when they have great ratings and are adored by their audience. (Kaos, I’m still mourning you.) There rarely seems to be any rhyme or reason, making it such a risk to invest in an ongoing story. However,…

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Across over a decade, from its inception in 2008 until 2019, Marvel released 23 films in what is now known as the Infinity Saga. The overarching story saw Earth’s mightiest heroes battle Thanos, a mad titan obsessed with bringing balance to the universe. But one of the biggest omissions from the comic on which the…

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Whenever Stardew Valley comes up in everyday conversation, it’s always alongside terminology like “cozy” and “casual.” You never hear anyone call the game “sexy.” Why not? Well, for starters, it’s because the game’s made entirely of pixel art, which doesn’t allow for much experimentation or sexualization…Or does it?…

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Earlier this week, I felt a feeling I hadn’t felt in a long while: I was looking forward to the release of a Call of Duty game. Black Ops 6, the latest installment in the long-running Call of Duty sub-series, has spent the last several months hyping up audiences about all of its changes and innovations, like its…

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Over the last 20 years, a lot has changed in the video game industry. Online multiplayer live-service games have become more and more popular, 2D platformers have become less common, console games based on movies aren’t really a thing anymore, and we get a lot more remasters.

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It’s the 20th Anniversary of World of Warcraft, and Blizzard’s long-standing fantasy MMORPG is celebrating with, among other things, an extremely luxe mount. Say hello to the Gilded Brutosaur, which will cost you $90. That’s more than Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, or roughly the equivalent of six months of subscription…

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Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero’s massive 180+ character roster isn’t exactly balanced, which fans are admittedly happy with. Helping to offset (or further expand) these differences are various Ability Items that provide characters with helpful buffs. One of, if not the rarest Ability Item is called Broly’s Ring, and it’s…

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After years of having an assembly line of Star Wars movies and TV shows, the galaxy far, far away feels like it’s slowing down. A previously announced—but still untitled—spin-off starring Daisy Ridley’s Rey from the Force Awakens trilogy is the latest project to hit snags. The movie has reportedly lost another writer,…

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Capcom has been knocking it out of the park with its horror remakes in recent years (perhaps with the exception of Resident Evil 3, though I still enjoyed that one immensely). If you look at titles such as Resident Evil 4 and Resident Evil 2, they clearly know how to modernize famous franchises for today’s audiences,…

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Diablo IV has eight levels of difficulty, but the highest four are locked when you begin the game. If you are jumping into Diablo because of Vessel Of Hatred, and wondering how you’res supposed to access this higher tier, here is how you unlock Torment difficulty, where the endgame begins.

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Amazon’s live-action adaptation of Sega’s hit Like a Dragon series has finally landed, and the show is already making waves. Titled Like a Dragon: Yakuza, the gritty crime drama follows the series’ longtime protagonist Kazuma Kiryu across two timelines: one as a teenage orphan in 1995, and the other as a hardened…

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Balatro is a very, very good game. We’ve established that a few times here at Kotaku. And now, for all you folks still playing the roguelike poker game, a new update has added some fresh crossover cards featuring characters from Stardew Vally, Cyberpunk 2077, and Slay The Spire.

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The third big update for Star Wars Outlaws is finally here with promised improvements to stealth, NPC AI, and more. Unfortunately, the patch has also messed up how the game looks on PlayStation 5, with players reporting screen tearing issues that break the immersion of its normally gorgeous-looking open worlds.

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Overwatch 2 announced it was considering testing out a return to its original 6v6 format after swapping to its current, controversial 5v5 structure back when the sequel launched in 2022. Now, it sounds like that test is coming up sooner than originally expected, as Blizzard has announced it will bring back the format…

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The first patch for Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero is out and it has demolished Yajirobe players even more ruthlessly than that Saibaman wasted Yamcha. There is no coming back from this nerf, bean daddies. But at least the game runs better now due to some menu improvements and other bug fixes, even if a corrupted save…

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With only two episodes left until the end of the season, Agatha All Along simply refuses to stop throwing twists and reveals at viewers. Episode seven of the Disney+ MCU series is no different, even one-upping the amazing reveals that have come before. The mic drop of Aubrey Plaza’s character’s true identity may be…

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Over the last few years, Peely, a disturbing anthropomorphized banana, has become Fortnite’s de facto mascot. We here at Kotaku don’t like that. This creepy bastard keeps coming back, even after death. So we are all happy to learn that Fortnite has finally skinned and flayed Peely. The bastard deserved it.

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AMD TechTalk provides insight on data center to edge innovation that helps IT managers optimize today's deployments and tomorrow's infrastructure planning. Hosted by AMD's director of server competitive marketing, Jim Greene, and featuring leading technologists from AMD and the industry, AMD TechTalk features discussion on servers, cloud computing, AI, HPC and more.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Steen Graham, founder of Metrum AI, to explore the evolving world of AI infrastructure, testing, and enterprise solutions.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Mahdi Ghodsi, Director of Engineering at Aupera Technologies about how edge AI is transforming video processing across industries like retail, security, and smart cities.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Eric Herzog, CMO of Infinidat about how it leverages cutting-edge technology to revolutionize enterprise storage, AI, and cybersecurity.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Linda Yang, the Senior Solution Manager at Supermicro about the transformative impact of AI on computing infrastructure and the sustainable innovative solutions Supermicro is providing to meet these demands.

TechTalk Host Jim Greene chats with Meena Arunachalam, AMD's AI Systems Engineering Director and Fellow, about how RAG is paving a simpler path to AI adoption in the enterprise and delivering capability to ensure an enterprise-class reliability to AI solutions.

Tech Talk host Jim Greene chats with Alan Czeszynski, VP of Product at BeeKeeperAI, about how BeeKeeperAI's EscrowAI platform enables secure collaboration between algorithm developers and data stewards, preserving data privacy and intellectual property. Jim and Alan explore the technology, its applications across industries, and the future of AI and data security.

TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Robert Daigle, Director of Global AI Business at Lenovo about how AI is evolving in the enterprise, challenges organizations are currently facing to deploy AI solutions, gaps in sustainable infrastructure solutions, and how Lenovo is positioning itself to help customers deploy technology right sized for responsible delivery of AI at scale.

TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Oii co-founder and CEO, Bob Rogers, about how his organization is tapping AI to bring new levels of insight and control to supply chains, and how infrastructure optimization is critical to fully unleash the potential of Oii solutions.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with the VP of Sales and Alliances at RadiusAI, Robert Hubbard, about how they're transforming the retail checkout game with AMD EPYC CPUs. With AI-assisted checkout, RadiusAI is lowering shrink and food waste, and increasing employee retention and customer satisfaction.

AMD TechTalk host talks with Oracle's VP of Mission-Critical Database Product Management, Ashish Ray, about how his organization is shaping the future of enterprise data management and how Oracle is tapping AMD EPYC processors to deliver the performance required by enterprise customers.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Chaos' Director of Media and Entertainment and Strategic Products, Albena Ivanova about how her company is disrupting the world of media and entertainment with new software capabilities that tap AMD EPYC performance.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Geico's Rebecca Weekly about how her organization tackles compute innovation to serve corporate requirements and customer needs and how AI's advancement represents new opportunity for IT innovation

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with GigaIO CEO Alan Benjamin about his company's unique take on delivering SUPERNODE, a scalable platform alternative that fast tracks company deployment of AI workloads.

TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with IronYun's Paul Sun about how his company is infusing AI into analytics solutions that yield breakthrough results for customers and how the IronYun team has worked with AMD to deliver improved performance and efficiency for customer deployments.

TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Ateme's Director of Technology and Standards, Jan Outters, about how the company is transforming media delivery with AI infused encoding innovation.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Altair's Fatma Kocer-Poyraz about how her company is driving unique engineering solutions to market by tapping the confluence of AI and data science.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with Ansys's Wim Slagter about how his company is tapping AI to improve simulation and comments on the deep collaboration between Ansys and AMD in driving the highest performance solutions to customers.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene sits down with Cadence's Dan Lee to discuss the Spectre simulation suite and how the company is helping to advance silicon design with the help of AMD EPYC processor performance.

TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with AMD's Server Solutions Group CVP Ravishankar Kuppuswamy about changing computing requirements in the AI era and how AMD EPYC processors will deliver core capabilities to customers as they implement generative AI models.

AMD Tech Talk host Jim Greene chat's with Hexagon's Vicky Tsianika about the company's multi-physics and fluid dynamics solutions, how these markets are being re-shaped by AI, and how Hexagon has tapped AMD EPYC processors to fuel improved performance for their customers.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with security expert Sally Eaves on the latest requirements for data center security in the AI era and how a hardware root of trust is becoming even more important for trusted environments.

AMD TechTalk host Jim Greene chats with IT veteran Ramki Balasubramanian about challenges facing IT professionals with today's workloads and how his organization approaches infrastructure modernization including use of AMD EPYC processors.

TechTalk host Jim Greene chat's with Clarify 360 analyst Jo Peterson on her view of the state of data center security, new opportunities and threats posed by AI, and how a hardware root of trust can help data center managers best protect their organizations.

AMD Tech Talk host Jim Greene chats with Cloudflare VP Rebecca Weekly about her organization's challenges in delivering to customer demands at the edge, where industry innovation is headed to deliver the performance required to fuel AI workloads, and how her company has tapped AMD EPYC processors to fuel innovation.

AMD Tech Talk host Jim Greene chats with Charles Luzzato, SIMULIA Industrial Equipment Industry Process Director, at Dassault Systèmes about how SIMULIA taps data to improve data center performance and efficiency, and how AMD EPYC processors deliver a performance foundation for SIMULIA deployments.

AMD Tech Talk host Dylan Larson sits down with tech guru Jason Collier to chat about the realities of managing virtualized environments and how AMD EPYC platforms can help IT managers drive innovation into the enterprise.

In this episode, TechTalk host Dylan Larson chats with Lynn Comp, AMD Vice President of Server Technology Marketing, about the unique opportunity new infrastructure represents in freeing IT resources for innovation.

TechTalk host sits down with the TechArena's Allyson Klein to discuss performance characteristics of multi-cloud environments and infrastructure evolution with the shift to distributed computing environments across cloud and edge.

AMD TechTalk host Dylan Larson chat's with CTO Advisor Keith Townsend on the hidden costs of IT inaction in modernizing data center infrastructure and what can be done to spur innovation.

In this episode AMD TechTalk host Dylan Larson chats with AMD's Server System Architect Mahesh Wagh about disruptive innovation coming to server platforms and how technologies like CXL will create new opportunity for memory capacity scaling and system design flexibility. Learn more at www.amd.com

Video Game Reviews, Features, and Gaming News

Sonic X Shadow Generations contains both a stellar remaster of one of the best Sonic games and an excellent Shadow the Hedgehog-oriented campaign that paints an exciting and optimistic future for the 3D side of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. Sonic X Shadow Generations Developer: Sonic Team Price: $50 Platforms: PS4, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox One, […]

Double Exposure is the process of layering two different exposures on the same image and when done with the same framing, can create a cool and surreal effect. It’s also the subtitle of the latest entry in the Life is Strange series, taken over by Deck Nine games, and finally starring our favorite protagonist from […]

[REDACTED] offers fluid and incredibly fast-paced action in a roguelite mode that balances difficulty and upgrades quite well. The focus on speed and urgency drives much of the tension, which makes each run still feel important since you not only need to complete it but do it fast. The narrative is light and doesn’t offer […]

Super Mario Party Jamboree has an excellent main mode, but the focus on side content has created a bloated package. Too many minigames are designed only for side modes, making the main Mario Party mode feel like it lacks variety. To add insult to injury, none of these side modes achieve a quality high enough […]

Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered is a fascinating and slightly dated game that is unlike anything else out there. The story and humor can be a bit rough, but the shooting and main characters are incredibly fun. If you’re already into Grasshopper’s games, this one is worth a revisit or a first-time romp. Shadows […]

We’re thrilled to have gotten a chance to speak with Shinichi Tatsuke, producer of Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven the other day, to get to pick his brain on the latest SaGa game. Also, be sure to check out Frank’s glowing review of the game as well. Do you see any series that […]

You’re on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a console version of the popular visual novel Slay the Princess. I have to commend Black Tabby Games for the quick turnaround on getting Slay the Princess out to consoles. […]

The SaGa series is near and dear to my heart, with SaGa Frontier 1 & 2 being two of my favorite games on the PlayStation 1. The series has a notorious reputation for being hard to get into with not a ton of entries in the series being what one would call a good entry […]

Shin chan: Shiro and the Coal Town is a ridiculously charming and relaxing game that perfectly fuses the appeal of Shin chan with an addictive but laid-back gameplay loop. Some might find it a bit slow, but if you need a game to wind down with, this is the one for you. Shin chan: Shiro […]

Wizards of the Coast has recently revealed the upcoming Marvel-themed Magic: The Gathering cards that were originally teased late last year. The upcoming set will be part of a Secret Lair drop and will go on sale on November 4. In true Secret Lair fashion, players will able to purchase from a variety of different […]

N4G: news feed

According to a Halo Studios dev, a PC port of Halo 5 was being considered but was ultimately scrapped due to technical issues.

Exactly what Call of Duty multiplayer should be: fast, fun, and a little ridiculous.

Black Ops 6 is off to a great start with data from the US and UK trickling in

Making your way through levels when youre on a mission can be as repetitive as its combat, as youll frequently be stopped to slot some magical key into the lock that opens your way in a process so simple it cant really be called a puzzle. But outside of structured missions, navigating the world is far more exciting. Hidden puzzles are scattered about, offering rewards in the form of new gear and, more importantly, a sense of accomplishment. With far less guidance and more ability to choose how you proceed, wandering the world between quests can be just as fulfilling as saving it. It helps that The Veilguard is full of staggering beautiful vistas no matter where you find yourself in its sprawling setting.

GamesRadar+: "Life is Strange Double Exposure draws you into a mystery full of intriguing twists and turns in a fresh university setting. The new shifting ability that allows for parallel timeline hopping works well in the context of a murder investigation, but can make it harder to feel like you're truly connecting with the characters. Overall, Max's return feels like it finds its feet towards the end, and is building towards something bigger."

Richard writes: "Remnant II: The Dark Horizon represents a somewhat disappointing end to the games post-release content."

The Veilguard is a structurally sound action RPG, but it spends more time trying to be a summer blockbuster flick than a compelling game.

XBA says: Better late than never for console players, a relaunch worth retelling.

Ahead of the release of Vampire Survivors' Ode to Castlevania DLC, Pocket Tactics got the rare opportunity to chat to Luca Galante about his indie hit.

"The time has finally arrived! Players: unpack your paintbrushes and prepare to bring colour to a monochXromatic landscape in "Torchlight: Infinites sixth season: The Frozen Canvas." - XD Games.

Your source for news, information, product releases, events, sports, entertainment & exclusive content relating to Xbox

Starting today, we are excited to announce that a new Home experience is available in the Xbox app on Windows for Xbox Insiders! We are improving the Xbox app on Windows by making it faster and easier to find your next favorite game. We’ve listened to your feedback and have been testing different designs internally […]

The post New Home Experience in the Xbox App on Windows Is Available for Xbox Insiders appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Starting today, we are excited to announce that a new Home experience is available in the Xbox app on Windows for Xbox Insiders! We are improving the Xbox app on Windows by making it faster and easier to find your next favorite game. We’ve listened to your feedback and have been testing different designs internally over the last several months. Our goal is to create a unified Home experience that combines the best and latest content from both the Game Pass and Microsoft Store tabs, so you can easily find what you love without having to jump between tabs. All Xbox players on Windows will benefit from Home, whether you play with Game Pass or purchase your games individually. Home brings you the latest games, news, curated recommendations, free-to-play content, and deals. Check out the new Home tab and let us know your thoughts by completing this short 2-minute survey available here. Your feedback will be used to inspire future updates and plans as we continue to evolve. Now, let’s take a look at some of the updates that you can expect to see in Home starting today. New Home highlights Featured content. At-a-glance view for you stay up to date on exciting game releases, new events, content available with Game Pass, sales, and more! Deals and discounts. No more navigating through the app to find the latest deals and discounts. The new Home will now have collections with the best deals and discounts to make sure you can see available savings at a glance. Note: Prices shown are for illustrative purpose only and may vary. Curated collections and recommendations. Find games that are perfect for you with collections curated and personalized for you. Spend less time searching and more time playing games. Note: Prices shown are for illustrative purpose only and may vary. Jump back in (available with compact mode). In May, we tested Jump back in as part of the Game Pass tab experience. This feature allows players in Compact Mode to click on any game card shown, allowing them to go directly to its game hub, where you can jump right back into game play. Today, we are excited to add this feature as part of the new Home experience for all Xbox Insiders. How to get Xbox Insider support and share your feedback If you’re an Xbox Insider looking for support, please join our community on the Xbox Insider subreddit. Official Xbox staff, moderators, and fellow Xbox Insiders are there to help. We recommend adding to threads with the same topic before posting a brand new one. This helps us support you the best we can! Also, you can provide direct feedback to Team Xbox by following the steps here under the “Report a problem online” section. If you aren’t part of the Xbox Insider Program yet and want to help create the future of Xbox and get early access to new features, join the Program today by downloading the Xbox Insider Hub for Xbox Series X|S & Xbox One or Windows PC. For more information on the Xbox Insider Program, follow us on Twitter at @XboxInsider. Keep an eye on future Xbox Insider Release Notes for more information regarding the PC Gaming Preview. Note: This feature is being made available to Xbox Insiders enrolled in the PC Gaming Preview. The post New Home Experience in the Xbox App on Windows Is Available for Xbox Insiders appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The post Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Building A Rook That Truly Feels Like Yours appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Category: Games October 28, 2024 Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Building A Rook That Truly Feels Like Yours Xbox Wire Staff Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches on Xbox Series X|S this week on October 31, promising another magical adventure through the world of Thedas to pursue and take down a pair of corrupt ancient Elven gods. While The Veilguard follows on from the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition, this new story also offers a warm welcome to those new to the series. In an effort to truly experience the freedom of choice and consequence that Bioware games are heralded for, the Xbox Wire team sat down with The Veilguard to explore its character creation choices, lineage, and how early game decisions allow true player agency as you and Rook begin your journey to stop the Gods and assemble The Veilguard. Creating A Background Joe: In a story about Elven gods and eldritch artifacts, it struck me that I might get the most bang for my narrative buck by making… an elf who has a history hunting artifacts. Meet Jazeps Aldwin, a member of the treasure hunter/research organization, the Veil Jumpers, with a checkered past and a heart of gold. I found it easy to make those initial character choices, but I agonized over which class to take. A rogue was the natural choice – quick to sneak in and get to his goal. Equally, a warrior might embody his more heroic characteristics – Jazeps’ backstory has him leaving the Veil Jumpers after foregoing a magical map to save a group of trapped strangers. But mage tends to be where my heart lies in a fantasy RPG – so the question that beckoned was, do I take the class I want, or the role-playing choice I want? The answer lies in how varied those classes can be – I built a mage who could act the way this character might (more on that below). Even better, my role-playing choices didn’t end with the title screen – a short way into the game, Rook is given a room of their own at your party’s home, the Lighthouse, and you’re asked to decorate. As you do, Rook reminisces about their history before the events of the game. This let me define more about my Rook – even down to choices I thought were incidental, like why he has face tattoos. The result is a character who truly feels like mine. Danielle: As a fan of roguish, morally grey endeavours (in role-playing settings, of course) I too found myself leering towards similar choices to Joe, but with a darker twist. Enter Merula de Riva, an Elf Mage, and former member of the Antivan Crows, an elite group of assassins, thieves, and all-round bad eggs. I wanted to create a sort of “anti-hero,” a former faceless nobody suddenly – and reluctantly – tasked with saving the world from her own corrupt deities. Not only did The Veilguard allow me to build this background, but gave me the choice to decide how she evolves over time – remain stoic and militant in order to get the job done, or open herself up to the idea of companionship and kindness? Mike: Well, I wanted to be a Mage too. But since you both decided to jump into the magic user field ahead of me, I elected to see what it’s like to dual wield pointy things as a Rogue — I still went with Elf, however (you can’t take away all my choices). And while my racial traits would probably better be aligned with say, the Antivan Crows, I was curious to see how The Veilguard would support my character if I threw together some of the more unlikely pairings. My result is Aikahi Ingellvar, a swashbuckling assassin of the undead thanks to my alignment with the Mourn Watch and Lords of Fortune. I’m still playing with how I want to align my character on this adventure, but I do find myself being a bit more of a wise ass than necessary in most of my interactions, which has turned out to be a nice alleviation when the world around us is barrelling toward certain doom. Combat Choices Joe: As I mentioned above, choosing to play as a mage came down to the fact that The Veilguard offers some gratifyingly clear options for what kind of class you want to be. When picking a class, you can open a menu to see the three (very different) directions in which you can specialize your class and, for the mage, I spotted the Spellblade path. This turns what could be a “stand at the back and throw spells” character into a whirlwind of blades and elemental explosions. It felt like the perfect fit for my Veil Jumper – the attitude of a rogue with a magical know-how that felt appropriate. Danielle: Similar to Joe, I too gravitated towards the Spellblade class, the potent combination of lightning magic and deftly dodging between foes felt pretty comfortable for my character. However, feeling a little a burnt out from ‘zap the bads’ lately, I found myself having a little more fun with the Evoker path, that combines excellent long-range abilities and devastating cold damage. Having opted for a higher difficulty than usual, hurling huge damage from afar and, perhaps more crucially, being able to freeze speedy demons in their tracks, made for a powerful and rewarding combat experience. The ability to switch up your path at any time, respec abilities and try out new skills is also a welcome feature – while The Veilguard imposes plentiful weighty, narrative choices, the option to change up your combat style in line with how your Rook may be evolving makes for a truly immersive role-playing experience. And, cold heart, cold abilities, I suppose? Mike: One thing that struck me is that there isn’t really a default path here for the Mourn Watch in the early going, despite it being one of my pre-chosen allegiances. I was expecting to see some specific necromantic-like abilities from the get-go to tap into here, a specific direction that says “pick this, do this” to make your necromancer. So, I was pleasantly surprised to see that Veilguard approached this like, “Nah, just build the character how you want.” So that has left me constantly second-guessing my choices. So far, I’ve been focusing on trying to unlock Necrosis abilities, which deal damage over time against barriers, as I chart my path as necromancer rogue — no raising the dead spells just yet. I’ve also started to head down the path of the Lords of Fortune skill tree, which are skills that tend to lean on sabotage and support. But I also really like how it feels to cut down all these enemies with my dual-wielding swords, or to widdle enemies down from distance with my bow. As such, I’m finding myself extremely conflicted with what to do with my character still. I suspect I’ll be refunding some of my skill points a couple of times until I find a good balance between support, hindering abilities, and being able to unleash my blades upon the numerous enemies I’ve encountered. It’s too much choice! I love it. Player Agency and Choosing Sides Danielle: Throughout The Veilguard, I was presented with several decisions to make that often altered the course of my journey and the fate of my companions, some harbouring larger consequences than others. One particularly interesting element for me was how decisions from a roleplaying perspective can often clash with a choice made to serve your gameplay experience: Which character complements my fighting style the best? Who do I have to be nice to in order to unlock more of their skills? The aloofness I elected to take with my Rook somewhat reflected my own position as a newcomer to the series at first – with no preconceived notion of who and what these characters are like, the narrative choices I made in the earliest parts of the game were mainly driven by my gameplay. However, as I got to know these personalities, their stories and their personal plights, I found myself evolving from that frame of mind and truly caring about their fates, asking myself who Merula would gravitate towards or disagree with based on the personality that The Veilguard let me generously create. Joe: Danielle clearly has a far more artistic mind than me when it comes to this kind of game – most of my choices have been about making my Rook as funny and flippant as possible. Something I love about The Veilguard is that, while most conversation options include the prerequisite “Nice guy/nasty guy” choices, there’s also almost always an option to crack a joke. I’m enjoying directing my Rook to face the potential end of creation with a smile on his face. The same goes for my companions – while there are natural pairings (the game offers a combo system for abilities), I’m tending to choose who to take with me based on who’ll entertain me most as I go on my missions. I’m being rewarded – some of the banter between companions goes in directions I wouldn’t have expected. It can also be unexpectedly useful – only last night, I was travelling along a river and one of my companions repeated the classic bit of video game wisdom: “Want to check behind that waterfall? There’s often treasure there.” Readers, there was. Mike: Like I touched upon above, I’ve been flip-flopping a lot in this early phase of the game that I have sampled a variety of companion parings on my adventure – and they all seem to work great. I was worried at first that my choice as a Rogue wasn’t going to blend well with how many magic users assigned to my party in the early hours of the game. As a Rogue, I tend to enjoy complimenting myself alongside a tank (he comes along later, eventually). My concerns were unwarranted because these magic users are strong. Being able to unleash combined abilities like Fade Bolts with Ice Breaker attacks were more than powerful enough to let me do my own thing, either spinning up my blades or filling demons with arrows. Right now, we’re just absolutely ruining most of the enemies we encountered. Which was awesome. I suspect I’m a bit further behind Joe and Danielle’s adventure, so the larger narrative-driven choices have yet to really take shape for me. So, I’m still waiting to see how my treatment of one companion or another, or how I may have hurt the feelings of a Gray Warden will affect me in the longer term. But I’m interested in finding out. Needless to say, the freedom to build our Rook’s background, from surface details like their appearance to more granular components like their combat style, preferred weapons, moral alignment and favoured alliances made for an incredible starting point that put us all in total ownership of our own adventures and the choices within it. What’s even better, is that you’re not totally tied to these starting picks – your character is free to evolve as you see fit, whether that’s down to tense narrative decisions, or just an urge to switch up your combat style and abilities. The only question that remains is – what kind of Rook will you be? Dragon Age: The Veilguard launches on Xbox Series X|S on October 31. Dragon Age: The Veilguard Electronic Arts ☆☆☆☆☆ 15 ★★★★★ $69.99 $62.99 Pre-order Pre-order* to receive the Blood Dragon armor cosmetic for all three classes: Warrior, Mage, and Rogue. A throwback to previous Dragon Age games, the crimson stains on this armor will never fade. Enter the world of Thedas, a vibrant land of rugged wilderness, treacherous labyrinths, and glittering cities – steeped in conflict and secret magics. Now, a pair of corrupt ancient gods have broken free from centuries of darkness and are hellbent on destroying the world. Thedas needs someone they can count on. Rise as Rook, Dragon Age’s newest hero. Be who you want to be and play how you want to play as you fight to stop the gods from blighting the world. But you can’t do this alone – the odds are stacked against you. Lead a team of seven companions, each with their own rich story to discover and shape, and together you will become The Veilguard. Unite the Veilguard and defy the gods in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, an immersive single player RPG where you become the leader others believe in. SAVE A BATTERED WORLD Enter Thedas, a vibrant world of rugged wilderness, treacherous labyrinths and glittering cities. The world is teetering on a knife’s edge while corrupt gods unleash havoc across the continent. Nations war and factions splinter. Who will you trust? From the Arlathan Forest to the back alleys of Minrathous, this is a broken world. Your actions will affect the fate of Thedas forever. UNITE THE VEILGUARD Unite a team of seven companions, each with rich lives and deep backstories. These are characters to befriend, and even fall in love with. Among them, an assassin, a necromancer, a detective, each and all bringing their own expertise and unique abilities to the fight. You are never alone, decide who to take into battle and together face down demons, dragons and corrupt gods. BECOME THE LEADER OTHERS BELIEVE IN Select from different races and combat classes, customize your appearance, choose your character’s backstory and begin your journey as Rook, Dragon Age’s newest hero. The choice is yours. On your adventures, you’ll gain new abilities and discover unique, powerful artifacts to enhance your own combat style. Brace yourself, there are tough decisions to be made, allies to inspire, and a fight that needs every sword, staff and bow you can muster. WARNING: See important flashing images and other health and safety information at www.ea.com/legal. *Conditions & restrictions apply. See ea.com/games/dragon-age/dragon-age-Veilguard/disclaimers for details. Related Stories for “Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Building A Rook That Truly Feels Like Yours” Category: Games A Deep Dive into [REDACTED]’s Challenging End Game Category: ID@Xbox Survival Horror Gets Crafty in Outbreak: Shades of Horror Chromatic Split Category: Announcements Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Rockstar Energy Drink Are Giving Away Epic Gaming Rewards The post Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Building A Rook That Truly Feels Like Yours appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The post A Deep Dive into [REDACTED]’s Challenging End Game appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Category: Games October 28, 2024 A Deep Dive into [REDACTED]’s Challenging End Game Steve Papoutsis, Studio Head, Striking Distance On behalf of the team at Striking Distance Studios, I wanted to offer up a huge thank you to everyone who pre-ordered [REDACTED]. I hope you’re enjoying the 72 hours of Early Access on Xbox. If you haven’t pre-ordered the game yet, you’ve still got a chance to get in on the fun and check out the new gameplay trailer before our official launch on October 31. Go ahead, I’ll wait. [REDACTED] is our take on a fast-action dungeon crawler roguelike. It’s set in Black Iron Prison, a deep space penitentiary where the shit really hits the fan after a full-blown outbreak has created a terrifying mob of bloodthirsty monsters. You’re an expendable prison guard with one mission – find the last escape pod and get the hell out of there. This is a passion project for our team between AAA releases. We’re huge fans of roguelikes and wanted to put our stamp on the genre, with a vibrant comic-book-inspired style, and a high-energy, futuristic punk rock vibe. We’ve already talked about a few of the innovative new gameplay features we’ve added, like “Rivals” and “Fight Your Last Corpse.” But of course, we’ve saved a few surprises for the end. Today, we wanted to tell you about a devious ultra-hard mode called “The Watcher Run.” “The Watcher Run” is a completely optional endgame playthrough for the hardest of the hardcore out there. It’s the only way to unlock the final pieces of the story in [REDACTED], and is the ultimate test of your skill, strategy, and sanity. You’ll unlock dossier filers for each Rival you encounter in the game as you battle through Black Iron Prison. Each completed dossier scores you a code used to unlock a mysterious Vault in the escape pod bay at the end of the prison. Once you secure all eight codes and reaches the vault next to the escape pod, you have the option to unlock “The Watcher Run.” And here’s where things get interesting. If you choose to take on this challenge, you’ll assume the role of “The Watcher.” Playing as the “The Watcher” has its perks – you’ll wield a cattle prod and the Plasma Gun, a new and powerful ranged weapon. Otherwise, it’s simple – you have to make one last run through Black Iron facing off against every boss and rival from start to finish – without dying. Don’t worry, The Watcher isn’t just a guy with a big shiny gun and cattle prod. He has a unique ability to exit any room that doesn’t include a boss or Rival encounter before it’s cleared. This speeds the run up and reduces your exposure to combat, but it costs you the ability to unlock upgrades along the way. Which is a real high-risk scenario, because there’s a catch. If you die, you’ll lose every upgrade you’ve purchased. So, basically, just about everything you’ve earned up to that point. Like I said, The Watcher Run isn’t for the timid and the stakes are high. But so are the rewards. If you battle your way through the prison, clear the whole run without dying, overcome one last life-or-death battle that unlocks one of two special endings for the game (no spoilers here), you win access to the Plasma Gun and a new suit that grants 100% hazard protection and deflects enemy projectiles back at the attacker. I can’t wait to hear about all your own unique player stories exploring Black Iron Prison (whether you take on “The Watcher Run” or not) in the days ahead as we launch the game globally on October 31. We hope you have as much fun playing the game as we did making it! [REDACTED] KRAFTON, Inc. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $22.49 Pre-order Black Iron, a state-of-the-art penitentiary located on Jupiter’s icy moon Callisto, is overrun with hordes of infected inmates. As a modest prison guard your job is simple – get to the last escape pod and get out alive. But you aren’t the only survivor looking to escape. Your rivals – a deranged custodian, a violent gangster, a maniacal lunch lady, and more – can’t wait to step over your corpse and save themselves. Only one of you can make it off the moon – make sure it’s you! FIGHT/DIE/ADAPT Each death is a learning experience. Starting fresh each run, build up your loadout with powerful experiments, weapon schematics, and buffs to battle through Black Iron. When you die (and you will die), use your hard-earned loot to purchase new permanent weapons, suits, and skills. Get stronger, experiment with your strategy, and get out! ROUT YOUR RIVALS You're not the only person to survive the initial outbreak or willing to use a bit of violence to get to the last escape pod. Some prisoners and even your correctional services colleagues are just as eager to escape and will make escaping harder by attacking you remotely or challenging you to a one-on-one duel. Race them, attack them back remotely, and fight them to the death to make it out in one piece. FIGHT YOUR LAST CORPSE When you die, you leave more than a coverall-clad carcass. Defeat the reanimated corpse of the last guard to succumb to the prison’s dangers to earn a powerful experiment. But beware, it’s not going to be an easy fight. The semi-alive guard has the same loadout they had when they met an untimely end and a few extra tricks up its sleeve to keep things spicy. “GAME OVER, MAN” You’ve made the perfect build, battled through bosses, ran through rivals, killed your corpse, found all the files, and now you’re standing in front of that last escape pod. Sure, you could leave it all behind for the sweet taste of freedom… or risk it all in one last hardcore do-or-die run back through the prison. Fail and you lose all your purchased gear, skills, suits, and weapons. But IF you succeed, you’ll unlock new powerful permanent gear. FUTURE PUNK An irreverent attitude, unique presentation, vivid graphic novel style, and a 180bpm original arcade-punk soundtrack by Mutato Muzika enhance [REDACTED]’s sci-fi setting and fast white-knuckle action. Related Stories for “A Deep Dive into [REDACTED]’s Challenging End Game” Category: Games Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Building A Rook That Truly Feels Like Yours Category: ID@Xbox Survival Horror Gets Crafty in Outbreak: Shades of Horror Chromatic Split Category: Announcements Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Rockstar Energy Drink Are Giving Away Epic Gaming Rewards The post A Deep Dive into [REDACTED]’s Challenging End Game appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The post Survival Horror Gets Crafty in Outbreak: Shades of Horror Chromatic Split appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Summary Outbreak Shades of Horror Chromatic Split launches on Xbox Series X|S today. Compelling and twisted narrative, devious puzzles, thoughtful inventory management, and endless dark secrets. Special bonus modes include action-packed scenarios for a more arcade-style experience. Happy Halloween, Survivors! My name is Julia Wolbach, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Dead Drop Studios. Today we are launching our next-generation survival horror bloodbath, Outbreak Shades of Horror Chromatic Split, on Xbox Series X|S. As Detective Lydia Daniels, players will begin in a sprawling sewer system beneath the city of Cypress Ridge on the eve of a massive zombie apocalypse. Players must explore, solve puzzles, and take advantage of their limited resources to survive in an ever-changing world filled with dangerous enemy zombies and a recurring, massive monster. Dare to Explore an Underground Labyrinth Alone and Afraid. Initially, players will be unarmed and at the mercy of the environment before discovering a repertoire of melee weapons and firearms such as the lead pipe and the shotgun. These and other key items will give players a fighting chance and also open up new and secret areas to explore in the game’s colossal maps. Resourceful players can find crafting items to create healing items, ammunition, and even precious ink for saving their game. For example, players can use unique types of gunpowder and shell casings to fabricate different types of ammo, or in a pinch, players can combine gunpowder with a virus kit to produce antiviral items. Explore a multitude of different crafting combos to manufacture the valuable supplies needed to ride out the zombie storm! Play in Third Person or Through Lydia’s Eyes. Players can switch between first person and third person perspectives at any time as they fight to survive in a ruthless world. If you’re looking to fully immerse yourself in Lydia’s journey, first person view may be your cup of tea, while if you enjoy more of a traditional survival horror experience, third person view will provide you with a full look at your character. Utilize melee combat to try and stagger foes and sneak by, or use your limited bullets to carefully place shots that can dismember and severely cripple zombies’ offensive options. Be warned, as enemy zombies can stun you or even knock you over, leaving you vulnerable to an unholy beating! Explore and carefully take advantage of your tools to open new pathways and discover a bevy of secrets, such as bonus crafting items and more. Strategize and Think Quickly to Best Utilize Your Limited Items. Lydia’s supplies will be limited, so she’ll need to find materials to give herself a fighting chance! Combine gunpowder with other items to create ink for saving, items for healing, additional bullets, antiviral solutions, and more. Lydia can’t afford to shoot first and think later, so think carefully about how you use your items! Will you consume raw gunpowder in an act of desperation to bail yourself out in the moment, or will you wait to find an empty ink canister so you can save your progress? Inventory space is also limited, so take time to optimize your pocket space and put excess items in linked item boxes occasionally found throughout the game for later use. Remember that opening your inventory to combine components will pause the game, but to reload your weapon you must find a safe spot to hide in the cruel, chaotic underground of Cypress Ridge! Satiating Side Content Expands the Breadth of Gameplay. Once you’re done with Lydia’s campaign, there’s still more fun to be had! Unlock an additional wild campaign for a more action-oriented game style. Try out the Onslaught and Besieged modes for arcade zombie-splatting fun against piles of enemies on unique maps. Looming Dread Mode challenges you to survive and clear a unique scenario in as fast a time as possible. You can also replay Lydia’s campaign in New Game Plus to keep all of your upgrades from the end of the story or enjoy built-in Developer Commentary! Can you find all of Chromatic Split’s hidden achievements and cheat codes? Will you Save Cypress Ridge or Die Trying? With so much content and multiple replayable modes all horrifyingly crafted in Unreal Engine 5, the standalone Outbreak Shades of Horror Chromatic Split is the perfect way to prepare for the main Outbreak: Shades of Horror game releasing soon episodically. On the eve of a massive zombie outbreak, can Lydia survive long enough to help her city in its time of need? Outbreak: Shades of Horror Chromatic Split Dead Drop Studios LLC ☆☆☆☆☆ 8 ★★★★★ $24.99 Get it now Cypress Ridge – September 28,1999 Go back to the beginning of the end in the prologue to Dead Drops’ Studios upcoming Outbreak: Shades of Horror. Play as both the heroes and the villains of the outbreak as you attempt both to avoid an outbreak of epic proportions and to stop word from getting out. As Lydia, a veteran police officer, race against time through the Cypress Ridge sewers to spread the truth of the Outbreak before it’s too late but beware there is more than sludge and rats waiting for her. As Hank, keep sight of your target while navigating rooftop of insanity as he tries to stop the truth from coming to the surface. But remember, the higher you are, the harder you fall when the zombies attack! Leads into the upcoming Outbreak: Shades of Horror, a spiritual successor to online survival horror from the early 2000s. The post Survival Horror Gets Crafty in Outbreak: Shades of Horror Chromatic Split appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The post Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Rockstar Energy Drink Are Giving Away Epic Gaming Rewards appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Category: Announcements Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Rockstar Energy Drink Are Giving Away Epic Gaming Rewards Marcos Waltenberg, GM, Xbox Partnerships Published October 25, 2024 Once again Xbox has teamed up with Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Rockstar Energy Drink to give fans access to more than 100 top games through Game Pass Ultimate (new members only) and a chance to score in-game content, games, custom merch, and Xbox hardware including the new Xbox Series X – 1TB Digital Edition in Robot White. Beginning November 4, 2024, through January 31, 2025, gamers in the United States can purchase specially marked Mountain Dew, Rockstar Energy Drink, and Doritos products and submit on-pack codes at DoritosDewRockstar.com for points. Those points can be accumulated with multiple purchases and redeemed for epic gaming rewards, such as Xbox hardware, game codes from Xbox titles including Avowed, exclusive Xbox + Mountain Dew gear, and these in-game content items: Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Mountain Dew Erickson S-64 Air-Crane Diablo IV Verdant Pool The Man Opener The Thristing Bird The Savoring Glaive The Dueling Dervish Battle Pass Tier Skips World of Warcraft Thrillbot 9000 Chillbot 9000 Bot Wrangler’s Violet Apron (Tabard) Bot Wrangler’s Crimson Apron (Tabard) Hateforged Blazecycle Lil’ Ragnaros Madden NFL 25 Madden NFL 25 Ultimate Team Exclusive Player The Elder Scrolls Online Morthal Jarl Finery in-game costume But Wait, There’s More! New flavor alert! To celebrate the joining of these brand forces and the 20th anniversary of World of Warcraft, Mountain Dew is bringing back Mountain Dew Game Fuel in two flavors – Citrus Cherry and new Citrus Blackberry – perfect for every gaming sesh. These limited-time flavors will begin to hit shelves nationwide on November 4, 2024, so grab them while you can! In celebration of the World of Warcraft 20th Anniversary Mtn Dew Game Fuel Citrus Cherry bottles and cans feature iconic Orc Shaman Thrall. Commemorating the release of World of Warcraft: The War Within, Mountain Dew Game Fuel Citrus Blackberry bottles and cans will feature Xal’atath the Harbinger. Look for these Mountain Dew, Rockstar Energy, and Doritos products featuring Xbox Games at your local grocery and convenience stores: Mountain Dew 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred Diet Mountain Dew 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring Madden NFL 25 Zero Mountain Dew 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 Mountain Dew Game Fuel Citrus Cherry 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring World of Warcraft Mountain Dew Game Fuel Citrus Blackberry 20 ounce and 12 pack cans featuring World of Warcraft Rockstar Energy Recovery Orangeade 16 oz cans featuring Avowed Rockstar Energy Recovery Lemonade 16 oz cans featuring The Elder Scrolls Online Doritos Nacho Cheese XXL bags featuring World of Warcraft: The War Within Doritos Cool Ranch XXL bags featuring Madden NFL 25 Doritos Tangy BBQ XXL Bags featuring Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred You can find code locations on Doritos packaging, under the tab of Rockstar Energy Drinks, and under the cap and inside paperboards on Mountain Dew. For more information and to start banking your points visit DoritosDewRockstar.com. The post Mountain Dew, Doritos, and Rockstar Energy Drink Are Giving Away Epic Gaming Rewards appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The post The 5 Key Things You Need to Know About MechWarrior 5: Clans appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Category: Games The 5 Key Things You Need to Know About MechWarrior 5: Clans Daeron Katz, Senior Marketing & Community Manager, MechWarrior 5: Clans Published October 25, 2024 Summary MechWarrior 5: Clans features Unreal Engine 5 graphics, an immersive Clan Smoke Jaguar storyline, cross-platform co-op, and more. It’s time to gear up and get ready to pilot your BattleMech like never before. MechWarrior 5: Clans is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Game Pass Ultimate, and PC Game Pass. MechWarrior 5: Clans – available now for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Game Pass Ultimate, and PC Game Pass — reimagines and reinvigorates the legendary MechWarrior franchise. From its cutting-edge graphics to a storyline that plunges you into the heart of the Clan Invasion. This standalone game is packed with exciting new features and upgrades that take the MechWarrior experience to the next level. To bring you up to speed on all the unique innovations and features this entry in the long-running series brings to the table, we’ve assembled five things you need to know about MechWarrior 5: Clans and why it’s a must-play for fans and newcomers alike. Built From the Ground Up in Unreal Engine 5 The leap to this next-gen engine means you can expect stunning graphics, incredible attention to detail, and some of the most epic ‘Mech destruction ever seen in a MechWarrior game thanks to UE5. As lasers scorch armor and missiles explode across the terrain, the visual fidelity will keep you on the edge of your pilot seat. Every battle in MechWarrior 5: Clans isn’t just a fight for victory — it’s a cinematic spectacle. The enhanced physics and destruction system of UE5 allow you to see massive environments crumble in real time. The damage done to buildings, forests, and other landscapes as ‘Mechs stomp and fire their weapons is more dynamic and immersive than ever, making each encounter feel explosive and intense. Epic Storytelling with Over 90 Minutes of Cinematics The BattleTech universe has always been known for its rich lore, and MechWarrior 5: Clans is elevating the narrative experience. The game features an epic story centered around Clan Smoke Jaguar, delivering more than 90 minutes of cinematic cutscenes. With top-tier voice acting, motion capture technology, and a gripping plot, players will be immersed in the journey of a warrior rising through the ranks of one of the most aggressive and iconic Clans in the franchise. For the first time, the story is told from the perspective of Clan Smoke Jaguar, offering an untold narrative in the MechWarrior saga. You’ll experience the Clan’s culture, traditions, and internal conflicts as you fight for honor, glory, and survival. This unique viewpoint sheds new light on the complex politics and brutal warfare of the Clan Invasion era. Streamlined Controls and Strategic Gameplay Piloting a BattleMech has never been more fun or accessible. The streamlined control scheme in MechWarrior 5: Clans makes it easy for you to jump in and start piloting massive war machines without a steep learning curve. Whether you’re a veteran ‘Mech pilot or a newcomer, you’ll appreciate the refined handling that strikes a balance between realism and ease of use. But the game isn’t just about getting in the cockpit and firing away. The new Battlegrid and Command Wheel systems allow you to take a more strategic approach to battles. You’ll have full control over your Star (squad of five ‘Mechs), issuing commands, managing formations, and coordinating tactics to gain the upper hand on the battlefield. These tools provide a deeper level of strategy that makes each mission feel like a complex and rewarding military operation. An All-New MechLab and MetaGame for Customization For those who enjoy customization and progression, MechWarrior 5: Clans brings a revamped MechLab that lets you upgrade your ‘Mechs, equipment, and even your MechWarriors more extensively than ever before. Fine-tune your BattleMechs with a variety of loadouts, armor configurations, and weapon upgrades to match your preferred playstyle or to counter specific enemy threats. The new MechLab provides the tools to tweak and perfect your ‘Mech configurations down to the smallest detail, ensuring that your machines of war are always primed for the next battle. The MetaGame adds another layer of depth as you engage in resource management, territory control, and strategic decisions that affect your Clan’s overall war efforts. As you progress, you can develop Pilot Skills such as Evasion and Damage Reduction, enhancing your MechWarriors’ effectiveness in battle. You’ll also have the opportunity to conduct Field Repairs to keep your ‘Mechs in fighting shape between missions. With adjustable Difficulty Settings, players of all skill levels can find the right challenge. Sim Pods provide an immersive way to gain additional Experience, allowing your pilots to train and improve outside of combat. Before each mission, detailed Mission Briefings will prepare you for what lies ahead, ensuring you and your Star of ‘Mechs are ready to face any threats on the battlefield. Co-Op Action for Up to Five Players with Crossplay One of the most exciting features in MechWarrior 5: Clans is the addition of five-player cooperative multiplayer. Grab your friends and join forces to tackle missions as a fully functioning Star, each player controlling a different ‘Mech in the squad. The co-op mode brings a new level of coordination and camaraderie, as players can strategize together and take on enemies with coordinated assaults. Crossplay support means that whether you’re on Windows PC, or Xbox Series X|S, you can link up with your friends and play together seamlessly. The combination of co-op gameplay and cross-platform support ensures that MechWarrior 5: Clans offers a truly connected and social experience, where no MechWarrior fights alone. MechWarrior 5: Clans isn’t just a new chapter in the MechWarrior universe – it’s a bold reimagining of what a MechWarrior game can be. With Unreal Engine 5 graphics, an immersive Clan Smoke Jaguar storyline, refined gameplay mechanics, extensive customization options, and groundbreaking multiplayer features, it’s time to gear up and get ready to pilot your BattleMech like never before. The battle for honor and glory is about to begin! MechWarrior 5: Clans is available now on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Game Pass Ultimate, and PC Game Pass. MechWarrior 5: Clans Piranha Games Inc. ☆☆☆☆☆ 231 ★★★★★ $49.99 Get it now PC Game Pass Xbox Game Pass In MECHWARRIOR 5: CLANS, players take on the role of a newly graduated pilot from the Smoke Jaguar cadet program, thrust into the heart of the Clan Invasion of the Inner Sphere during Operation Revival. This pivotal moment in the MechWarrior universe sees players leading a five-mech "Star" squad across numerous planets with diverse biomes, engaging in an expansive campaign filled with immersive gameplay and intricate combat encounters. Armed with customizable BattleMechs featuring cutting-edge technologies, players explore a wealth of tactical options and strategic possibilities. The game leverages the power of the Unreal Engine to deliver stunning environmental details and visceral destruction, making every battle against the tyrants of the Inner Sphere an epic experience. As the first Clan-based MechWarrior game in nearly three decades, it combines a captivating narrative with well-crafted characters and moral dilemmas, culminating in a dynamic and adaptive combat experience enhanced by a revamped MechLab, Hardpoint, and OmniPod system. MechWarrior 5: Clans supported platforms – Xbox Series X|S and PC MechWarrior 5: Clans Digital Collectors Edition Piranha Games Inc. ☆☆☆☆☆ 495 ★★★★★ $79.99 Get it now MECHWARRIOR 5: CLANS Digital Collectors Edition includes MechWarrior 5: Clans and the Digital Collectors Content Add-on, featuring a Digital Art Book, the full soundtrack, an Omnimech Technical Readout, and exclusive in-game content: Platinum Mech Patterns and Timber Wolf WAR Omnimech with unique weapon loadout and skin. Related Stories for “The 5 Key Things You Need to Know About MechWarrior 5: Clans” Category: Games Dragon Age: The Veilguard – Building A Rook That Truly Feels Like Yours Category: Games A Deep Dive into [REDACTED]’s Challenging End Game Category: ID@Xbox Survival Horror Gets Crafty in Outbreak: Shades of Horror Chromatic Split The post The 5 Key Things You Need to Know About MechWarrior 5: Clans appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is Officially Live Worldwide — Play Now! appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The post Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is Officially Live Worldwide — Play Now! appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The post Next Week on Xbox: New Games for October 28 to November 1 appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Category: Next Week on Xbox October 25, 2024 Next Week on Xbox: New Games for October 28 to November 1 Mike Nelson, Xbox Wire Editor Welcome to Next Week on Xbox! In this weekly feature we cover all the games coming soon to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows, and Game Pass! Get more details on these upcoming games below and click their profiles for further info (release dates subject to change). Let’s jump in! I'm on Observation Duty 6 Dreamloop Games ☆☆☆☆☆ 1 ★★★★★ $11.99 Get it now I’m on Observation Duty 6 – October 28 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S As an employee of a mysterious organization, your job is to monitor live surveillance camera footage and report other-worldly anomalies using your sharp eyes and good memory. Can you survive the entire night shift, or will you succumb to paranoia? Vengeance Hunters Nalua Studio SLU ☆☆☆☆☆ 1 ★★★★★ $19.99 Get it now Vengeance Hunters – October 28 Pick your fighter: The robot, Golem. The brawler, Candy. The mad scientist, Loony. And adventure from the Last Woods to the desolate Wastelands and to the mean streets of the Megalopolis and beyond! Play solo or with a friend as you battle a strange array of enemies, aliens, monsters, and thugs. Collect secrets, increase your score, and challenge yourself across increased difficulty in this original NeoGeo title. Backrooms: Partygoers Ratalaika Games S.L. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Backrooms: Partygoers – October 29 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery A horror survival game where you play as a researcher tasked to find anomalies inside the horrifying alternate dimension known as The Backrooms. Scavenge for water and other supplies from dead bodies stuck in The Backrooms as you try to escape sharing their fate. Hide in lockers, scan for targets, use a flashlight, and detect creatures using the Anomaly Scanner. Clock Tower: Rewind WayForward ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Clock Tower: Rewind – October 29 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Translated and released outside of Japan for the first time, Clock Tower: Rewind is a revival of the terror-inducing 16-bit classic that dares you to explore the haunting confines of the Barrows family manor. As teenage orphan Jennifer, you must search every disturbing corner to find items, reveal secrets, and discover ways to evade Scissorman, a murderous, unstoppable, shears-wielding psychopath. Life is Strange: Double Exposure Square Enix ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $49.99 Pre-order Life is Strange: Double Exposure – October 29 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Xbox Play Anywhere Max Caulfield, photographer-in-residence at the prestigious Caledon University, discovers her closest new friend, Safi, dead in the snow. To save her, Max tries to Rewind time – a power she’s not used in years… instead, Max opens the way to a parallel timeline where Safi is still alive, and still in danger! Monster High‎ Skulltimate Secrets Outright Games Ltd. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $39.99 Pre-order Monster High Skulltimate Secrets – October 29 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery It’s your first day at Monster High, where all monsters are welcome… but some strange events are happening. Can you uncover the mystery of the doors and ancient keys and bring the school back to its authentic, spooky self? Play and discover its skulltimate secrets. Neptunia Game Maker R:Evolution Idea Factory International ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Neptunia Game Maker R:Evoltuion – October 29 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Xbox Play Anywhere Grow a previously defunct gaming studio to success. Building it requires strong developers, cutting-edge video games, and the expansion of your market. Choose wisely and become the biggest game studio of the year! Phasmophobia (Game Preview) Kinetic Games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Phasmophobia (Game Preview) – October 29 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Paranormal activity is on the rise and it’s up to you and your team to use all the ghost-hunting equipment at your disposal to gather as much evidence as you can. Post Trauma Raw Fury ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Post Trauma – October 29 2025 Post Trauma is a modern interpretation of genre-defining survival horror classics. As you venture deeper into the unknown, you’ll strive to solve the mysteries of your unfamiliar surroundings, hoping to discover hidden truths while trying to stay alive. Cell Scientists: Beyond R-Next ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Cell Scientists: Beyond – October 30 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery / Xbox Play Anywhere Save a sci-fi world from the dangerous Chaga virus in Cell Scientists: Beyond, an exciting puzzle game with 50 levels story mode and easy to pick gameplay mechanics. Embark on an adventure to destroy viruses using futuristics nano ships and help the patients. Save the day using your puzzle-solving skills! Deepest Trench Favor Games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Deepest Trench – October 30 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S An exhilarating local co-op game that plunges players into the depths of the Mariana Trench for a secretive military operation. With immersive gameplay and breathtaking visuals, players must work together to navigate treacherous underwater terrain, uncovering hidden mysteries and face unexpected dangers along the way. Hidden Paws Mystery Silesia Games Sp. z o.o. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Hidden Paws Mystery – October 30 Xbox Play Anywhere You are an adventurer, the last of the Seekers of Cats, and you are tasked with an important job. Scattered on those islands are little cats, some of them are cold and hungry and yet still hoping someone will find them. Others don’t really care about you or your quest but meow insistently anyway so you should probably stop for a moment and pet them too. Last Escape: Dead Complex Mad Jackal Games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $4.99 Pre-order Last Escape: Dead Complex – October 30 Dead Complex is a 2D top down, survival horror game. Sneak, loot, and fight your way out of an infested apartment complex and begin your final escape from the city. Retreat To Enen indie.io ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Retreat To Enen – October 30 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S A base building simulator and survival game unlike any other. Rather than fight your way to prosperity, you’ll be living off the land in balance with nature. Three vast biomes await you. Explore, forage, hunt, craft, build, and meditate as you unlock the secrets of Enen and build the retreat of your dreams. Unlock and gather over 160 unique items as you explore. Skater's Solstice Eastasiasoft Limited ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Skater’s Solstice – October 30 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Skater’s Solstice is a top-down brainteasing game with a wintry theme and crisp HD visuals where you’ll need to overcome 50 stages of gradually increasing complexity to achieve ice skating mastery. Each stage contains 3 stars and a glimmering exit. Can you put it all together and gather all the stars? Vampire Hunters Gamecraft Studios ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Vampire Hunters – October 30 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery / Xbox Play Anywhere Shoot, stack, and slay! Vampire Hunters is a rogue lite survivors FPS where the toughest Transylvanians stack guns to mow down monsters with extreme firepower. Collect new weapons, upgrade, and dominate as you explore new levels in this retro-inspired bullet heaven FPS. [REDACTED] KRAFTON, Inc. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $22.49 Pre-order [Redacted] – October 31 Black Iron, a state-of-the-art penitentiary located on Jupiter’s icy moon Callisto, is overrun with hordes of infected inmates. As a modest prison guard your job is simple – get to the last escape pod and get out alive. Dragon Age: The Veilguard Electronic Arts ☆☆☆☆☆ 15 ★★★★★ $69.99 $62.99 Pre-order Dragon Age: The Veilguard – October 31 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Enter the world of Thedas, a vibrant land of rugged wilderness, treacherous labyrinths, and glittering cities – steeped in conflict and secret magics. Now, a pair of corrupt ancient gods have broken free from centuries of darkness and are hellbent on destroying the world. Rise as Rook, Dragon Age’s newest hero. Be who you want to be and play how you want to play as you fight to stop the gods from blighting the world. Garten of Banban 6 Feardemic ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Garten of Banban 6 – October 31 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Explore the forgotten levels of Banban’s Kindergarten. Survive the new terrors that reside below. Uncover the truth behind the place and find the whereabouts of your missing child. Hannah QUByte ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Hannah – October 31 Xbox Play Anywhere After Hannah’s doll gets stolen by a mysterious force, you must help her face multiple challenges that have taken shape by her childhood memories and wounds. Set in a retro surrealist world inspired by the 80’s, the player can choose between different paths that will take them down multiple endings. Magic Cats Pots ©RedDeer.Games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Magic Cats Pots – October 31 Restore the broken porcelain and reveal hidden magic in Magic Cats Pots puzzles! Step into the magical world of Magic Cats Pots and breathe new life into old treasures! Visitors can come to the shop with their broken treasures, and with a touch of magic, these items can be brought back to life. But this isn’t just any life – these objects are home to divine creatures: cats. Rumours From Elsewhere Notte Studio Games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Rumours From Elsewhere – October 31 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery You have come to the right place pilgrim… Rumours from Elsewhere is a 2.5D action platformer with RPG and roguelite elements. Battle alone or with a friend through an ancient fantasy world, filled with loot and danger… welcome to the gauntlet of greed. Self-Delusion Sometimes You ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $14.99 $11.99 Pre-order Free Trial Self-Delusion – October 31 A first-person survival horror game in the original setting of Slavic fairy tales. You will face unique monsters like Kolobok, Leshy, Boggart, Lapot and other creepy creatures. Explore, hide or run. Just don’t get devoured by them. Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered NetEase Entertainment Interactive Pte. Ltd. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $24.99 Get it now Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered – October 31 Kick some demon tail as Garcia Hotspur on one devil of a ride. The flames of hell will feel frigid compared to the hot-blooded Garcia on his quest to get his girl back from the Lord of the Underworld in this hot-blooded, hellishly twisted, feverishly filthy, love and hate-filled road trip. Totally Spies! – Cyber Mission Microids ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ $39.99 Pre-order Totally Spies! Cyber Mission – October 31 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery The dazzling trio from Beverly Hills—Sam, Clover, and Alex— is back and they are ready to light up the vibrant streets of Singapore with their spy skills! From the bustling streets to Aiya University, embark on an action-packed adventure as you explore all the futuristic spots of the town. Aero The Acro-Bat: Rascal Rival Revenge Ratalaika Games S.L. ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Aero The Acro-Bat: Rascal Rival Revenge – November 1 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery The 2002 remake of Aero the Acro-Bat is back and better than ever with improved sprites, modified stages and skills, as well as a whole new comic-style introduction scene. It’s up to Aero the Acro-Bat, the circus’s star performer, to rescue his friends and girlfriend Ariel, and put a stop to Edgar Ektor’s mad plans so everyone can enjoy the show again! Albatroz SOEDESCO ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Albatroz – November 1 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S Albatroz is a backpacking adventure RPG that will take you through majestic landscapes in search of your lost sibling. A tale about knowing when to let go and start over. Follow Isla’s journey through the Forbidden Lands, a breathtaking, otherworldly realm where two worlds converge. Journey to Kreisia KEMCO ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Journey to the Kreisia – November 1 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery While attempting to skip out on a homework assignment and meet up with his friends at the arcade, a teenager by the name of Yusis is suddenly enveloped in a blinding light and transported to Kreisia — a world where fantasy meets reality. Sainthood – The Game Bisong Taiwo ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Sainthood – November 1 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery Sainthood is a cozy strategy game about serving your community. Explore a miniature world and help the townsfolk by constructing buildings, delivering resources, and volunteering. Pray and attend other spiritual activities as you rise to become a Saint! Unsolved Case: Killer Popularity CE Xbox Legacy Games ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Unsolved Case: Killer Popularity CE – November 1 Optimized for Xbox Series X|S / Smart Delivery This new collection of crime episodes is full of terrifying and bone-chilling murders, break-ins, and robberies. We believe you are the only one who can stop the perpetrators, but just in case, we’ve sent Paul to you for backup. Your faithful partner will be there to assist you or even bring you a new case. Make complicated moral choices that will determine the future of both perpetrator and victim. Danger and treachery lay around every corner… so be careful! Related Stories for “Next Week on Xbox: New Games for October 28 to November 1” Category: Next Week on Xbox Next Week on Xbox: New Games for October 21 to 25 Category: Next Week on Xbox Next Week on Xbox: New Games for October 14 to 18 Category: Next Week on Xbox Next Week on Xbox – New Games for October 7 to 11 The post Next Week on Xbox: New Games for October 28 to November 1 appeared first on Xbox Wire.

About ten years ago, a group of former Rare employees with decades of combined experience working on some of the most renowned platformers banded together to form Playtonic with the shared vision to resurrect the 3D platformer. Yooka-Laylee was born out of this vision and now almost a decade and a studio with over 60 […]

The post Creating Yooka-Replaylee – Our Vision for a Truly Modern Mascot Platformer appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Summary Almost ten years on, Yooka-Replaylee delivers Playtonic’s true vision for a modern mascot platformer. Learning and growing from the original Yooka-Laylee through other projects. Owners of the original Yooka-Laylee get a launch discount. About ten years ago, a group of former Rare employees with decades of combined experience working on some of the most renowned platformers banded together to form Playtonic with the shared vision to resurrect the 3D platformer. Yooka-Laylee was born out of this vision and now almost a decade and a studio with over 60 employees later, we have refined that vision and morphed it with our learnings working across other projects and feedback from our community to bring you Yooka-Replaylee, the definitive version of the 2017’s indie 3D mascot platformer darling. Staring the buddy duo of Yooka, the green one, and Laylee, the purple one, the epic open world adventure is coming to Xbox Series X|S! The makings of a great mascot platformer start with no less than, well, memorable mascots, and Yooka-Replaylee has got just that in the forms of the heroic lime-green lizard Yooka and his wisecracking, now fluffy, purple companion Laylee the bat. Together they go against the comically villainous Capital B and meet a colourful and varied cast of characters along the way, some familiar to fans of the IP and some new ones like Coinelius the piggy bank and Mark the appropriately named bookmark who gives you directions throughout the game. Even some of the enemies you encounter have undergone a full makeover. The bees are fluffy now! Every character has been given a fresh coat of paint and smoother animations to go along with it. While story of Yooka-Replaylee begins in Yooka and Laylee’s home of Shipwreck Creek and swiftly moves inside the lair of the vicious capital B called the Hivory Towers, a vast majority of the game takes place inside Grand Tomes, each with its unique overarching setting and atmosphere. Entering the world of Yooka-Replaylee, you will quickly discover that the worlds are now more populated with things to do, enemies with all new attacks to encounter, and collectibles to collect than before. Every single challenge has been improved and some entirely new challenges have been added. An entirely new currency called Q.U.I.D.S has been added for players to collect and spend on a store run by a franchise favourite character. You no longer have to worry about getting lost in the world either thanks to the brand world map and the aforementioned Mark the bookmark giving you guidance and acting as a handy fast-travel system within the levels. You will also be able to track your progress through a brand-new challenge tracker. What is a platformer if it does not feel good to play? We have completely redone Yooka and Laylee’s move set and the player camera in Yooka-Replaylee to create a more responsive experience. You can now intuitively chain your moves together, which is something you were not able to do before. In one of our more surprising decisions, we removed the double jump from the game. Instead, your regular jump now matches the height of the old double jump. This is all to ensure a better gameplay flow for the players. Swim and fly controls have also been redone and to the players’ relief, moves now cost less power to use! Our colourful cast of characters are not the only ones who have undergone a makeover. Yooka-Replaylee has undergone a full visual upgrade covering every single art asset in the game along with a complete UI and HUD refresh. As you run through the grass at Shipwreck Creek or the snow in Glitterglaze Glacier, the world around you feels truly alive and breathing, creating a fully immersive platforming experience. And I cannot finish a segment talking about immersion without highlighting the beautifully arranged orchestral score, based on the original score composed by Grant Kirkhope and David Wise, we worked together with the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra to produce. The founders of Playtonic had a vision for a new mascot platformer that would breathe new life into the 3D platforming genre. The very first Yooka-Laylee (2017) is to thank for the position the studio is in now, doubling as a development studio and a publisher, and for the fact that I get to work at Playtonic. As we approach our tenth anniversary with more resources, more employees with fresh ideas, valuable community feedback and lessons learned working across other secret projects, we think it is only appropriate to go back to that original adventure and celebrate a whole decade of fun and love for platforming by delivering the true definitive version of Yooka and Laylee’s first adventure. And what better way to kickstart an exciting new beginning for the franchise than this? We cannot wait for you to get your hands on Yooka-Replaylee when it launches on Xbox Series X|S. I am also delighted to announce that owners of the original Yooka-Laylee on Xbox will be entitled to an owner’s discount at launch! Yooka-Replaylee Playtonic Friends ☆☆☆☆☆ ★★★★★ Get it now Yooka-Replaylee is the definitive remastered and enhanced version of the 3D indie platforming collectathon darling, Yooka-Laylee (2017), developed by key creative talent behind the Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country games. New remixed challenges and old favourites await as you embark to explore the huge, beautiful open worlds as the lovable buddy-duo Yooka (the green one) and Laylee (the purple one) once more, all while backed by a beautiful orchestral soundtrack. Did we mention there is a map now? A shiny new currency? And tons of customisation options? The favourite buddy duo has never moved, looked, or sounded better! Corporate creep Capital B is on a quest to steal all the books in the world and turn them into cold hard cash. BUT the most powerful book in the universe is right under his crooked nose in the neighbouring Shipwreck Creek, home to our adventurous buddy-duo, Yooka and Laylee! Seeing their prized book stolen pulls them into a wacky adventure across many fantastical & imaginative worlds, full of colourful characters and vault-loads of shiny collectibles. Can you find all of the magical Pagies from their book and save the day? FEATURES: MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN EVER – With an art and animations overhaul and enhanced performance and resolution, the favourite buddy duo has never looked or moved better. NEW AND IMPROVED CHALLENGES – Improvements to existing in-game challenges and many entirely new challenges to discover and undertake! NEW COLLECTIBLE CURRENCY – Capital B's inept minions have dropped their hard-earned coins all over the place. Collect the official currency of Hivory Towers to spend at the video games industry's most beloved sentient vending machine Vendi! NAVIGATING THE WORLD – Now you can get lost in the game, not in the world! A brand-new world map and challenges tracker helps you know where you are and what needs to be done. Hooray! VENDI HAS PLENTY TO OFFER – Tonics are back with all new flavours! With the option to equip multiple game-changing enhancements, you can truly customise your playstyle. And as if that wasn't enough, Vendi has new lines of merchandise for the modern fashionable adventurer. REVISED CONTROLS & CAMERA – A new tweaked move set allows you to combine moves more fluidly while the new camera controls make framing the action a breeze. A DREAMY ORCHESTRAL SOUNDTRACK – The original score from famed video game composers Grant Kirkhope (Banjo-Kazooie) and David Wise (Donkey Kong Country) returns but as a beautifully arranged orchestral score. Now seriously, clean out those ears. The post Creating Yooka-Replaylee – Our Vision for a Truly Modern Mascot Platformer appeared first on Xbox Wire.

The post Soul Stalker: Can You Overcome Its Roguelike World Through Pure Skill? appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Summary Battle hordes of corrupted apparitions. Gain world knowledge through NPC interaction and combine items for astounding loadout options. Progress through the ascension system to take full advantage of your overpowered builds. In Soul Stalker, you take on the role of one of 21 unique characters to protect earth-bound ghosts. Set in a distinctive 3D world with paper-like graphics, this bullet heaven roguelike places skill at the core of its design. Rather than improving through grinding, you’ll advance by mastering the game’s mechanics and learning to optimize the interactions between characters, weapons, and trinkets. Wield four to six weapons in simultaneous auto-attacking action to go on runs to defend your ghostly companions, while traversing combat encounters, campfires, and shops along the way. Each run typically lasts 20-25 minutes, and when you die, nothing except the currency called “Souls” carries over to your next attempt. Souls aren’t used for permanent upgrades but to unlock new weapons and trinkets, which you usually find on runs. You can also use them to create your ideal starting loadout. Instead of relying on grinding for stats, the game encourages you to improve by understanding the synergies between characters, weapons, and trinkets. For instance, you might come across a weapon that fires projectiles with a low cooldown and pierces multiple enemies. Pair this with a trinket that applies the “bleed” status effect and another that causes enemies to explode upon death from the bleed, and you’ll end up with a build that clears the screen in an instant by exploding everything in sight! Through learning these powerful combinations, you’ll consistently improve your runs by knowing what to focus on and adapt strategies accordingly. Characters are also a key part in making the strongest builds possible, and you unlock them by completing specific in-game objectives. For example, defeatinga boss with only one weapon unlocks Needle, the one-handed monk, while accumulating over 1,000 coins in a run grants you access to Penny, the merchant. As you unlock more characters, you’ll also discover more areas of the overworld and be able to chat with more of the ghosts you’re protecting. These ghosts can offer valuable tips on weapon and trinket combos, as well as insights into the mysterious events unfolding in Soul Stalker’s spectral world! Once you’ve honed your skills and mastered the interactions across the game’s 21 characters, 35 weapons, and 84 trinkets, you’ll be ready to tackle ascension levels. Ascension levels are difficulty modifiers that you can apply to a run, such as “enemies are tougher”, “heal less whenever you beat a boss”, or even “coins are no longer attracted to you at the end of combats”. Whenever you beat an ascension level, you unlock the next one with every single character, and if you manage to beat the maximum of level of ten with any of them, you can find a Master Crystal in the overworld that allows you to get a special skin! Learn each character’s strengths and weaknesses and climb the ten ascensions to slay even the most dangerous of apparitions to become the ultimate Soul Stalker! You can play the game on October 24 on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Microsoft Store with a 10% launch discount until October 31. Soul Stalker Radhood ☆☆☆☆☆ 5 ★★★★★ $7.49 $6.74 Get it now Soul Stalker is a bullet heaven roguelike where you assume the role of the steward of ghosts bound to eternal life on earth. Wield 4 to 6 weapons simultaneously to fend off waves of apparitions determined to defeat your spirited friends. Choose from a diverse pool of 21 characters, 35 weapons, 84 trinkets, and 21 pets to craft your ultimate build! Slay spooky souls, evolve your weapons, and progress through the Soul Stalker Society's hub to become an unstoppable force of nature. The post Soul Stalker: Can You Overcome Its Roguelike World Through Pure Skill? appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Gaming news, reviews, previews, and coverage from around the world

A Final Fantasy VI collaboration will be coming to Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis starting October 30th, according to an announcement trail from Square Enix posted today. Featured are Aerith, Cloud, Tifa and Sephiroth wearing Terra, Locke, Sabin, and Edgar outfits, along with an appearance by Kefka as a boss character. Previously, the game collaborated […]

The post Final Fantasy VI collaboration coming to Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis on October 30 appeared first on Nova Crystallis.

The first major update to follow Final Fantasy XIV‘s Dawntrail expansion will drop mid-November 2024 — we learned this during the most recent Letter from the Producer Live broadcast from Tokyo Game Show in which director/producer Naoki Yoshida went through an overview of the patch’s contents. In “Crossroads” or Patch 7.1, the main scenario quest […]

The post Final Fantasy XIV shares a preview of Patch 7.1 due out Mid-November appeared first on Nova Crystallis.

Romancing SaGa 2 Revenge of the Seven details even more details about the many recruit-able character classes your Emperor can ally with, as well as important story-related NPCs you’ll encounter. By adding them to your retinue, they’ll learn class specific abilities that will carry on down through the generations as the Imperial line does battle […]

The post Romancing SaGa 2 Revenge of the Seven details post-game content, New Game Plus appeared first on Nova Crystallis.

New footage of Dragon Quest III HD2D Remake is available today for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch. Seven minutes of PS5 gameplay and a narrated overview of the Switch version highlight the game’s features as well as the newly-added features to this remake. This includes the ability to customize your party members appearance, recruit a […]

The post Dragon Quest III HD2D Remake shares new gameplay and overview trailers appeared first on Nova Crystallis.

The All Saints’ Wake limited-time seasonal event returns to Final Fantasy XIV from October 18th through November 4th, 2024. Subtitled “A Feast of Thanks for the Foulest Friends”, a short scenario quest will be available in game with a variety of seasonal rewards. Limited time items from previous years’ iterations of the event can also […]

The post All Saints’ Wake seasonal event returns to Final Fantasy XIV on October 18, 2024 appeared first on Nova Crystallis.

Final Fantasy XI‘s October 2024 update is available today and refreshes Ambuscade objectives, tweaks the random number generator for old cases, and adds a few adjustments for gamepad users. Ambuscade will have you square off against dullahans and Formors. Dullahans are hard-hitting and gradually build up their strength, miasma, and rancor – so you’ll need […]

The post Final Fantasy XI October 2024 update refreshes Ambuscade, adds gamepad configurations appeared first on Nova Crystallis.

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Just Dance 2025 Edition is a great game for those who like more modern songs and dancing. It’s nice to see how far this game has come, but it can also feel a bit underwhelming as well, especially for those who favored a previous version.

The post Review: Just Dance 2025 Edition (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

Just Dance has done it again, creating yet another joyful game full of fun and sore muscles. Being the sixteenth installment in the franchise, Just Dance 2025 Edition has come a long way since its initial release. It now features more realistic dancers, more complicated dances, different versions of dances (to accommodate both those who are handy/capable and those who may just be looking for an easier and more low key routine), a workout mode, and so much more. Just like most of Just Dance’s previous games, you play this one with a joy-con in your hand. The way you move your hand determines the score you get. The more correct and on-beat your dancing is, the higher your score. Navigating the menu is just as simple. You move your curser around with your right or left stick, depending on which joy-con you are holding, and interact with A. You can return or go back in your search with B. Having not fully played a Just Dance game since the Wii, I was really looking forward to playing this one. I grew up on Just Dance, and still play my old game now and then. Just Dance 2025 comes with over 40 songs (some being repeats for more intense versions or for versions using only the upper body), and most of them are pretty good. This installment seems to focus more so on the modern songs. It even has some originals, which is cool in its own way, but also a little disappointing for those who would prefer dancing to throwbacks. The game features an Ariana Grande pack with five of her songs, featuring some new ones like “The Boy is Mine” and older selections like “One Last Time.” You’re able to create your own playlists as well, so you can dance strictly to your favorites, or switch it up by genre, a workout routine, or by how easy or hard the dances are. Along with the song choice in Just Dance 2025 Edition, I felt divided on the dances, as well. Some were really fun, while others felt too slow or too difficult, even on an easier mode. One of the dances I loved was to “Party in the U.S.A.” by Miley Cyrus, as it was a simple and fun dance that reminded me of the earlier versions of Just Dance. The character dancing was cute, and the background imagery was super cool and helped add to the song and dance’s bubbly and carefree vibe. I felt the same about the “Chattahoochee” dance as well. It was goofy, fun, and not too challenging. However, some of the dances like “Yes, And?” and “My Heart Will Go On” felt too slow and a little awkward to dance to. It’s understandable why these songs are on here, as some people may prefer a more lowkey dance, but I know that I, and the friends I played with, preferred to dance to upbeat and energetic songs. The difficulty of the songs is listed before you play. One cool feature is present with “Basket Case” which has three different characters: one with an easy dance, one with a medium, and one with a hard dance. This is nice to have as it allows people at different skill levels to play together. It’s also further proof of this game’s versatile representation and accessibility. Like stated before, some of the dances are upper body movements only, which is super handy for those who may be in wheelchairs or not able to move their lower body as well. There are also different body types represented, as well as clothing and aesthetics. Just Dance 2025 Edition is a game where everyone can find something they like. The whole production side of Just Dance is amazing. Even if you don’t like all of the songs or dances, it’s hard to not appreciate the look of them all. The settings, props, art, and animation all add to the fun of the game. They also help keep the screen from getting boring, as you have more to look at than just a person dancing. Being run by Ubisoft, Just Dance 2025 Edition is an online game in which you have to create an account. However, you can download dances so you are able to play with no Internet connection. And although the 2025 edition comes with 40 songs, you’re able to buy more. There are a bunch of different packs, such as Just Dance 2024 and 2023. These bigger packs cost around $50, which makes sense as that’s about how much Just Dance 2025 costs, and these packs are another 40 songs. The game comes with a free month of Just Dance+, which gives you access to over 300 songs. Don’t get too accustomed to those, however, until you plan on paying to extend the subscription. Just Dance 2025 Edition is a great game for those who like more modern songs and dancing. It’s nice to see how far this game has come, but it can also feel a bit underwhelming as well, especially for those who favored a previous version. Still, Just Dance creates an environment in which anyone can have fun, and that’s what is most important. The post Review: Just Dance 2025 Edition (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

The Meating is a puzzle-platformer for the Nintendo Switch. Or is it for the NES? Actually, it’s both. Yes, developers Mega Cat Studios have created something completely new for the

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The Meating is a puzzle-platformer for the Nintendo Switch. Or is it for the NES? Actually, it’s both. Yes, developers Mega Cat Studios have created something completely new for the bricky NES. We are reviewing the Switch version, but it’s exactly the same either way, for better or worse. The quirky story certainly stands out. It seems Kon, a rogue minotaur, is bored, and is using some kind of dating app to find a friend. When he falls victim to catfishing, he lands himself in the arms of a sadistic butcher who chops Kon to pieces. Thankfully, a mystical presence (the god of gyros, no less) grants Kon the ability to hop around as a head and gather his body back together. ‘Tis the season, I guess? Oddness aside, the premise is simple. You play the role of the minotaur’s head as he platforms his way through 60+ levels to collect the rest of his body. You can jump, headbutt, and float. Kinda. Pressing jump twice and holding it allows you to remain airborne. An energy meter depletes while floating, meaning it should be used sparingly. Still, it’s a sure-fire way to reach platforms too far to simply jump between. The gameplay loop is equally simple. Each level is a puzzle. Your goal? Collect the key hidden somewhere and take it to the door. There are triggers to push along the way, moving elements like walls or floors to create new pathways. There are also plenty of monsters to get in your way, along with special abilities to unlock, such as telekinesis and possession. You’ve heard of the term “NES hard”, right? The developers apparently took this phrase to heart with The Meating. This is a tough outing. Unfortunately, this creates an experience that’s often more frustrating than fun. Enemies respawn when you revisit a room. Indestructible flying roast chickens fall on you (now that’s a sentence I never thought I’d write). And even those cool headbutt attacks can be hard to pull off without taking damage. Another NES-ism is the use of passwords. You begin the game with a mere three lives. These quickly deplete, leaving you with a “Game over” screen and password. Write it down and type it in if you want to continue. While this is a cute little slice of nostalgia, it’s just annoying in 2024. Visually, The Meating presents a neat 8-bit NES-like aesthetic. The pixelated sprites stand out and are well designed. There’s a meat theme going on here, with a lot of reds and browns used throughout. Vegetarians might want to steer away from this title. The audio is equally pleasing in this regard, giving a healthy dose of sounds that belong in the glory days of yesteryear. Overall, The Meating is an interesting title. The quirky story is memorable, though the platforming is less than perfect. Perhaps the Switch version could have used a few enhancements to separate it from the NES take on things. There’s plenty to do, and it’ll appeal to anyone looking for an authentic NES experience. The post Review: The Meating (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

Playing through the horror game Camp Sunshine was not entirely unlike stumbling upon an unknown indie horror movie on Night Flight back in the mid-'80s. It's a small game that seeks its niche and occupies that space comfortably while trying to make sure you are not comfortable.

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Playing through the horror game Camp Sunshine was not entirely unlike stumbling upon an unknown indie horror movie on Night Flight back in the mid-’80s (although you can still do that now). It’s a small game that seeks its niche and occupies that space comfortably trying to make sure you are not comfortable. The game starts with Jez, his attitude, and his mother driving to Camp Sunshine. Seems mom and dad are separating, and I guess that means they’d rather not have to think about their child for a week. Good job, ’80s parents! Jez meets his counselor and bunkmate upon arrival, then goes right to bed for the night. This is absolutely not how camps work, but it sure pushes the story along quickly. That night, Jez awakens to find everyone gone, mostly replaced by an awful lot of blood and mutilated body parts. He’s also being chased by a giant, knife-wielding teddy bear. Jez grabs his flashlight, swipes a map of the campground, and seeks cover in a building where he starts to learn a bit about the camp’s history. This comes via documents scattered across the camp. Gameplay, then, centers around uncovering the camp’s past while avoiding the constant pursuit of the killer furry. The bear can make quick work of you, by the way, so save often. Stealth horror is at the center of it all. Unlike your typical slasher movies of the period when this game is set, Jez doesn’t arm himself with machetes or harpoon guns. He has his flashlight, and knowing when to use and douse that is key. The player will need to keep it on to see a lot of the important stuff, but that can also draw attention from the bear, from whom you can only hide. His sudden appearances made for some fun, frightful moments, but I think it was scarier just discovering whether my chosen hiding spot would work. And, of course, the flashlight’s batteries won’t last forever, so you need to use it judiciously. This means the game is mostly played in the dark, as it should be. As is tradition, the killer is pretty stupid. He’s easy to run away from and even easier to hide from; line of sight appears to be his only method of detection. That doesn’t mean I didn’t die a few times, but rather that I never felt I didn’t stand a chance against him. It’s actually scarier anticipating the bear showing up than it was fleeing him. Jez isn’t completely alone at the camp. He stumbles across other survivors who are mainly there to give him fetch quests and to push the story along. While playing, I realized we’ve always had the answer to why so many horror movie characters enter darkened forests and basements and abandoned hospitals. Ends up they’re not stupid, they’re just on fetch quests. Gotta get those achievements! I also enjoyed the comic absurdity of some of Camp Sunshine’s fetch quests considering the environment. Equally absurd is the amount of gore in the game. I mean, everything looks adorable in 16 bits, and I guess that includes chopped up human remains. There are a lot of body parts lying about the campgrounds, and they make effectively gross noises when you step on them. The music is good, too, clearly taking inspiration from the cues of your favorite horror movie soundtracks. The audio and music are more effective via headphones in handheld mode, but the visuals fit nicely on the big screen which allows you to play through the game with the helpful eyes of others in the room. They can also help with the minigame puzzles when they show up. One of the best things about Camp Sunshine, though, is its length. You can finish it in under five hours, making it a great gaming option for a Halloween weekend. A good amount of this time is devoted to animated cutscenes and puzzle solving, so you’re just constantly running from the killer. Skip a couple Friday the 13th or Sleepaway Camp rewatches and you’ve cleared time to work this in. It’s also only $7, so it costs less than renting those movies. Aside from some effective jump scares, the game is never really all that terrifying. It is fun, though; more so if you’ve a decent knowledge of the slasher films it’s clearly referencing. And although the gameplay never changes much from the start, the story goes places you may not expect, even if it does seem to be written by someone with no knowledge of legal procedures, camp policies, or human psychology. I guess that’s accurate for the genre. It’s safe to say horror fans will enjoy spending a night or two at Camp Sunshine while your parents sort their relationship troubles back home. The post Review: Camp Sunshine (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

It’s time to reveal the latest games hitting the Nintendo Switch eShop. This week is jam-packed with new games, trials, sales, and more, from retro classics like Banjo-Tooie to a

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It’s time to reveal the latest games hitting the Nintendo Switch eShop. This week is jam-packed with new games, trials, sales, and more, from retro classics like Banjo-Tooie to a crossover adventure in the form of Sonic X Shadow. Yep, Sonic is back, this time hanging with his best frenemy, Shadow. This outing features two unique gameplay styles depending on the current character. One important detail remains consistent, though – that constant need for speed. The blue blur is back! Meanwhile, SEGA has another big entry this week in the form of Yakuza Kiwami. This is a remake of the first game in the Yakuza series, which debuted in 2005. Take to the streets of Tokyo in this street brawler featuring fights, casinos, and general mafia mayhem. For Switch Online subscribers, the latest addition to the N64 collection is here, and it’s something special. Banjo-Tooie was first released in the year 2000, making this its 24th anniversary. This sequel to beloved 3D platfomer Banjo-Kazooie brings the bird and bear back for more collecting and puzzle solving in even larger worlds as they once again battle the evil witch Gruntilda. Halloween is upon us, and there are some spooky sales to tempt your digital wallet. From Resident Evil to Castlevania, there’s plenty on offer. you can also play three games for free in the lates Game Trial, including the excellent Vampire Survivors. We’ll be going through our highlights in our upcoming episode of the Pure Nintendo Podcast, along with our favorite spooky games in general, so stay tuned! In the meantime, there’s a long list of new games to consider. Check out the full list below and let us know what you’re playing this weekend. Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack Banjo-Tooie – Banjo and Kazooie are back for another adventure in the Nintendo 64 game Banjo-Tooie, which launches today as part of the Nintendo 64 – Nintendo Switch Online library. The evil witch Gruntilda is revived by her sisters and it’s up to the bear-bird duo to stop her! Packed with action to rival its predecessor, magical minigames, perplexing puzzles and freaky foes await them as they attempt to foil another of Gruntilda’s wicked plans. Banjo-Tooie will be available for Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack members later today. Nintendo eShop on Nintendo Switch SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS – Shadow the Hedgehog is back with Classic and Modern Sonic in SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS, an all-new collection featuring two unique experiences! Play as Shadow in a new story campaign with never-before-seen abilities that demonstrate why he’s known as the Ultimate Life Form. Speed through iconic stages from Shadow’s history, discover hidden secrets in an expansive hub world and unlock new powers to take on Black Doom and save the world. Also experience SONIC GENERATIONS, a time-traveling adventure featuring a greatest-hits collection of 3D and 2D Sonic stages, now with upgraded visuals and new bonus content. SONIC X SHADOW GENERATIONS launches on Oct. 25. Yakuza Kiwami – The critically acclaimed action-adventure epic that started the Yakuza series is on the Nintendo Switch system for the first time! Immerse yourself in a realistic, modern day Japanese entertainment district called Kamurocho as an epic drama unfolds and you’re forced to fight through the streets with varying fighting styles, makeshift weapons and over-the-top finishing moves. Yakuza Kiwami is available now! Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven – The groundbreaking non-linear RPG makes its triumphant return as a full remake, featuring English voiceovers, original and rearranged compositions by series composer Kenji Ito and much more. Furious that mankind has forgotten their many sacrifices, the legendary Seven Heroes have returned as villains bent on revenge. Select your main character from several protagonists, defend your empire in strategic battles and experience a story that responds to your choices. Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is available now. Game trials Triple the Fun – In this new Game Trial, you’ll be able to play three games instead of one! From now until Oct. 30 at 11:59 p.m. PT, Nintendo Switch Online members can download and try the full A Little to the Left, Cursed to Golf and Vampire Survivors games at no additional cost. If you decide to purchase any of the games during or after this offer, you’ll keep all save data, so you won’t have to worry about losing your progress. Nintendo Switch Online members can earn 100 My Nintendo Platinum Points by participating. As an added bonus, you can digitally purchase A Little to the Left for 40% off until Oct. 30 at 11:59 p.m. PT, Cursed to Golf for 75% off until Nov. 1 at 11:59 p.m. PT and Vampire Survivors for 15% off until Nov. 7 at 11:59 p.m. PT. Activities Last Chance to Enter the My Nintendo Pikmin Kura Sushi Sweepstakes – Final call to enter the My Nintendo Pikmin Kura Sushi Sweepstakes for a chance to win $600 in gift certificates to Kura Revolving Sushi Bar USA. My Nintendo members can redeem 10 My Nintendo Platinum Points to enter at my.nintendo.com with up to five entries total. The sweepstakes ends Oct. 31 at 11 p.m. PT! For more information, check out https://my.nintendo.com/news/27708b0f3bd0dd64. No Tricks, All Treats – From cozy delights to howling frights, discover spooky fun with Nintendo Switch games, Halloween merch, in-game events happening in October and more from Nintendo! For more information, check out this page: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/games/october-seasonal/. Nintendo eShop sales Screaming Deals – When the moon rises, have a howling good time with games for Nintendo Switch! For a limited time, save up to 50% on select digital games when you shop on Nintendo.com or Nintendo eShop on your device. Get in before sunrise! This long night of deals only lasts through Oct. 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT. For more information and to view the full list of games, visit https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/sales-and-deals/#screaming-deals. Also new this week Arcade Archives VIOLENCE FIGHT Arcade Room Simulator – Available Oct. 25 Arcade Tanks World II: Tank Battle Simulator Backrooms: Partygoers – Available Oct. 29 Barbie Project Friendship – Available Oct. 25 Bookshop Wonderland: Supermarket Simulator Botworld Odyssey Bundle: memory – The Original Matching Game from Ravensburger + Rush Hour Deluxe – The ultimate traffic jam game! Card-en-Ciel Care Bears: To The Rescue Cats Hidden in Spooky Places – Available Oct. 25 Cell Scientist: Beyond – Available Oct. 30 Comic Store Arcade Crash Puzzle Hammer-San Cute Bite – Available Oct. 25 Don’t let him in – Available Oct. 25 dotAGE Easy Cute Clean Up Lesson EGGCONSOLE MURDER CLUB PC-8801 Fun Pack – Available Oct. 25 Garage Mechanic Simulator 3D Garbage Driver Truck Simulator 2025 – Available Oct. 25 Guess the Flag! – Available Oct. 26 Hidden Cats in Spooky Town House of Horror – 7 Psychos Hot Wheels Monster Trucks: Stunt Mayhem Idle Command: Supply Frontline It Could Happen to You Keeper’s Toll – Available Oct. 28 Kingsgrave Medieval Grandmaster: Tavern Board Battle MiniGhost Miraculous: Paris Under Siege – Available Oct. 25 Monster High Skulltimate Secrets – Available Oct. 29 Moorhuhn Jump and Run ‘Traps and Treasures 3’ Music Games OnePunch Orange Season Pixel Game Maker Series Chrotopia Pod Jam Police Simulator: Patrol Officers: Nintendo Switch Edition – Available Oct. 29 Prisnhax Rogue Flight – Available Oct. 25 ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS 8 REMAKE Rookie Boxing Say Cheese! Shin chan: Shiro and the Coal Town Simply Cubic Skater’s Solstice – Available Oct. 30 Slay the Princess – The Pristine Cut Solomon Snow: First Contact – Available Oct. 26 Soul Stalker Speedollama Stickin’ the Landing Stilt Fella The Bridge Curse 2: The Extrication The Cheese Chase: Pizza Madness The Coma 2B: Catacomb – Available Oct. 25 The Jackbox Survey Scramble The Legend of Santa – Available Oct. 28 The Rocky Horror Show Video Game The Seed: Unit 7 The Smurfs – Dreams The Sun Shines Over Us The World of Kungfu: Dragon and Eagle Together We Live Vengeance Hunters – Available Oct. 28 Voidwrought WolfFang 空牙2001 SkullFang 空牙外伝 Saturn Tribute Boosted – Available Oct. 30 Ys X: Nordics – Available Oct. 25 Zebulon: A Lost Cat – Available Oct. 27 The post Sonic X Shadow and Banjo-Tooie join this week’s eShop roundup appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

“It’s finally here,” are words many will say upon booting up Hatch Tales: A Heroic Hookshot Adventure. The Kickstarter for this game (when it was known as Chicken Wiggle Workshop)

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“It’s finally here,” are words many will say upon booting up Hatch Tales: A Heroic Hookshot Adventure. The Kickstarter for this game (when it was known as Chicken Wiggle Workshop) launched nearly seven years ago! While that campaign struggled with a combination of several unforeseen occurrences and management lapses, it’s fortunate that the finished product is quite good. The fact that Hatch Tales is successful shouldn’t come as a shock. Chicken Wiggle was a PNM favorite on 3DS (though beware, the physical version has a game-breaking bug). Hatch Tales isn’t just an HD port of its 3DS predecessor, even though that’s how it got funded. It morphed over these years into a sequel with a few concerns but predominantly positive changes. First, kudos for adding “A Heroic Hookshot Adventure” to the title. Hatch Tales was such an incredibly generic and unclear name. That said, the title change led to a change in character. The chicken and worm duo have gotten pushed aside for a hawk and a hookshot. The reasons for this change, being less of “a young, kiddy game,” are curious at a minimum, and the final result is Hatch Tales has unfortunately lost some of its original charm. Chicken Wiggle didn’t fail to meet expectations by being a kid’s game, but because of fierce competition from the recently launched Switch and a slew of other 3DS best sellers released that same year. But I digress. Along with a new character, you have a new (albeit cliched) story. It’s unnecessary for this type of game. But while emphasized in this title’s listing for whatever reason, it doesn’t get much emphasis in-game, even if a cutscene to bookend each would’ve been smart. You get dumped right into the action, and it’s fun. And it’s a good thing this action’s fun because one oddity is the bizarre number of gems needed to advance. The first world has 21 gems in the main stages, and you need 20 to advance. Thankfully, I got more from side quests, but can they be called “side” at that point? This design choice flaw could potentially turn off some players, even more so since Hatch Tales noticeably boosts difficulty from Chicken Wiggle. While the latter only had a single heart, its stages were more straightforward. Hatch Tales levels are generally longer, requiring quicker reflexes for the faster action, even so occasionally reverting to a single heart. To be clear, I welcome the increase in challenge as a rule, even if some unforgiving spikes in world five had me stepping away from the game a bit. The checkpoint spacing varies widely—some levels even have none—but failing repeatedly at least grants you an extra heart, sometimes. I initially didn’t notice this feature until the previously mentioned level, but I greatly appreciate it. It helps when hunting for needed gems you missed earlier, especially during the awesome retro challenges of Sparkle’s Arcade Mutant Mudd levels. When briefly stepping away from the challenge, I wanted to replay Chicken Wiggle in all its pixel art glory (you can change between the original and HD, though not “at any time” as promised). The game was nowhere to be found, only accessible by a code entered at the title screen. While part of me smiles at this (I’m an NES kid from the era of passwords), this is yet another odd instance. Does Atooi want to give the impression of downplaying the first game? Wouldn’t they think advertising more content is a good thing? Along these lines, the level editor (half the fun of the original) gets no advertisement. Creation gets buried under a tiny “online” icon that minimizes it. Curiouer and curioser. Still, having the great 3DS content is nothing to sneeze at. Alongside the fresh levels, it makes for a release packed with content. At the risk of repeating myself (but doing so for emphasis), this game is fun, even if the F-U-N letter collectibles are now gems. Try mastering flying, pecking, running, and more while aiming to 100% the game and enjoying some catchy music, including a pair of tracks from Grant Kirkhope. Hatch Tales: A Heroic Hookshot Adventure had a rough road to release, and the final product reflects that in some respects with a few odd choices. Still, it’s a very good platformer, much more often than not, challenging and content-rich. Releasing late in the life of the Switch exposes it to some of the same risks the original game faced later in the life of 3DS. I hope Hatch Tales secures success and recommend it for a fun time. I also recommend you share your level designs with Pure Nintendo. Here is a popular one that bears our name (Quest ID 268) We’ll feature them in a future magazine and show Atooi that downplaying the level editor was a mistake. AGABOOSH! The post Review: Hatch Tales: A Heroic Hookshot Adventure (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open does involve ghosts, and there are some creepy moments to work through, but this is mostly a family drama as seen from the point of view of a young girl who…well, she sees dead people.

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I grabbed the review of Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open because it looked like a good choice for Halloween scares. I was wrong. The game does involve ghosts, and there are some creepy moments to work through, but this is mostly a family drama as seen from the point of view of a young girl who…well, she sees dead people. Third Eye Open quickly introduces us to this girl, named Ting, and Xiu, the young ghost she befriends. We also meet her parents, who are preparing her for preschool. The mother is patient and understanding, while the father is stern and pragmatic. Their conflicting parenting styles create tension that hangs over Ting as she’s coming to terms with her supernatural powers while wrestling with fears of stepping outside her home life. Two elements of Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open will quickly grab the player’s attention. First, as you can tell from the screen captures, are the graphics. The game is presented in a 3D world of 2D objects, including the characters. Characters and objects are presented as flat, paper-constructed objects as if in a diorama for a grade school project. The environments are colorful and detailed while lacking any real heft. It’s a unique look that maintains its charm throughout the course of the game. The second is the game’s setting. The game takes place in Malaysia (where the development studio is located) and is based on Malaysian and Chinese folklore and traditions. The local vernacular is used heavily and explained throughout the game, giving the players a unique lesson in Malaysian language and culture along the way. Certain elements seemed forced—I’m sure Ting would’ve already known most of the information her mother imparts—but it was interesting to learn and made the dialogue fun to read (there is no voice acting). Gameplay mostly serves to push along Ting’s story as she grows into her powers. The player is provided with numerous tasks to complete, the bulk of which involve getting to know your surroundings. Early on, these can be as simple as cleaning Ting’s room or delivering invitations to the neighbors. Because they’re tied into the story, however, they rarely feel like busy work, even if that’s exactly what they are. The drawback here is that the game does little to grab the player’s interest at the start. We’ve got a girl with a dead friend, but the story focuses on the tension-filled family dynamic and Ting’s reluctance to make living friends. There’s a lot to read and learn, but not a lot to actually do. The minigames help, but even a good number of these feel more like everyday activities than important steps in a young girl’s supernatural adventure: cooking, learning origami, etc. As a result, the bulk of the game feels more like a slice-of-life visual novel than a ghostly adventure. Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open does lean into its supernatural element for some creepy moments. Players will explore a darkened forest and the neighborhood’s haunted house, for example, providing segments where Ting has to move around without being detected. Ting will have tasks to complete during these moments, forcing the player to really lock into the environment and gameplay. The camera doesn’t always help, as it follows Ting a bit too closely, making it difficult to see what the player should be able to see. Still, this was my favorite aspect of the game, and I wish it had been used more than it was. Of course, it’s not fair of me to criticize Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open for not being what I wanted it to be. It’s not scary, just a bit creepy in parts, and even the Goosebumps crowd would find its supernatural elements quite tame. But it does do a lot of things well. The story is touching and effective, the visuals are a treat, and the game makes excellent use of its setting. I won’t suggest it for those seeking Halloween frights or challenging adventures, but it’s a solid option for younger gamers who can relate to the troubles of growing up, and for parents who are there to help them through it. The post Review: Paper Ghost Stories: Third Eye Open (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

Nekograms is a cute and cozy puzzle game for the Nintendo Switch. It features cats and cushions with the simple objective of helping each kitty reach a cushion so it

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Nekograms is a cute and cozy puzzle game for the Nintendo Switch. It features cats and cushions with the simple objective of helping each kitty reach a cushion so it can take a well-earned nap. Did I mention it’s cute? The game began life as an alternative to Picross. Although it started out using light bulbs as the main gimmick, during development, it evolved into a cat-based version. But don’t let the adorable aesthetics fool you; this relaxing puzzle experience will still tickle your brain. Nekograms is packed with 120 levels, providing plenty to do. Each one is short and sweet, depicting a number of cats, cushions, and other objects in a grid-based format. The catch is that felines can only be moved left and right. Those comfy pillows, on the other hand, only traverse in a vertical direction. Other objects like beach balls and coffee cups are there to block your path, adding complexities. Puzzles are spread across three worlds, with forty levels apiece. You begin in a cat café, a very Japanese concept that complements the game’s title (“neko” is Japanese for cat, after all). From there, it’s off to the beach for some fun in the sun before finally heading to a lovely park area. And are those cherry blossoms in the park? Each world is decorated with colorful backdrops that pop off the screen. Nekograms keeps things cozy with no time limit to stress you out, allowing you to think through each puzzle at your own pace. However, the challenge lies in the set number of recommended moves assigned to each one. So, while you can take as long as you like, completionists (or perfectionists) will want to earn the top rating of three stars, achieved by hitting that par number of moves. The menu provides a neat overview of all levels, depicting your star ratings and making it easy to see which levels you need to revisit. New levels are locked until the previous one is completed, but you don’t need to collect a specific number of stars to move on. This balances the difficulty, allowing players to move on relatively easily by adding a challenge for anyone looking for more to do. And if that’s not enough to keep you busy, there’s an unlockable endless mode to keep you hooked, well, forever. The music is simple and sweet, perfectly suited to the cartoony kitties and that relaxing vibe. The cat noises originated from a real cat, adding to the experience with an authentic feel. If you’re a cat person who loves puzzles, this will be right up your alley. A puzzle game like Nekograms screams for touch controls. Thankfully, the developers have done a terrific job keeping this intact for the Switch version. The touch controls work perfectly in handheld mode, allowing you to slide those kitties and cushions to your heart’s content. It’s intuitive and quickly became my favorite way to play. That said, the controls are equally simple and easy to use, so playing on a television is just as accessible. Overall, Nekograms is an adorable puzzle game all about helping cats take a nap. It just doesn’t get any more adorable – but there’s more to it than cuteness. Nekograms also presents a strong puzzle element with over 100 levels to conquer, along with a star rating and endless mode to keep you hooked. This relaxing and well-designed puzzle outing is sure to please genre fans. Looking for even more? We also spoke to Hungry Sky, developer of Nekograms, at PAX Aus 2024. The post Review: Nekograms (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

An abandoned amusement park is the quintessential setting for horror, and Crow Country capably takes advantage of it. Right from the start, you’re left intrigued, with a security camera in

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An abandoned amusement park is the quintessential setting for horror, and Crow Country capably takes advantage of it. Right from the start, you’re left intrigued, with a security camera in the employee parking lot following your every move. Is this theme park empty or not? It turns out it isn’t, at least not entirely. A few random characters are strewn about the park, each with their personal motivations for being there. It’s a small enough group to retain the sense of apprehension in isolation yet enough to add extra weight to your investigation. You play as special agent Mara Forest, responding to a missing persons report. (Without spoilers, I promise she gets far more interesting the deeper you progress into the game). What isn’t missing is monsters of different shapes and sizes, all grotesque. Finding the missing park owner becomes just part of your overall focus to survive while also finding out how this abruptly closed park got into the state it is. The park is the star of the game, and the entertaining puzzles within, wrapped around the mysterious plot, push you forward. While the park is a good size, it’s laid out in such a way as to make your explorations manageable. You’ll discover shortcuts that make travel even faster. Themed areas include Fairytale Town, Haunted Hilltop (admittedly seems redundant in an already spooky park), and Ocean Kingdom. Seeing how these attractions supposedly work might remove some of the magic were you a little kid on vacation, but Mara’s more interested in how these grant access to other areas (maps will let you see locales not yet fully explored). An arcade, a gift shop, and a restaurant are just some expected spots, all packed with puzzles requiring good observation and visually fun. Crow Country’s visuals are purposely dated by design, adopting an early 32-bit look rather than oft-seen pixel art. But, as the game takes place in 1990, the visuals eventually seem a few years ahead, if that makes sense. The look also aids the vibe; the game would look less scary without this aesthetic. I commend this choice and the grittiness it adds while still keeping clear what you are looking at, especially with a flexible camera. Smart lighting also works to the game’s benefit. Even though this is a darker title in several areas, grabbing an early light source proves effectively helpful, as you shine in every corner to ensure no detail gets missed. The audio fits what this game is going for quite well. While sound effects are hit or miss, the music is appropriately creepy. It’s tough to pick a favorite as the entire soundtrack’s a winner. “Maybe everything will be okay…” gets my vote, a hauntingly serene tune that’s music to my ears, indicating a room with fire, aka a room where you can save. True, limited saves might not be ideal for handheld play, but the approach is apt for this type of game. While I played Crow Country alongside my wife on a TV, I look forward to replaying it with headphones for even more immersion. I’ve mentioned the satisfying puzzles, but what of the combat? Combat is not the strength of Crow County. In truth, I’d argue it’s the prime, possibly the only, weakness the game has. Even with both classic and modern settings, aiming is fiddly. One of the earliest monster encounters occurs in a narrow hallway, making running past impractical. Here you’ll see not only monsters that are slightly quicker than expected but ones that will absorb nearly an entire ammo clip, even when you’re aiming for the head. While you can always backtrack to the trunk of your car for additional ammunition, the fights simply lack entertainment, paling compared to exploration and puzzle-solving. The developers must have realized they missed the mark as an “Exploration Mode” is included (one of three modes). Enemies still appear but have already fallen, as if they died of natural causes. We didn’t miss the combat. What we did miss was the absence of any danger in this mode. Why do poisons (food and gas) no longer damage us? What happened to bear traps and other environmental obstacles? Puzzle hints are limited (and optional), so why make these so easy? We shouldn’t have to choose between subpar combat or subpar challenge. If not for these blunders, Crow Country would score even higher. But even with a couple of missteps, I’m still scoring Crow Country highly. The story engrosses, and the puzzles challenge without being too ridiculous. The game is long enough to be rewarding but not so long as to make replay intimidating. And the retro horror may even make you jump a couple of times, in teen-rated fashion. The Snipperclips devs have done considerably good work here, and anyone who predicted otherwise can eat crow. The post Review: Crow Country (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

Drova is very much the type of game my buddies and I would have played back in the '90s, spending many evenings discussing it and comparing strategies/experiences. Is that the case in 2024? To a lesser extent, yeah.

The post Review: Drova (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

Drova, a throwback action RPG from publisher Deck13, is very much the type of game I would’ve played on my Mac LCII back in the ’90s. My buddies would have, too, and we would’ve spent many evenings discussing it and comparing strategies/experiences. Is that the case in 2024? To a lesser extent, yeah. Drova is a dark game both visually and thematically. It’s steeped in Celtic mythology, set in a world where things go south from the very start and never really take a significant turn for the better—a hard game set in a harsh world. From the game’s description in the Nintendo eShop: A society has discovered the power of a dead empire: to capture the spirits that govern nature and rule over them instead. However, the anger of the remaining spirits divided them. Where will you stand? You actually do get to choose where you stand, picking between two rival factions—Nemeton and the Remnants—and following their path against each other once you reach the legendary Drova. Each has its own set of ideals driving their goals for Drova. If you’re into old-school RPGs, you’re going to enjoy taking each 40- to 50-hour route. Whichever way you go, plenty of time is sunk into becoming a part of the group. You’ll need to accept jobs and go on quests in order to build up not only your skillset, but the trust of the community, as well. The decisions you make throughout will affect how you’re viewed by various groups and what becomes available to you later in the game. Combat itself is fairly basic—get out your weapons (or magic skills) and use them. The story presents you with a basic one fairly early, but you’ll of course want to upgrade throughout the game. You can choose how you approach combat, and certain weapons work better against certain enemies. You can attempt to avoid enemies, and this is often the wiser choice. Although Drova gives you plenty of easy animals to defeat so you can gain experience, it mixes those in with enemies you have no chance of beating at the start. That’s not uncommon these days, but the game could do a better job of letting you know which is which so you don’t embarrass yourself. That’s actually likely to happen for the opening hours of the game, as Drova doesn’t do much to guide you early on. You do occasionally get helpful tips, and the UI provides important checkpoints so you’re not left to meander in this brutal landscape (in fact, if you’re warned against meandering at any point, take that warning seriously). But you’re not provided with the money you need to acquire new recipes and items. You’re instead left to make do with what you have, and what you have often isn’t enough to do it. As a result, the game’s opening segments feel like a chore because that’s literally all you’re doing: chores. But hey, whistle while you work, right? These chores are at least engaging, and the game generally feels like it’s heading somewhere. It also helps that the story and action are all set in a world that’s fun to explore not only narratively, but also visually. The pixel art environments are nicely detailed and uniquely lit, creating a unique look that feels modern despite the retro trappings. I was less impressed by the character sprites, but they do fit the overall appearance of the game. It did amuse me that there are so many character creation options when many of them are nearly indiscernible when playing, especially in handheld mode. This is definitely a game you want to play docked, as the tiny type, UI, and dark playing field are very hard to see on the small screen. Unfortunately, Drova is not without some technical issues, too. The occasional graphic anomaly pops up, and the game crashed on me a few times during my playthrough. There were also instances where my character would just quit responding to the environment as if he was no longer part of it. The first time this happened, I actually thought it was part of the game. Drova has since been updated, however, so hopefully this update has addressed these issues. Those issues aside, Drova provided an engaging experience that fans of old-school RPGs should enjoy. Combat and item management isn’t quite as complex as the D&D-inspired games to which Drova pays homage, but you’re kept busy with the community work that actually feels pretty rewarding. And although the story is grim, it provides more than enough incentive to keep you pushing forward when things otherwise feel hopeless. Sink a few hours in it, talk it over with your gaming buddies, then sink a few more. The post Review: Drova (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

This week on the Pure Nintendo Podcast, Jemma, Kirk, and Trev discuss the latest entry in the Mario Party series.

Last week, we recapped on the annual PAX Aus

The post We play Super Mario Party Jamboree | Pure Nintendo Podcast E83 appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

This week on the Pure Nintendo Podcast, Jemma, Kirk, and Trev discuss the latest entry in the Mario Party series. Last week, we recapped on the annual PAX Aus event, discussing the terrific indies we met over the weekend. This week, we have another full show, from an Alarmo update and Switch 2 code names, to a few spooky games and Super Mario Party Jamboree. When it comes to Alarmo, Australians had to pre-register for a lottery in order to purchase. Jemma relays her experience – did she manage to snag one? Meanwhile, news leaked last week about the code name for the Switch successor – Ounce. Is it true? What do we think about the name and what it could mean? We also delve into some Tron news as well as discussing Banjo Tooie coming to Switch Online before delving into our ongoing discussion on spooky games to celebrate Halloween. This week, Trev, Jemma, and Kirk each have a game to share to get you in the mood for the season. We’re also playing a lot of games this week, including the brilliant new Super Mario Party Jamboree. Jemma regales us with her time with the game so far. Trev, on the other hand is playing the new Atooi game, Hatch Tails, which comes with a bit of histry. And Kirk is playing a neat action RPG called Drova. There’s a lot to unpack, and we hope you enjoy this week’s show. Let us know your thoughts on any of the topics discussed today! Thanks for listening, we love putting these shows together, so let us know your thoughts! And don’t forget to leave us a review to help support the channel. We appreciate it! Until next time, game on everyone! Support the show! Please support the Pure Nintendo Podcast by leaving us a review on Spotify or liking on YouTube, and tune in each and every Monday for more Nintendo-related goodness. It’s all happening on the Pure Nintendo Podcast! You can find our podcast on: Spotify Apple Amazon Or view the entire collection! You can also subscribe to our bi-monthly magazine over at patreon.com/PureNintendo and follow us on Twitter/X at twitter.com/PureNintendo. We’re also on Bluesky and Mastadon. We’d love your support! The post We play Super Mario Party Jamboree | Pure Nintendo Podcast E83 appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

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An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Reverted BLU Scout pants fix because it conflicts with too many existing cosmetics Updated the Fleet Commander again to fix import problems from the previous update Updated the Phantom Plague and Haunting Haze Unusual effects to fix sometimes spawning away from the player Updated cp_freaky_fair Fixed issues related to the gamemode logic Reapplied check that was mistakenly removed to check if the player is actively buying upgrades in a station or not Implemented new custom system to refund upgrades to hopefully address inconsistencies both in-round and across rounds Implemented logic to handle mismatches in recorded vs actual currency values when leaving the upgrade trigger and having not accepted de-bought upgrades Reverted code to do with Ghosts and Sentry busters to fix bugs related to their effects not de-applying Implemented a way to force kill players to address edge cases where you could survive as the sentry buster past their explosion (Thanks MilkMaster!) Improved the logic which checks if you can apply a new potion effect to yourself to address bugs where effects can overlap Fixed sniper and demo shields not having their upgrades cleared Fixed canteens not having their values cleared when refunding whilst not equipped Increased the height of the skybox Increased last point capture time from 6s to 7s Changed some clipping to stop giants from building on roofs Smoothed out a divot (Thanks Midnite!) Updated zi_atoll, zi_blazehattan, zi_devastation_final1, zi_murky, zi_sanitarium, and zi_woods General Re-encoded all Zombie Infection sound effects as .WAV This fixes issues with sound effects not playing correctly and spewing errors in the console Bug fixes Fixed a bug that caused Sniper's Spit Pool to deal much more damage than intended Fixed a bug that caused team names to not display correctly when playing on mp_tournament mode Fixed a bug where Engineer would sometimes scream like a charging Demoman while throwing an EMP Grenade Zombie Changes Sniper's Spit Pool damage vs Survivors no longer stacks when standing in multiple zones Zombie Heavy is no longer immune to Critical Hits Zombie Heavy's max health raised to 525 (from 450) Zombie Pyro's max health raised to 250 (from 175) Zombie Pyro now drops a medium health kit on death Survivor Changes Crossbow weapons no longer have a flat damage multiplier against Zombies The B.A.S.E Jumper can no longer be deployed if you are one of the last three survivors Jumper Weapons can no longer store reserve ammunition Updated zi_murky (additional changes) Added more respawn room triggers around the new spawn zones

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Added missing list of authors for arena_lumberyard_event Fixed the Crook Combatant hiding the Scout's dog tags Fixed some sound script entries not playing because they were looking for .wav instead of .mp3 Fixed BLU Scout using the incorrect team color pants Fixed some props_farm models using an incorrect surfaceprop setting Updated the large version of the backpack image for The Fast Learner to be consistent with the small version Updated the schema entries for The Hound's Hood and the Thrilling Tracksuit to remove unused settings Updated a couple of the community console images to fix missing nomip/nolod settings Updated Freaky Fair's expert contract to be "Win a round on Freaky Fair" Updated the Fleet Commander and Delldozer to fix import problems from the previous update Updated arena_lumberyard_event Fixed mini-crits being removed from the last player standing if they used the Crit-a-Cola Added missing navigation mesh Fixed areaportal windows in spawn fading in too early Fixed cases where players would get stuck on the setup doors Adjusted prop fades Updated cp_darkmarsh Lowered spell spawn timer (from 180 seconds to 120 seconds) Spells that spawn outside respawn rooms will disappear after 30 seconds of not being picked up Added several more pumpkin bomb spawn points Fixed portcullis doors turning pitch black when opening Lowered RED respawn wave time for the last point (from 10 to 8) Updated tow_dynamite Fixed an ammo pick-up differ on BLU side Added a missing wagon wheel on BLU side Added Tug of War objective strings Made the jump pad's deathpits deeper A new critter has arrived Updated pd_circus Fixed spell books being prompted despite none spawning in the map Reduced points per player from 6 to 5 Reduced distracting lighting and details around the inaccessible areas of the circus Fixed being able to place teleporters too close to spawn doors Fixed erroneous collisions Fixed small displacements cutting through walls Fixed some gaps in geometry

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Fixed an issue with Blazehattan contracts Fixed an issue with Outburst contracts Fixed an invalid Soul Gargoyle location on Mann Manor Fixed players not being able to select a class and spawn after watching an intro video Recompiled props_farm\box_cluster03.mdl to fix a problem with the material Updated the Dusk Duster to adjust the rigging a bit to reduce distortion Updated the Triboniophorus Gentlemannus Fixed clipping Updated texture to fix mipmapping Added jigglebone Added attachment for genteel smoke effect Updated the Clue Hairdo to fix a rim mask problem with the 'Case Open' style Updated the Fleet Commander Fixed white seams when moving camera away from character Improved position of Style Selection camera by deleting unused bones Updated the Delldozer to fix a problem with the specular map for the Re-Mastered and Re-Engineered styles Updated The Witch Doctor to fix a problem with the diffuse textures and normal maps Updated Taunt: Commending Clap to fix some issues with sounds and timing Updated zi_atoll, zi_blazehattan, zi_devastation_final1, zi_murky, zi_sanitarium, and zi_woods Reduced Zombie Engineer's EMP Grenade Cooldown from 10 seconds to 9 seconds Adjusted Zombie Pyro's death explosion to briefly ignite players hit by the blast Fixed a bug that allowed Zombie Medic to spawn infinite dispenser entities (Thanks Psychicpie!) Fixed Zombie Heavy's ability appearing as an active instead of a passive on the HUD (Thanks NeoDement!) Fixed a bug that caused Zombie Heavy's knockback effect to trigger on afterburn damage when quickly swapping from Pyro to Heavy Updated zi_blazehattan (additional changes) Fixed top roof having no collisions, causing players to 'sink in' Made the brick decoration near the wooden ramp slightly lower to make jumping to the top roof easier Removed some redundant clip brushes Changed the round timer from 6 minutes to 3 minutes 30 seconds Fixed missing textures behind the windows of the warehouse building Fixed rendering issue in the A Gate zombie spawn (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed several instances where players could stand on top of clip brushes and in high places (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed floodlight stuck spot near B Gate (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed troll teleporter spots (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed telephone pole collision (Thanks Midnite!) Added no-build triggers on top of barrel clusters at the top of the containers for consistency Added barrel clusters and wood debri on top of the red container with the floodlight to make it more apparent engineers can't build there, as well as to provide cover for zombies Various small changes Updated tow_dynamite Doubled the chances of a Jump Spell drop Fixed the main gates killing players when touched on the side Fixed the main gates killing you prematurely before they are fully closed Fixed HUD textures going missing on occasion (Thanks Aar) Fixed the rooftop fire being too strong Fixed multiple locations that allowed players to build out of bounds Fixed an overly aggressive propfade in front of spawn Fixed edge bugs on multiple roofs that allowed players to remain alive Updated vsh_outburst Improved performance Fixed menu images Fixed a minor visual issue Fixed being able to stick to the invisible walls Updated koth_sawmill_event Reduced the amount of skeletons that spawn Added a new pathway to the secret underworld exit Redid some detailing near Reds base Improved lighting near some shacks near mid Fixed clipping for a shack Reworked where Soul Gargoyles spawn, now favoring Mid more often Made some new greener water for Mids lumber place New spectator cams Updated cp_freaky_fair Fixed issues related to the gamemode logic Fixed players being able to retain upgrades on their weapons by putting them in their loadout before the round changes and then switching back to them Fixed some currency bugs related to players having upgrades pending but not accepted, and then leaving the upgrade trigger Fixed players being able to retain their upgrades when switching classes inside the upgrade trigger after having refunded Fixed character upgrades being occasionally set to incorrect quantities Changed uber and kritz potions so they use the equivalent lakeside conditions to allow Medics to switch weapons and maintain their effects Fixed players being able to put a class into a massive debt Several minor fixes Merasmus is very talkative, so we asked him to talk a bit differently Merasmus will only sometimes say something after he already talked about his financial problems during the first seconds of setup time Merasmus will no longer say something that is too long to say before he needs to announce something else, he will say something different now Merasmus now has more things to say Merasmus will now announce overtime, stalemate and last control point being captured instead of the Administrator Made changes to the upgrades Ghost Potion: ghost spooking radius reduced from 512 hu to 384 hu Ghost Potion: ghost spooking frequency increased from 5 to 7 secs (this is a nerf) Sentry Firing Speed: removed redundant 3rd level Disposable sentry: Maximum amount reduced from 4 to 3 Crit boost on kill: Now disabled Shield Recharge Rate bonus: Maximum level reduced from 4 to 2 Shield Recharge Rate bonus: Price increased from $150 to $250 Rocket Specialist: Price increased from $300 to $450 Rocket Specialist: Maximum level reduced from 4 to 3 Crit damage resistance: Resist reduced from 30% to 25% per level (this is a nerf) Crit damage resistance: Maximum Resist reduced from 90% to 75% (this is a nerf) Thermal Thruster impact stun: Price increased from $600 to $750 Explosive Headshot: Price increased from $350 to $450 Mad Milk and Jarate speed on target debuff: Debuff reduced from 35% to 25% Mark For Death: Price reduced from $500 to $300 Fixed several roof spots players were able to stand on (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed several teleporter stuck spots (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed floating pumpkins and planks (Thanks Midnite!) Fixed several spots that could be abused to spawncamp enemy team (Thanks Midnite!) Removed some visible dev textures (Thanks Midnite!) Removed stool from the arcade that was blocking the path previously Fixed being able to deal splash damage through metal grates Clipped the attic in respawn room to prevent players from getting and building there Clipped several beams in the lobby room Fixed missing wooden board near Red respawn room door Moved Merry-Go-Round sound source closer to make it louder Brightened several dark spots Closed the tree gap

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Fixed broken path for community_maps_5 in the ConTracker Renamed Team Blackout war paint to Blackout Fixed the names of the Delightful Doves, Ravenous Ravens, and Vicious Vampires Unusual effects Updated Toxic's second objective to be 'Collect a Halloween Pumpkin on Toxic' Updated the School Nuisance to update the backpack icon and fix some clipping issues on the LODs Updated the Sear Seer to fix a paintability problem with the 'Dusk - No Lenses' style Updated the Heavy Rain Unusual taunt effect to improve visual quality of the effect in dark environments Updated cp_darkmarsh to reduce fog intensity Updated zi_atoll, zi_blazehattan, zi_devastation_final1, zi_murky, zi_sanitarium, and zi_woods Fixed missing overlay material for Sniper's Spit ability Fixed missing particle effects for Pyro's Dragon's Breath ability Fixed a bug that would cause players to get stuck in spectate mode when attempting to join a game in progress

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Updated vsh_outburst to fix a problem with sounds not playing correctly Added missing strings for the new Strange Filters

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Scream Fortress XVI has arrived! Featuring 7 new community maps: Toxic, Darkmarsh, Freaky Fair, Dynamite, Circus, Outburst, and Blazehattan Added the Terrifying Trove Case Contains 21 new community-created cosmetic items that make up the Terrifying Trove Collection Has a chance to give a taunt Unusualifier as a bonus item Added 4 new community-contributed taunts to the Mann Co. Store Taunt: Crushing Defeat Taunt: Peace Out Taunt: Commending Clap Taunt: The Punchline Added 22 new community-created Unusual effects 12 new effects for Unusual hats 10 new effects for Unusual taunts Added the Scream Fortress XVI War Paint Case Contains 12 new community-created War Paints that make-up the Scream Fortress XVI War Paint Collection Has a chance to give a taunt Unusualifier as a bonus item All players who launch the game will receive a Soul Gargoyle if they don't already have one Grants access to Merasmissions and Halloween item transmutations Tracks Merasmissions completed and souls collected All Halloween Contracts have been reset, allowing them to be completed again Added new Contracts for this year's featured community maps Completing a Halloween Contract will give players a classic Halloween item and the chance for a Terrifying Trove Case Continue last year's event by collecting the souls of dead players for your Soul Gargoyle by killing enemies, doing map objectives, or collecting the Soul Gargoyles that spawn in the maps All cosmetic and taunt Cases will grant Halloween 2024 Unusual effects instead of their normal Unusual effects during the event. This does not include Crates. Join Halloween matches by using the Special Events category in Casual Scream Fortress XVI runs through November 7th, 2024 General Added UI scaling based on resolution for better HiDPI support Fixed the reload speed attribute in Mann vs. Machine not scaling projectile speed and gravity correctly for the Huntsman (community fix from Marxvee) Fixed the damage bonus attribute in Mann vs. Machine not scaling correctly for the Huntsman (community fix from Marxvee) Fixed not being able to pickup currency in MvM if it's on a teleporter Fixed Keyless Winter 2016 Case not playing the special winter case sound Recompiled some skybox models to fix UV issues Updated the Scariest Mask EVER to fix some issues with clipping Updated Sapped Unusual effect to fix the animation playing at the wrong speed Added check to prevent copying a disguise target's action slot item when disguised as them Exposed CTFBaseBoss::SetResolvePlayerCollisions() for VScript users Updated/Added some tournament medals Updated Sapped Unusual effect to fix the animation playing at the wrong speed Updated several maps to fix localization issues Updated zi_murky, zi_devastation_final1, zi_atoll, zi_woods, zi_sanitarium General Changes Zombies no longer spawn instantly- their respawn timer is now dependant on the map Changed team names to "Survivors" and "Zombies" (Instead of "RED" and "BLU") Note: this change is only visible in casual mode or servers with mp_tournament set to 1 Survivor Spy can now disguise as a Zombie and will be seen as a Zombie by the enemy team (Thanks Sprinkles!) Note: disguised Survivor Spies will still be highlighted by Zombie Spy’s “Reveal” ability The Pomson 6000 now puts Zombie abilities on cooldown on hit Survivor Pyro can now destroy Zombie Engineer's EMP Grenade by hitting it with the Homewrecker Walking in to Zombie Sniper's Spit now consumes the Spycicle and prevents initial damage Standing in Zombie Sniper's Spit now emits additional sound effects and a burning green HUD overlay Added new kill icons for every zombie attack Zombie Changes Removed the out-of-combat speed buff from all Zombies Zombie Pyro Zombie Pyro has a new ability - "Dragon's Breath" Fires a Dragon's Fury fireball The initial cast of the fireball can reflect projectiles and airblast enemies Zombie Pyro now deals mini-crits to burning players on melee hit Zombie Pyro now creates a small explosion on death, knocking back enemies in a 125 hu radius Zombie Pyro no longer emits a Gas Passer cloud on death Zombie Demoman Added new sound effects to telegraph Zombie Demoman's Blast Charge ability Zombie Heavy Zombie Heavy's health reduced to 450 (from 600) Zombie Heavy now drops a Medium Health Kit on death Zombie Sniper Zombie Sniper's Spit damage vs buildables is now reduced by half Zombie Sniper's Spit now applies a screen overlay to players standing in the pool Zombie Medic Zombie Medic now emits health like a dispenser to nearby Zombies Zombie Medic can no longer attack while using Heal Added a new sound effect for Zombie Medic's Heal ability Zombie Spy Zombie Spy no longer emits particle effects while cloaked, making him fully invisible when not attacking. Jumpscare warning! Zombie Scout With other zombies getting slower, Zombie Scout's speed stands out more than ever before Bug Fixes Fixed a bug that allowed Zombie Demoman to survive his own Blast Charge (Thanks gasous nebule!) Fixed a bug that caused Zombie Demoman to not receive kill credit when killing players with Blast Charge Fixed a bug that caused Zombies to not gib correctly Fixed a bug that caused Zombie cosmetics to persist on RED players after the round restarts Fixed a bug that caused Zombie Sniper's Spit Pool to nudge players slightly in certain circumstances Fixed a bug that caused players to have the incorrect player skin when respawning at round start Fixed a bug that would cause players to become stuck in spectate mode when attempting to join a game in progress Fixed an issue with "game_text" entities not being correctly cleared after round reset Updated zi_murky (additional changes) Survivors now spawn across the map in multiple small groups instead of all at the sewage plant Added a life preserver shop to connect to the lonely shack in the southern end of the map Added a new dock network with a series of platforms leading to the roof of the central boathouse Added a small ramp to the left-most sewer pipes Removed some awkward ladder-ramps and replaced them with proper docks De-cluttered the roofs across the map Removed the floating large medkit Removed expensive reflections from the water Reduced color correction intensity Clipping improvements Updated zi_atoll (additional changes) Set a culling distance to most props Added occluders on the lighthouse to improve performance Updated zi_woods (additional changes) Fixed the announcer not being silenced when time is added Updated zi_sanitarium (additional changes) The roof is now accessible Added several routes to the roof Slightly reduced the intensity of the fog Added more pumpkin bombs Raised the skybox height Updated cp_gravelpit_snowy Improved performance by combining props Improved clipping Increased volume of laser gun finale Miscellaneous improvements Updated koth_sawmill_event Fixed an overlay Updated koth_undergrove_event Fixed several out-of-bounds exploits in the Underworld (thanks MN!) Adjusted overworld pumpkin bomb placement and increased maximum bomb count to 6 Fixed an incorrect texture on RED's side Updated koth_synthetic_event Moved spells away from mid Detail adjustments Clipping fixes Very minor lighting changes Updated pd_mannsylvania Added even more Bats! Added more spawnpoints for pumpkin-bombs Added new nag voiceline for if Dracula does not receive any blood donations Removed setup time, replaced it with a normal countdown instead Increased duration of the Vampire Powerup after leaving Dracula's Castle from 15 -> 20 seconds Decrease dropped blood bag timer from 15 -> 10 seconds Decreased respawn wave times for the losing team from 4 -> 2 seconds Decreased respawn wave times during a neutral gamestate from 4 -> 2 seconds Changed the main spawn doors to have windows Removed Rare Spell spawn by the graveyard area, replaced with Common Spell Health and ammo pickup adjustments Clipped stairs by the Castle's exit portal Minor visual updates Updated ctf_applejack Fixed the projectile weapons from not working inside the buildings Removed bullet collision from the intelligence room handrails Removed the prop jump up to the sniper balcony, to help snipers feel more comfortable there Removed the vents with missing textures Fixed the bug with being able to get stuck in the blue shed Fixed a stuck spot in mid shed (ty Midnite!) Fixed a texture being weird in the intel rooms Fixed a black displacement in the red intel yard Removed the collision from the food in the red spawn table Updated cp_ambush_event Fixed exploit where players were able to build into RED 1st base (Thanks MN!) Improved lighting at RED base in stage3 Fixed lantern being clipped into cliff wall in cavern at stage1 Fixed odd shadows cast by some props Fixed coffin from being non-solid in stage2 Fixed spawncamping spot in stage2 at RED indoor exit Fixed few hovering lamp props Fixed some prop fading too soon Fixed rare issue where players fell of directly to lava on underworld teleportation Clipped few crates to make it easier to jump on them Updated arena_lumberyard_event Recreated the game mode in VScript Significantly increased server performance Instead of using the best-of-seven round system on top of casual's best-of-three system, the map will simply run 15 traditional game rounds like ZI and VSH Updated the healing ghost appearance for RED team Text pop-ups are now drawn in chat instead of in the middle of your screen Reduced volume of the incoming spell Removed the random Skeleton King and the Horseless Headless Horseman Removed the rare spell given to the last player standing Converted some medium health kits into small health kits Removed small health kits from the second story of both churches Fixed a pumpkin bomb that was stuck in the terrain Updated pl_embargo Fixed an exploit that allowed BLU to teleport to RED spawn (thanks Jameson) Fixed the lack of countdown at the end of the round

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Fixed regression with some .mp3 files not playing Updated description for the Backpack Expander Updated some tournament medals Updated the Desk Engineer cosmetic item Fixed clipping with the Gunslinger Fixed clipping with Engineer's buckle Fixed rotation in the paint preview Fixed skin parts being tinted green from texture compression Updated the Daring Dell cosmetic item Fixed rotation in the paint preview Fixed shading artifacts on the helmet Updated The Big Star cosmetic item Fixed rotation in the paint preview Fixed various instances of clipping with the player model Updated mismatched backpack icon Fixed parts of the textures Updated koth_cachoeira Players can no longer shoot through the metal fence

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Increased the maximum number of backpack slots to 4000 (from 3000) Fixed record/stop .dem file exploit that was used to reveal cloaked Spies Fixed Robot Destruction death notice events not properly highlighting when the local player kills a robot Fixed regressed self-illum setting for the Earbuds Fixed hearing the deflection sound when deflecting arrows that are already stuck in something (community fix from Marxvee) Fixed a problem with .mp3 sounds not playing if they were very short Fixed arrows instantly breaking when being fired by an invulnerable player with the projectile penetration upgrade in Mann vs. Machine (community fix from Marxvee) Updated tf_zombie_spawner entity to support setting team numbers for the zombies (defaults to the original behavior if no team is set) Updated Taunt: Unleashed Rage to fix incorrect outro timing Updated Taunt: Can It! to fix MvM bone Updated koth_sawmill_event Removed stray spell Updated koth_megaton Fixed rockets being able to quite literally crash the beach party (Thanks again, ficool2!) Updated pl_cashworks Updated menu photo to match map changes Removed strange texture glitch at RED spawn 1 Added shutter for drop exit at RED spawn 1 RED spawn 2 big door can't be stickied anymore Removed collision on some lamps Added minor visual changes in BLU spawn and final cap side route Fixed minor clipping issues Updated koth_cachoeira The sightline from the helicopter has been blocked off Fixed missing door texture (Thanks Hoppkins!) Various miscellaneous fixes (Thanks Midnite!)

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Updated Taunt: Can It! to fix missing flies particle effect Updated the backpack image for the Impact Impaler Updated Violent Viridian Unusual effect to fix a visual bug Updated/Added some tournament medals Updated cp_hadal Fixed control point capture messages Fixed door locking in RED spawn after C capture Removed unintended buildable areas Increased capture time on final point Improved directions around the map Updated pl_embargo Reduced respawn time on Last for RED from 34 to 22 seconds Asked Botlers to speak and explode more quietly Minor visual fixes Updated koth_megaton Improved performance by up to 20%, with more significant improvements possible depending on system specs (Thanks ficool2!) Fixed the grates around the capture zone allowing blast damage to pass through Fixed a few cases of alpha painted displacement seams Improved lighting on several models, especially on the rocks throughout the map Fixed surfaceprop on BLU's metal plates Fixed several pixelwalks along thatch roofing and exteriors of the team buildings Improved clipping throughout Fixed a support beam intersecting with spawn doors Fixed a few instances of visible displacement holes in the perimeter dropoff Added a unique kill icon for the end of the round Fixed floating spawndoor motors Plus... all you need for a beach party! Updated pd_atom_smash Fixed the Casual Administrator overriding the Scientist Fixed some floating lights Updated koth_sawmill_event Removed the spells in the underworld since players could spawn camp with them too easily Increased the time players get crits and health from the underworld after leaving Added some additional effects to the secret exit from the underworld

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Updated pl_embargo to fix visual glitches

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Updated the Loyalist's Coronet Unusual effect to fix team BLU particles in the team RED effect Updated the Rainbow Reverie, Warp Drive and Overdrive Unusual effects to work better with larger hats Updated the Rainbow Reverie Unusual effect to add a fade in when spawning and make the refract more noticeable Updated the Dragonflies' Embrace, Dragonflies' Nature, and Dragonflies' Lucent Unusual effects to fix trailing issues on the grass and ground particles Updated the Distress Signal and Carioca's Call Unusual effects to fix some issues with overlapping sprites Updated the Desert Wind and Monsoon Season Unusual effects Fixed the wind flickering on moving taunts Fixed the tumbleweed having incorrect physics Updated the wind and dust to trail slightly on moving taunts Updated the Control Patrol cosmetic item Reduced the size of the glasses Lowered the hat slightly on Soldier's head Fixed UV map issue with LODs Updated the Justice Johns cosmetic item Slimmed down the legs and raised socks cuffs to reduce overall thickness of the legs Fixed rigging issue with boot laces Updated the Pathfinder cosmetic item Slimmed down the arms slightly Adjusted shoulder and armpit rigging to reduce stretching of the vest Adjusted mesh transition from forearms to hands Fixed some clipping issues around where the shirt collar meets the zipper Raised the zipper pull tab for better compatibility with other Soldier cosmetics Updated ctf_doublecross Fixed an incorrect team-colored material in the BLU base for real this time Updated pl_enclosure_final Fixed a clip wall blocking a dropdown in stage 3 Updated pl_embargo Minor visual and clipping improvements Fixed the cart's missing outline Added an extra Botler to the playable space Fixed the paint splat overlay not applying to players within the explosion range The ambient music inside the casino now respects the music volume settings Improved player visibility against certain walls (Thanks Arthur) Added the kill icon to the helicopter blades Fixed an override of a TF2's base texture Fixed being able to block the cart shortly after point A (Thanks Aar) Fixed getting stuck in a door near C while it closes Fixed indoors fog sometimes getting applied outside (Thanks Phe) Increased respawn time for RED on the last point Fixed the client crash related to custom models Improved performance on the last point Updated koth_cachoeira Engineers can no longer build inside the cliffs Fixed teleporter stuck spot under the control point Adjusted respawn waves Minor visual improvements Various clipping fixes Improved performance Updated ctf_applejack Improved clipping Brought some stairs Improved tree collision Added more chickens Improved detail Fixed Ol'Betsy (Thanks Aar!)

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Moved 64-bit Steam binaries to the correct folder Updated the equip_region for the Free Mann's Fashion Updated the Distant Drift Unusual effect to fix a visibility issue Updated the Butterfly Season Unusual effect to fix problems with the scale and effect trails Updated the Fiesta Royale and Grand Jubilee Unusual taunt effects with performance improvements Updated the Botler 2000 to fix problems with its positioning Updated koth_megaton Fixed the finale being cut off by a round ending too early Fixed players not being blown to smithereens during the finale Fixed players being able to get stuck in the edges of the thatch rooftops Improved optimization. Investigation into further improvements for lower-end and config users is ongoing. Updated cp_canaveral_5cp Fixed an out-of-bounds exploit Fixed some stuck spots Fixed some hovering props Added some missing overlays Updated cp_overgrown Fixed being able to build in RED spawn Adjusted clipping to fix a few perch points Removed extra shadow_control entity (Thanks Lacry!) Fixed a number of small visual and gameplay issues on the map (Thanks Midnite!) Updated pl_odyssey Fixed an exploit that allowed BLU players to enter RED spawn Fixed lighting issues in BLU first spawn

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Fixed the Distress Signal and Carioca's Call Unusual effects sometimes causing the game to crash Moved ctf_haarp out of the CTF matchmaking category and into Attack/Defend Updated the Treasure Trove Unusual taunt effect Renamed to Bountiful Riches to fix a naming conflict Updated the materials to fix a problem with the coins Updated pd_atom_smash Fixed missing UI elements for the capture zone Increased rarity of The Scientist's idle chatter between capture zone availability Updated koth_megaton Fixed a missing material on the sandbags Fixed clipping on an open crate

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Summer 2024! Featuring 10 new community maps: Embargo, Odyssey, Megaton, Cachoeira, Overgrown, Hadal, Applejack, Atom Smash, Canaveral, and Burghausen Added the Summer 2024 Cosmetic Case Contains 23 new community-contributed items Added 4 new community-contributed taunts to the Mann Co. Store Taunt: Can It! Taunt: Cremator's Condolences Taunt: Straight Shooter Tutor Taunt: Unleashed Rage Added 38 new community-created Unusual effects 18 new effects for Unusual hats 20 new effects for Unusual taunts All cosmetic and taunt cases will grant Summer 2024 Unusual effects instead of their normal Unusual effects during the Summer event. This does not include crates. The Summer event runs through September 15th, 2024 General Security and stability improvements Fixed Workshop sv_cheats exploit Disallow aliasing any existing convars that are not movement commands Added language support for Spanish - Latin America Added ConVar "tf_hide_custom_decals" to allow clients to disable viewing custom decals on items Added "Hide Custom Decals" checkbox to the Advanced Options dialog in the Miscellaneous Options category Added missing 64-bit Steam binaries for the dedicated server Added missing 64-bit versions of HLMV and HLFaceposer Added a check to prevent the "autoteam" client command for custom game modes like VSH after the player has already joined a team Added missing menu_photos images for cp_powerhouse Added missing default string for Player Destruction mode Expanded VScript support Added mp_tournament_redteamname, mp_tournament_blueteamname, and tf_mvm_max_connected_players to the list of whitelisted ConVars Fixed vscript_convar_allowlist.cfg being overriden by being packed into a map BaseEntity: AcceptInput, IsAlive EconEntity: GetAttribute TFPlayer: GetCustomAttribute, StunPlayer TFBot: GetAllBotTags, SetMission, SetPrevMission, GetMission, GetPrevMission, HasMission, IsOnAnyMission, SetMissionTarget, GetMissionTarget, SetBehaviorFlag, ClearBehaviorFlag, IsBehaviorFlagSet, SetActionPoint, GetActionPoint Moved some of the Christmas maps to the normal rotation Moved ctf_2fort_invasion out of the Misc matchmaking category and into CTF Moved koth_probed out of the Misc matchmaking category and into KOTH Fixed Incinerator killstreak effect not scaling properly when viewed from a distance (community fix from SirDapper and CheesyPuff) Fixed Gunslinger punch combo not being lag compensated (community fix from Marxvee) Fixed third-person reload animation speeds not matching first-person speeds when using custom attributes (community fix from Marxvee) Fixed CTF HUD being visible when no flags are present (Community fix from fellen) Fixed broken LOD1 model for The B.A.S.E. Jumper backpack while deployed (community fix from Piogre) Fixed cosmetic items that use per-class bodygroups not using the correct bodygroup in the Loadout panel Fixed dropped weapons with custom decals not showing the correct decals Fixed some unusual effects using the wrong orientation for The Head Hedge Fixed Halloween transmutations being completed outside of the Halloween event Fixed incorrect BLU material for the CLTF2 bronze medal Fixed missing Spy audio when using the Taunt: Kazotsky Kick Fixed missing sound for the Taunt: The Skating Scorcher Fixed the Neon Annihilator not getting crit-attacks when hitting players covered with gas Fixed some clipping issues for the Mad Lad when using lod1 and lod2 Fixed missing polygons for the Stunt Suit when using the Roadworker style Fixed seeing the wrong image in the Steam inventory for the Operation Firmware Frenzy Star of the Company 2023 medal Fixed not being able to equip the Master's Yellow Belt and the Hillbilly Speed Bump at the same time Fixed console warning about unknown command 'eureka_teleport' Fixed Vaccinator heal sound continuing to play after Medic's death Fixed a problem with the Tiny Timber not displaying paint after being painted Updated zi_intro.webm media file Updated the description of the Buffalo Steak Sandvich to display the increased damage vulnerability while active Updated the Eldritch Horror and Deep-sea Devourer Unusual taunt effects to fix incorrect spawn locations Updated the materials for Your Eternal Reward to fix incorrect lighting under certain conditions (community fix from Lindon) Updated the material for The Buff Banner to add phong mask and missing material parameters (community fix from Lindon) Updated the material for The Law to fix an issue when the hat has been painted Updated the equip_region for the Cleaner's Cap Updated/Added some tournament medals Updated ctf_turbine_winter, plr_hacksaw, and pl_phoenix to fix localization issues Updated ctf_doublecross Fixed an incorrect team-colored material in the BLU base Updated cp_brew Fixed truck textures outside of BLU spawn Fixed a few bumps in the road Updated pd_selbyen Fixed an exploit that would allow Engineer to trap players using a teleporter behind a door Minor detailing changes Updated pl_hoodoo_final Added func_noclip to BLU spawn in the third stage Updated pl_corruption Fixed handrail collision near the last point Fixed lamp near BLU spawn Fixed missing string for last point Updated plr_hacksaw_event Fixed broken areaportals Updated pl_enclosure_final [Stage 1] - Moved A point within the gate building [Stage 1] - Added stairs for access to the balcony overlooking the final point area [Stage 1] - Added more cover along the initial aviary area [Stage 1] - Removed the catwalk connecting the wooden tower with the oneway door and the balcony area [Stage 1] - Tweaked the layout of the tunnel section [Stage 1] - Wooden tower is now connected to a new catwalk inside of the gate building [Stage 1] - Reworked RED spawn so it now has two exit doors [Stage 2] - RED now has a 2nd spawn exit leading outside along the water to where the airboats are parked [Stage 2] - Airboats and their dock are now accessible [Stage 2] - Removed the elevated platform RED had within the building, replaced with a tall piece of cover instead [Stage 3] - Added a wall and extra stairs on the right side leading up to the catwalk around the raptor pit [Stage 3] - Added a large cliff narrowing the whole area on the left side of the raptor pit [Stage 3] - Added an extra entryway on the left side of the final point building and a dropdown to floor level within [Stage 3] - Added a jumping class vent from next to B point area into the upstairs area of the final point building [All Stages] - Allowed building inside initial BLU spawns [All Stages] - Visual improvements to a lot of places, a few new assets Updated pl_cashworks Area 1 / Loading Dock BLU Spawn 1: Solved several clipping issues at doors and stairs Mitigated line of sight into spawn room Added alternative exit from spawn room to the right RED Spawn 1: Reworked to have two exits Area Changes: Changed terrain around bridge to be easier to maneuver and to prevent getting stuck Changed munition pack at building 01 to large Possible spots beneath bridge for teleporter-traps eliminated Shuffled some big rocks to block off Sniper lanes Cut center building Sniper lane, left alley visually blocked off from dock area Cut center building top Sniper lane, less easy to get a good view Changed out of bounds building left of BLU spawn, added spinning sawblade Opened up a third passage to allow for an additional flanking option for BLU and RED Area 2 / Serpentines RED Spawn 2: Reworked 2nd RED spawn entirely New spawn has two exits, locks and teleports after B is capped Area Changes: Balconies blocked off visually and physically Additional visual blocker at the top of the serpentines to allow for a more secure crossing Long tunnel leading through the RED building to a staircase at the foot of the hill Added deadly and moving sawblade for spicy danger, with sparks and fumes Closed off BLU balcony at the end of the hill Changed raised platform to be only accessible from RED side Reroutes: Deleted BLU gates at flanking route after B is capped Flanking route has an additional exit towards C, leading through BLU building BLU building interiors reworked and expanded Balcony-drop doesn't injure the player any more Area 3 / Construction Site BLU Spawn 2: New stairway leading to balcony Wider exit from big building after CP3 capture Area Changes: Widened area at the generators and on the 2nd level Changed the direction of the drop-in to C, leading into the hydroelectric building Widened exit from BLU spawn into Area 3 Area 4 / Vault Area Changes: Added gates opening at the gatehouse after CP3 is captured Alternative passageway through gatehouse while gates are closed pre CP3 Rebuild bridge to be convex, obscuring a long Sniper lane Wonky bridge rewards with a branching access next to the vault building, allowing for BLU flanks Global Changes Solved a ton of clipping Rebuilt and edited navmesh, with defined sentry and Sniper positions and varying gameplay Adjusted func_doors at spawn to span to every solid Changed clipping on cart, now jumpable Increased fog distance and lowered density Exchanged glass-textures from the green to the clear version Stairs and hanging bridge are now bullet-blocked for more predictable projectile bounces

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Fixed a crash caused by using -dxlevel commands Fixed some ABI compatibility regressions for server plugins/mods Fixed a crash under 64-bit caused by some custom HUDs using Half-Life 2 HUD elements which assume the player is Gordon Freeman Fixed a crash when opening options/going into game (mostly affecting Windows 7 users) Fixed the snd_cull_duplicates command not working Fixed a hang when importing cosmetics into the Workshop tools to upload Fixed an issue selecting surround sound audio settings (Headphones, 4, 5.1, 7.1, etc.)

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Fixed an issue where the game would be falsely detected as malware by some anti-viruses Fixed a crash relating to using some Unicode characters on Linux

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Added 64-bit support for Windows/Linux client and server Should include performance improvements for most users Raw input is now enabled by default Bugs can be reported here: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues Fixed an exploit related to uploading invalid custom decals that would crash other clients

The Universim is Now Available on Steam! Jump straight into managing your own planets as you guide a civilization through the ages. Build the ultimate empire in The Universim, a new breed of God Game in development by Crytivo.

An update to Team Fortress 2 has been released. The update will be applied automatically when you restart Team Fortress 2. The major changes include: Fixed a server crash related to PASS Time and the round timer at the end of a round Fixed overlapping texture for the Panic Attack's kill icon Updated the Winning Spirit Unusual effect to fix problems with clipping and the control points Updated cp_brew Fixed missing textures on a truck Fixed unintended sentry spot on top of the HVAC pipes at the Brewery Updated pl_camber Fixed respawn room exploit Updated plr_hacksaw Fixed teleporters being able to be placed in spawn Removed hint nodes from the hacking sequence Updated plr_hacksaw_event Fixed teleporters being able to be placed in spawn Updated to match layout changes to plr_hacksaw Updated ctf_pelican_peak Removed skybox bridge for dx8 users Adjusted cow Miscellaneous fixes Updated pl_corruption Fixed an issue with the 3D skybox

Cowbots and Aliens is Now Available on Steam! Cowbots and Aliens is a furious PvP Multiplayer VR brawl set in the Saloon-iverse! Free movement, laser precise gunplay, multiple competitive modes and a custom networked physics system that lets you use EVERYTHING as a weapon makes for an immensely satisfying VR ruckus!

Jackbox Games announces the Fakin' It card game. This is the first physical card game being developed by the digital party game studio.
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Jackbox Games announces the Fakin' It card game. This is the first physical card game being developed by the digital party game studio. Read this article on TechRaptor

Epic is changing the way battle pass progression works in Fortnite, so if you like to play modes other than the battle royale game, you're in luck.
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Epic is changing the way battle pass progression works in Fortnite, so if you like to play modes other than the battle royale game, you're in luck. Read this article on TechRaptor

Our review of the brand new Disney Lorcana Azurite Sea Starter Decks looks at how each deck plays, and their various strengths and weaknesses.
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Our review of the brand new Disney Lorcana Azurite Sea Starter Decks looks at how each deck plays, and their various strengths and weaknesses. Read this article on TechRaptor

Mages has announced Steins;Gate Re:Boot, a mysterious remake-slash-reimagining-slash-remaster of 2009 visual novel Steins;Gate.
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Mages has announced Steins;Gate Re:Boot, a mysterious remake-slash-reimagining-slash-remaster of 2009 visual novel Steins;Gate. Read this article on TechRaptor

Dragon Age: The Veilguard marks a triumphant return for Bioware with a polished RPG filled with fast-paced combat, colorful companions, and plenty of player freedom.
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Dragon Age: The Veilguard marks a triumphant return for Bioware with a polished RPG filled with fast-paced combat, colorful companions, and plenty of player freedom. Read this article on TechRaptor

A new Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor update has been released, and it comes complete with a new biome, new enemies, and more.
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A new Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor update has been released, and it comes complete with a new biome, new enemies, and more. Read this article on TechRaptor

A new Phasmophobia update, Crimson Eye, has been released just in time for Halloween, and it's got lots of new stuff to scare you silly.
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A new Phasmophobia update, Crimson Eye, has been released just in time for Halloween, and it's got lots of new stuff to scare you silly. Read this article on TechRaptor

The offline version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp officially arrives in December, and it's got a few new features to boot.
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The offline version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp officially arrives in December, and it's got a few new features to boot. Read this article on TechRaptor

As the Quiet Place franchise silently sneaks into the video game medium, is The Road Ahead a silent killer, or does it make you want to scream? Read our A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead review to find out more.
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As the Quiet Place franchise silently sneaks into the video game medium, is The Road Ahead a silent killer, or does it make you want to scream? Read our A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead review to find out more. Read this article on TechRaptor

Want to start playing 40K Kill Team but don't know how? Then check out our Kill Team Starter Set review for what's in the box and how to start playing.
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Want to start playing 40K Kill Team but don't know how? Then check out our Kill Team Starter Set review for what's in the box and how to start playing. Read this article on TechRaptor

Cattle Country might know what it aims to be, but it misses the mark on a major area in the open beta that makes it feel incredibly shallow.
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Cattle Country might know what it aims to be, but it misses the mark on a major area in the open beta that makes it feel incredibly shallow. Read this article on TechRaptor

Games Workshop has revealed their Da Red Gobbo 2024 miniature, a Christmas-themed Ork miniature, complete with novelty snowman, for Warhammer 40,000.
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Games Workshop has revealed their Da Red Gobbo 2024 miniature, a Christmas-themed Ork miniature, complete with novelty snowman, for Warhammer 40,000. Read this article on TechRaptor

Sonic x Shadow Generations sales have topped a million on the day of the game's launch, developer and publisher Sega has announced.
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Sonic x Shadow Generations sales have topped a million on the day of the game's launch, developer and publisher Sega has announced. Read this article on TechRaptor

In our River of Gold review, we check out the commerce board game set in the samurai-focused Legend of the Five Rings setting.
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In our River of Gold review, we check out the commerce board game set in the samurai-focused Legend of the Five Rings setting. Read this article on TechRaptor

Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid studio The Behemoth has announced its sixth major game project, and it too is called Behemoth.
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Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid studio The Behemoth has announced its sixth major game project, and it too is called Behemoth. Read this article on TechRaptor

LocalThunk and publisher Playstack have released a brand new Balatro update, and it's bringing yet more crossovers with some big-name gaming franchises.
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LocalThunk and publisher Playstack have released a brand new Balatro update, and it's bringing yet more crossovers with some big-name gaming franchises. Read this article on TechRaptor

asdWube Software has announced that Factorio: Space Age sales have reached a big milestone in less than a week, and there's a new surprise to enjoy as well.
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asdWube Software has announced that Factorio: Space Age sales have reached a big milestone in less than a week, and there's a new surprise to enjoy as well. Read this article on TechRaptor

HoYoverse has revealed the Zenless Zone Zero Version 1.3 release date, and it's bringing new S-level characters and more next month.
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HoYoverse has revealed the Zenless Zone Zero Version 1.3 release date, and it's bringing new S-level characters and more next month. Read this article on TechRaptor

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will take home an eye-watering amount of money this year, despite the company suffering thousands of layoffs.
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella will take home an eye-watering amount of money this year, despite the company suffering thousands of layoffs. Read this article on TechRaptor

In our Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered review, we look at the revival of a game that unites Suda51, Shinji Mikami, and Akira Yamaoka. What a lineup!
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In our Shadows of the Damned: Hella Remastered review, we look at the revival of a game that unites Suda51, Shinji Mikami, and Akira Yamaoka. What a lineup! Read this article on TechRaptor

Looking for Zero Sievert Cooking Recipes? Our guide will tell you where to find Food, how to cook it, and give you the details on the best Food in the game!
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Looking for Zero Sievert Cooking Recipes? Our guide will tell you where to find Food, how to cook it, and give you the details on the best Food in the game! Read this article on TechRaptor

Our Zero Sievert Modules Guide will tell you how modules work, how to install modules in the bunker, and the best modules to use!
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Our Zero Sievert Modules Guide will tell you how modules work, how to install modules in the bunker, and the best modules to use! Read this article on TechRaptor

Our Zero Sievert Guide teaches you the basics of the game and gives you a short walkthrough that will help you survive your first expedition to the Forest.
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Our Zero Sievert Guide teaches you the basics of the game and gives you a short walkthrough that will help you survive your first expedition to the Forest. Read this article on TechRaptor

In this Zero Sievert Skills Guide, we'll tell you how Hunter Skills and Weapon Skills work and how they can enhance your chances of survival.
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In this Zero Sievert Skills Guide, we'll tell you how Hunter Skills and Weapon Skills work and how they can enhance your chances of survival. Read this article on TechRaptor

The recently published Hasbro Q3 2024 shows steady revenue for the tabletop company. They cite the recent Magic set and the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 books.
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The recently published Hasbro Q3 2024 shows steady revenue for the tabletop company. They cite the recent Magic set and the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 books. Read this article on TechRaptor

Last week we got to sit down with Titmouse founder, Chris Prynoski, to talk about their upcoming TTRPG Drunkards, Druggies, and Delinquents.
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Last week we got to sit down with Titmouse founder, Chris Prynoski, to talk about their upcoming TTRPG Drunkards, Druggies, and Delinquents. Read this article on TechRaptor

Argonaut has revealed that the upcoming Croc: Legend of the Gobbos remaster won't be released on Steam, although it will be on another big PC platform.
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Argonaut has revealed that the upcoming Croc: Legend of the Gobbos remaster won't be released on Steam, although it will be on another big PC platform. Read this article on TechRaptor

We got to see the first season of Like A Dragon: Yakuza, and while it might be a show about yakuza with an adapted storyline giving a different yet equally complicated plot, we're not sure who this is for.
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We got to see the first season of Like A Dragon: Yakuza, and while it might be a show about yakuza with an adapted storyline giving a different yet equally complicated plot, we're not sure who this is for. Read this article on TechRaptor

Bandai Namco has increased its sales projections for the 2024-25 fiscal year, owing in part to the huge success of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
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Bandai Namco has increased its sales projections for the 2024-25 fiscal year, owing in part to the huge success of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Read this article on TechRaptor

The Jackbox Survey Scramble manages to take responses collected to insane survey questions and turn them into a few incredible minigames, and some lackluster ones. Check out our review!
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The Jackbox Survey Scramble manages to take responses collected to insane survey questions and turn them into a few incredible minigames, and some lackluster ones. Check out our review! Read this article on TechRaptor

https://youtu.be/Cagxj2RchQI?si=_fFf3fs_fsh7d0Fq Many people have a gaming franchise that changed their life in some way. I have life-long friendships that have been formed while playing games like Mario Kart and Golden Eye late into the night. Halo is the franchise that shaped a good portion of my gaming life. Halo 2 strengthened my passion for the …

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https://youtu.be/EVSbA2Yxx2k?si=G2KXmPguAB_45u5n Meta recencetly heald their Meta Connect conference and announced some excited things if you’re into VR and AR. The Meta Quest 2 was once the hottest item in their lineup be we have some new tech on the horizon. It looks like the Meta Quest 2 is no longer being sold but it may …

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https://youtu.be/a2CCRgycbLI?si=3juhSUwirUTpKWoJ There have been rumors for years about what is next for Halo. Today during the Halo World Championships, we got our answers. 343 Industries will now be known as Halo Studios. This is exciting because it let’s the fans know that Xbox/Microsoft has not given up on the franchise. The long rumored move to …

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It may surprise many, but there has never been a Power Rangers arcade beat ’em up game. (I know right!?!?!) Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind is a passion project from people who felt the Power Rangers deserved their shine. You and four friends can join up to go against classic enemies from the Power …

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Going into PAX West 2024, I knew that I was going to enjoy ‘Jay and Silent Bob: The Chronic Blunt Punch’, but I did not know it was going to be my game of the show. Some may remember the retro style ‘Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl’ game that was released in 2020. Well, The …

Jay and Silent Bob: The Chronic Blunt Punch | PAX West 2024 Read More »

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Ash Habib has a true passion for boxing and Undisputed is his love letter to the sport. ‪@PlayUndisputed‬ aims to be both a technical and fun boxing game. The game is currently in early access and will have over 70 boxers, you can also create your character in a deep career mode. I had a …

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Star Wars games have been around for longer than many gamers have been alive at this point. You have played as clone troopers, Jedi, fighter pilots, and now in Star Wars Outlaws, you will be playing as a scoundrel. This is a slightly more grounded story than the ones many players have experienced before and …

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There has been some rumor and speculation that we would be getting a PS5 Pro as soon as this year. We are halfway through the year and past ‘E3’ season and there is still no word. With the lack of console price drops, is the mid-gen refresh still a thing? There are some people who …

Where Is The PS5 Pro Read More »

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I’ve been playing the Marvel Rivals for a couple of weeks and there are a ton of things to dissect here. The game is a ton of fun but it is definitely not perfect. If you enjoy games like Overwatch, then this will definitely be a game for you. The gameplay loop is very similiar …

Is Marvel Rivals Any Good? Read More »

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In Hive Jump 2: Survivors, try to survive as long as you can against what seems like endless waves of aliens. With many weapons and jumpers to unlock, be prepared for hours of fun. This is a smaller game that packs a big punch. Hive Jump 2 takes a lot of the weapons and enemies …

Let’s Play Hive Jump 2: Survivors Read More »

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The long rumored price increase of Xbox Game Pass has finally been confirmed and we have a detailed breakdown of the pricing structure. With these new prices and a new tier, is this still the best deal in gaming? I believe that there are a couple of different ways to assess the value of Game …

The Price of Xbox Game Pass is Going Up Read More »

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If you missed it, Xbox is bringing its cloud gaming services to Amazon Fire TV devices. There have been talks about an Xbox streaming device for years now. With the partnership, will we still get streaming hardware from Microsoft? Is this the best way to get Xbox games in more homes? Let’s talk about it.The post https://thegamefanatics.com/xbox-cloud-gaming-is-coming-to-amazon-devices/ appeared first on The Game Fanatics,.

Ubisoft just released season 1 of XDefiant and it comes with a ton of content. If you are not aware, XDefiant is a free-to-play shooter that ties in characters and abilities from various Ubisoft games. XDefiant Preseason was originally released in May of 2024 and it garnered a lot of attention. Some even went as …

XDefiant Season 01 Is Here! Read More »

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Nintendo’s most recent direct delivered a ton of games and I am sure there was something for everyone here. From HD Remakes to long awaited sequels, Nintendo made sure that there was a reason for lapsed players to dust off that Switch. Now I have to admit, I am one of those lapsed players who …

Nintendo Gave The People What They Wanted Read More »

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During the most recent Xbox showcase, they announced three new SKUs of the Xbox Series X|S consoles. While we didn’t get an announcement of a new handheld like many were hoping there may still be a possibility in the future. Phil Spencer was questioned about this during IGN live and he seemed excited about the …

What is The Future of Xbox Hardware Read More »

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If you are not familiar, SolForge Fusion is a CCG (Collectable Card Game) created by Richard Garfield (Magic The Gathering) and Justin Gary (Ascension). It started as a physical card game and it is now making its way over to Steam. I have been having the best time in its single-player campaign mode. It reminds …

A Collectable Card Battler – Let’s Play SolForge Fusion Read More »

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For those who are not aware, Gigantic was originally released in 2017. It is a third-person MOBA Hero hero shooter originally developed by Motiga and published by Perfect World Entertainment. I had a ton of fun with the game when it was originally released but unfortunately, the servers shut down a year late. Now, in …

Gigantic Is Back and You Should Be Playing It! Read More »

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Most people who have used a PC or had some sort of laptop bag have heard of Targus. They are a well-known name in the PC peripheral space and have been around since 1983. Targus has continued to innovate when it comes to laptop bags and things like PC docking stations. We saw a ton …

Targus Targets Sustainability and Innovation With Their Ecosmart Line of Products Read More »

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Many people are most familiar with Moon Studios from their games in the Ori universe. Those games are filled with some of the best and most complex platforming mechanics and amazing art. With No Rest For The Wicked, Moon Studios is partnering with Private Division for a totally new experience. They will be applying their …

No Rest For The Wicked Launch Trailer Read More »

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People have questioned the benefit of Game Pass since its original release in 2017. Subscription services can have amazing benefits for the consumer but does it negatively impact developers? The amount of content that is available continues to grow (along with the prices of said content) but people’s time and budgets continue to stay the …

Are Subscription Services Like Xbox’s Game Pass Good for Developers? Read More »

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When we say that Shidosha has an interesting taste in games, we are not exaggerating. Are you into bullet hell shooters? How about dating sims? Well if that piques your interest, Kamikaze Lassplanes may be a game you need to check out. This may not be the style of game you expect from a Polish …

A Plane Dating Sim? Kamikaze Lassplanes @ PAX East 2024 Read More »

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No Love Lost is a new extraction shooter from Ratloop Games Canada. You are dropped onto an alien world and have to compete against not only the enemy team but the environment as well. The concept of an extraction shooter is not new but the team-based competitive elements make things feel a little fresh. There …

A Colorful Competitive Extraction Shooter – No Love Lost @ PAX East 2024 Read More »

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PAX continues to deliver new and unique gaming experiences. This year, one of our favorite games was Heartworm, a PS1 style horror game with Tank controls. Inspired by games like Silent Hill, Resident Evil, and Dino Crisis, Heartworm aims to scratch that nostolgic itch that some many people have been feeling. You play as Sam, …

A PS1 Styled Masterpiece – Heartworm @ PAX East 2024 Read More »

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Digital Extremes held their most recent Devstream live during PAX East 2024, celebrating 11 years of Wareframe. One of the most exciting bits of news was the deeper look into the upcoming Warframe 1999. This included a new cinematic trailer launching later this year: Jade Shadows. Here you are introduced to the 57th Wareframe, Jade …

Warframe and Soulframe Make an Apprearance at PAX East 2024 Read More »

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It’s been a while since we first got word that the great Amy Hennig was working on a new Black Panther and Captain America game. After creating something like Uncharted, many couldn’t wait to see what was next from Amy. Her highly anticipated Star Wars game was canceled so many were delighted when they got …

Get a Closer Look at the New Black Panther and Captain America Game | Marvel 1943 Read More »

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I have been on the search for a decently priced wireless keyboard and there is no shortage these days. Our friends over at Mad Catz sent over their S.T.R.I.K.E. 11 mechanical keyboard for us to try out. The first thing you will notice is its unique design. The red and black colorway is striking (no …

Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 11 Mechanical Keyboard Impressions Read More »

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Nanoleaf has been one of the market leaders in the gaming lighting space for years now. They have a variety of products to level up not only your office space but your entertainment system. The Nanoleaf 4D kit is definitely one of the best led kits that I have tried. The camera takes the immersion …

Level Up Your Set Up with Nanoleaf Read More »

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Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the next big game set for release and the rumor mill has been set ablaze with talks of Xbox going multi-platform. We take a few minutes to talk about our past with the Final Fantasy franchise and Brandon gives us his thoughts on what he thought of the State of …

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and What’s Next For Xbox | Let’s Chat Read More »

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AR and VR were some of the bigger topics during this year’s CES. Last year I was able to go hands-on with the Pimax Portal but this year it was all about the Pimax Crystal. The Pimax Crystal has some of the highest quality when it comes to VR headsets on the market. Each eye …

The Pimax Crystal 8K VR Headset | CES 2024 Read More »

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A year can’t go by without a huge announcement from NVIDIA. During CES 2024 in Las Vegas, NVIDIA announced an upgrade to its 40 series cards. The GeForce RTX 40 Super Series will allow gamers and creators to step up their game and have a ton of gas left in the tank. The pricing for …

NVIDIA Announces 40 Series Super Cards and More at CES 2024 Read More »

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Videogames based on movies have been around as far back as the release of E.T. on the Atari back in 1982. Movie-based video games have not always been the best experiences but they sold because gamers were familiar with the characters and franchises. In recent years, the gaming community has been blessed with games like …

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora Impressions Read More »

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If you enjoyed Celeste and games like Metroid and Castlevania, Lucid is a game that you need to keep your eye out for. We have had the chance to check out Lucid a couple of times over the last few years. PAX West 2023 gave us our first hands-on experience and it was a great …

The First Celestoidvania – Lucid Interview Read More »

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Live-action video game adaptations continue to get better and better. The Last of Us showed us what was possible when retelling the stories of a great video game on screen. Amazon has proven itself with shows like ‘The Boys’ and “Gen V’ so we are excited to see what they do with the Fallout series. …

Amazon’s Fallout Series Teaser Trailer Read More »

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Get the latest scoop on GTA VI! Rockstar confirms trailer release for Dec 5, hinting a thrilling return to Vice City. Stay tuned for more details!The post https://thegamefanatics.com/gta-vi-trailer-incoming-heres-what-we-know/ appeared first on The Game Fanatics,.

Hey, Fanatics! Buckle up, because L.A. Comic Con is making its grand return to the City of Angels this weekend, December 1-3, and it’s shaping up to be an out-of-this-world experience! Last year was epic with 126,000 fans geeking out in a world of comics, gaming, anime, cosplay, and all the pop culture you could …

Bringing L.A. Comic Con 2023 From the Scene to Your Screen Read More »

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iPhone and iPad Games

In Episode 606 of The TouchArcade Show we kick things off talking about my plans for this weekend, which has …

Continue reading "Back When AOL WAS the Internet – The TouchArcade Show #606"

In Episode 606 of The TouchArcade Show we kick things off talking about my plans for this weekend, which has resulted in this week’s show being a bit shorter than normal. We also go over some more updates on our Patreon situation, which has been trending upwards lately. Thank you for the support! We briefly touch on the latest version of iOS 18 before hopping into listener emails which leads into some interesting discussion, as always. Like, is the internet more dangerous now for kids than it was when I was growing up in the ’90s? We weigh in! Finally Eli gives us a rundown of his Dungeons & Dragons situation and the hardships between physical and digital ownership. Don’t forget to shoot us emails with any questions, feedback, or anything else relevant or irrelevant to podcast@toucharcade.com. We read ’em all, and love decoding messages written entirely in emoji. As always, you can listen to us with the links below… And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and/or drop us a review in iTunes. Much appreciated! As a companion to this audio podcast, we also do a video version of the same show that is exclusive to Patreon which allows you to see us playing the games we’re talking about. Backers can view the most recent video episodes of the TouchArcade show by clicking here. Be sure you’re logged in to see the latest content. For everyone else who is curious, you can check out our public patreon posts to see older episodes of the video podcast. If you like what you see, consider becoming a TouchArcade Patreon backer. Stitcher: The TouchArcade Show via Stitcher Radio for Podcasts RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-606.mp3

In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, it’s kind of a weird one! We kick things off talking about …

Continue reading "Just Don’t Huff Anything! – The TouchArcade Show #605"

In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, it’s kind of a weird one! We kick things off talking about whip-its and huffing duster. Yeah. We then switch to an update on what’s going on with our Patreon and some of the new stuff we’ve posted there this past week. What do YOU think about it? Let us know! We also talk about Eli’s home audio woes, read a listener email with some key insight into the whole Roblox situation, and much more. Don’t forget to shoot us emails with any questions, feedback, or anything else relevant or irrelevant to podcast@toucharcade.com. We read ’em all, and love decoding messages written entirely in emoji. As always, you can listen to us with the links below… And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and/or drop us a review in iTunes. Much appreciated! As a companion to this audio podcast, we also do a video version of the same show that is exclusive to Patreon which allows you to see us playing the games we’re talking about. Backers can view the most recent video episodes of the TouchArcade show by clicking here. Be sure you’re logged in to see the latest content. For everyone else who is curious, you can check out our public patreon posts to see older episodes of the video podcast. If you like what you see, consider becoming a TouchArcade Patreon backer. Show Notes: VERY disturbing video of the guy addicted to computer duster, watch at your own risk! Matthew Struggles With Addiction to Inhaling Air Duster | Intervention | A&E [YouTube] Stitcher: The TouchArcade Show via Stitcher Radio for Podcasts RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-605.mp3

In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show we kick things off with some discussion about AR/VR devices like Apple’s …

Continue reading "Terrorizing Pasadena – The TouchArcade Show #604"

In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show we kick things off with some discussion about AR/VR devices like Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s recently revealed Orion AR glasses. Also, whatever did happen to that whole Metaverse thing Zuck was so obsessed with? We then take a wild turn and talk about the “Piss Bandit" that has been (allegedly) terrorizing folks in Pasadena, and hit on other current events like the Epic vs. Google ruling and the insane stuff happening with Roblox. We wrap things up with some listener emails and an update on how things are going with our new Patreon content strategy. Don’t forget to shoot us emails with any questions, feedback, or anything else relevant or irrelevant to podcast@toucharcade.com. We read ’em all, and love decoding messages written entirely in emoji. As always, you can listen to us with the links below… And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and/or drop us a review in iTunes. Much appreciated! As a companion to this audio podcast, we also do a video version of the same show that is exclusive to Patreon. Backers can view the most recent video episodes of the TouchArcade show by clicking here. Be sure you’re logged in to see the latest content. For everyone else who is curious, you can check out our public patreon posts to see older episodes of the video podcast. If you like what you see, consider becoming a TouchArcade Patreon backer. Show Notes: Introducing Orion, Our First True Augmented Reality Glasses [Meta] Amazon Echo Frames Store Page [Amazon] ‘Piss Bandit’ Keeps Leaving Big Bottles of Piss Around Pasadena [Vice] Google must crack open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge [The Verge] Roblox: Inflated Key Metrics For Wall Street And A Pedophile Hellscape For Kids [Hindenburg Research] Stitcher: The TouchArcade Show via Stitcher Radio for Podcasts RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-604.mp3

Hello! We are still in a transitional phase of moving the podcast entirely to our Patreon, but in the meantime …

Continue reading "A Phoenix from the Ashes – The TouchArcade Show #603"

Hello! We are still in a transitional phase of moving the podcast entirely to our Patreon, but in the meantime the only way we can get the show’s feed pushed out to where it needs to go is to post it to the website. However, the wheels are in motion for transitioning not just the podcast but some of the content we’d normally post to TouchArcade onto Patreon. That kicks off today with a Game of the Week post. Spoiler: It’s Balatro. We plan on having a mixture of content available to both free and paid Patreon supporters, as well as some stuff that will be exclusive to paid supporters only. The Game of the Week will likely be one of those paid-only articles, but for this first one it is available to everyone for free. Check it out to get a taste of what the “new" incarnation of TouchArcade might end up looking like. Oh yeah, and the podcast. This week’s show is episode 603 and we talk about Hurricane Helene, Eli’s Homekit woes (and resolution!), the new iPhone 16 Pro which is now in Eli’s hot little hands, the usefulness of the weird new side button, new phone cases, listener emails, and more. It’s a jam-packed XL episode clocking in at almost 90 minutes, enjoy! Don’t forget to shoot us emails with any questions, feedback, or anything else relevant or irrelevant to podcast@toucharcade.com. We read ’em all, and love decoding messages written entirely in emoji. As always, you can listen to us with the links below… And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and/or drop us a review in iTunes. Much appreciated! As a companion to this audio podcast, we also do a video version of the same show that is exclusive to Patreon which allows you to see us playing the games we’re talking about. Backers can view the most recent video episodes of the TouchArcade show by clicking here. Be sure you’re logged in to see the latest content. For everyone else who is curious, you can check out our public patreon posts to see older episodes of the video podcast. If you like what you see, consider becoming a TouchArcade Patreon backer. Stitcher: The TouchArcade Show via Stitcher Radio for Podcasts RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-603.mp3

This is a post that I’ve known was coming for quite some time, but that doesn’t make it any easier …

Continue reading "TouchArcade is Shutting Down"

This is a post that I’ve known was coming for quite some time, but that doesn’t make it any easier to write. After more than 16 years TouchArcade will be closing its doors and shutting down operations. There may be an additional post here or there in the coming weeks as we try to honor any previously agreed to obligations, and a proper farewell post is in the works too, but as of now our normal daily operations have ceased. The reason we’re shutting down probably isn’t a surprising one: Money. Many of you who have followed TouchArcade for a long time are well aware that we’ve had financial troubles for many years now, and to be frank I think it’s a miracle that we’ve been able to last as long as we have. The truth of the matter is that a website like ours just doesn’t make money anymore. To our own detriment we’ve resisted things like obnoxious in-your-face advertising, egregious clickbait headlines, or ethically questionable sponsorships, which sadly are the types of things that actually still make money in the internet of today. There are a number of other reasons that have contributed to us reaching this point, but I’d rather not get into all that right now. TouchArcade was an institution for many millions of people over the past 16 years, and it was my full-time job for the last 14+ years. A solid third of my life. In many ways it is like one of my children, and having to say goodbye to it is very difficult to do. I’d really rather focus on all the great times we had than dwell on the things which we cannot change. Also, as a man with a wife and two young children, and a mortgage, and all that other fun adult stuff, this is the end of my livelihood, and despite them being “freelancers" in a technical sense that is true for the other two people who have been the beating heart of TouchArcade, Shaun Musgrave and Mikhail Madnani. Which brings me to my next point… PLEASE HIRE US! The job market is not great anywhere, and finding new work is tough, especially in the games industry. If you are reading this and you have a need for very capable game industry veterans such as ourselves, please reach out. Jared Nelson – That’s me! Obviously I have more than 14 years of experience working right in the very thick of the mobile gaming boom here at TouchArcade. Writing, editing, managing staff, traveling to conventions. I’ve pretty much done it all. I also have a pretty varied work history previous to TouchArcade, including in management roles, that I think gives me a really well-rounded set of skills. You can contact me on LinkedIn or by email at jared [at] toucharcade [dot] com. Shaun Musgrave – Shaun has been with TouchArcade for a bit over 11 years, but has been in professional games media for more than 25 years overall. He is hands down one of the most gifted writers I have ever encountered, and if we needed a review for a big, important game and needed it by a very tight deadline Shaun was always dependable. He also uses his vast, almost uncanny knowledge of video game history to find interesting angles to write about games that only he could find. Shaun lives in Japan and is fluent in both Japanese and English, making him a great candidate for localization work as well. Please reach out to him at muzkind [at] hotmail [dot] com. Mikhail Madnani – As part of TouchArcade for more than 7 years, Mikhail has been the workhorse of our staff. Posting the bulk of what you would see on a day to day basis, there is no possible way our website could have kept running for so long without Mikhail’s contributions. An expert at sniffing out interesting news stories and then posting them in a timely fashion, but also able to put together huge features like in-depth interviews and multi-platform reviews. His coffee-laden header images are legendary as well. If you need someone who can reliably and consistently post video game-related content, then I cannot recommend Mikhail highly enough. Reach out to him at hello [at] failgunner [dot] com. So What Happens Now? If there is some sort of silver lining to all of this, it’s that for the foreseeable future all of the content that has ever been posted to TouchArcade will remain online and accessible to all. More than 33,000 published articles, including more than 4,000 game reviews, not to mention all of our yearly Best Of content and Game of the Year picks. These should hopefully all continue living on into the future for reference purposes and just to look back and see how drastically the mobile gaming landscape changed over the last decade and a half. We are also hoping to continue with our Podcast, The TouchArcade Show, which very recently just celebrated its 600th(!) episode. There are a couple co-hosts who have come and gone during the course of the podcast (shout out to Brand and Mike!) but myself and Eli Hodapp have been a constant presence on the show since the very beginning, and it’s really crazy that we’ve both spent 13+ years of our lives putting out hour-long podcasts on a (nearly) weekly basis. Related to that, you may be wondering about our Patreon. The support from our Patreon has far and away been the biggest contributor to TouchArcade continuing to exist since we launched it in June of 2015, almost a decade ago. Our thoughts are to pivot the Patreon contributions towards keeping the podcast going, and perhaps occasional posts or special features written by the staff here. Perhaps a random “SwitchArcade" or a review about a particularly high-profile mobile game launch. Maybe we could even squeeze in a Game of the Year for this year? It’s just a nugget of an idea right now, but it would be pretty cool to see TouchArcade be able to live on even in that small way. Whatever the case ends up being, I will explicitly change the verbiage of our Patreon to state that it’s no longer about supporting the website, and if people choose to stop contributing then that is totally understandable. If people are giving us money monthly I want to be absolutely transparent about what it’s going towards. Anyway, look for more news about this in the coming weeks, and at the very least be sure to follow along as a free member on our Patreon to stay in the loop. Also if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me at tips [at] toucharcade [dot] com or leave a comment below. Well, that about does it, I think. I speak for all of us who have contributed to running TouchArcade over the past 16 years–from the co-founders Arnold Kim and Blake Patterson, to the first full-time hire and future Editor in Chief Eli Hodapp, and to the dozens of other writers and freelancers who have helped make TouchArcade what it is–we just want to give a sincere thank you for ever reading our site, listening to our podcast, or attending one of our events. It has been an absolute pleasure to have such a wonderful audience who appreciated what we did so much and we will all forever be grateful for the time that we were able to spend together.

For our last full controller review on TouchArcade, I’ve been using the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition …

Continue reading "Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller Review – Customizable, Comfortable, but Lacking in Ways"

For our last full controller review on TouchArcade, I’ve been using the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition for PC and PlayStation across my Steam Deck, PS5, and PS4 Pro for over a month now. Before I interviewed PDP Victrix about the controller and arcade sticks, I was very curious about the controller for its modular nature and also because I’ve wanted to try out another “Pro" controller after adoring the Xbox Elite (1st generation) and DualSense Edge over the years. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller – what’s in the box Usually, controllers just ship with a cable and sometimes a charging stand. In the case of the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition, you get the controller, a braided cable, a high quality protective case to house the controller and everything else it ships with, a replacement fightpad module with a six button layout for fighting games, two gates, two replacement analog stick caps, two d-pad caps, a screwdriver for use with the controller, and a blue wireless USB dongle. The items are all neatly placed within the case which is very good quality on its own. Unlike the normal Victrix Pro BFG controller, some of the items with this one are themed to match the new Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition aesthetic. Keep this in mind as I don’t see replacements available officially for this, but I hope they start selling them soon. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller compatibility On paper, the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller supports PS5, PS4, and PC. I don’t use Windows anymore, so I was curious if this would work on Steam Deck out of the box. Since I prefer the PlayStation button prompts in games, I set it to PS5 and plugged in the dongle into my Steam Deck Docking Station. It worked without issue and without needing any update. On the console side, if you want to play wirelessly, you need the same dongle and to set the toggle to PS4 or PS5. I had no issues playing with it on my PS4 Pro in PS4 mode and on my PS5 in PS5 mode. In fact, since I don’t have any PS4 controller that works outside of arcade sticks with PS4 support, this is a very good bonus to have for when I want to test something on PS4 to compare with PS5. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller features The big draw of the Victrix Pro BFG controller is the modular nature letting you work with a symmetric stick layout, asymmetric stick layout, change things up for fighting games with the fightpad, adjust the triggers, thumbsticks, and also the d-pads. The aim with this design was to allow you to adjust the controller depending on the game you’re playing. As an example, I’d use the symmetric stick layout when playing Katamari Damacy Reroll, but I might swap to the Xbox-style asymmetric layout while playing DOOM Eternal. Being able to adjust the trigger stop is also great as I can change that when playing a racing game with analog trigger support and also go for the shortest stop when playing a game with digital trigger support. Beyond that, the multiple d-pad options are very nice, but I’ve been trying to stick to the default diamond shape one to get used to it, and I like it a lot. I wouldn’t use it for platformers though, but the other d-pad options work well here. Since this is an official PS5 and PS4 licensed controller, it is worth noting that this has no rumble, no haptic feedback, no adaptive trigger support, and no gyro/motion control support. I don’t care about gyro much, but no rumble at all is disappointing since you have sub $30 controllers now offering decent rumble, though they aren’t PS5 compatible. I’ve been informed that third party wireless controllers for PS5 might have restrictions for rumble as well, and I’ve seen more reports from folks using other third party controllers here. Either way, this is disappointing. The Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition ships with 4 paddles or well paddle-like buttons. I wish there were proper paddles you could remove though. I mapped two of them to L3 and R3 and the ones above to L1 and R1 since I use those the most in games like Monster Hunter World and also hate pressing the sticks. Having four buttons here is very good though. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller look and feel Visually, I love the gorgeous and bright highlights and colors used on the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition. It isn’t as elegant as the default black model with purple highlights, but for a themed controller it looks very good with its light blue, pink, purple, and Tekken 8 branding. The Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition feels very comfortable, but it is a bit too light for my liking. The material on the main controller body ranges from feeling premium to just fine. It is a far cry from the premium feeling DualSense Edge, but that controller has that ugly glossy front plate that ruins things. The grip on this controller makes a big difference, and I’ve had 8 hour sessions with the controller wired without getting tired of holding it. It being light pays off here. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller on PS5 On PS5, there are a few things to keep in mind. This is an officially licensed controller, but you can’t turn on your PS5 with it. This seems like a limitation for 3rd party controllers on PS5, but is an annoyance to keep in mind. Beyond that, haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and gyro are not available here. Aside from that, it has touchpad support and all the buttons I use on a DualSense controller including the share button. Victrix Pro BFG on Steam Deck Like I mentioned above, the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition works out of the box on Steam Deck with the dongle plugged into the official Docking Station I use. It even correctly is recognized as a PS5 Victrix controller with the share button working for capturing screenshots and the touchpad working as it should in PC games that have PlayStation controller support. This was great to see as some games don’t even recognize my DualSense correctly. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller battery life The huge advantage the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller or the normal one has over the DualSense and DualSense Edge is the battery life. It lasts multiple times longer than the DualSense and the DualSense Edge on a single charge. It also helps that the logo on the touchpad indicates when the battery is low. This is good for playing on Steam Deck as other controllers don’t really visually indicate when the battery is low. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller software The software is something I couldn’t test as it is only available on the Microsoft Store and I don’t use Windows anymore. Thankfully, it works out of the box with Steam Deck, PS5, and PS4. The one thing I was hoping to see is if the controller would work on iOS. I tested wirelessly with the dongle on my iPad, wired on my iPhone 15 Pro, and also wired on my iPad Pro with no luck. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller negatives Right now, it has a few big negatives. These include no rumble, the low polling rate, not shipping with the Hall Effect sensors, and it requires a dongle for wireless, at least for the model I have. The lack of rumble might not be an issue for some, but for a “Pro" controller, the polling rate is disappointing. There are multiple videos on YouTube showcasing this and why it is a problem as well. Comparatively, the DualSense Edge wired is massively better with its response. As for the Hall Effect sensors, I’m glad Victrix now sells the new modules, but why do new purchases of the controller not just ship with those in the first place? Also if I were to buy either of the module color options available for my Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller, it wouldn’t fit with the aesthetic and will not have PS5 face buttons. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Controller Review Having gotten well over a hundred hours of use out of the controller per platform across games like UFO 50, Street Fighter 6, Tekken 8, Persona 3 Reload, and many more, I can safely say that I love using the controller, but the few issues are annoying to see given its price point. In a lot of ways, the Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition has the potential to be one of the best controllers in years if it sees some fixes and changes for a potential successor. Right now, there are a few too many caveats involved for its high asking price that make sure it is very good, but not amazing. The big issues holding it back right now are the lack of rumble (which seems like a restriction from Sony), dongle requirement, additional cost involved for Hall Effect sticks, and the polling rate. These might not matter to some folks, but for a “Pro" controller priced at $200, I expected a bit more. Victrix Pro BFG Tekken 8 Rage Art Edition Review Score: 4/5 Update: Added more information for the lack of a rumble feature.

In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we talk about the site’s closure and what that will mean moving …

Continue reading "Is This Goodbye? – The TouchArcade Show #602"

In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show, we talk about the site’s closure and what that will mean moving forward. We plan to still do this here podcast, but there are a few logistical things to figure out first. Most likely we will be pivoting to have our Patreon be the new home of the podcast, so be sure to at least join up as a free member over on our Patreon so that you’ll be sure to get any news or updates regarding the future of the show. And, just because it wouldn’t be a TouchArcade Show without off-topic banter, we weigh in on the hock tua girl’s new gig and give you our thoughts about all of Apple’s new gadgets that were launched this month. And we read emails! Don’t forget to shoot us emails with any questions, feedback, or anything else relevant or irrelevant to podcast@toucharcade.com. We read ’em all, and love decoding messages written entirely in emoji. As always, you can listen to us with the links below… And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and/or drop us a review in iTunes. Much appreciated! As a companion to this audio podcast, we also do a video version of the same show that is exclusive to Patreon which allows you to see us playing the games we’re talking about. Backers can view the most recent video episodes of the TouchArcade show by clicking here. Be sure you’re logged in to see the latest content. For everyone else who is curious, you can check out our public patreon posts to see older episodes of the video podcast. If you like what you see, consider becoming a TouchArcade Patreon backer. Stitcher: The TouchArcade Show via Stitcher Radio for Podcasts RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-602.mp3

A lot of folks got into the SaGa series a long time ago through its many releases on prior console …

Continue reading "Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Interview With Game Producer Shinichi Tatsuke and Steam Deck Hands-On Preview"

A lot of folks got into the SaGa series a long time ago through its many releases on prior console generations. For me, Romancing Saga 2 on iOS was actually my gateway into the series nearly a decade ago, and I remember struggling with it quite a bit initially because I kept playing it like a normal JRPG. Fast forward to today, I adore the SaGa series as you can see in the photograph at the bottom of this article, and I was surprised to see Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, a full remake of Romancing SaGa 2, announced for Switch, PC, and PlayStation a little while ago. For today’s double feature, I’ve been playing Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven on Steam Deck through an early demo code and I’ve also had a chance to interview Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Game Producer Shinichi Tatsuke who was behind Trials of Mana’s remake. We discussed Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, learnings from Trials of Mana, accessibility, potential ports to Xbox and mobile, coffee, and more. This interview was conducted on a video call. It was then transcribed and edited for brevity in the case of some portions. TouchArcade (TA): How does it feel having worked on a remake of Trials of Mana, a beloved game, and now working on Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, a remake of another classic and beloved game? Shinichi Tatsuke (ST): Yeah, so both trials of manna and the romancing SaGa series are entries from the pre-square enix merger. It was when Square Enix was Squaresoft. These are both considered legendary titles from square. I do feel that it’s an incredible honor for me to handle the remakes of these two incredible titles. Both romancing SaGa 2 and trials of manna, when we remade these titles, it’s been 30 or almost 30 years since the original release. There was a lot of opportunity for us to kind of improve with the remake. So it was very fun to work on. So romancing SaGa 2, as you may know already, it’s a very unique game that has a lot of unique systems. So these systems are not only considered unique back then, we felt that these are still considered unique today too. So we felt that even remaking this title, even though it’s been more than 30 years, we felt that it would still be a great title to remake because of its uniqueness. It would still be considered unique for the modern players. TA: Romancing SaGa 2, the original game, was very challenging. When I played it, I think I got a game over in the first 10 minutes, and that was a nice wake up call for me with it being my first SaGa game. The remake, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, has multiple difficulty options. I wanted to know what were the challenges for you to stay true to the original while still making it accessible? This is likely going to be the first SaGa game for a lot of people with its modern graphics. ST: I think you bring up a great point because as you mentioned, the difficulty of the SaGa series is very well known throughout the fanbase and again, this is something that you probably already know, but the SaGa series has a lot of hardcore fans in Japan and outside of Japan as well. And there are a lot of people that would claim that the difficulty of SaGa is what makes the game, that’s what it’s essential for the SaGa title, for the SaGa series. But on the other hand, we have a lot of people that also feel that there’s a very, I guess, high barrier to start playing the SaGa title, because they feel that the SaGa titles are too difficult for them. So there are a lot of people that say they know about the SaGa series, but have never tried it out before. And when you ask them why, usually the answer is, oh, because it sounds like it’s too difficult. So because of that, we wanted to cater to both of these groups of fans. So the newcomers that haven’t yet to try the SaGa title, the SaGa series, but also for the hardcore fans. And one of our solutions that we thought was going to be a solution was to present the new newly added difficulty system. So we have the normal mode and the casual mode. So the normal mode is more catered for the standard RPG fans, but we also have the casual mode for people who just want to experience the narrative or the story of the game. So in the development team, we also had the core SaGa fans as well so that was our collective decision and solution to come up, solution to kind of resolve this situation where we have a lot of newcomers or people who haven’t played the SaGa title yet, trying to try, we wanted to try to hook them in by adding this difficulty, adding these new difficulty settings. So this is kind of a metaphor, but when you add, when you have spicy food, so in Japan, the curry is typically very spicy. So what you would do to kind of alleviate that ease to spice is that you would add honey sometimes. So the very spicy curry would be the original Romancing SaGa 2, where it’s just really, really difficult for a lot of players. So we kind of added the honey and the honey being the difficulty option. So like the casual mode. So to make that, to make it easier for our players. TA: One more question about the difficulty here. How was it like trying to deliver the original experience for veteran fans, but also offering some quality of life improvements into the gameplay and just the game in general? How did you decide which features to bring in to modernize the game, but also keep it very challenging for long time fans? ST: Our belief is that the SaGa series is not just all about the difficulty. it’s not just all about how difficult the games are. It’s more so how difficult it was to understand the game. For example, in the original release, there were a lot of elements or a lot of data that weren’t visible for the players. One of the examples being the weaknesses of enemies. The weaknesses did exist in the game, but it wasn’t really presented to the players, so players had to figure that out. This also applies to other stats like defenses. Again, it exists in the game, but it’s not displayed for the players. Players had to figure it out on their own to get an understanding of these aspects of the game. We thought that this wasn’t necessarily really difficult, it was just really unfair to the players. That’s something that we wanted to really improve on, because this is going to be a remake for the modern audiences, so we wanted to get rid of those unfair elements and make it fair and enjoyable for the players. That’s why in this remake, the weaknesses are going to be actually displayed for the players, unlike the original. There are, again, player areas that we’ve adjusted that just made it too difficult in the original. In order to make it fair and more enjoyable for the modern audiences, we made improvements and focused on that area. TA: When I started playing Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven on Steam Deck, because I’m playing it on PC right now, it is really good and it impressed me quite a bit with how well it runs. That got me thinking about Trials of Mana, because I played that on PlayStation 4 and Switch, and then I eventually played that on mobile also. I wanted to know, has the team been working to optimize the game specifically for Steam Deck? Editor’s Note: This was asked before the game had an official Valve rating of Steam Deck Playable. ST: Yes, so as you have already experienced the demo of the game on your Steam Deck, the full game, the full release, is going to be compatible with the Steam Deck as well, and it will be playable on the Steam Deck. TA: Can you comment on how long the development was for Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven? ST: I can’t really provide the details of that, but I can say that we started the main development towards the end of 2021. TA: What learnings from Trials of Mana remake did you take into Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven to make sure that this is also a remake which fans love? ST: Because of our experience working on Trials of Mana remake, we felt like we did develop a good understanding of what the players want and what players would enjoy out of remake titles. One of the examples being the soundtrack of the game. We learned that players generally prefer arrangements that are not too different from the original tracks. They would rather prefer something that’s more faithful to the original arrangement. Something not too different to the original. But that being said, back then, the original tracks were released, or the original title was released on older platforms like the Super Famicom, but then we’re releasing the remake on the modern platforms like the PlayStation 5 and whatnot. The technical limitations are very different between these two eras, so we were able to utilize that and then make the quality of the arrangements higher. The general direction of the tracks are going to stay the same, however, the overall quality has been refined for these remakes. That’s the area that we learned and we adapted into the Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven. Another thing that we learned was that players generally would prefer to, or there are a lot of players that also just prefer the original soundtrack and not the newly arranged tracks. We added an option in Trials of Mana remake that players can switch from two different arrangements of tracks. They can either choose the original tracks as is, or they can choose the newly composed or newly arranged tracks for the remakes. We added that system in Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven as well because we learned that players really loved that choice. Having that choice offered to them for the music was really well regarded, so we added that in Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven as well. There’s also a couple of different areas that we worked on newly that’s not something that we did on Trials of Mana remake. One of the examples is the graphics. The characters are typically a bit shorter on the Mana series because the graphic style is a bit more on the adorable side. In SaGa, we can’t really keep the same aesthetics in the graphics. The characters are going to be a bit taller in this remake compared to the others. Even when you look at the backgrounds as well, for the Mana series, we added shadow effects into the textures of the backgrounds. Again, SaGa is going to have a different worldview. We wanted to keep it a bit more serious. In order to do that, in order to keep things realistic, like that’s more suitable for the SaGa franchise, we utilized the lighting effects to add these shadows and not the textures like we did for Mana. Even though there were a lot of areas that we were able to utilize and bring in as is for the SaGa remake, there were a lot of areas that we worked on newly as well. A lot of different knowledge experiences, know-hows that we were able to use, but also new stuff that we figured out on our own with this remake. At this point, I thanked him and the team for making the “Romancing SaGa 2 Primer" video where he introduced the game in English. I was very happy with that video and I’ve shared it with a lot of my friends who haven’t played a SaGa game before. TA: Trials of Mana remake eventually came to mobile. I wanted to know if there are any plans to bring Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven to mobile or Xbox in the future. ST: We do not have any plans to release on those platforms at the moment. TA: My final question is how do you like your coffee? ST: I don’t drink coffee because I’m not a fan of bitter drinks. I can’t drink beer either. I’d like to thank Shinichi Tatsuke, Jordan Aslett, Sara Green, and Rachel Mascetti for their time and help with this interview and preview access over the last few weeks. Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven Steam Deck Impressions When I was offered a Steam key for Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven to try out the demo beforehand, I was equal parts excited and worried. I was excited because the reveal trailer looked excellent, but a bit worried because I had no idea if it would be a good experience on Steam Deck pre-release. Thankfully, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is not only great on Steam Deck OLED out of the box, but the few hours I spent with the demo made me not even want to bother getting the game on PS5 or Switch to play. It is that good on Valve’s handheld. But what about the remake and how it feels to play? I’m going to cover my early thoughts here. Right off the bat, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven looks great and sounds fantastic on Steam Deck. This remake also properly introduces the basics of battle, stats, and more gradually. If you’ve played Romancing SaGa 2 before, there are some changes through quality of life improvements with information, how combat flows despite being turn-based, and also the new audio options. If you never played the original, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is shaping up to be a lovely modern entry point into SaGa in general for newcomers. The visuals definitely make it more approachable, but this is very much Romancing SaGa 2 with a fresh coat of paint and some new features. Playing on the difficulty meant to be like the original still is challenging. As for the remake’s visuals and feel, it is a lot better than I expected. I loved Trials of Mana’s remake, but I think Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven will end up the better remake overall. This may be because I love the original game a lot more than Trials of Mana, but only time will tell on that when I get access to the full release. It also helps that at least on Steam Deck, the PC port is quite a bit better than I expected. When it comes to sound and language options, you can toggle between the new remake soundtrack or the original, English or Japanese audio, and also various graphics options. The PC port of Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven lets you adjust screen mode (windowed, borderless, exclusive fullscreen), screen resolution (800×450 and more with 720p support on Steam Deck), frame rate (30 to unlimited), toggle v-sync, toggle on dynamic resolution, use graphics presets, toggle anti-aliasing, adjust texture filtering quality, adjust shadow quality, and adjust 3D model rendering resolution. I set most things to maximum or high with shadows on medium and still got a near-locked 90fps on my Steam Deck OLED at 720p. On the audio side, I stuck to English for my first playthrough. The voice acting is good, but I will likely play the full game with Japanese first to see how I feel when I get it. I might even do English on console and Japanese on Steam Deck. Either way, a lot of care and effort has gone into not only making Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven feel modern, but also retain its SaGa-ness. I’m looking forward to digging into the full game when I can, and also seeing how the demo feels on consoles. Right now, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven is a game you should have on your radar if you enjoy RPGs. I hope this leads to more folks trying out other SaGa games as well, but Square Enix needs to give us SaGa Frontier 2 next. Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven launches on October 24th for Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS5, and PS4 worldwide. A free demo will be available on all platforms today and I recommend trying it out. You can keep up with all our interviews here including our recent ones with Sukeban Games here, FuturLab here, Shuhei Matsumoto from Capcom about Marvel Vs Capcom here, Santa Ragione here, Peter ‘Durante’ Thoman about PH3 and Falcom here, M2 discussing shmups and more here, Digital Extremes for Warframe mobile, Team NINJA, Sonic Dream Team, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and more. As usual, thanks for reading.

When I first wrote about boomer shooters last year on Steam Deck and also on Switch, aside from New Blood …

Continue reading "Andrew Hulshult 2024 Interview: DOOM IDKFA, Blood Swamps, DUSK, Iron Lung, AMID EVIL, Music, Guitars, Cold Brew Coffee, and More"

When I first wrote about boomer shooters last year on Steam Deck and also on Switch, aside from New Blood and Nightdive, the most common name was Andrew Hulshult who has done some amazing music over the years. He recently was involved with the DOOM + DOOM II re-release that included his IDKFA soundtrack with new music for DOOM II, and having wanted to interview him for a while now, I finally had a chance to chat with him on call for a few hours to discuss game soundtracks, composition, bands he likes, guitar strings, pickups, cold brew coffee, his first film soundtrack, games he’s playing, and a lot more. This interview was done on video call and then it was transcribed and edited for brevity. Just like my interview with Dave Oshry from New Blood, this one was more casual than usual, and this is likely the longest interview on TouchArcade so strap in and grab a cold brew. TouchArcade (TA): So for those unaware, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do. Andrew Hulshult (AH): Yeah, my name’s Andrew Hulshult. I’m a composer and sound designer for mainly video games, but I’m starting to move over into film as well. I like to just write music by myself sometimes when it’s not for a game or film. But that’s primarily what I do. I work in the game and film industry doing sound design, soundtracks, and sometimes voice acting. TA: How did you end up working on the canceled Duke Nukem project and also Rise of the Triad 2013? AH: Duke Nukem 3D Reloaded was actually just kind of like, I think that was 2010. That’s, I’m reaching back here a little bit. So I think Frederik at the time, Frederik Schreiber, the guy who runs 3D Realms now, or I think he still does, basically he was remaking maps in the middle of Unreal Engine 3 of like some of the original Duke 3D maps and posting them on Gearbox forums, which I think one of them that got a lot of hits was like all of the 3D renders of like Hollywood Holocaust, which is like E1M1 for Duke 3D. That caught my attention as well. I was like, wow, that looks really neat. You know, like I reached out on the forums, I was like, hey, do you need any music? Maybe this would be fun. Like, I really liked Duke 3D back in the day. And he said, yeah, sure. You know, like if you want to remake some of the stuff and hand it off to me. So I just did some of that. I just had gear laying around and I wanted to kind of learn how to do this anyway. So I just dove in head first and started kind of remaking some of the old Duke 3D tracks. That kind of spawned into, you know, not a lot, not a lot was done in Duke 3D Reloaded. It was just like, you know, like some odds and ends stuff. Somehow that turned into Apogee, Terry Nagy, head hunting us and saying, hey, I have an IP that I’d really like you to work on called Rise of the Triad if you guys want to give it a try. And he had an investor with him at the time who was interested named Dave Oshry And this was a very long time ago. And it’s crazy. Like all those people now are like, you know, on the, we were all on the forefront of like the retro FPS revival stuff. But basically after Duke 3D Reloaded, yeah, Apogee came, said, hey, we’re interested. And Fred said yes on our side. And we started making Rise of the Triad 2013. TA: It was funny you mentioned Dave Oshry because when I finally got an interview with him, I think it was easier for me to meet Iron Maiden than get that interview, but after getting that done, I had New Blood covered. I recently also interviewed Nightdive about The Thing, but I needed to complete the trifecta for boomer shooters: Andrew Hulshult. Now that’s finally happening. We both laugh. TA: I remember in a prior interview you did, you mentioned how when you were doing the 3D realm stuff, you weren’t aware of how much you were in demand in the industry. So when that door closed, suddenly you had like a, like thousands of opportunities and stuff like that. But, and obviously you’ve gone on to do some of like some huge titles since then. Obviously Doom Eternal DLC is the one which a lot of people think about you. For me, it’s like other titles like Nightmare Reaper and Dusk and stuff like that. I want to know how you’ve changed as a musician and as a professional from back then to now. AH: Oh, that’s a great question. Man, starting off in the industry with, you know, doing the whole stuff with Interceptor, like where we were, what we were just talking about, it was a completely fresh experience as a musician. So you don’t know what you’re getting into. And then a lot of times you’re like, I don’t even know what I should be getting paid, you know, like you have an idea, but you’re not, you don’t know. And so like wading through those waters is interesting and also dangerous territory. But the stuff that I have learned has been all from, you know, tripping on agreements as you go forward. You sign an agreement, you go for it, you make the money, and on the back end you’re either like, this didn’t really work out, or you’re like, hey, this worked out, we need to make sure that we do this again, you know. It’s learning the entire time. Because this is the thing that I feel like musicians get hung up on a lot, which is, you know, they just, they want to make really, really awesome, beautiful art for games. And like, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. You should, that should be the core principle that you do. But you have to make sure that you get paid so that you can continue to do it. Because otherwise you burn yourself out and you don’t want to work in the industry anymore. And that, to go back to what you were talking about with, I didn’t know how much, like how in demand I was. I was right at that point. I was about to walk away from everything right after the whole stuff with 3D Realms. I was done with games. I was like, you know what, like there’s not a lot of avenues here and I’m just getting more bitter as time goes on. And the last handful of things I’ve worked on have just bombed so why am I putting all this effort into this? I should try and do something else. And I didn’t realize until I stepped out from 3D Realms how many people wanted to hire me. And like, it’s one of those weird things where like, I’m sure you can probably relate. When you have a job, like a day job, if you’ve ever just held like a simple, simple day job, you can get sucked into that entire cycle of that job and nothing else matters around. So an example of this would be, I worked for a music retailer for about 15 years, okay. I was doing well for them. They wanted to give me my own stores. I was working on management. And the cycle that comes with that where you get so wrapped up in the business of that makes you lose focus of lots of other things in life. And that’s kind of what happened to me while I was working with 3D Realms. That’s nothing bad about them. It’s just when you’re working for a company rather than working for yourself, it turns into that. From the start to now has been like just a crazy learning process. You do have to walk on landmines. You do have to get blown up a couple of times until you figure out what works and what doesn’t. Stepping out from 3D Realms after they said, hey, we don’t have the cash to pay you. It’s like, oh, okay, I guess I’ll go figure this out now. And then all of a sudden, DUSK, you know, like that’s literally the next thing that and AMID EVIL were the very next things that I worked on. It was crazy. TA: Obviously you get a lot of questions about game music, but what is like, since you brought up this whole thing about how you’ve changed, what is the biggest misconception that people both in the industry and like the players have about video games music right now? AH: The biggest misconception. Oh, that anybody can do it and it’s a small part. laughs It’s like, you can’t just throw anything in there. Like, man, it’s I’d say that from a public like standpoint of I don’t play games that much and I’m casual kind of thing, some of my friends and some of my family are like, you have the easiest job. I’m like, you have no f***ing idea. You know, walk in my shoes for a day and let’s talk again. Yeah, it’s really difficult because you, you really have to trick yourself into getting into whatever atmosphere or whatever world someone else has painted already. Right. Like they’ve already built everything out. This is their vision. You have to step into it and you have to step into it with respect to their design philosophies. And you also have to have the confidence to say, well, this is what I think we should do and why we should do it. And there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of social confidence that’s needed to do a gig like this. It’s complex in a lot of different ways. The art side of it is hard enough, like pulling shit out of thin air, is difficult already, but then, um, explaining to people why you want to go this direction and sometimes even arguing to get that direction can be a hassle in and of itself. So yeah, I’d say the biggest misconception is that it’s easy and that it’s not easy. I swear to God, so many times my friends are like, ah, you’ve got the easiest job. I’m like, no, man, I live, I, I threw a hundred pound boxes from 6 AM to 4 PM. And sometimes I miss that. Whiskey and coffee fueled half of the @RiseoftheTriad OST. Most songs were composed between 9pm and 3am. The more you know — Andrew Hulshult (@AndrewHulshult) September 30, 2015 TA: So I also want to talk a lot about your gear, but before that, I think we should discuss some of the game specific things. So let’s start with ROTT 2013. I’ve just sent you a tweet right now, which I wanted to reference. This is quite an old one (linked above). Well, I actually didn’t know much about this soundtrack until recently. I had heard about it and I had heard that a lot of my friends bought that release. They said that it wasn’t that great. I played the original on DOS but not the 2013 version, so I didn’t really hear it all in-game until the Ludicrous Edition and when folks made a big deal about it having Andrew Hulshult’s music. I decided I wanted to properly try it then. I wanted to talk about your thought process between like, you know, redoing those tracks and coming up with your own flare on them, because anyone who, at least any fan of yours, if they listen to that, they know it’s your music. It’s not like, oh, this is just like him doing a cover of someone else. It still feels like it’s you. AH: The first and foremost thing was to make sure you respect your elders. I wanted to make sure that whatever I did obviously served the fanbase and by proxy served everything that Lee Jackson had written. Lee Jackson and Bobby Prince, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the de facto composers for FPS. The originators. You’re already stepping into something well established back in the day. People are very familiar with this. If you f*** it up, you are toast. That was my first professional gig. Stepping into that kind of pressure. Just really what it came to, it was all really natural. I heard these songs and I saw the game and what they’re making and I’m like it is kinda jank, but it is fun. It is ridiculous. ROTT is so ridiculous. I was like man, I was talking to Dave and Fred about it. What if we did like rock and metal stuff predominantly? That’s the kind of music I listen to all the time. They said let’s try it. Even Terry was like you should do it. Really they just kinda gave me free reign to give it a try on some of these things. The first one I did as a demo to work on it was “Goin Down the Fast Way" and I remember I handed that to Terry. Terry is awesome and he has been great to me for my entire career. Never had a bad piece of advice from him. He is the CCO for Apogee by the way. I remember handing him the very first demo of “Goin Down the Fast Way". His comment coming back to me was “It is in the right direction but it sounds like a diarrhea of sound" Because it wasn’t mixed correctly. I was just excited to hand him something. I was like ok this is one of those moments where I’m going to have to learn how to accept feedback even if it is not from a musician and I know that they mean well. I remixed a couple of things and I think this is what he was talking about and I sent it back to him and he said it was way better and it was awesome. Ok cool, this guy doesn’t just hate me. It kind of just came from the heart. All the soundtracks I work on, it’s me. Even if it is stepping into someone else’s shoes, I have to remember that the source material comes first, then you put your influences on. So the source material is the structure of the house but you can put up whatever walls you want and paint on it, and hang and decorate, but just make sure that the house is still the same house that people remember. Now to address the Tweet above, Whiskey and coffee fueled half of the Rise of the Triad soundtrack. Most songs were composed between 9 p.m. and 3 a.m. That’s true. Here’s one little tidbit with it too. Terry Nagy, the guy I was talking about, the CCO from Apogee, he would regularly take me down to a bar called Hula Hands. And he would buy the drinks and then he would just take me home and be like, “Alright, now go write some more songs." It was awesome. I miss those days. TA: This reminds me of that one track in IDKFA where you used a tremolo to replicate a specific sound and it was the perfect way to do it. AH: That was Dark Halls in DOOM. It has the tremolo guitar that’s supposed to be the rolling bass synth from that sound. I love that song. TA: After ROTT 2013, another game I didn’t really play until recently was Bombshell and I literally only bought that game because of your soundtrack. I got it when I was researching boomer shooters for an article and was looking at the games I don’t own. I bought it and didn’t really care for much of it, but the music was great. I kind of think of that soundtrack with Nightmare Reaper where they feel like just metal albums from Andrew Hulshult rather than dedicated game soundtracks. Was this the point in your career where you realized you’re really good at bringing metal into these kinds of games? It felt like a turning point. AH: That’s that’s a great question too like actually yeah like right around that time I was experimenting a lot with just you know making big atmospheric like synth stuff and like orchestral as you can hear on that soundtrack if you got far enough, laughs, but also like for the for the bigger fights and stuff, I really wanted to start dialing up you know my own sound and my own writing and you know I’d already done the cover stuff I wanted to want to show people what what I could do and so yeah that is kind of really where my introduction to like my own original pieces started coming into place, so yeah that is actually right. I never even thought about that that is where that started and also like I mean I gosh that’s if I think about it, that was 2013 is the end of 2013 is when development started on that, and it originally started as a Duke Nukem game before the lawsuit, and I had an eight string by that time. I was tuning down big time at that point, and there’s a lot of stuff that never made it maybe I’ll put that up on Twitter at some point but there’s a lot of stuff that never never showed up on it because it was a little too aggressive you know but that stuff would later show up in DOOM you know. laughs TA: When just discovering your music many years ago, everything was really good metal, and this was probably around the time I was mainly listening to metal before I started broadening my horizons. I went through this phase when I was learning guitar and I started listening to more Dream Theater and then got a seven string guitar, and eventually got into Meshuggah. It got me thinking about how when I listen to your music now, you manage doing unique things for each game and make the songs fit the game properly. It isn’t just metal anymore so there’s no worry about being typecast. Did you have that fear that everyone is just going to expect metal from you when you’re behind a specific soundtrack? AH: Oh man. You just saying that just out loud makes me wow. I still worry about that sometimes. There are moments where I’m like am I getting typecast at this point, and you saying, yeah I don’t have to worry about that anymore, I’m like oh thank god I heard it from someone else where they were you know like, because I don’t want to be like I don’t want to be like straight up known as metal guy you know like I love metal I love playing it I’ll make those records all day long as people as long as people will listen to it and even if they won’t I’ll probably make them, but yeah I like to paint with different brushes like especially when I get older, like I really enjoy mixing sound design with guitars. I like mixing sound design with orchestral instruments, I like just going full hand on my Eurorack synth stuff over here and just getting lost. As a musician I’m fortunate enough at this point where I can just experiment, and I know I can find, I have the confidence now after working on all these games and having some success with it where I know if I get lost I can find a way out because I’ll find something that I like, and chances are if I like it, I can probably show it to some people who will dig it as well. I’m so glad to hear that you’re like I know that I can get some variety. laughs TA: I mean if someone just heard DUSK and I’d say if they heard DUSK even that is pretty different. I mean if someone’s not into metal maybe they think dusk sounds the same as bombshell but you can totally tell that DUSK was trying to be like this middle ground of what you like and Nine Inch Nails’ Quake. I think it has one of my favorite guitar tones in gaming right now, and it’s still pretty timeless. I want to move to AMID EVIL. I love the soundtrack to the main game, but I want to ask about the DLC for two reasons. Now the first thing is kind of like a personal topic because I believe you were going through a family emergency during the time when you were recording the soundtrack, right? When I was playing Dragon Quest VIII on the 3DS and my grandfather was in the hospital before he passed away, whenever I think about Dragon Quest VIII now it reminds me of that. So do you go through the same thing with the AMID EVIL DLC music? AH: I don’t think I’ve been able to sit down and digest it that way yet. But I know exactly what you’re talking about and I’m sure that is what I will absolutely go through. Yeah, to harp back to what you’re talking about, to what you’re referencing, my father had a heart attack. And it was just out of nowhere. And it was on, gosh, I think it was on New Year’s Eve. It was like 9 PM on New Year’s Eve. It was the year before it was released And I was halfway, I was like midway through working on that soundtrack. And it just scared the shit out of me. As anybody would. Your father’s dying And he ended up having like a, all four valves around his heart were like 90-95% clogged. So yeah, he had to have a quadruple bypass. And thankfully, We have a really, really good heart hospital right next to us. And they’re at an age now where they’re on Medicare. I think it’s Medicare. I can’t remember. It’s like once you’re past 64 at a certain age in this country, you can get on Medicare. And you know, like health stuff isn’t as much of a nightmare as it normally is. But they got great care, got taken care of. But it was months. It took months for all that stuff to happen. And there’s like so many things that happened in between that. Like this was right in the middle of COVID. So like whenever he got, it was right in the middle of the big Omicron spike for the world. So as soon as he got admitted, he couldn’t get to an actual emergency room. He had to sit in another room for like two or three days and they actually had to sedate him for a few days before they could transfer him to another hospital to get looked at. Like it was just crazy. And I was out of my mind. I was crazy at that point. And so once they got to a point where they said we’re going to do surgery and he came out of surgery, I just needed something to occupy myself. Otherwise, I was going to self-destruct. So I started writing a lot on the AMID EVIL stuff and started really finding that old like playing with a band and writing songs for you kind of vibe going in. And a lot of that stuff in a AMID EVIL, the stuff that’s like got a lot of energy behind it, that is pretty personal for me. There’s a lot of emotions on that soundtrack. There’s also something else that I haven’t talked about in public yet and I’m not going to talk about it here that I started working on that has a lot of that as well. And that’ll still be a while before that pops up. But I’d say that that was my main outlet for a while. You have something to look forward to. But yeah, like that soundtrack let’s wrap it up. That soundtrack did have a lot of tension and a lot of emotions tied to my father almost passing away and me trying to wrap my head around that. You’re right. I hadn’t thought about that. TA: The other thing about the AMID EVIL DLC is this specific song I want to touch on: Splitting Time. This song is interesting for a few reasons. It reminds me of some of my favorite game trailers like the song used in the Nioh 2 launch trailer, I’m not sure if you’ve seen it. But more interesting than that is I was playing Street Fighter 6 with a friend of mine and listening to this in the background and he asked me if I was listening to Killer Instinct music? I said it was the AMID EVIL DLC and he wanted to know who made it. It reminded me quite a bit of Mick Gordon’s non DOOM music. We spoke about Killer Instinct and my friend said “they should get Andrew for a new Killer Instinct album" and I wanted to ask if Killer Instinct influenced that song? AH: No I didn’t actually. But there might be little hints of that back and forth because gosh, there are moments when I went back to that Killer Instinct reboot because I thought Mick did such a great job on it. Where I’m like, man, the production here is exactly what I have been trying to do for like a handful of years, And like that soundtrack was just really inspiring to listen to. I think he’s just, he’s a brilliant composer. TA: That’s another game I bought because of the soundtrack because when I played DOOM 2016, I was like I need to play more games with this guy’s done the music for and everyone was like Killer Instinct. I was like I’ve never heard this. I didn’t own an N64. What the hell is this game? I bought it and liked the music a lot more than the game. AH: That whole soundtrack slaps, man. He did a fantastic job on that. When you realize @AndrewHulshult put his whole bussy into the Nightmare Reaper OST instead of saving it for DUSK 2 pic.twitter.com/tU1AsySok0 — Dave @ Home (@DaveOshry) October 11, 2023 TA: OK, so now let’s go to Nightmare Reaper a bit. I already mentioned how this could be your own metal album. I don’t even think it needs to be related to this game. And this is another game I just bought because the music was so good. And I was like there’s kind of like this disconnect between what I expected in the game and after I heard the music, because I heard the music before playing the game and I was like, OK, I need to get used to this. But so before I ask you about your thought process between doing the music, I want to just bring up this other tweet (linked above) from New Blood’s Dave Oshry, which is interesting for Nightmare Reaper. When I saw that Tweet, I knew I had to bring it up whenever I interviewed you in the future and here we are. Laughs AH: Whenever Bruno reached out to me, Bruno is the developer of Nightmare Reaper. Whenever he reached out to me, we just literally started talking about some of our favorite bands and we would just go off back and forth because he showed me a game that he was making. I was like, “That looks cool." I was like, “Well, let me know if you’re ever interested." And then we just started talking about music. He’s like, “Would you be interested in working with me on this?" And I said, “Yeah, I think that would be cool." And he literally was like, “I just want this to be like a metal record from you." I was like, “Really?" He was like, “Yeah." He’s like, “You’ve got good influences." He’s like, “I just want it to sound like you just made a straight metal record." I was like, “Well, it can’t be just that." I was like, “But it’ll be mostly that." You still need to like, we need to, it needs to still be for a game. Because otherwise you’d have me, you know, screaming over top of everything as well. But yeah, it is pretty close to something I would have written at that time. You know, as you go with a, as time moves on, tastes change. And you know, but like at that time, for sure, that’s what you would have gotten for a metal record. I think that’s pretty close, yeah. TA: How do you manage doing that and also keeping the soundtrack dynamic for a game then? AH: Um, play through it a lot of times where you can figure out where you can have rests and lulls. And where somebody’s gonna possibly just walk around and look for things. And then try to write something that you yourself would not get bored of. And that’s still interesting in terms of like, you know, like an ambient track or like a low energy track that still moves a little bit. Just music to explore to, right? And then try and make a piece that complements what that is, but is super high energy or, uh, just higher energy for it. So like, so that those two can work together. You really have to think of it as like, you’re gluing two or three different pieces together. Because like Prodeus has like three pieces. It has an ambient, it has a light combat, and it has a heavy combat. And they’re structured in triggers throughout that game. So I have to think of how this ambient works with this low combat song and then work with this high combat song. Or this heavy combat song. And do they all move well between each other, um, if you were to just crossfade them at random times, you know? Because that’s what the engine is going to do. So yeah, it’s like, I don’t know, you just, you gotta take one of those pieces of music, build it out first, and then think about the other piece. TA: Since you brought up Prodeus, that was the next game I was going to ask about. I don’t even remember what happened with Prodeus when it launched on Steam, because I remember being sent a code for it and just tried it out for review, but was blown away by the music. I remember I even joked about that when I wrote about boomer shooters. At the time, it felt like everything boomer shooters was all about New Blood, Nightdive, and Andrew Hulshult. So Prodeus feels like metal, industrial, bass heavy, and punchier in general. It works well with the aesthetic but I think Cables and Chaos is my favorite. You’ve spoken a lot about Prodeus, but I wanted to know what your favorite track is from that and whether you can give us an interesting anecdote from composing which people might not know about? AH: Cables and Chaos is definitely my favorite one. Like, for sure. Like, that was the moment. Um, so, like, they originally only wanted me to work on, like, the music that first shipped. Not a lot of people know that I went through, like, this whole nightmare where I had to pull the entire soundtrack down across the entire, like, all this digital distribution and put it back up with all the songs because originally there was only, like, ten pieces of music with Prodeus. And then when they were getting closer to release they were like, “Hey, we want to… we want to… we want, like, ten more." And I was like, “Oh, uh, okay. Well, I’ve already put out the soundtrack. We already agreed on this, so this is weird." So, um, they showed me what else they were working on in terms of, like, the levels and everything that I hadn’t seen and I was like, “Good lord, these look incredible!" So I got really inspired with that and made a ton of really just more aggressive pieces of music which turned into things like Chaoscaster, Cables and Chaos, uh…I’m just trying to think of the other ones. Dystopian Dimension. That whole soundtrack is awesome. Like, that whole soundtrack, like, it was built in an interesting time where it’s…it was… half of it was pre-pandemic and the other half was during isolation during pandemic. So, it’s got these really interesting tangents of, uh, the second half of the record’s way more aggressive than the first half. Just because, like, I don’t know, I was at home and I’m like, I can’t get anything out. Like, in terms of my outlet, I can’t go out. I can’t do this. So, like, all of my energy was focused on how aggressive can I make the rest of this, you know? Like, and then we finally get to put it out. I think that was 2022. Here’s one thing from Prodeus that I thought was super neat. So, Spent Fuel is one of the only times that I’ve been…Well, it was one of the first times I’d done it at the moment. Where I’d taken an idea and I was like, how do I write a concept around this? And really, like, the map they showed me was just, you know, green sludge and radiated bullshit everywhere. It looked like Chernobyl. And, um…I was like, man, I really want to find ways to take things like Geiger counters, uh, and, uh, pulses from, from, uh, from fission reactions and, like, maybe even the sound of the, uh, the flash that happens in the video whenever they’re testing the atomic bomb stuff. Like, anything that’s gamma or uh, radiation that is audible, I want to take that and make a piece of music with it. So, there literally are all of those things in that piece of…that piece of music. So, there is the sound of a nuclear reactor turning on, doing what’s called a pulse, uh, for the first time. And that’s actually used in part of the beat. The Geiger counters used as portions of the beat that kind of sounds like a drum machine a little bit. I reversed the sound of, uh, the atomic bomb, the initial flash hitting the camera, making this “bzzz" sound. I reversed that and made it pulse back and forth through the beat. And then, you know, later on the music is like a lot of guitar stuff to go with it and everything, but all that stuff that’s going on with the synthesizer is all based around, you know, like radiation. And I was like, “Ah, this is cool!" Whenever I got done with it, I was like, “Finally!" I had an idea, like a concept idea for a piece of music that stems from like a real life thing and put it all together. So that was like, that’s one of the standout moments for me on that soundtrack. I was really proud of that. TA: Can you say anything about the DLC music or is that just up to the devs for them to release? AH: Uh, that’s up to the devs for them. TA: Anything that’s different or interesting or should we just expect another banger soundtrack? AH: I’m not sure if they’re going to use the base game stuff or if they want me to work on anything new. I have my suspicions that they’ll give me a shout probably somewhere in the near future, but I haven’t heard from them yet. TA: I think in a recent interview where you spoke about the Iron Lung soundtrack, which you’re doing, obviously you can’t talk much about it, but I, don’t want to know about the soundtrack specifically, I’ll wait for the movie to come out, but I want to know three things: How is it working on a movie soundtrack? How is it working with Markiplier? How has the budget available for the soundtrack changed how you’re able to approach music composition? AH: So the first one was, how’s it working on a movie soundtrack? Completely different. Like, I thought that, I thought that I’d be able to walk in and just be like, “Eh, this won’t, this’ll be simple." Oh. Like, it’s just as challenging as the game stuff, but in a completely different direction. Where I would know exactly to talk to a developer about “Let’s put a piece of music here, let’s put a piece of music here, let’s do that." I can do that with Mark, but they’re completely different conversations. One is, you know, I know exactly what’s supposed to be happening in the game here, this is, you know, you’re picking up this weapon, or you’re, this adventure is happening in front of you, this is the tone. The other is a film that I may get something out of, but Mark may be intending for a different emotion. So we have to talk about those things back and forth before I make a piece of music. So it’s really interesting. It’s a fun challenge, to be honest with you. The second one was working with Mark? Mark is awesome. He is so much fun to work with. He hears things that I don’t hear, uh, brings things up in, in my own music, where I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t even think about that." And he’s very much, um, a musician without, like, being a musician. Like, he doesn’t, he doesn’t write, like, as far as I know, he doesn’t write a bunch of music, like, on the regular, but he understands it very, very well. And will, uh, regularly make decisions when I hand him a piece of music, and he’s like, “Okay, this is, you know, sometimes we will have to cut these back and forth, but I promise you, like, like, to make it work for a scene." He’s like, “But I promise you, we’ll do it as best as we can, or I’ll do it as best as I can." I’m like, “Uh, you know, like, maybe I should just recompose the scene." And every time he cuts something to, like, possibly make it, like, a tiny bit shorter, I’m like, “No, that’s exactly what I would have done. Like, how are you this good at editing this stuff?" Like, it’s, it blows my mind. Um, so he’s been fantastic to work with. The third is about the budget for the movie soundtrack and how it changes how it affects composition? Budgets were a lot bigger. I’ll just, I’ll just keep it at that. They were, they were, they were much bigger. Um, just because of how much, it wasn’t, like, due to, um, you know, like, “Oh, you’re working on a film now." It was, it was because of how much music we went through. Um, I wrote demos with them on the set. So, like, they flew me down to Austin and Mark said, “Hey, you know, why don’t you just write music while I’m doing scenes?" I’m like, “Wow, that sounds actually really, really f***ing cool, yeah." So, I would go down there about once every two weeks and spend about two or three days there, just sitting at, uh, sitting out front while they’re, they’re doing scenes, and I’d be writing music with my headphones, just watching on a monitor, you know, what’s going on in front of me, like, 50 feet in front of me. And so, there was a ton of music from that, and there’s a lot more music that came afterwards that we wrote, and in fact, um, I’m actually about to jump on a call because I think they need one more, one more piece of music. I’m gonna jump on a call in like two hours, ’cause I think they need one more piece of music. Um, but it’s, it’s just been a lot. There’s a lot there. And it’s picking the emotions that go where. So, like, there would be, I wrote all these songs for, you know, um, catching a vibe of depression, and these songs for catching a vibe of anger, and these vibes for tension, and this, and this, and we have this giant palette to just choose from and pick where we want things to go, and that’s what, that’s what Mark’s been doing. So, yeah, it’s, it’s pretty much, I mean, financially, the exact same thing as, that I would agree on with games, but it’s just, there’s the volume that, like, we’ve done with stuff is like, whoa, that’s a lot! So, yeah. So, yeah, it’s been great. It’s helped me out a ton. I’d love to work with Mark again after this. TA: Going from your first movie soundtrack, let’s talk about your first chiptune album, which was Dusk 82. So, was that actually the first time you did any sort of chiptune remixing or composition or arrangement, I should say? AH: Yeah, the first real one, like, I mean, like, you could, you could argue that, like, the Rad Rodgers stuff has some of that on there, but that’s, like, closer to synth wave more than anything else, I feel like. And, like, that kind of retro feel. So, yeah, this was the first real time that I, like, approached, like, a chiptune. Like, this is, you have to stay within these boundaries of limited technology. And it was literally, like, you know, choose your, choose your sine wave. Do you want, you want sine, or choose your audio wave. Do you want sine, square, or, you know, triangle? So, it’s one of the three. Just building, like, drum kits based off of that and, like, white noise and everything. And, yeah, that was, that was interesting. Like, when David approached me about that, I was like, “You wanna do what?" You know, like, completely make, like, the Dusk soundtrack and chiptunes of, like, why don’t we just, like, choose a handful of, like, the hits and go from there. Like, the ones that people remember the most, you know? And that was fun. Uh, that was super cool. Just bouncing those back and forth off Dave and David. But, yeah, that was, that was the first time I ever did that. And it was, it was pretty cool. I’m glad people like it. TA: I think, uh, Dusk 82 was, like, this free pre-order bonus with the Nintendo Switch release. So when I started playing that, I was like, “Wait, did they actually do this for the soundtrack?" And then I looked it up and I’m like, “Of course they did!" I know obviously you’re, like, super busy with, like, a ton of projects, but if you had, like, unlimited time and resources, would you do a chiptune demake of any of your other albums? And if you would, which one would you pick? AH: Gosh. Which one would be the most interesting is really the, uh, the question there. I think the one that would be the most interesting if I were to do that would be probably AMID EVIL. Because there’s so much going on in some of those, it would be, it would be a lot of fun to go back and, like, hear some of those melodies that are, like, on, like, all string sections and stuff, and here I’m taking all the way down to, like, 8-bit, you know? I think that that would fit really well too. But yeah, if money wasn’t an issue. Yeah, and time. Time’s the biggest one there. TA: Speaking of time and money, I was going to ask you about remastering one of your old soundtracks, like bringing it to the modern Andrew Hulshult sound. You mentioned that you’d do ROTT 2013 if they paid you to remaster it. AH: There’s a ton of work involved in that. Doing that just for IDKFA was a ton of work. Like, that was months of getting that together. Um, yeah, I’d love to do that for ROTT if Apogee would be interested in it, but, like, it’s a time thing more than anything else. I think it’s a time thing for them, and it’s a time thing for me. I mean, they’re literally down the street, so, like, they can open up that conversation anytime they want, and it’s just a matter of when, you know? When’s the right time. TA: WRATH: Aeon of Ruin, I think is a game you composed a long time ago, at least in gaming, like, a few years ago, and it finally released this year. That’s a soundtrack where if anyone hears it, I think they probably wouldn’t expect it to be you when they listen to the soundtrack, and that’s one of the things I love about it, because here, like, he does more than just metal, like, you need to get that into your head, like, that feels like one of those things. How was it working on that soundtrack? AH: It was interesting back and forth. Jeremiah, the developer on that, the original developer, at first, I think he’ll be okay with me saying this, at first we did not, we didn’t see eye to eye on things, because I wanted straight up, like, almost no guitar at all, Quake, Like, this is what you’re going for, this is the audience, we need to harp even further into this, and he wanted some guitar mixed in there, and like, we would butt heads back and forth on it quite a bit, until we finally came to like a mutual understanding, and I started hearing him out a little bit more, and he started hearing me out, and I was like, okay, okay, I think we’re all good on this. But yeah, it was, that one was a little, a little more tough, just because the, like, the development cycle was, wasn’t, you know, as people know, like, didn’t, it didn’t go as great, like, towards about halfway through, maybe a little, even a little earlier than that, and I could see some of that happening in real time, just because I know all those guys, so like, it was unavoidable. So that’s, that’s hard to make art for when you know that the product itself is having some problems. But I think Christalynne Pyle did a good job with wrapping everything up towards the end of it, which was a task in and of itself, for sure. But, I don’t know, there were some weird ideas pitched out there at one point, where like, I think Fred wanted like, like straight up, like really over the top metal tracks at one point. I think they even had a trailer at one point where I was like, this is not the tone of this game. I don’t know where you guys found that music, but like, this is, this is not that. But I’m glad that everything in the end was able to have some cohesiveness and, and meld together. I really wish that we had time to do some action tracks, like, for that game. Like, I feel like there are moments where that could have, that could have been helpful, but also at the same time, that’s a big what if. You know, like, because there’s two things that you have to take into consideration. Which is, that’s the Quake engine. It’s like the OG Quake engine. You know, what are the limitations that we’re working with here? Can we dynamically swap music, and is it going to work well, just as well as you’ve heard in other titles? And number two, um, would that take people out of it? Because everybody remembers like the OG Quake having like, you know, every map had its song. Well, I say that. It was a disc running that just played a bunch of music. But basically, every map had a song for it. So, yeah, there’s, there’s a handful of things there. But I like the soundtrack. I think it’s cool. I think it’s, it’s, it’s got some really interesting moments in it where like, one of them where I was, I just said, “F*** it, whatever. We’re gonna, we’re gonna bow a guitar through a bunch of pedals and see what that comes out like." That’s one of my favorite pieces from that. I think that’s towards the end. But, um, yeah, it was a little bit of a struggle, but I’m glad I still went through it. I had fun, and I think that everybody that worked on it was pretty proud of it by the end. TA: Now, DOOM Eternal’s DLC. How did it feel for you doing IDKFA and now doing official DOOM music? Like, it’s your soundtrack with David Levy? Did id Software actually talk to you about IDKFA beforehand? AH: I know that IDKFA was, was passed around that studio a whole bunch, cause I, I’d get, um, DMs from people that work there that are now, like, I consider great friends, where they would reach out in, like, 2015, and 2016, and, like, all the way back as 2014, where they would be saying, you know, hey, I’m working at id right now, I just want you to know that I’m listening to your, to your music while I work, and I was always just like, oh, holy cow, that’s crazy, you know? Um, and I, you know, as far back as that, I was just like, hey, if you ever, you know, if you ever, if you ever need music, let me know, you know? So, but, like, never, never, you know, like, pushing like, the button or the boundaries, cause like, I think it was announced that Mick was working on there in, like, 2015? Like, it was like the year before, or something like that, when they really started showing some of the music, and I was like, oh, they’ve, they’ve, they’ve got that handled, okay, cool. So, um, but I was always interested in, in finding a, a way to work with that studio, cause I love DOOM, and, like, it’s really is, like, the core of my DNA wanting to work in games, is DOOM, and like, Duke 3D, um, so, yeah, I always wanted to work with them, and IDKFA, I kinda looked at almost as a resume, like, I was like, I’m gonna put this out there, if it gets popular enough, it’ll speak for itself, and it did exactly that, because, uh, in, gosh, that was, that was right at, like, quarter one, quarter two of 2020, when, when they approached me, I think it was, actually it was, I think it was quarter two of 2020, and said, hey, we, uh, we are in a position where we need, we need music, where we need music, and, uh, we need it quickly, and would you be up to the task for this? They fully were, they knew what they were asking was, was a tall order, in a short period of time, and they said, you know, we can absolutely use the base game stuff, but we wanted to at least reach out and, and ask you, because we, we feel like we can trust you, cause I, I’d made relationships with, with, uh, with Marty, some light ones with Hugo, with Chad Mossholder, their sound guy, I knew all of those people by then, and, um, I was like, hey, you know what, it’s, it’s like 35 or 40 days, f*** it, we, let’s do it, it was like, this sounds like a challenge, I’m totally up for it, and, you know, I had to keep my composure the entire time, but in the inside I’m like, oh my god, you know, like, I’m working on an official DOOM game, uh, and when, but when we got done with that, like, I don’t know, it’s one of those weird moments where you go, holy cow, we went from, uh, you know, a mod project, uh, all the way to the official thing, and it’s just, it’s insane, it’s, it’s crazy, I keep running into those portions of my career, I hope they never stop, there are, something always surprises me like that. TA: I think it’s safe to assume that a lot of people who tell you they love your music bring up Blood Swamps from DOOM Eternal’s DLC. Because I think every person I see on YouTube is like, everyone’s just doing Blood Swamps, it seems like the most popular thing and all, and for you that’s probably a weird feeling because you have this song which a lot of people love or something which you’re really proud of, but you can’t stream it or buy it legally. Can you comment on that in any form? What do you tell people who ask about buying your music from DOOM Eternal’s DLC? laughs AH: Well, Bethesda and id own all that stuff, they paid me well for it, so like I was happy to do all that, um, that’s not like a bullshit PR thing, like, for real, they took care of me. They own all that, so you know, if they, if they ever choose to put that stuff out, that would be awesome, I’d totally embrace it and get behind it with that, but sometimes studios do that, sometimes they don’t, and it’s just completely up to their call, but I will tell you that they have no problem with you, you know, grabbing it off YouTube or anything like that, so do that to your heart’s content, throw it on your phone, whatever you want to do, they just, they’re just glad that you like the stuff, and so am I, to be honest, but hey, hopefully one day we can get an official release, like, that would be cool. TA: Yeah, because I have the DOOM 2016 vinyl soundtrack, and I’d love to have DOOM Eternal music on vinyl as well. Anyway that’s something I’ve been thinking about because it’s probably a difficult situation for you to be in, because people would who want to support you, like, obviously they can buy DOOM Eternal and buy the DLC and stuff like that, but it’s an unfortunate situation for fans, is all, like, I’ll leave it at that. AH: It’s not really like a weird situation at all. I’m totally okay with whatever, Bethesda and id want to do with that, because they were completely up front, they’re like, we’re gonna own this, what we choose to do with that is…Yeah, yeah, and I was like, yeah, that’s fine, I just want to help, I want to make like, a cool DLC for everybody that’s stuck at home, and I want to write like, some kick-ass music for it. And, so there’s no feelings of like, you know, oh, this is weird because this isn’t out, or anything like that. I know people are gonna rip it out of the game, I know, like, so do they, and like, that’s fine. But, you know, hopefully, I would like to see an official release one day, but that is completely up to them, and I will respect whatever they want to do, because they’ve been nothing but awesome. TA: Now let’s just talk about Blood Swamps for a bit, because like, everyone loves the riffs and stuff like that, so, what was your thought process in creating that song? Did they ask you to make something that fit with the base game or tell you to just go wild and be Andrew with the music? AH: They told me to go wild and just be me, which I was like, that felt pretty dangerous to me, because I was like, man, the, you know, what’s established here from Mick? I’m like, that’s pretty strong. Like, that’d be like somebody walking into another DUSK soundtrack, you know, like, for the Indie Shooter, and then being like, we’re gonna do all synthwave, you know, like, no, that’s not how that works. You have to serve what came before you. You have to show respect to what came before you. And that’s really important for the fans before anybody else. Doesn’t matter with an executive producer, doesn’t matter with the musician, doesn’t matter with the artist. It’s for the fans. Like, you have to make sure that whatever you’re going to do is going to, they’re gonna go, okay, cool, yeah, I understand, you know, why you chose this. So really, for me, looking at it when they were like, hey, you just be you, do whatever you want, what you think serves Doom the best. I was like, well, that’s a no-brainer. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna source some inspiration from 2016 and Eternal, and then write what I would want to write. So, the colors that I’m painting with are familiar, but the writing that I’m using, what I’m using to paint, or the picture I’m painting is different. So there’s some familiarity there. Because, you know, like, Blood Swamps is quite a bit different than stuff that you would hear on 2016 or Eternal. It’s a little bit more, this is, uh, this is like almost like a traditional metal song. And like, in fact, uh, I remember handing that over to Chad the first time and him being like, “Oh, metal. Alright." And I was like, “Really? That’s like, you’re surprised. But, um, the, uh, it’s just a little bit more almost traditional. But, um, yeah, there’s, like, it was nice having David and Chad to bounce stuff off of. Because where I would hand them something, like Blood Swamps was originally like just guitar, just, just bass, and just drums. And it started, I started adding things in at, uh, after talking to, um, to Chad and David quite a bit. Where they would be like, you know, “Have you thought about any sound design stuff?" I’m like, “Well, what did you, you know, what are you thinking? Show me the instruments that you’re working with and, you know, like, let’s just talk stuff out." We’d have like hour long conversations every single day. And we would all just learn from each other. It was, it was so cool. But, yeah, like Blood Swamps comes from a point, I just remember, I have to write something that if this is the only DOOM game I work on, it has to be just, like, way out there. Like, I have to, I have to, I have to just take my shot. And it has, I have to rip out all of the barriers that are like, “Hey, should I do this? Shouldn’t I do this? Who gives a f***?" Just, just just write the fastest, most aggressive thing that you can think of at this point in time, and we’ll go from there. And that’s what, that’s what Blood Swamps was. And then everything else came after it, I was like, “Okay." It was like, “We can do different things now." You know? TA: I think you mentioned how you had a few weeks to do the DLC soundtrack, but because you had the support system of those two, it was all possible in the end. I think you mentioned that in one of the other interviews. AH: Yeah, because David was handling, like, on the first DLC, he was handling the cutscene work, and he had his own, like, stuff where he was working on a boss, and a level, and then I got these two levels, so they split up the work evenly between us on both DLCs. And there’d be so many times where I’d call David or Chad and just be like, “Hey, how are you doing today?" You know? And one of us would be like, “Oh my God, I don’t know where to go." You know? And we would just talk back and forth, and somehow we would give each other ideas. It was magical. Like, it was crazy. Just after talking to David, if I had nothing in my head on what I should write, after talking to David or to Chad, I’d be like, “I know what I need to do now." It was cool. TA: Going back to IDKFA a bit, you mentioned how much work you had to put into revisit and, like, Remaster the original soundtrack. What did you think about revisiting those songs? Like, did you feel like, you know, maybe I should have done something differently? Or were you like, “No, I’m happy with this. I just want to preserve it for fans of IDKFA." AH: Yeah, it was more of a, it was a little tiny bit of, “I want to do things a little differently." But, like, I’m talking to really, really small degrees. It was more about preservation than anything else. And if something was being destructive while trying to preserve it, those were the things that I would try to eliminate. An example of that is there was a lot of compression on the original IDKFA. Just because I was still in my early 20s at that point, early to mid 20s at that point, mixing in an apartment that isn’t, like, acoustically sound or anything like that. So I’m making mix decisions that aren’t the greatest, but still hold up. Like, that album still sounds great, but just some of the compression side, like, on the master of it, is a little aggressive. So when I went back this time around, I actually went through every single one of those songs one by one and just gave it a little bit more head room, a little bit more breathing room, so that if you listen to it enough times, you’re not going to get, like, ear fatigue or something like that. That’s really what I was concerned about. And that’s all of the Doom 1 stuff from the original IDKFA all got that treatment where the threshold has been raised just a little bit so that it sounds a little bit more open and natural. And I replaced a couple snares here and there, and maybe like a kick drum and a bass, but they’re so small I still haven’t seen anybody notice them. TA: You should revisit Metallica’s St. Anger and do this for all the fans. AH: It is impossible to fix that! laughs There’s been bands that have done that. I’ve re-recorded that entire record and I see it on YouTube every now and then. I’m like this is… this would have been a cool record if it would have sounded okay, and maybe some structure changes were different, but yeah, it’s whatever. TA: I think when Metallica did Death Magnetic, they had the Guitar Hero Metallica stems which people used to mix it better than the actual album. How does this keep happening? AH: James attests to it. Those guys are so big that they legitimately have final say on everything that they do. So whenever they’re touring and you already have Tinnitus and you’re mixing in a tent, I remember them talking about “Yeah, no shit, the guitars are bright." I was listening to mixes in a tent and making mix decisions on the road. I’m like, “Oh, that makes a lot more sense now." Like, oh my god. Because the Guitar Hero mixes do sound way better. TA: This reminds me of when I watched Deafheaven and how amazing they sounded live. You have so many bands that release albums with brickwall mastering ruining the sound of an otherwise good album. It is a shame that some bands don’t get outside help for things like mastering. AH: Yeah, it’s…I mean I still do my own mastering stuff so I’m the start and finish with all my stuff but I totally get it whenever I see a band that has a record that’s just completely smashed. I’m like, “Yeah." If I was just a musician who really knew how to play guitar and that’s about it or really knew how to play drums and that’s about it, I understand how this happens. It’s just a bunch of guys in the room going, “Louder! This needs to be louder." laughs TA: So you revisited IDKFA’s original DOOM 1 music, but you also did almost a complete Doom II soundtrack. I think there was one track which was on YouTube or two tracks. When you were doing these new songs, how did it feel for you because now you’ve come so far ahead as a musician and did you feel tempted to make it a modern Andrew Hulshult album versus trying to be Doom II? How did you approach that? AH: Man. This whole IDKFA thing with id’s blessing has been an incredible experience. It feels like I’m closing a chapter of my career with the fans because IDKFA is what got me so many jobs and so much recognition beforehand. Well, IDKFA and Rise of the Triad, but IDKFA was a big one and I still get people that are like devs that reach out that are like, “I know you from the DOOM stuff." And I’m like, “What? DOOM Eternal?" They’re like, “No, IDKFA. I played that DOOM WAD." And I’m like, “Oh my god." So I still get jobs because of that. So whenever I sat down… Whenever Marty Stratton sent me an email about a year and a half ago to ask if I had time to sit down at QuakeCon last year and talk about some things, I was like, “Uh oh. Something’s either gone terribly wrong or he just wants to hang out." So we sat down and he was like, “Hey." He’s like, “I have an idea." And I was like, “What’s that?" He’s like, “What if we give you a license for the DOOM soundtrack for IDKFA so that you can put that out on all of the streaming platforms yourself and do whatever you want and you give us a license to do with what we’re working on, which was the DOOM and DOOM II remasters." And I was like, “That sounds cool." I was like, “I’d love to finally get that out on official sites and everything." And he was like, “Oh, it’s awesome." He’s like, “I was hoping you’d say that because this would just be so cool to have this as a selectable thing. Like to go from the Bobby Prince to this if people wanted to." And I was like, “Yeah." And I’ve been doing that with soundtracks recently anyways. About halfway through that whole thing, we were just trading war stories about the industry and just getting along. And I was having a blast. I was thinking, “Man, this is really going to be closing a chapter in my career." I was getting a little emotional. I was like, “I’ll tell you what." I was like, “I’ll do you one better." I was like, “Why don’t we finish DOOM II and make it the real deal?" People have asked for it forever. I’m like, “That would really poke my audience." They’d be like, “Holy shit! Doom 2 is finally finished!" And he was like, “If you’re up for it, yeah, absolutely." He’s like, “We’ll get you a license for anything that you do on that as well so that you can put that out as well." So, yeah. It was…walking into doing DOOM II was so much fun. Every step of the way. Adam Pyle, the guy that worked with me on Quake Champions, was the guy that I bounced all my mixes off of. He told me at the beginning, he said, “Hey, you know, do whatever you want." He’s like, “It’s you. It’s the reason people want to listen to it, so I don’t really have much of a say." I was like, “Bullshit!" I was like, “You worked with me on Quake Champions. I’m going to bounce every mix that I do off of you, and I want to hear feedback from you." It’s like, “I respect your opinion because we got stuff like we did on Quake Champions because we talked back and forth." So we did. I’d send him… I’d finish Running from Evil and send it to him, and he’d go, “This sounds great, or, you know, like, what if you did this?" It was only a couple times where he was like, “What if you did this?" I was like, “Oh!" They were always cool ideas. But I really respect Adam’s ability to throw out things every now and then. He’s just a great person to bounce mixes off of. So, just doing those one after another and getting to the end of it. Once it was all wrapped up, I’m not going to lie, once it was all together, I was just in my office and I was like, “Oh my god!" Having a moment where I had a grown man cry where I was like, “I can’t believe that this is happening. I can’t believe that, number one, I’m going to be part of the original DOOM in an official capacity. Number two, they’re going to ask me to talk at QuakeCon, like, live on stage and announce everything. And number three, they gave me a license for all this stuff so that I can put it out and I can actually make some money off of it. That doesn’t happen with a big studio. They don’t just go, “Here’s the soundtrack. Have fun." I don’t know. It’s just still so crazy. It hasn’t really sunk in for me still. I’m still in that weird spot where I’m like, “Yeah, this is out there. We’re promoting it." And once that’s over, I’m sure I’ll be like, “Oh my god." You know, like, “Holy cow." But it’s been fun. The DOOM II stuff, I wanted it to be something a little bit more fresh on where I’m at as an artist. I didn’t want it to be exactly like IDKFA, like the original DOOM I stuff. Because if I were to do that, I’d have to go back and completely remix all of DOOM I stuff, which I was like, “No, that has to be preserved. People know what that is." So you can’t touch that. That’s already done. So I thought, “Okay, well what if I just gave them how I would do DOOM II right now?" Which is exactly what it is. All that stuff is like, “Yeah, f*** yeah." Those are the exact decisions that I would make with synths, with guitars, with drums. I think everything slams. I think it sounds great. So it’s just a picture from 2011, 2012 with the original IDKFA. It got officially released in 2016, but it started working on it as far back as back. So it’s a picture of where I was as a musician, that far back. And then this one is a picture of 2024. So you get it’s kind of like a time capsule. TA: Was The Healer Stalks one of the new songs because it definitely feels like modern Andrew Hulshult? AH: Yeah, that was the second one written. I think I almost went in chronological order doing that entire soundtrack. TA: You and I have both been playing DOOM since the 90s. When I started learning guitar and playing a lot, I started thinking about the DOOM soundtrack and some of the songs definitely have bits that remind me of other band music like Pantera. When you did IDKFA and just heard the music in general, what did you think of that and how does it feel revisiting some of those songs now? Stuff like A New Level and This Love from Pantera instantly spring to mind. laughs AH: Yeah. Some of that stuff’s pretty close. Like sometimes, right? But it’s different enough where you’re like, oh, okay. Yeah. But yeah, there’s definitely some inspirations that were taken from like thrash metal for sure. Because I mean, like they always talked about Romero having on like Slayer and Metallica and all that stuff like playing while they were making the game. So it only makes sense that they’re like, you know, hey, make something similar around this. I don’t know exactly how that story went. I wasn’t there. I was like, you know, I was like four. But that makes complete sense in my head. And yeah, going back and listening to them like, yeah, it’s there somewhere in the ballpark of it for sure. Like TA: So after DOOM II, have you gotten people saying, when are we getting an IDKFA version of Quake and stuff? Because you did one song, right? AH: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did the theme. I think I did that just for fun. And I think I honestly did that as people were, I saw a bunch of forum posts. It was either forum posts or Discord about people not sure like about me on DUSK of all things. Like it wasn’t even like a fully announced game, but they were like, “I’m not sure Andrew". And I was like, OK, you know what? I was like, f*** you. I’ll just remake the Quake theme. And then you’ll see if I’m the right person for the f***ing job. laughs And so I put that out and people were like, oh, and I remember like a bunch of the comments were like, oh yeah, okay, he can work on DUSK. TA: Do you listen to that soundtrack often? The original Quake? AH: Oh, man. I don’t listen to it. Listen to it. But like every time I go fire up Quake, which is about like once twice a year. A little more than that if I’m playing multiplayer with friends. That’s the thing I look forward to the most besides like the level design is the soundtrack just because it’s so out there. Reznor did such a good job on that. It’s incredible. God, I wish it’s a pipe dream, but I’d love to work with him on something and Atticus Ross on something at some point. That would be crazy. But they’re like way up there, you know. TA: Their movie soundtracks are amazing. I’ve actually been watching some of the movies just because they’ve done the music because I think the audio design in The Social Network is incredible. I think they did like the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thing, which I still need to watch. AH: It’s so cool when artists step out of their comfort zone like that, where it’s like you’re known for like you’re angry and depressing music and then it’s like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It’s like now I’m interested. Yeah. TA: Going back to your music, we covered Blood Swamps being the most popular song which people bring up when they meet you and stuff. I saw this interview with Final Fantasy 14’s composer Masayoshi Soken who was asked about a song which he really liked, but no one actually brings up, and that he thinks deserves more attention. He said Game Theory. I want to know what’s that for Andrew Hulshult. AH: Splitting Time. Like whenever you brought that up, I was like, oh yeah, from the AMID EVIL DLC. I mean like it’s well it’s DLC. So like by nature, DLC doesn’t get as much attention, you know. But like the AMID EVIL DLC altogether before I talk about the music, the DLC is incredible. Like that’s my that’s one of my favorite things I’ve worked on like in recent memory. Like all the music’s great. Like it was , it was a joy to put it all together. All the sound design, all the traps and everything. It’s just an incredible DLC. If you don’t have it, you should go get it. That’s not me shilling and just oh go buy the game. Like it’s f***ing awesome. They did an incredible job. TA: Everyone should buy that game and DLC. AH: Well, I don’t want to look like a shill. If you like it, you like it. Like if you don’t, if you don’t dig it, don’t buy it. You know we’re not not here to like, you know try and sell a bunch of stuff. But like splitting time finishing up that piece of music. It felt like a real moment where I don’t know. I felt like kind of a shift as an artist where I was. I was way more comfortable with a lot of the more aggressive sound design elements being mixed in with compositions and finding ways to make them gel better. And everything really came together on that track and out whenever halfway through I was like, this is the final boss track. I was like I don’t care what you’re designing. I’m like, this is the final boss track. And you know, two seconds after they started listening to it, they’re like, oh yeah, this is the final boss track. We hadn’t even made the character yet. I was just like, here it is. That one hung around for a long time. And yeah, that’s I feel like that song is very much a good indicator of where I am musically right now. TA: Now let’s get a bit into the weeds. Let’s talk about your current guitar setup, your pedals, your amps, string gauge, pickups, I want to know whatever you’re using. AH: So the guitar I’m using the most is a Caparison Dellinger 7. I actually just had a pickup swap on it where I put some Seymour Duncans. I think I put an SH5 in the bridge and an SH2 in the neck on this one. Specifically because the SH5 on it has a really interesting thing where it doesn’t emphasize the low mids a whole bunch but they still cut through really well. So whenever you’re sitting there and like, you know, like chugging on stuff and you have to track that four times, it just sits a lot better in the mix than if you were to just use like stock pickups. There’s nothing wrong with Caparison stock pickups. They’re great. They’re super, super punchy. But for my mixing style I just, I know what I want in terms of pickups so I just, I swap those out. I also did the same thing actually last week with the 8 string. This is a Caparison Brocken 8 string. I don’t think they make this anymore. I swapped out the pickups on this one as well to a gosh, what is it? It’s Duncan. They’re really, really famous 8 string pickups by Duncan. And I can’t remember what they’re called now. TA: I didn’t know Seymour Duncan even had 8 string pickups. AH: They do 8 and like, I was originally going to get some Fishman Fluences for it because they seem like they would hold the top end in the midrange a little bit better but after I don’t know, I’ve just always been a Seymour Duncan guy. And after finding a couple that I really liked at a shop called Tone Shop up the street from me. I was like, man, I really want to put these in my 8 string and they have a tech there that’s just incredible at what he does with all my guitars. So I was just like, hey, order those and I’ll just leave the guitar with you and like a week later they came back and I was like, yeah, that’s exactly what I wanted, sounds incredible. I’ve got my Caparison 7 and 8, and I still have all the guitars that I’ve had over the years for the most part. I’ve got another Schecter 8 string here that is a really cool color. It’s super neat, like, it actually changes from blue to purple. TA: I think it is called Prism or something like that. John Petrucci has something like that on one of his guitars. AH: But yeah, this one has like the EMGs in it and it’s a cool guitar. It still plays great. Like, I still like it. But let me show you something that’s actually pretty sweet. So I still have, I bought this in like 2004. And I still have it. This is the guitar that I actually wrote all of IDKFA or most of it on and I wrote all of, I tracked all of Rides of the Triad with. It’s just a Schecter C6. It’s like just stock. It even still has the plastic in the back which is crazy. But yeah, this is like, I still have this guitar. I was like I was so close to going up to id, like which is just on the street for me and being like after IDKFA was finished, I almost was just like, here, you guys, you need this. You know, like, hold on to this or something. Like this is the one. But like, I don’t know. It’s not like a mainline DOOM game, you know? Like, it has to be something like a mainline game where I’d be like, I wrote this on this guitar here. You know, if you want this, it feels like it belongs to you. And also, part of me is like, no, don’t do that. Like, hang on to it. TA: Ok now string gauges. AH: For string gauges, 10 to 59 on 7 strings. And on 8 strings, I think it’s 10 to 65. And then typically on 6 strings, I just like 10 to 46. TA: Do you use D’Addario strings? I use them mostly. AH: I use D’Addario for the most part, but I bounce back and forth sometimes to Ernie Ball. TA: What about your amp setup and your pedals and stuff like that? AH: So amps, I’ve sold almost every amp I’ve ever owned. I had a JC-120. I had a couple of those Crate Blue Voodoos way back in the day. The ones that were like, yeah, the ones that were, were basically copies of those Ampeg tube amps that they made a long time ago. I had a Valve State 8100. I had a bunch of amps and a bunch of VHT cabinets as well too. And I sold all of them years ago. I’ve really just been like working inside the box for the most part with like neural DSP plugins into an RME interface and I also went as far as getting one of these recently, which is a Neural DSP Quad Cortex. So basically this is all of their plugins built into like a really nice processor. But for a project I’m working on recently they were like, hey you need an amp. And I was like, yeah, you’re probably right. I do need an amp. So I went and bought this and I plug it into two 100 watt Seymour Duncan power stages. Okay. They’re like, they’re these little tiny like 100 watt power amplifiers. They’re solid state power amplifiers. And I run the stereo out from that thing into the left and right side of those and those go into two Engel 2×12 cabinets. Which, okay, Engel 2×12 cabinets are awesome. Ever since I heard a Rammstein record that used them I always wanted to grab one because I was like, god, those things sound huge. TA: I wasn’t sure about this because a friend of mine said he was sure AMID EVIL was recorded on an Axe FX Ultra. AH: Any guitar stuff I’ve done has used either Native Instruments Guitar Rig from way back in the day. Like IDKFA used a ton of Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5 and Guitar Rig 4. But pretty much everything since DUSK has used Neural DSP for guitar work. It’s just me plugging directly into my RME UFX and sometimes I’ll use pedals going into it like the Exotic BB Preamp but most of the time it’s just a dry DI signal getting manipulated inside the box. So, the ones that got the most use on DUSK were the Moogerfooger low pass filter. Believe it or not, like anytime you hear the sound of something becoming kind of lo-fi or anything. It was always run through this filter. It was pretty cool. But the thing I like about it the most is the drive circuit on it. Like I don’t even like it that much as like a filter filter. The drive section on it is just so aggressive that it’s a really interesting sound and like that sound that you hear on the DUSK soundtrack which is like all of the really high high end that’s like really high energy. It’s almost like the Nine Inch Nails stuff. A ton of that comes just from driving the front end of this thing. And same way with the Fulltone Catalyst. But yeah, it’s just a few of them. I think there’s one more that I use a lot. I don’t think I have it here. It’s the ZVEX Fuzz Factory which is just an insane sounding pedal. It just sounds like garbage. And that’s why I like it. It just sounds like you are destroying a signal which is perfect. I’m cool. That sounds cool. That’s a great effect. I like that. TA: You’ve accomplished a lot in your career so far with recognizable music. As a musician, how have you been learning to improve your own skills like programming drums, software, and how do you balance doing that while you have a lot of folks who want to work with you on new projects? AH: Every day is just like I don’t know. If you’re not teaching yourself something every day, this is my train of thought. If I’m not trying to sound better in my own head, whatever I think is better, I’m wasting my time. So if I feel like the drum kit I’ve used like two or three times on two to three different records, if I’m like that feels stale. If I then go if it feels stale and I know the ends and outs of it and how to make it sound good then I need to change that drum kit. I need to find something different and work with it and see if I can get some different sounds out of it. So I’ll change instruments and just purposefully put myself in positions where I don’t know where I’m at or what sounds good with it just so that I can find my way out of it. It’s kind of like limiting yourself, like putting yourself in a box that’s really important as an artist to make sure that you are working within a certain scope of things and going hey, you know, here’s something that’s completely unfamiliar, get used to it and this is what you have to work with. So, yeah, like I don’t know, just constantly challenging myself is part of who I am for the most part. So, it’s just how it always goes. TA: I’m glad you brought that specific bit up because in another interview of yours you mentioned how once you got to your thirties the most important thing became getting good sleep which a lot of people take for granted in their twenties. So my question is that trying to have a routine is very important even if you can’t stick to it 100%. What does a day in your life look like right now? AH: A day right now looks like about, a typical day is about anywhere between 6 to 7 hours of sleep which is about what I need I’ve found out, like it’s like somewhere around there, sometimes 8 and then randomly I’ll have days where it’s like, oh you need like 11 hours I don’t know why, but I feel fine waking up completely recharged with like 6 and a half to 7 and a half hours of sleep. So what I’ll do every morning is I’ll wake up, I’ll go take a shower immediately, like that’s the only way I can start my day is like I feel like I’ve got to it feels like I’m washing off yesterday I don’t know how else to explain that and then I gotta have a coffee and then I gotta start writing things on a whiteboard that’s right over beside me to the left because otherwise I’m just gonna spin my wheels all day long and think, oh I should do this, I should do that, I’ll be thinking about everything I need to do and then never actually do anything. I don’t know if that’s ADD, ADHD or whatever that’s undiagnosed, I’m sure it is to some degree which I’ll get to that at some point but until then I have the whiteboard and as long as I write stuff down on it on what I want to do that day, I’ll knock it all out, every single piece of it. But what’s super important for me to do is just plan out the day early on and then everything just comes to it afterwards. The other thing that’s kind of new for me too is around like 4 o’clock typically I’ll now try and do, this has been within the last 3.5 months, I’ll try and do about 20 to 30 minutes of cardio. Just because I feel like for some reason elevating my heart rate really takes me from hey I could focus before to now I’m super laser focused and can get through whatever I need to and it also puts me in a much better mood if I’m having a shit day. TA: You’ve previously mentioned that you love playing Cities Skylines. Did you play Cities Skylines 2? laughs AH: Yeah, but you know like I haven’t gone back to it yet. I need to try it again at some point. But oh boy like it needed some more time in the oven whenever I tried it. Like no offense to them. I was just like wow. TA: I mean you probably tried it on like your proper gaming PC. I just like to play Steam games on a Steam Deck and I could get it at 5 fps or something after a bit of playing. AH: Even with the 3080 I think I was at points I was sitting there at like 35 frames a second. I’m like really? With the 3080? This is where we’re at huh? Okay. TA: Do you still play Hunt: Showdown and did you try the new Hunt: Showdown 1896 update? AH: Yeah. They had some really interesting choices with their UI that they just pushed with this one that a lot of people aren’t in favor of. I’m getting a little more used to it as time goes on. But man there are some things they need to hammer out with it. But yeah I still play that like a couple times a week with my buddies in New Blood. Like with Dylan who’s working on Gloomwood. I’ll play it with David every now and then. I’ll play it with Mason who’s the developer on Faith. Like we’re all, just like we all just hang out. We’re all just friends. So Leon, me and Leon play it I think the most. Leon’s the lead on AMID EVIL. But yeah like New Zealand and America playing an online fps game is a wild thing but we have a great time doing it. TA: Before we wrap up, I want to know your favorite bands and artists right now in and out of video games. AH: I’m pretty boring on this one to be honest with you. I need to branch out a little more. Favorite bands outside of video games right now like for sure and they’ve sat there for a while is Gojira. I really like their mixing. I like how tight they are live. I like their choices on composition. I don’t feel like they write a bad song. I could throw out the obvious ones. Metallica is another one just because James Hetfield’s right hand is like what inspired me to play guitar. Like how fast you can do those things is crazy. Outside of or in video games I’d still say I still think and it’s going to be a weird choice because you’re like well you write all this aggressive music. What is Jesper Kyd? That guy is just like great on everything he touches and everything he touches is always unique. But I always go back to his early stuff like the Hitman franchise because it’s just so strange and like it really suits those early games really well. If you listen to it outside of it, it feels like a really weird cold kind of soundtrack. Even from the very first game which has a lot of interesting things like almost drum and bass choices. It still feels like a cold front. You know, like a Hitman. And I always just find that stuff fascinating. How he was able to take so many different genres of music between all those games and still make them fit correctly for that character. So yeah and I think he worked on the Darktide stuff more recently which I need to give a listen to. Everybody’s told me that’s incredible but I don’t know I was knee deep in like four active developments whenever that game came out. So I just haven’t given it a chance. TA: Hypothetical situation, if you had no time or budget constraints, if you could compose for any single game and any single movie which would you pick? AH: So let’s see for any game if it had the right direction I’d really like to take a shot at like a Duke game. Because I feel like that is an IP that could be brought back if it’s brought back in the right way. And you have to think that’s really going to be dictated by whoever the creative production is at the time. So if it was done in the right way I’d love to step into that. Either that or I’m going to throw another one out to you. I’d love to work on Minecraft. Just like chill out you know. Like just make something that’s completely chill. So those are completely two opposite sides of the spectrum. But as far as a movie, man, that’s a great question. Let me think about it for just a second. Man on Fire. Like I love Denzel Washington’s work as number one: as an action hero I think he’s great. But number two whenever he is able to have enough time to put drama into things. And like either I don’t know how else to explain it other than he does a f***ing crazy fantastic job. Either Man on Fire or American Gangster. One of those two soundtracks I think I could do would be great to work on. Because there’s so many different emotions between both of those films. It’s a big roller coaster that doesn’t go up and down once. It goes up and down and does like a loop. And like you know, it takes you side to side. Like both of those films do that really well. 01:48:40.760 –> 01:48:42.760 TA: You have a lot of bands you’ve been listening to for a long time like Metallica. What are your thoughts on their recent or new albums? AH: I can find things I like on like the records that they put out because like I’m a die hard. Even with this last Megadeth record. I could still find stuff that I like I can chew on. No problem. Absolutely. But you know these guys aren’t going to write like another Master of Puppets. That comes around once in a lifetime. You know what I mean? And they struck it four times. Like with Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets and …And Justice for All. So like to even just get that is crazy. But I do find things that I like on all their newer stuff. Like I think What was the 2016 record that they had? Hardwired to Self Destruct. Yeah I think that that actually had some real moments of really really good writing on it. Specifically the last track. I felt like Hardwired was a great track. But I also thought Moth into the Flame was written super well. There’s a handful of just really really really good writing on that record. On 72 Seasons, there’s still a handful that I really like. But they don’t sync as much for me. And I’m not sure if it’s because I’m looking for something faster or not. Which that’s just not where they’re at at the moment. That’s not what they’re writing. And that’s okay. I will say the last track on that record I feel like is perfect. It’s so good. I can’t remember what it’s called off the top of my head at the moment. I’m terrible with song names sometimes. It’s crazy. It’s like 11 minutes and it feels like a 5 minute and 30 second song. I remember listening to it the first time. I was like gosh. There’s so much emotion thrown into this song that it’s just a joy to listen to. I love it when I can tell that someone really dumped all their emotions onto something. That’s when it really strikes a chord for me. But yeah even the last stuff from Slayer, there’s things that I can find that I enjoy. but I know I’m not going to get the revolutionary record that we had growing up. That’s okay. I’m just glad they’re still making music. And it’s still pretty sick. TA: What’s the most random piece of music memorabilia that you’ve held onto for a long time? AH: I had a friend that I worked with a long time ago who fell on hard times at one point and he was friends and and like worked with Pantera for a long time. And he was like man he’s like I’m trying to get rid of this stuff I’m like why don’t you just hold on to it and like like here’s here’s you know here’s some cash if you need some cash to get by. He’s like no no no he’s like you hold on to it just pay me for it. I was like okay so I’ve got this vinyl of the Great Southern Trendkill that’s one of the original vinyl releases, but I also have a plaque that came like it was given to one of their either their sound or their lighting crew at one point and it’s like for the tour in Japan for the Great Southern Trendkill that same time. And I was like where did you get this you know like what the hell. And he’s like yeah we just you know had him and I knew the guy and he had like five or six of them that they gave him by accident so he gave me one. I was like oh okay all right. So I have both of those things in my closet they’ve hung out with me for like gosh I want to say 15 16 17 years now but those old ones will never go away. Some people keep expensive booze in a decanter. Teah and I keep home made cold brew coffee. pic.twitter.com/7DJlgWcjaB — Andrew Hulshult (@AndrewHulshult) October 10, 2020 TA: Ok for my last question, how do you like your coffee? I usually ask this at the end, but I remember an old Tweet of yours (linked above) made me even more curious about your answer. AH: Yeah man I like the cold brew stuff. I loved hot coffee forever but like cold brew I don’t know the longer I go the easier it is to just sit on a desk and sip on. I don’t have to be like that’s hot. I can just be like no we’re just getting all of the caffeine all at once if I want to. So cold brew coffee. Cold brew black. I’d like to thank Andrew Hulshult for his time and help with this interview over the last few weeks. You can keep up with all our interviews here including our recent ones with FuturLab here, Shuhei Matsumoto from Capcom about Marvel Vs Capcom here, Santa Ragione here, Peter ‘Durante’ Thoman about PH3 and Falcom here, M2 discussing shmups and more here, Digital Extremes for Warframe mobile, Team NINJA, Sonic Dream Team, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and more. As usual, thanks for reading.

Back in December, I reviewed Square Enix’s monster collecting RPG Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on Switch. I loved …

Continue reading "‘Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince’ iOS Review – Much Better Than Switch, but Lacking in Two Ways"

Back in December, I reviewed Square Enix’s monster collecting RPG Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on Switch. I loved my time with it despite its many technical issues. I expected it to hit PC like Dragon Quest Treasures, another Nintendo Switch exclusive, but I didn’t expect a mobile release. Square Enix’s newest release of Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on iOS, Android, and Steam brings all prior paid DLC into the game at a lower entry point, but removes one feature. This is the online real-time multiplayer battles. Beyond that, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on Steam and mobile is already a massively better experience just on value with its lower price point and the content included, but is the game worth your time in this crowded release period and with its premium price? That’s what I aim to answer with my Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince mobile review also covering the game on Steam Deck. If you aren’t familiar with Dragon Quest Monsters itself, it is a spin-off series of the main Dragon Quest games featuring turn-based combat, but instead of the main player fighting, you capture, breed, and raise monsters to fight for you. When I played Dragon Quest Treasures, I enjoyed it, but was told that it is a “Monsters-lite" game so when Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince was announced for Switch, I was excited to play it. I ended up loving it as you can see from my review linked above, but I think it is a very strong monster collecting RPG with turn-based combat regardless of if you like Dragon Quest or not. What made Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince more interesting, is in how it feels like a side story and prequel to Dragon Quest IV. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince also had a seasonal feature where the monsters changed depending on the season and area you’re in. When it comes to the story, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince, the bits from IV already made it more interesting than the usual spin-off, but I found myself focusing more on getting my own dream monster party rather than worrying about the narrative. I’m super pleased with how well thought out the mechanics are and how the large zones, hundreds of monsters, and combat made me want to keep playing it more even on Switch when I first beat it let alone now on iPhone, iPad, and Steam Deck. Beyond the normal turn-based battles and recruiting new monsters, Synthesis in Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is like Shin Megami Tensei’s fusion, and there is just so much you can do with skills here. The seasons here don’t just change monsters, but also areas you can explore with map changes. This means a water body that you can’t cross will be frozen in one season letting you access a new secret. Combat in games like this can get monotonous so I’m glad to see the many quality of life features here like the tactics menu that plays out similar to the original Persona 3, direct commands, and more. You aren’t here to just defeat enemies, but also scout them to bring to your party and become stronger. I didn’t end up testing the online multiplayer on Switch much, so I can’t comment on how big a loss that is here, but it is a game mode being cut nonetheless. If you did play it on Switch, keep that in mind as it is the only area the mobile and Steam versions are lacking compared to Switch. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince already shipped with a lot of content, but the DLC only elevated the experience. This DLC was sold in the Digital Deluxe Edition or as standalone DLC for the base game. Just the DLC was over $25 on Switch, so having the full base game with all DLC included for $24 on mobile makes it an amazing deal, but I’ll get to that in a bit. This DLC included The Mole Hole, Coach Joe’s Dungeon Gym, and Treasure Trunks. The Mole Hole was a dungeon that lets you scout (recruit) monsters you’ve fought before and it made min-maxing a lot easier during the game. The DLC was also good to speed things up since you could also easily scout monsters who only appear during a specific season or through synthesis. The Coach Joe’s Dungeon Gym DLC has randomly generated maps and they are meant to be postgame challenges rather than experienced while playing the game. The final DLC is just a chest that can be opened once an hour with 10 items in total. This is like a cheat DLC if you may. I didn’t think it was good to have useful game modes or content in paid DLC, but that isn’t a problem anymore with all of it included on iOS, Androidl, and Steam in the base asking price. Now let’s get to the mobile port features. With Square Enix, you can never be sure what features will make it into the final game. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince does not have controller support. This is beyond disappointing since the game is literally a console title ported to mobile. I tried 6 different controllers without any luck to be sure. Aside from controller support, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on iOS has cloud saves and a few graphics options. The cloud saves work well. When it comes to controls, I was surprised at how well Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince felt with touch controls. It uses a floating joystick on the left for movement and a jump button mainly while exploring. The one minor issue you might run into is some touch targets being a bit small on the non Plus/Max phones. These aren’t an issue on iPads at all though. The controls feel good, but Square Enix should’ve left full controller support in since this is a console game ported to mobile after all. One of my only real issues with Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on Switch was on the technical side. The frame rate was rough at launch with visuals not being great either. The former got addressed to some degree unlike Pokemon Scarlet & Violet, but the latter never got fixed. On iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 12, and even iPad Pro, I had no major issues with the visuals or performance. There are some hiccups on iPhone 15 Pro when running at the highest graphics quality setting and moving through some locations, but it isn’t remotely as bad as on Switch. The game feels massively better to play on iOS. Check out the comparison below for the low and high graphics options on iPhone 15 Pro: There aren’t specific visual or frame rate settings on mobile outside of the resolution option in display settings. This lets you play at low, medium, or high graphical quality options. These presets also affect other settings like the frame rate limit and post-processing. This setting can only be changed from the title screen on mobile while you can adjust it on the fly on PC. I stuck to the high setting on all my iPhones. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince sadly has some minor performance issues even on iPhone 15 Pro as I mentioned above. The low setting seems unusable with how blurry it gets. On my 2020 iPad Pro, the high preset has more regular frame drops than iPhone, and it also seems to be running with some tweaked settings. Overall, even the older iPad Pro runs it well, but not as good as iPhone 15 Pro as expected. Every device I tested on including the iPhone 12 ran it a lot better than Nintendo Switch. Visually, it looks a lot cleaner than Switch even on older iOS devices when played at high. Square Enix didn’t just do a bare-bones port here. It has fullscreen support during gameplay on my iPhone 15 Pro, and even has a pattern or artwork to fill the screen during areas with pre-rendered or static 16:9 elements. This pattern or artwork is mainly used on my iPad Pro since it doesn’t support fullscreen there for gameplay. This also applies to Steam Deck to make up for that aspect ratio in parts. I’m glad to see Square Enix put in the work here to make sure it still looks good regardless of aspect ratio. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince Steam Deck impressions On Steam Deck, regardless of my settings, I couldn’t get Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince to run at a locked 90fps even at the low preset when played at 800p. I decided to opt for a 60fps target, and that was a lot easier to achieve. One oddity is the game not letting you adjust resolution when playing on Steam Deck normally. You can do this by forcing the resolution from the game’s properties before launching it. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on PC lets you adjust graphical quality (low, medium, high), anti-aliasing (off, low, medium, high), maximum frame rate (30 to uncapped), toggle v-sync, and adjust display mode (windowed, fullscreen, borderless). If you play at 60fps, I recommend setting your Steam Deck OLED refresh rate to 60 to avoid jitter as well. Having now played Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on iOS, iPadOS, Steam Deck, Switch OLED, and Switch Lite, there’s no doubt that the Switch version is the worst of the lot despite the online mode being removed from mobile and Steam. The massive increase in performance and better visuals with all DLC included at a much lower asking price only makes it better. One thing to note is that the game is marked as Steam Deck Playable and not Verified because Valve says some in-game text is small and may be difficult to read. I didn’t have any issues with this, and I feel like Valve has marked games with smaller text as Verified before. Either way, you can safely buy this one to play on Steam Deck. If you skipped Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on Switch, the new mobile and Steam ports are the way to go. While the mobile version lacking controller support is disappointing, it is still a game I see myself playing regularly with its improvements over switch and fantastic core gameplay loop. Having all the DLC included means you will have enough content to last you even longer. If you do value controller support in a game like this, the Steam Deck is the way to go. Hopefully we see Square Enix keep bringing more Dragon Quest games to mobile in the future. Right now, the iOS version of Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is easily one of the best mobile releases of the year.

Over the years, I’ve been able to interview some of my favorite developers ever including a few I never though …

Continue reading "Sukeban Games 2024 Interview: Christopher Ortiz AKA kiririn51 Talks .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND, Inspirations, Fan Reactions, VA-11 Hall-A, The Silver Case, and Much More"

Over the years, I’ve been able to interview some of my favorite developers ever including a few I never though would be possible, but it isn’t often I get to talk to one of the few people responsible for what is likely my favorite game of all time. That’s where Christopher Ortiz AKA kiririn51 of Sukeban Games comes into the picture. We’ve covered their titles on TouchArcade for years because at one point VA-11 Hall-A was even supposed to come to iPad (and I asked about that later in this interview). With Sukeban Games’ newest project, .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND, officially announced, I had a chance to have a long chat with Christopher Ortiz about the game, fan reactions, VA-11 Hall-A, inspirations, Suda51, The Silver Case, and also coffee of course. TouchArcade (TA): Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Sukeban Games. Christopher Ortiz (CO): I’m Chris, I’m a game creator and I do way too much in this company. I like to hang out with friends and eat delicious food when I’m not locked in. TA: I last spoke to you in 2019 around the time VA-11 Hall-A hit PS4 and Switch following its prior release on PS Vita and its debut on PC. Even back then, as a fan of the game, it was wild seeing so much merchandise and promotion in Japan. You recently visited Japan for Bitsummit. How has it been for you visiting Japan and seeing the reception to VA-11 Hall-A and now your new project, .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND? CO: Japan is like my home away from home even if its government doesn’t like it, so that’s a homecoming for me. Very emotionally charged. I also haven’t been at a game event as an exhibitor since Tokyo Game Show 2017; that was 7 years ago. That’s 7 years of roaming game events and being like “I want that” “I want some of this energy”. Now I feel like a pro-wrestler that’s coming out of retirement to a brand new world and industry; I’m lost, confused, not knowing if I still have it… but I was worried about nothing. People didn’t forget about us and still support the studio no matter what, so I’m never taking shit for granted, or letting these memories slip away. This will be my fuel to move forward. TA: I consider VA-11 Hall-A one of my favorite games of all time, and I replay it each holiday season. When you worked on it many years ago, did you ever expect to see it grow this big and even get multiple figures with a new one coming for Jill soon? CO: I didn’t expect the game to sell more than 10-15k copies, but we definitely knew we had something special brewing, or else we wouldn’t have pushed through with it. It’s just that the scale of said success was a little overwhelming and I think we’re still recovering from some of its unexpected side-effects. TA: VA-11 Hall-A is now playable on PC, Switch, PS Vita, PS4, PS5 (through back compatibility). Whatever happened to that iPad version that was announced years ago? Are ports like that up to Ysbryd or do you also have some involvement? I’d love to see it hit Xbox as well if that’s possible. CO: I actually playtested a build for iPad but it didn’t go anywhere for whatever reason. Maybe I failed to respond to an email. You’d have to ask the publisher. TA: Many years ago, Sukeban Games were just Kiririn51 (yourself) and IronincLark (Fer). How has the team changed since then? CO: We’re currently six people. Some have come and go, but overall we want to keep a small and tight operation. TA: Leading into this question -> How has it been working with MerengeDoll? CO: Merenge’s a trooper. She has this supernatural ability to pull ideas directly out of my brain and give them visual shape, so it’s always been a pleasure to work with her. It sucks that some of the projects she was working on as main artist got canned for reasons beyond our power, but it is what it is. The day will come when people will get to see Merenge’s true power. There’s still a lot of Merengedoll in 45pb so that’s cool as hell. TA: Can you talk about how it was working with Garoad on the music on VA-11 Hall-A? Just like the game, the soundtrack is one of my favorites ever. CO: Michael and I always had similar music tastes and influences, so the process was very free-form. He’d make a track, and I’d love the shit out. Repeat the process until the soundtrack is ready to go. Sometimes I would send him a song I liked as a reference, sometimes he’d create a completely original song that would inspire images in the game, then the images would inspire more music. This synergy gave the game a firm identity that stands the test of time in my opinion. TA: I didn’t realize it until recently, but VA-11 Hall-A kind of became one of those indie games that had a very vocal fanbase and got a good amount of merch that keeps selling out. I think the vinyl box sets are also on multiple pressings now and that SLUT shirt keeps selling out. A good friend of mine recently bought it as well. How much input do you have in the merchandise? Is there anything you want to see made that hasn’t happened yet? CO: I don’t have much input on merch creation. I mostly give the thumbs up or down once a whole chain of people already made the hard choices beforehand. Would like to be a little more involved for 45pb now that I know what I’m dealing with. TA: I still have a few more questions before getting to your new game. Let’s go back to 2019 for a second. Playism’s JP release of VA-11 Hall-A included a fantastic art book cover. I really wish I could get that piece of art signed by you and framed. Can you talk about the inspiration for it and how you pay homage to your favorites like that in your work? CO: Back when I drew that cover I was going through really tough times; even though I hadn’t fully realized yet. We were very focused on surviving the collapse of our country and many other things. During this time, at our old office, we’d listen to a lot of Gustavo Cerati; his album Bocanada to be more precise and its tunes managed to keep us going in the face of uncertainty. So when I was asked to draw a new piece for the artbook I couldn’t help but pay homage to it. I admit now that it’s a little too overt and I would do it differently now, but I’m still proud of it. In fact, I’ve been reconsidering my approach to inspirations a lot in the past few years, and this will be obvious once people play 45pb. TA: You and Fer have spoken a lot about VA-11 Hall-A over the years, but I cannot pass up a chance to talk about how amazingly written and designed the characters are. Looking back at the work you put into it, did you expect certain characters to become as popular as they did? CO: I expected Stella to be the most popular one since her gifs would often go viral before release, but you can never predict this sort of thing. And it’s like I said before; I sort of knew certain things were gonna be a hit, I’m just unable to properly articulate why I thought that way or why it worked, and at this point I rather not know. The moment a hunch becomes a science the magic disappears. Formulas are terrible in this line of work. You gotta let things flow; Let them become their own beautiful thing. TA: I’ve joked with friends about how N1RV Ann-A is my “Silksong", but I have no problem waiting as long as it takes. I still enjoy revisiting VA-11 Hall-A often. Do you go back and try out whatever you had done for N1RV Ann-A or VA-11 Hall-A while working on unrelated projects? CO: I like jotting down lore and characterization stuff for a rainy day. I love to draw Sam, I love coming up with new designs, characters; playing around with the general looks of the game, ideas for shots during cinematics; one liners, environments, atmosphere. I even like to imagine “what if this didn’t have to be a bartending game?” and other extreme musings, but that’s about the extent of the mindspace I dedicate to it currently. Once we’re done with 45pb Nirvana’s development will pick up dramatically, though that really depends on if the spark is still there by then. So far it has no signs of extinguishing. TA: As a huge Suda fan myself, I’m curious what you thought of No More Heroes 3 and Travis Strikes Again? As much as I love No More Heroes 3 (more than 11 playthroughs), I think Travis Strikes Again might just be Suda’s most “Suda" game yet. CO: I REALLY like No More Heroes 3’s combat, but I wasn’t a fan of its writing. Maybe it was COVID, and game development is really tough; especially with the hardcore deadlines they had. But in general I think it wanted to be one thing at the start and then had to become another in order to be shipped. It’s a shame, and it is what it is. I just hope they only make new original games from now on and forget about sequels and reboots. Re-releases are OK; especially of the lost media kind, like Frog Minutes or the 25th Ward back in the day. As for Travis Strikes Again, I agree it’s the best of the newer games. Feels like reading someone’s diary sometimes and that’s the kinda art I enjoy. I guess I didn’t see much of that in 3 outside of continuing some plot threads from TSA. TA: What are your thoughts on Grasshopper Manufacture under Netease and the remasters announced? Suda even mentioned today that he’d love to bring Flower Sun and Rain to Steam. CO: Netease is a big corporation so my hope would be that Grasshopper gets all the money and time they need to cook. TA: VA-11 Hall-A’s journey from PC to PS Vita was quite something, and it involved many parties across regions. I remember buying the Japanese release just for the box art with no English included for publisher reasons. When it came to Switch and PS4, I think you wanted the JP release to have English so anyone could import it. How has it been for you now in Argentina trying to get your own game’s merchandise and merchandise in general? It is a pain over here with delays and extra import fees. CO: I simply don’t import anything these days. I don’t wanna bother with Argentinian customs. Protectionist policies are stupid. Sure, make all electronics more expensive to import so the local market has a chance to compete, but there’s no Argentinian PlayStation to compete with, is there? There’s no Argentinian Steam, and so on. Only idiots come up with this sorta policy. Brazil does the same shit as well. Would be cool if they stopped. TA: You’ve worked in PC-98 and PSX aesthetics a few times. When .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND was announced, I was floored by how it looked like the perfect game I’d want from you. The reception has been largely positive, but I can’t imagine what you and the team went through leading into its reveal with N1RV Ann-A and such. Can you talk about how the last few months have been for yourself? CO: We’ve been locked in and doing our thing. No crunch, all fun. We party, we feast, we travel. We touch that proverbial grass. Lots of insecurities and self-doubt for sure. We even tried to downplay things and manage expectations before the reveal, bracing ourselves for possible apathy from the crowd because it’s not Nirvana. But when it came to actually putting in the work there was no hesitation. I’m happy the announcement worked out, but now we gotta buckle up and finish the story. TA: .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND has been revealed, people can wishlist it on Steam, and I immediately thought of Vagrant Story x Sukeban Games’ Vibe when I saw the trailer. How has it been interacting with fans discussing it online and offline? CO: It’s been incredibly fun, even though there’s so many comparisons with old games. Not that I mind but there’s been some ridiculous comments out there that boggle the mind. One thing that surprised me was the amount of fanart right after the reveal. That shit was great. A fan even brought us a drawing that we proudly displayed on our table at Bitsummit for everybody to see. Our crown jewel By @TumugiV !!! Thank you as always!!!!! pic.twitter.com/N1hbLMY25Q — Sukeban Games (@SukebanGames) July 21, 2024 TA: Probably too soon but when can I buy the key art as a poster and get it signed? CO: Maybe on release. TA: What were your main inspirations for .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND from a visual and gameplay perspective? CO: When coming up with the actual gameplay for 45PB there was a unique concern. People know Sukeban as a Visual Novel/ADV developer because of Va11halla, and I wanted a sort of bridge between that audience and something more action-focused. I saw Parasite Eve’s battle system, but instead of saying “I want more of that” I thought “This is a good solution to my predicament” thanks to the hybrid of real time and turn-based gameplay. And that’s pretty much the way we work. Rather than wanting to imitate something, or wanting more of it, I look to games of the past in order to solve modern problems. We don’t need to reinvent the wheel every time. For the visuals, I remember roaming the streets of Milan in 2019. I was ultra depressed, and didn’t actually have a country to live in at the time so I was also in a state of limbo. The mix of modern structures and old buildings, then juxtaposed to all the neon lights and LED screens along the river had my imagination running wild. For me that was the genesis for the game’s look. This marriage between the old, the new and the decadent. The cherry on top was when I moved to Buenos Aires and found a similar atmosphere, except it included that South American roughness and texture that’s absent in Cyberpunk worlds (which tend to be mostly inspired by east asian aesthetics), so I decided to lean on that to create something unique. TA: Tell us a little bit about the team working on it including the composer, and how long it has been in the works. CO: We’re two people working on it day-to-day (me and the programmer), plus Merenge helping with additional character and production design. The composer this time around is Juneji, who has been doing a LOT of work with us over the years. We have this massive stash of incredible music that he’s made, but it remains unfortunately private due to circumstances with failed projects. Same with Merenge’s art. There’s been some hella demoralizing moments since it’s hard to work on things for so long, pouring your soul into them only to see them crumble in front of you, but we’ve remained a tight group over the years and one of my goals is that the world can finally witness their talents on a large stage. I owe them that much. We also added an old friend in a producer/babysitting role and it’s helped us to not neglect important non-game stuff. As for how long it’s been in development: Technically since 2019 but the current iteration is roughly 2 years old. Before that it was all experiments until we arrived at the right “moment to moment” gameplay. TA: .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND had a teaser, gameplay, and now has a steam page. Are there any plans to offer a demo on PC in any of Valve’s demo fests on Steam in the near future? CO: It’d be a pain in the ass to maintain a demo for this particular game so we rather keep those for offline events. Never say never though. TA: A lot of my friends who love VA-11 Hall-A are excited for .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND. Will it be accessible for everyone or is it too soon to say how the difficulty will be handled? CO: It’s too soon to explain, but as I’ve mentioned before, the battle system itself is meant to be a bridge between vibes-based players and action-oriented players. Not that I’m trying to satisfy both, but rather ease one type of player into a new system. TA: What is your favorite aspect of .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND right now? CO: As a game? definitely the atmosphere and the script. I sometimes play it for leisure on my Steam Deck while tryna sleep and wonder “Damn, what’s gonna happen next?” only to be like “you wrote this shit! you know where it goes!”. Also the combat is fun as hell once it opens up after the first chapter. Chaining skills and upping the tempo of combat after pulling off sick tricks makes for addictive gameplay. This will make sense later unless we fumble it. TA: Can you give us an interesting development / design anecdote for .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND and VA-11 Hall-A? CO: So I mentioned the influences of cities like Milan and Buenos Aires in the creation 45PB’s world, but one thing that people might have noticed by looking at very early screenshots was that it used to feature some locales reminiscent of Hong Kong. I actually scrapped a lot, if not all of it, in favor of the “South American Cyberpunk” I’m aiming for after a conversation I had with a friend from China. I was consulting with him about getting the fonts and the text of the billboards just right so it felt authentic, but then my mind broke and I began asking to myself “Why go through all this effort trying to be authentic when I can just leverage my own culture?” and it’s a sort of mantra I’ve been following ever since. I find terms like “cultural appropriation” silly, but the word “appropriation” by itself is something I’ve been contending with a lot. “Is it my place to tell this type of story?” “Is it okay if these characters speak this or that way?” and so on. Not that it limits my creativity or that I’m afraid of hurting sensibilities; I frankly don’t give a shit. I just think that more original works can be born if we leverage what makes us unique instead of trying to make more of what we like. It’s all about balance. TA: Since the announcement, you’ve no doubt had folks asking for a console version when we don’t even have a release year for .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND, but I wanted to know if there was any thought into working with a publisher or will this be self-published? CO: We want to self-publish on PC and let other companies handle consoles. We’re in the process of finding the right partner for this. TA: What were the inspirations behind Reila Mikazuchi’s design and character? CO: I don’t know if I’ll get in trouble for this but I admire actor and singer Meiko Kaji a lot. I love her movies, you name them: Prisoner Scorpion, Stray Cat Rock, Lady Snowblood, Jeans Blues. Something in her look is so captivating and I wanted my own Meiko Kaji for 45PB. I needed a character design that can say a lot with just the eyes. Someone who can project that inner pain and tragedy effortlessly, so using Meiko Kaji as a point of reference was a must. As for the writing, every time I come up with characters they’re always a composite of several people I know and myself. So as to not ruin your impressions of her, I shall keep these inspirations a secret. TA: How many iterations did you go through for her final design which rules by the way? CO: I always had in mind the main look of long, black hair and pale skin. Plus the third eye. The thing that took me the most work was coming up with the outfit. She was wearing a suit at first actually! Then I wanted her to have a jacket, but finding the right type of jacket was a challenge. I gave her a biker jacket but it looked weird and I had to experiment a lot until I stumbled upon the current design. Merenge helped me with some accessories, such as the shoes, gloves and the logo on the back of the jacket. TA: VA-11 Hall-A saw VA-11 Hall-A Kids and Sapphic Pussy Rhapsody released following the game. Ahead of .45 PARABELLUM BLOODHOUND, should we expect any smaller projects like that? CO: Never say never but our plan with this game is to release it, let it be and move on to something new. No DLC or anything like that. Ports to future platforms are always on the table but that’s the extent of it. If A24 or someone else wants to make a movie about it I’ll listen. TA: What does a day in your life look like right now? CO: Right now I’m a little f***ed up. I’m usually a good boy who works from 9am, takes a little lunch break then locks in again until 4 or 5pm, but sleep escapes me lately so I’m just trying to contend with that in whatever way I can. The key is to not stress over not having much sleep. As long as shit gets done it’s all good. When I’m not working I try to catch a movie at one of the many small cinemas in my neck of the woods, or go outside and take a walk and buy books I’ll take forever to read. Buenos Aires has this magic that inspires me to go outside and have low key adventures. Can’t get too crazy because this is still latin america and we don’t f*** around, but I love it here and being surrounded by so much culture, great food, and a crazy clubbing scene keeps me sane. Especially when there’s friends around. I owe them a lot for my mental health even if I’m a huge recluse sometimes. I’m the type to uninstall messaging apps for a minute when I really need to be alone. TA: What have you been playing lately that you’ve enjoyed a lot? CO: There’s so many video games. This year I really loved Children of the Sun and Arctic Eggs. Late last year I was really into The Citadel, Lethal Company and RoboCop: Rogue City. I’m now in the process of going through The Evil Within, which feels like a lost Grasshopper game sometimes. There’s the Elden Ring expansion, and I also recently replayed Kane and Lynch 2 with a friend and had a blast as always. That game is so f***ed up in the right ways. We need more grit like that. TA: What do you think of the current state of indie games? CO: Every time I go to a game event I’m always madly inspired by all the unique games I see at the indie spaces and that energy is partly what kept me going despite all our production hiccups. That sense of community. That we all have this burning desire to create for the sake of creation. That shit is great. I f***ing love indie games and I think they’re better now more than ever. BUT… I worry that we are trying to lean too much on familiar concepts and inspirations. Games like Arctic Eggs do it right in that it’s trying to look like an old PSX game, but there were no PSX games like Arctic Eggs. Then there’s games that feel so blatant in their desire to be like one of the classics that I’m like “weren’t we supposed to be the creative ones?” not to mention the over reliance on “Roguelike” mechanics and such. But it’s not all bad. There’s some really cool shit all the time; especially on places like itch.io. It’s just that humans in general can be creatively bankrupt regardless of production scale. There’s triple A slop, there’s indie slop. There’s no escaping the slop. Being indie doesn’t make you inherently more creative and that’s okay. There’s always room for growth as long as we’re cognizant about our shortcomings. TA: Are you looking forward to playing any specific game this year? CO: I’m really looking forward to Slitterhead. Dunno if they’ll be out this year but there’s also Sonokuni, Elation For The Wonder Box 6000, Studio System: Guardian Angel, Eating Nature (from the Arctic Eggs dev)… There’s a lot I’m excited about. My Twitter feed is an endless stream of cool indie games I doubt will ever see the light of day but the attempt is appreciated nonetheless. TA: Obviously scheduling and such, but if we managed doing this interview on a call, I’d have taken this chance to nerd out about The Silver Case with you. I’m glad I listened to my friend and powered through it because that typewriter sound was too much for me. I adore The Silver Case and I know you love it as well. What elements from it inspired you the most and what’s your favorite track from the soundtrack? CO: The Silver Case has always been one of those games that felt like a white whale to me. It was so utterly inaccessible that my mind pretty much created its own Silver Case by trying to fill the gaps. I used to browse this creepy Suda51 fansite way back in the day and I was always searching for every bit of info on this inscrutable-ass game, so when it actually released in a language I can understand I was afraid I wasn’t gonna like it but I think it was much more than I could ever have imagined. In that sense, the way Silver Case inspires me is tightly related to this need to fill gaps. The space between the real Silver Case and what I was imagining it to be is where a lot of the ideas for the presentation in games like Va11halla or The Radio Wave Bureau were born. I can’t choose a single favorite song if I’m being honest. The whole soundtrack has such a vibe. Could be the Sayaka Baian theme that plays in Kamuidrome, but tomorrow it could be the opening theme, then the next day another one. TA: Did you end up trying it out on console or just playing it on PC? CO: I bought and played the game on every platform. TA: The Silver Case’s original box art and aesthetic is probably the only thing I love as much as that in VA-11 Hall-A. What elements from its visual style had you curious back then? CO: Definitely the stoic look of every character. Takashi Miyamoto is my goat along with Yoshitoshi Abe. For Va11halla I had to be very expressive with the characters because that’s what the story commanded, but ever since I was a kid I always had an affinity towards designs that say a lot with minimal facial expressions. Two of my favorite films are Patlabor 2 and Ghost in the Shell, and Serial Experiments Lain is also one of my favorites, so you can probably tell where I’m coming from with this. I was also so transfixed by the UI. I could go on and on about this subject, but I’ll always lament that The Silver Case didn’t create a movement after its release. Visual Novels could look so much better if we had 1% the imagination of that original Grasshopper team. I’m not sure, but I think the look was done by Akihiko Ishizaka who would go on to work on Killer7 and Danganronpa. I wish he was still working with GhM. Or maybe he still does and I’m talking out of my ass. TA: I think you’ve met Suda more than once now. How has that been for you and has he played VA-11 Hall-A? I know Travis Strikes Again has a VA-11 Hall-A tshirt that is the objectively best and only one everyone should use. CO: I’ve met the guy twice and I’ll always lament not knowing enough japanese to just talk and talk all day with him. We share a lot of common interests, though the generational gap can be felt when he starts yapping about Japanese media from the 70s. I do know he played my game but I’ve no clue if he actually enjoyed it. Will have to ask if I ever see him again. TA: Are you still up for this if the opportunity arises? CO: There’s a story behind this that I’ll have to sit on for a while longer. TA: My current game of the year for 2024 is Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth. I know you loved Yakuza: Like a Dragon, but did you end up trying Infinite Wealth/8 or Gaiden last year? CO: I love Like a Dragon so much but I didn’t play Gaiden, and Infinite Wealth seemed like too much of a commitment when I played at launch. The game was throwing mechanic after mechanic at me in a way that made me feel overwhelmed. Like there was too much game ahead of me, so I put it off for the time being. Maybe once I’m in the mood again I’ll give it a honest shot. TA: VA-11 Hall-A has always been perfect to play on a portable. I loved it on Switch and recently found a mod that adds full controller support to the PC version. I’ve been revisiting it on Steam Deck. Have you had a chance to try it on Steam Deck yet? CO: I did and saw it sort of works but not quite. I wish I could go back and tweak it but it’s not technically feasible. The Game Maker version we used doesn’t even work properly on modern Windows and it’s the reason we haven’t been able to do any sort of fix or update to it. Aside from simply not having the time to deal with all that mess we made (at a technical level). TA: Honestly I still have a lot more I want to discuss with you, but I think I should save that for part 2 or a future interview. Let me end this with one final question. How do you like your coffee? Go into as much detail as you can. If not coffee, talk about your favorite beverage. CO: I like my coffee black like a moonless night. Even better if it’s accompanied by cheesecake on a beautiful afternoon. TA: Probably not smart, but it is nearly 2 AM and sending these questions over made me want to replay The Silver Case. Next time we talk, let’s do a dedicated discussion on The Silver Case. CO: Absolutely! I’d like to thank Christopher Ortiz for their time and help with this interview over the last few weeks. You can keep up with all our interviews here including our recent ones with FuturLab here, Shuhei Matsumoto from Capcom about Marvel Vs Capcom here, Santa Ragione here, Peter ‘Durante’ Thoman about PH3 and Falcom here, M2 discussing shmups and more here, Digital Extremes for Warframe mobile, Team NINJA, Sonic Dream Team, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and more. As usual, thanks for reading.

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics ($49.99) As a fan of Marvel, Capcom, and fighting games back in the …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Review Round-Up: ‘Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection’, ‘Yars Rising’, & ‘Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland’"

Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics ($49.99) As a fan of Marvel, Capcom, and fighting games back in the 1990s, Capcom’s line of fighters based on Marvel’s characters were like a dream come true. Starting off with the excellent X-Men: Children of the Atom, these games just kept getting bigger and better. Moving on to the wider Marvel Universe with Marvel Super Heroes, then the at-the-time unbelievable crossovers between Marvel and Street Fighter, on to the over the top Marvel vs. Capcom, and then the wildly over-the-top in all the right ways Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom kept raising the stakes. That wasn’t the end of the series, but it takes us up to the end of what is covered in Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. Oh, and you get Capcom’s excellent Punisher belt scrolling beat ’em up as some extra mustard. A fantastic set of great games. This collection appears to have been handled by whoever did the Capcom Fighting Collection, and in most respects it has similar features and extras. That unfortunately extends to only having a single save state across the entire collection, shared by all seven games. That was annoying enough in a collection full of fighting games, but it’s even worse with a beat ’em up in here where you might want to, you know, save your progress independently of whatever you’re up to in the fighters. Oh well. Everything else here is as you would want it. Lots of options like visual filters and gameplay options, great extras including an extensive array of art and a music player, and rollback online multiplayer. New to this set is NAOMI hardware emulation, and whoever Capcom had on the job did it well. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 looks and plays great. I’m not going to knock it for this, but I do want to say that I wish some of the home versions were included. The PlayStation EX versions of the tag-team based games are different enough that it would be neat to have them in here, and the Dreamcast version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 has a lot of fun extras that make it a superior choice for home play for the solo player. I also wouldn’t have minded if Capcom had tucked its two Super NES Marvel games in here, even if they aren’t the greatest of games. Well, the collection’s name says Arcade Classics, and unlike with Blizzard it seems the word is being properly applied here. Marvel fans and fighting fans alike have a reason to rejoice with this fine collection. The games are superb, they’ve been treated with care, and you get a good suite of extras and options. Only having a single save state shared between the games is a serious bummer, but otherwise I can’t find much to pick on here. Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is another must-have compilation from the folks at Capcom, and it plays great on the Switch. SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5 Yars Rising ($29.99) I’ll admit that I was pretty skeptical of this game from its announcement. I like Yars’ Revenge a lot. One of my favorite 2600 games. So when I read that WayForward had been tapped to make a Metroidvania-style Yars game starring a young hacker with a bare midriff code-named Yar, I felt like I had accidentally surfed over to a parody site. Just the perfect storm of “why", you know? So do I have to eat those words? Yes and no. First and foremost, this is a good game. WayForward does a solid job with this kind of thing, and so it did here. Looks and sounds good, plays well, and the map layouts are fine enough. In true WayForward fashion, the bosses tend to drag on too long, but it’s not a deal-breaker. Commendations must also be given to WayForward for doing its best to handle a bit of a tough ask in trying to connect this game to an ancient single-screen shooter. You get to play Yars’ Revenge-style sequences fairly often, the abilities you earn are evocative of the original game, and it connects to the relatively fleshed-out lore as well as it can. It still feels like a massive stretch, but I suppose Atari has little choice but to try to make long passes like this one. Its classic library can only be Recharged so much, after all. It just feels like a game that is torn between two audiences with very little overlap, and I’m not sure if that was the right call versus doing something wholly original. Still, while the argument can rage on about whether or not this made sense conceptually, there’s no doubt the game itself is enjoyable. I don’t think the finest in the genre have much to worry about, but if you’re looking for a Metroidvania game to sink your teeth into over the course of a weekend or so, you won’t have a bad time with Yars Rising. And who knows? Maybe they follow up on this once or twice and it all feels natural. SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland ($24.99) I’m a few years too old to have much nostalgia for Rugrats, though not so old that I didn’t watch it with my younger siblings from time to time. Like, I know the names of the main characters and the theme song. Don’t ask me about the movies or the grown-up versions, and certainly don’t ask me to recall any specific episodes. I know the Rugrats, but I have no special warm and fuzzies for the brand. With that in mind, I didn’t really know what to expect from Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland. I heard someone say it was like Bonk, and that does fit Tommy’s physical build if nothing else. Well, only one way to know for sure. I started up the game, picked Tommy, and went into the tutorial stage. First thing to hit me was the crisp visuals. Crisper than the show, if my memory serves. The next thing to hit me was the awkward placement of the controls. Luckily, there’s an option for that. The music was the Rugrats theme, so that all checks out. There were some Reptar coins to collect, and some simple puzzles and enemies to deal with. Alright, no problem. Platformer with some exploration in the levels, a tried and tested formula. Not very Bonk-ish, but that was never promised. At a certain point Tommy had taken a few hits, so I decided to swap over to Chuckie to enjoy his full life meter. I then noticed that he had a very familiar jump. A very high but somewhat hard to control jump. Surely they didn’t? I swapped over to Phil, who had a low jump, then to Lil who could… float. They did. They really did! Folks, this is a Super Mario Bros. 2 (USA)-inspired game! Sure enough, the enemies I had just been stomping on could also be picked up and thrown. There were also blocks I sometimes had to pick up and pile up to reach higher places. Slightly non-linear stages with lots of verticality! Stages where you have to dig in sand, and you know Phil is the expert digger of the bunch. Awesome. I mean, there are some homages to other platformers in here, but the main gameplay evokes what is probably one of the higher-selling classic games that never gets riffed on. Not bad, not bad at all. The boss battles are even interesting and enjoyable. After playing for a while, I even noticed I could swap the visuals and soundtrack between the spiffy modern versions and NES-level 8-bit renditions. It plays well either way, and both styles have their merits. Oh, and you can use a filter. There if you want it. But yes, creative and fun. Inspired by a game I love quite a lot. Uses its license well. You can play multiplayer! Aside from the control issue, the only gripe I have is that it’s a bit too short and simple. Rugrats: Adventures in Gameland is a better game than I expected it to be. It’s a quality platformer in the style of the Western Super Mario Bros. 2, with some extra elements and features to keep it from being too close to its source. The Rugrats license has been implemented well, though I did find myself wishing it had voice acting for the cut scenes. A little on the short and breezy side to be sure, but worth a play for fans of platformers and the Rugrats alike. SwitchArcade Score: 4/5

For a lot of folks who have been following Capcom’s fighting games over the years, the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting …

Continue reading "Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics Review – Switch, Steam Deck, and PS5 Covered"

For a lot of folks who have been following Capcom’s fighting games over the years, the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics announcement was unbelievable given recent events and the reception of the last Marvel vs Capcom game. As someone who has only played Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3 and Marvel vs Capcom Infinite, I had always wanted to play the earlier games given the praise a few of them got from competitive and casual players. I’d be lying if I said I also wasn’t just excited to hear the Marvel vs Capcom 2 music officially because it is that good. So here we are months after its announcement, and Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is available on Steam, Switch, and PlayStation with Xbox coming in 2025. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics games included Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics ships with seven games included. They are: X-MEN CHILDREN OF THE ATOM, MARVEL SUPER HEROES, X-MEN VS. STREET FIGHTER, MARVEL SUPER HEROES vs. STREET FIGHTER, MARVEL vs. CAPCOM CLASH OF SUPER HEROES, MARVEL vs. CAPCOM 2 New Age of Heroes, and THE PUNISHER which isn’t a fighting game, but a beat ’em up. These are based on the arcade versions so you don’t need to worry about missing features like some older console ports here. These include the English and Japanese versions so yes, Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter does include Norimaro in this collection when you choose the Japanese version for that game. This review is based on me having played Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics for about 15 hours on Steam Deck (both LCD and OLED), 13 hours on PS5 (via backward compatibility), and about 4 hours on Nintendo Switch. I’m not qualified enough to talk about the ins and outs of the games included here because this collection was my first time playing them, but I will say that the fun I’ve had with Marvel vs Capcom 2 pre-release has more than justified the asking price to the point where I want to buy both console physical releases just to own a physical version of it. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics new features If you played Capcom Fighting Collection, the interface and front-end of Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics will feel familiar. In fact, it even has the same issues that collection has, but I’ll get to that a bit later. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics includes online and local multiplayer support, local wireless support on Switch, rollback netcode for online play, a training mode, customizable options for games, an important option to reduce white flashes or light flickering per game, various display options, and a few wallpaper options. Outside the games, the training mode included (you can access this per game), includes hitboxes, inputs displayed, and other options making it even better for newcomers. Speaking of newcomers, Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics has a new one button super option that you can enable or disable when you play online and search for other players. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics museum and gallery Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics also includes a robust museum and gallery with all the game soundtracks (more than 200 tracks) and more than 500 pieces of artwork. Having played Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics online with a friend who is also covering it, he let me know how a lot of the artwork in this collection has never been public before. For me, it is all new, but I thought that was notable for longtime fans. It is worth noting that things like sketches or design documents don’t have translations on them for any Japanese text. As for the music, I’m glad we finally have an official way to listen to these soundtracks in 2024, but I hope this is the first step to getting a vinyl release or streaming releases for them. How is the Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics online multiplayer experience with rollback netcode? Before getting into the online experience, the options menu features its own network settings letting you enable or disable microphone, voice chat volume, input delay, and connection strength on PC. On Switch, you can only adjust input delay. The PS4 version lets you adjust input delay and connection strength with no voice chat options. I assume folks will use the PS5 and PS4 native voice chat options here instead of an in-game one. It is disappointing to see the Switch version lack a connection strength option as of the build I have. Pre-release, I only managed testing the online on Steam Deck wired and wirelessly with another player who was also on Steam. In our experience, Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics online is similar to Capcom Fighting Collection on Steam, but massively improved over Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection. You can adjust input delay and cross region matchmaking as well. We tested most of the games and also did a bit of co-op in The Punisher. It just works despite the distance between us. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics ships with matchmaking support for casual matches, ranked matches, and also leaderboards including a High Score Challenge mode. I also want to note that when you rematch when playing online, the cursors remain correct so you can pick whoever you were playing as before in games like Marvel vs Capcom 2 instead of having to manually move the cursor each time to select your team. Little things like this add up to make the collection feel like a lot of love went into ensuring the best possible experience for players including ones learning the games for the first time. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics issues My biggest complaints with Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics are with how it has just a single save state (quick save) for the entire collection. This isn’t one single save state per game, but one for the entire collection. I was hoping this issue from Capcom Fighting Collection wouldn’t carry over but here we are. Another minor complaint and settings not being universal or an easy apply or toggle the light reduction or adjust visual filters at once. Having options per game is good, but I would’ve liked to just enable light reduction and turn off the filter for every game at once. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics on Steam Deck – Verified already I first tried Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics on Steam Deck and it works perfectly out of the box. Given it is Steam Deck Verified I shouldn’t be surprised, but you can never tell with new games until you try them yourself. When played on the Deck itself, Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics runs at 720p and it supports 4K when docked. I played at 1440p for the most part docked and then 800p handheld. It is still 16:9 though with no 16:10 support. The Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics PC graphics options are under the PC Settings menu in options. These let you adjust resolution, display mode (fullscreen, borderless, windowed), and toggle v-sync. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics on Nintendo Switch While Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics looks fine on Switch, the biggest downgrade from other platforms is the load times. Going in and out of games on Steam and PS5 is almost instant while the Switch version has loading for basically everything. This adds up and since I’ve been playing it on all three platforms at once, it was very noticeable. I hope the connection strength option is added eventually as well since PlayStation and PC have it. The Switch version does support local wireless while the others do not though. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics on PS5 I wish Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics was native on PS5 rather than played via backward compatibility because PS5 Activity Card support would’ve been amazing to get in and out of different games from the dashboard. Barring that, it looks excellent on my 1440p monitor and loads quickly even when played off an external hard drive. You can move it to the SSD for even faster loading. I have no complaints with the PS4 version on PS5. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics is one of Capcom’s best collections yet across everything and not just fighting games or arcade games. It offers superb extras, fantastic online play on Steam, and it has been a joy to experience these games for the first time. I just wish there was more than one save slot for the entire collection for save states. Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics Steam Deck Review Score: 4.5/5

Later this month on September 27th, NIS America will release FuRyu’s action RPG Reynatis for Switch, Steam, PS5, and PS4 …

Continue reading "Reynatis Interview: Creative Producer TAKUMI, Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima, and Composer Yoko Shimomura discuss the game, coffee, and more"

Later this month on September 27th, NIS America will release FuRyu’s action RPG Reynatis for Switch, Steam, PS5, and PS4 in the West. Ahead of the launch, I had a chance to talk to Creative Producer TAKUMI, Scenario Writer Kazushige Nojima, and Composer Yoko Shimomura about the game, inspirations, collaborations, how the project came into being, Final Fantasy Versus XIII, coffee, a potential Xbox release, and much more. This interview was conducted in parts with TAKUMI’s portion being done on video call with Alan from NIS America translating and then it being transcribed and edited for brevity. The portion with Kazushige Nojima and Yoko Shimomura was done over email and is towards the end of this interview. TouchArcade (TA): Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Furyu right now. TAKUMI: I’m a director and producer at Furyu. A lot of my work involves creating new games and working on brand new projects. For Reynatis specifically, I’m the person who came up with the main idea for the game. I produced it, I directed it, and I saw pretty much everything through from the beginning to the end so anything and everything related to Reynatis, I handled everything. TA: I’ve been playing FuRyu’s games through many publishers in the West from the 3DS days, leading into PS Vita, PS4, PS5, PC, and mostly on Nintendo Switch. It feels like Reynatis has the most hype around it from any game which I’ve seen from FuRyu. How does that make you feel as a creative producer? TAKUMI: First of all, I’m very happy. I take it very positively. I’m just simply pleased that people like it so much. About the buzz and attention it is getting, it feels like it’s actually more from abroad than inside Japan. I’ve been checking things out on Twitter and I noticed that a lot of times whenever they post information about the game, when they post trailers, when they post things like that, a lot of the comments that they’re receiving are from people outside of Japan. And so he says it seems like the fan base for this game abroad is large, or will be large. And it also seems like, as you mentioned, up till now, this game has been receiving more feedback and more positive user interaction than any other FuRyu game in the past. So I’m really pleased to see how it seems to be being received in the West so far. TA: Okay, so the game is obviously available now in Japan for people who live there to buy on console. How has the response been from players in Japan for the game? TAKUMI: As someone who’s liked Final Fantasy Kingdom Hearts and things like that, I feel that the fans of those works, basically the works of Tetsuya Nomura in particular, seem to have really latched onto the game. They really appreciate what I’m doing and I really get the sense that they kind of understand everything. I’ve seen that as they’ve been playing the game, they’ve been noticing things and seeing how the story progresses and being like, “Oh, yeah, that’s how it should be," or, “Yeah, I kind of expected that to happen." And so they’ve gotten really excited and really delved into the world of Reynatis. They’ve also, kind of without really even being prompted, have kind of taken things farther to the next level, like, “I wonder where he’s going to take the story from here. I wonder what’s going to come next. I wonder…" All these little sub things that he hadn’t really had a chance to maybe flesh out or think about yet are things that the fan base has already decided to move forward with and already decided to start thinking about what’s going to come in the future. Of course a creator, that makes me feel incredibly pleased and also kind of gets my creative juices flowing as it were, too, to think about what I want to do next. On the gameplay side of things, FuRyu games always kind of have areas that stand out a little bit more than others or have things about them that make them kind of unique and very FuRyu you could say. A lot of players have come to appreciate those things, too, and really enjoy those things as well. So for the people who really have always appreciated FuRyu games and have played them up until now and enjoyed them, they seem to be liking and enjoying the game as well. So far on both of those fronts, it seems that user reaction has been positive and people have really been enjoying it. TA: I’m glad you mentioned Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy because from when the game was revealed, a lot of my friends who are hardcore Kingdom Hearts fans and who have been following Final Fantasy for a long time, everyone brought up Final Fantasy Versus XIII’s trailer and everyone’s trying to draw parallels with that and talking about how is this connected here, is that connected there? Can you comment on whether Final Fantasy Versus XIII’s trailer and that whole hype cycle over there had any influence on the project. TAKUMI: So that question is a sensitive question, it’s a sensitive topic. There’s things that I can and cannot say in regards to it, but one thing I want to point it specifically is that as a fan of Nomura-san’s work and as someone who saw that original trailer for Versus XIII, and purely wondered what would this game have been like, what kind of game would this have been, how would it have played, and all these things like that running through my head, as a fan, I wanted to put myself on the same level as other fans. And as a representative of that fan base, I wanted to create my own take on it. If this game would have come out, maybe it would have turned out like this. So that feeling in terms of how Reynatis is related to Final Fantasy Versus XIII, you could say it’s something like that. I can’t speak too much beyond this little window of speaking, but I have talked to Nomura-san. They’ve talked about several things about this,and the idea is that Nomura-san knows what he’s thinking and the things that they’ve talked about. As a fan and as somebody who really loves these works, I really wanted it to be from one fan to all the other fans out there. I feel like that group of fans who did love those games, that’s who Reynatis is for. At the end of the day, all that really comes from that specific title is the inspiration. So seeing that initial trailer and that initial thought of “I wonder what this would be like" was an inspiration, certainly, for Reynatis. Reynatis is something that is wholly his own. It’s something that totally came from me as a creator. It is dyed in my own color as a creator. Everything that I wanted to express as a creator is what’s in this game. It’s not a copy or a rip-off of something else that’s come before, something that might have existed. It’s completely wholly my own. This was simply an initial spark of inspiration to make me think about what this world would be. Everything else about this world that is Reynatis is something that I made myself and created myself. TA: So out of the many FuRyu games I’ve played over the years since Lost Dimension and stuff like that, my favorites are The Caligula Effect 2, Crymachina, and The Alliance Alive. Every single game usually has I’d say 75% of it is really good with memorable story, music, and stuff like that. But there are some aspects which fall short, and we usually see either technical shortcomings or some people might not like the gameplay or something like that. So I wanted to know if you’re happy with the current state of the game because I know there are updates planned. TAKUMI: The game originally came out on July 25th in Japan, and from there, we had an actual play session where we streamed it, and there were people watching on Twitter, commenting, and since then, people have had a chance to play the game and receive their comments. Obviously, to recreate the game, or to do things on a fundamental level, that’s impossible, but obviously, small things that we can brush up, as we are going through, for example, boss balancing, the amount of time that enemies come out, little quality of life features that kind of have to do with those things, all of those things will be addressed in the updates that are coming out. There’s an update coming out on September 1st in Japan, and then either with that, or a little bit before that, we plan to, again, start addressing some of those issues Beyond that, obviously, if there’s any bugs or any kind of technical flaws or things like that, those are all intended to be addressed to over the coming months, because the last DLC is scheduled to come out in May, and so up until that time point, we are going to continue to work on the feedback that we’ve received, and implement as much as we can, as is reasonable and possible, into the game. One thing I also want to point out is that specifically for players in the West, the version of the game that you be getting, essentially, will be a version that’s been refined and brushed up, compared to everything that’s come out in Japan, so please look forward to the best version of the game when it does come out here in the West. TA: So I read the NIS America translated Famitsu interview with Takumi-san, Yoko Shimomura, and Kazushige Nojima in two parts (here and here). It was the two-part long interview and was really nice. So first, thank you to NIS America for translating that officially for us. Secondly, I wanted to touch on the part about how you approached both of them because it was very interesting and funny. I wanted to just ask you about that. How did you approach them directly? Is it just something like you messaged them or do you approach their representatives or the companies at all? TAKUMI: It was pretty much what I said in the interview. Most of this was direct. I reached out to them directly. I didn’t contact them through a company. I didn’t do super formal emails or uptight things. The thing about Shimomura-san specifically is that Furuyo had actually done some work with her in the past on some other titles, so I kind of had an in there, but even still I ended up reaching out to her through X / Twitter. For Naora-san, who was the illustrator for the game, it was a PM to him on X / Twitter. Kaburagi-san, who also did the illustrations, I spoke with him on X. Nojima-san, they did a lot of LINE. Even once the project had begun, a lot of the communication was still done via PMs and via private messaging and things like that. At no point was it ever really a very formal thing. I would just kind of reach out to people as necessary and say, “hey, what do you want to do about the music?" or something like that. It’s a lot rougher than you might have imagined in terms of how a company normally performs its business. TA: That’s hilarious. It makes sense why you contacted them because they are very talented folks, and while the premise and game seem interesting, I wanted to know what prior works of theirs made you reach out to them individually? What are your favorite works by them? TAKUMI: Well, basically, I’ve been playing Kingdom Hearts since I was a kid. I think the big part is that my personality and values were formed by Kingdom Hearts. So, when it comes to Shimomura-san’s music, I have a strong image of Kingdom Hearts. And then, in connection with that, I’ve been playing titles like Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X. I think Nojima-san’s scenario has a strong feeling from that. I think I’ll just say that I wanted to do Nojima-san’s scenario with Shimomura-san’s music. for Shimomura-san, obviously, most people think of Kingdom Hearts. It’s a really, really special game. It’s a series that I started playing when I was little. It influenced my values and who I am as a person. So, that was someone that I really wanted to work with specifically. In terms of Nojima-san, obviously, I’m a big fan of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy X, and works like that. I wanted to work with them because I just wanted to work with them. I liked their work and he wanted to work with them. TA: I wanted to know, before the game started production, what games did you play that maybe inspired some aspects of this thing? Did you start doing research and playing more action games from other developers to see how they are? TAKUMI: I’m honestly an action game fan to begin with. So, whether it be older titles, whether it be more recent titles, I feel like I’ve played them all. Whether you’d want to call that research or not is kind of something different, but I have played them and I have enjoyed them and obviously, there’s a lot of things that I’ve taken inspiration from, you could say, from within that. However, one thing I want to point out really specifically is that, and this is something you know as someone who’s played many FuRyu titles, is that FuRyu size-wise and scale-wise doesn’t have the budget to do something like a Final Fantasy VII Remake or a Rebirth. That’s just on another level. When I was creating the game and thinking about what I wanted to do, I thought carefully about what would be fun for the players. What will the players enjoy? Let’s make that and then let’s also try to make everything within the game something that’s fun. So for example, even beyond the gameplay, you have the scenario, you have the story, you have all of these things that individually are disparate, but all of them together are what makes Reynatis the experience that it is. I want players to experience it as a whole and not so much as an action game solely, for example. If you compare Reynatis to something like Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, it’s obviously not going to compete on that level. Where it can compete is on this level as an entire package, as a game experience that is the sum of its parts beyond being some specifically one thing. TA: Can you talk about how long Reynatis has been in production? TAKUMI: About three years, give or take. TA: So how was it working for the team during the pandemic? TAKUMI: The pandemic was just at its peak. I think it was a time when we couldn’t meet face to face and talk about it. But I don’t think I was in that much trouble. The development company that was actually developing it was basically all-in-one, and we were able to work with the top development team. If we had been able to communicate with them, I think we could have made the game without any problems. After the pandemic actually settled down, we were able to meet face to face. We were able to communicate while eating together. I don’t think there was a big problem in terms of development because we couldn’t meet face to face because of the coronavirus. Things kind of kicked off right at the beginning of the pandemic, specifically when it was really difficult to go out and actually meet people. Truthfully, at the very beginning, we didn’t have a lot of opportunity to actually meet face to face and talk about things.However, A, as time went on, and B, because we were having lots of meetings and things like that, the people that we were working with to develop it, all of them actually were in the office. Because we had a good direct line of communication with the development staff, the head of the development staff, we felt like there were no issues there. Also, as the project continued, things loosened up, and so I was able to meet people face to face. We were able to go out to eat and talk and have meetings and things like that. So things proceeded smoothly. Even in the midst of the beginning of the pandemic, when it was more difficult to meet people, I don’t feel that it really impacted the work negatively. We were able, and I specifically was able to do my work without any problem, and things proceeded well. So there were really no issues from that sense in regards to the pandemic situation. TA: So one of the things I noticed is, before the game was officially revealed for localization, there was a lot of hype around “NEO: The world ends with you. Everyone was speculating if this is part of the same universe or what’s happening And now we have an official collaboration, which is officially licensed and stuff like that. So I wanted to know two things: As a fan, play NEO :The World Ends with you and how did you approach Square Enix for the collaboration? TAKUMI: I played the original on DS in the beginning. I played the smartphone game that only lived for a brief period. I played Final Remix when it came out on Switch and then of course NEO: The World Ends With You as well. I’m a simple fan just like everyone else when it comes to the series. I have played them all. For the collaboration, I did go directly to Square Enix as a company and approached them from an official capacity as a company. Thinking in the console game space, looking at collaborations between companies it’s very rare. All I can think of is that there was a collaboration between Capcom and Konami using Metal Gear Peace Walker and Monster Hunter 2G. Aside from that, I can’t really think of anything else in terms of console creators coming together to make it. Because this is something that hasn’t really happened before, it had to be a bit more official. On the flip side, because it hasn’t happened before, there was really nobody I could talk to internally to be like, “Hey, so how do I go about approaching this? How do I go about making it happen?" I got a lot of feedback like “Oh, that’s impossible. You can’t do that." However, I have the kind of personality where I’m very strong and straightforward with things. I said “No, no, no, look, if it’s not impossible, there’s a way to do this. I’m going to find a way to do this." The simplest thing in that case was to drop the plan, to go to Square Enix directly and say, “Hey, look, I’m making this game. I really like The World Ends With You. The setting for my game is also Shibuya. Is there anything we can do together?" That’s basically how the collaboration came about. TA: Can you comment on what platforms Reynatis was always planned for? What was the lead platform? TAKUMI: All of the platforms were decided from the beginning, but as you mentioned, you have to come up with a lead platform. In this case, it would have been the Switch and so the Switch was the main, and then the others came out from there. TA: In the past, whenever I played FuRyu games, regardless of how much I liked them, the lead platform usually has some technical issues. I remember playing The Legend of Legacy on 3DS, which had a lot of technical issues, but now it’s perfect when you play it on modern platforms. Reynatis is a very visually striking and good-looking game from its trailers. So I was just wondering how it would run on Switch. TAKUMI: I understand where you’re coming from. Even though the Switch is the lead platform, honestly speaking, this game pushes the Switch to its limits. Within me, there’s two rules I have to fulfill for this game. One is the producer, and the other is the director. As the producer, I have to be more mindful of things like unit sales. How many players are going to purchase and play the game? So within that, obviously, it makes the most sense that you release a game on as many platforms as you possibly can to maximize those elements. On the flip side, as the director and as a player myself, it would have been great to focus on maybe one platform like PS5 or something to really push things to the next level. But at the same time, that’s a balance that I have to maintain within all things. There was a lot of internal struggle within how to handle that. But at the end of the day, the balance was essentially taken within those two elements of myself that I had to do. I’m happy with what came out. TA: So far, FuRyu games release on consoles in Japan and get ported to PC for the Western releases. Has Furyu ever considered doing PC internally in Japan for these games? TAKUMI: Actually, there was a title that came out recently that we did internally on PC. So it is something that we have been thinking about and working internally on. So yes, games are coming out made by us specifically for PC platforms. At this point, Mr. Sonobe, FuRyu Localization Coordinator, added that FuRyu has established a partnership with NIS (America) to sell full-priced console RPGs due to their expertise in translation, promotion, and sales capabilities. TA: The reason I ask is because we’ve seen a lot of promotions in Japan for Steam versions from publishers there. Like SEGA does with competitions for Like a Dragon and Steam Deck. Obviously you need to release on Switch, but you now also have a high end handheld PC. I see a lot of interest for Steam versions. Do you see more people recently asking for PC versions in Japan? TAKUMI: Please take this as my opinion specifically and not a representative of the industry. For me and the people around me, the two worlds are very different. There’s the world of console gaming, as we call it, and then there’s the world of PC gaming. Those worlds don’t necessarily meet, and it seems like the players of one specific place, like console or PC, generally want to keep their play experiences limited to that space specifically. If you were to divide it up into three things, you would have consoles, you would have PCs, and then you would have smartphones. And so these are kind of the three arenas that exist. And these are kind of the three arenas that people generally tend to stay in when they’re developing and releasing games. I don’t even necessarily know people who play on PC who have a Steam Deck or who want to play specifically on it. If they want to play a console game, they would play it on console if they had the desire to do so. That’s kind of where I feel the industry is specifically in Japan. TA: Because you mentioned smartphones, I think FuRyu has one title which is available in the West on smartphones through another partner, Arc System Works, which is The Alliance Alive Remastered. I believe it uses NIS America’s translation for English. Do you have plans as FuRyu to do more smartphone ports of premium games? TAKUMI: As a company we don’t have a plan to make games specifically for smartphones. It is more that our division specifically is focused on making console games and we believe that consoles are a place that can provide specific experiences that can only be provided by console games. The reason you saw something like The Alliance Alive Remastered come out on smartphones, was because we felt that it would be appropriate and because we thought it would still play well on the smartphone. For something like a super hardcore action game or something that would require more intricate controls, that wouldn’t really be suitable to be on smartphones so it wouldn’t happen. Our plan and goal going forward is to develop first for console and to bring out the best we can do in the console gaming space. IF that work is suitable enough to be brought to a smartphone, and still be able to be played well, and it doesn’t lose any of its intrinsic fun that you have from playing on console, then we will think about it in the future, but it kind of is on a case by case basis. TA: So I play FuRyu games on multiple platforms, but there’s one platform that hasn’t seen FuRyu support much. This question isn’t just from myself, but also from readers who usually want to know why some games aren’t coming to Xbox. only myself, but a lot of our readers also usually ask us to check in on the possibility? I know there could be many reasons for why, but I still wanted to ask you directly about this if there are plans to do Xbox Series X versions of these games from FuRyu? TAKUMI: Personally, I would like to do Xbox versions of the games but the reality is that in Japan there’s not enough demand from consumers. There’s not enough recognition from consumers for the platform itself to be able to justify being able to make an Xbox version. To talk about things from a development standpoint, you have to understand that adding another platform to the development cycle means you have to account for that within the schedule. Within that as well, the development team has to have the experience to be able, having worked on that platform, to be able to develop it appropriately for that platform. Because the team doesn’t have that experience, it suddenly becomes a very high hurdle to clear and be able to make this game. I would definitely like for us to be able to do it. I find it would be something that would be interesting. It’s just the reality of it that it’s a difficult thing to do for the reasons I mentioned. TA: Reynatis is coming out in the West in a few weeks. I wanted to know what you’re most excited to see when players get their hands on the game in the West? TAKUMI: I really want players to enjoy playing the game for a long time. Nowadays, you kind of have an issue that when a game comes out, it’s not uncommon for spoilers to get posted, whether that be videos or things like that. We’ve worked really hard to make sure that those spoilers don’t get out there. One of the ways that they’ve avoided having things spoiled is by having this– we talked about it a bit earlier–but by having this free DLC release schedule going forward that will bring up new story content and secret story content. There’s going to be one that comes out October 1 that will be global. NIS America will release the game in the West in September. So players will kind of have to catch up first, but after that, they get to experience everything in real time with the Japanese player base as well as the updates come out. I hope that this is something that encourages people to keep playing the game and to play it for a long time to come and to really enjoy what they’re playing and seeing all the secrets and things that they have, because these are things that, again, are going to be not spoiled because it’s all coming out at the same time once the game gets released in the West. TA: One of my favorite aspects of FuRyu games is always the art and music. That’s usually consistently very good. I wanted to know, are there any plans after all the DLC is out to have a Japanese release of the full art book covering everything and a full soundtrack? TAKUMI: At the moment there are no plans specifically to do either of the things that you mentioned, but in regards to the music I really think Shimomura-san made a fantastic soundtrack and I would love to be able to get that out there to people in some fashion. So, hopefully we can do it, but there are currently no plans. TA: Unrelated to Reynatis which we’ve covered a lot, I wanted to know what you’ve been playing outside of work in the last year, like in 2024, which you’ve enjoyed a lot, and what platforms you’ve been playing on? TAKUMI: So for this year, I played Tears of the Kingdom and I played Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Generally speaking, due to everything going on with Reynatis, I have a feeling that I didn’t get to play as much as I would have liked for everything else, but those are the two ones that I remember playing the most. Platform-wise, I probably played most on PS5. As an addition, I’m a huge Disney fan and I’m also a big fan of Star Wars. All the information coming out about the new Star Wars materials has gotten, like, kind of reawakened that fire that I have, for the Star Wars property, so I’ve really been enjoying Jedi Survivor. TA: What project that you’ve worked on so far is your favorite. If it is Reynatis, talk about another one as well. TAKUMI: So I’ve only worked on two games: Trinity Trigger and Reynatis. To talk about Trinity Trigger, I was only the director on that game so I didn’t have the opportunity to do anything on the Producer’s role so thinking about the broader scope of things and how to reach out to customers on that. That’s something I felt was an area missing for me. I really wanted to do it. As a result of having that feeling on Trinity Trigger, I was able to, when the time came to Reynatis, I was able to take on the role of Producer, Creative Producer, and Director and therefore I was able to do everything that I wanted to do in this game. To oversee every single aspect of it. By the same token, because Trinity Trigger was the first game I had worked on and I directed, I was able to do a lot of what I wanted to do with it. It is of course a title to him that remains really deep in his memory, but the game that I have the most affection for is Reynatis. TA: For a lot of people, when they see FuRyu’s games, there are quite a few available on current platforms. Reynatis has the most hype. What would you like to say to folks who are excited for this who have not played a FuRyu game before? TAKUMI: One of the things that I feel is most representative of FuRyu titles in general, is that they all have a very strong theme. If you look at each and every one of these games, the theme is very strong. The message reaching out to people is very strong. Reyantis is no different. This might be a rough or harsh way to put it, but if there are people who feel that they are weak, if there are people out there who feel like they are being put down by society, they can’t live and carry out their lives like they want to, I want you to play Reynatis. One of the big themes in the game is that within Japanese society itself, there’s a very famous expression that you’ve probably heard many times before: “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down" People in Japan have a tendency to go with the flow, and supplement themselves into what the rest of society wants them to do or say, and as a result of that, many people kind of feel really pressured and they’re stifled within what they actually want to do. Whether it be in Japan or outside, if you feel that way, this is absolutely the game for you. The message within this is very strong and I feel like it will resonate with people who feel like they maybe are put down by society or that they are not a place they want to be in society. Going back to what we spoke about before, while the game might not be able to compete in the arena of graphics or richness in setting, the game does have a message that resonates just as strongly as for Final Fantasy VII if not more. I believe it can compete and beat it in that. I think that because the message in the game is so strong, it will remain in people’s hearts and minds and it will be something that will be a really positive and memorable experience for them. I hope people pick up the game for those reasons. This part of the interview with Yoko Shimomura and Kazushige Nojima was conducted over email. TA: How did you get involved in the Reynatis project? Yoko Shimomura: Via a sudden attack from TAKUMI. (laughs) TA: What have you learned composing for games for many years now and how do you implement these learnings in your future compositions and recent ones like Reynatis? Yoko Shimomura: It’s difficult to put into words. I think that experience does become a new power, but I mainly compose via feeling, so turning that into words is difficult. TA: My favorite soundtracks done by you are definitely LIVE A LIVE, Radiant Historia, and Street Fighter II. I’m very curious about the Reynatis soundtrack. What has been your favorite part of working on it so far? Yoko Shimomura: Thank you! The night before recording, even though I was totally worn out mentally and physically, I just had more and more compositions flowing out of me, which was fun. (laughs) I was really ablaze with the idea, “I’m definitely going to finish this!" TA: As a composer you have a very distinct style that when someone hears a work by you, they know you composed it. How do you feel that your style is recognizable through multiple iterations of technology? Yoko Shimomura: I wonder! I get told that a lot, but I don’t really understand it myself. People have said that in the past, my compositions tended to be different based on the work, so there isn’t really a feel that they were all composed by me. I think maybe my style hadn’t quite come out yet. TA: Were you inspired by any other games when working on the Reynatis soundtrack? Yoko Shimomura: I wasn’t influenced by any other work in particular. TA: You’ve worked on the scenarios of many of my favorite games of all time. How do you approach different games today compared to how you worked in the 90s? Kazushige Nojima: It depends on the game genre. For games where the narrative comes first, players today want a character who is a convincing portryal of a fully-fledged person, rather than a character that is an avatar for the player, as was common in the past. In that case, it then becomes important to give the world the character inhabits a sense of presence. I do like those old games that were more akin to a fairytale, though. I’d like to work on one again in the future. TA: How did you get involved with this project? Kazushige Nojima: I received a call from my old acquaintance, the composer Ms. Shimomura. She asked if it was OK to share my contact info with TAKUMI. Things started from there. TA: Is it influenced by Versus XIII in any way? Kazushige Nojima: I didn’t think it was when I was writing it, but I can’t say for certain. TA: Having now seen the game’s scenario all the way, what is your favorite aspect of it, and what do you think fans of your other work should pay attention to here? Kazushige Nojima: It’s difficult to answer this while avoiding spoilers. I think that Marin’s change in mannerisms [throughout the course of the game] is well-depicted. TA: What have you enjoyed playing this year and have you played Reynatis yet? Kazushige Nojima: I’ve been doing nothing but dying in it, but I’ve enjoyed ELDEN RING. I’ve also enjoyed Dragon’s Dogma 2. Embarassingly enough, I’m only partway through REYNATIS. Sure enough, I’m just not good at action games, so for the games I mentioned, I’m enjoying the atmosphere of their worlds. I think the game I’ve played the most of is Euro Truck Simulator. TA: So now the last question is for everyone here. How do you like your coffee? TAKUMI: I don’t actually like coffee. *laughs* I don’t like things that are really bitter. I generally go for iced tea or black tea. If I’m going to drink coffee, I’m going to put a ton of cream, milk, or sugar to drink it. It is kind of funny that in university, I worked at Starbucks so I had to know a lot about coffee, so it is kind of funny that way. Alan Costa: I like coffee with milk or soy milk. If I’m drinking iced coffee, I like just an americano with just ice and no sugar. The two responses below were via email. Yoko Shimomura: I like iced tea. I drink it all the time. I like doubling up [on the bags] to make it strong. Kazushige Nojima: Black. And strong. I’d like to thank TAKUMI, Alan Costa, Chihiro MacLeese, Mr Sonobe, Anna Lee, and Lottie Diao for their time and help with this interview. Editor’s note: I unfortunately lost the recording I took myself where the other attendees from NIS America and FuRyu mentioned how they had their coffee and could only include these two. You can keep up with all our interviews here including our recent ones with FuturLab here, Shuhei Matsumoto from Capcom about Marvel Vs Capcom here, Santa Ragione here, Peter ‘Durante’ Thoman about PH3 and Falcom here, M2 discussing shmups and more here, Digital Extremes for Warframe mobile, Team NINJA, Sonic Dream Team, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and more. As usual, thanks for reading.

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 6th, 2024. Well, this is the last one. You’ll …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring ‘Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku’, Plus New Releases, Sales, and Good-Byes"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 6th, 2024. Well, this is the last one. You’ll see one more special from me next week with a few reviews that have specific embargo dates, but this is the final regular SwitchArcade Round-Up for TouchArcade by yours truly. We’ve been at this for several years and I wish I could have seen the Switch through to its end with these articles, but circumstances dictate another course. We’re going out with another chunky one, with a pair of reviews from our pal Mikhail, a pair of Shaun reviews, a handful of new release summaries, and the usual lists of new and expiring sales. Let’s ride one last time! Reviews & Mini-Views Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU ($49.99) After Imagineer’s success with the Fitness Boxing games that led to the hilarious but good Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star, I didn’t know what IP the team would work with for a new fitness game. When Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU was announced, I thought it was a smart collaboration, but was curious to see how the game felt after Fist of the North Star. I’ve been playing it over the last few weeks alongside Ring Fit Adventure and I’m impressed with Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU in many ways. If you’re new to the Fitness Boxing series, these games, as the name suggests, use boxing and rhythm game movements to get you into shape through daily exercises, mini-games that also get you sweating, and more. With Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU, everyone’s favorite vocaloid gets in on the action and there’s even a separate dedicated mode for her songs in addition to the normal songs included in this release. Keep in mind that this is a Joy-Con only game so you can’t play it with a Pro Controller or any third party accessories as far as I’m aware. As with other games in the series, there are difficulty options, a free training mode to do as you please, warmups, and tracking with reminders and the systemwide alarm that can remind you even if your Switch is in sleep mode. There are cosmetics you can unlock through the points you earn by playing as well. I can’t comment on the DLC yet, but as for the base release, I liked Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU more than Fist of the North Star aside from one issue. The audio in Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU is great, but the main instructor’s voice isn’t great. I ended up turning this voice down because it felt out of place with the rest of the game, and just sounded a bit weirdly directed. Just like the Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star release from Imagineer, Fitness Boxing feat. HATSUNE MIKU is a solid fitness-focused game that does a great job of bringing Miku to the world of Fitness Boxing to try and appeal to her fans. While it is a competent fitness game with its daily workout, customization, and tracking, I feel like it would be better as a complement to something like Ring Fit Adventure or your own other exercise routine rather than being the sole exercise you do during the week. -Mikhail Madnani SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 Magical Delicacy ($24.99) Magical Delicacy from sKaule and Whitethorn Games is one I hadn’t paid much attention to until a friend of mine linked me to an Xbox Game Pass announcement for it. Since then, I’ve played it on Switch as well, but feel like it needs a bit more time in the oven. I adore Metroidvania-style platformers and cooking games, but it feels like Magical Delicacy takes the good bits of both genres while not putting them together in the best way possible. This results in a game I adore in parts, but one where the flaws hurt a bit more. You play as Flora who is a young witch in a story that’s equal parts mysterious, magical, and wholesome. Your aim is to cook meals and craft for various folks, and I was surprised at how well the exploration was implemented aside from the backtracking that annoyed me sometimes. I expected it to be lacking compared to the cooking and crafting, but the team nailed the Metroidvania elements. There are some issues with ingredients in the crafting and in how inventory is managed. This is made a bit worse by the UI that I took a while to get used to with interaction. Magical Delicacy makes a great first impression with its gorgeous pixel art visuals, lovely music, and tons of settings. The latter includes UI scale and text options that are both very useful when playing on Switch in handheld mode. I feel like Magical Delicacy would have benefited a lot from an early access release or will from potential updates. When it comes to the Switch version, it plays very well aside from some seemingly frame pacing-related hiccups. It has good rumble as well. Having played it on Xbox Series X, this is definitely a game I’d play more on a portable so a Switch or Steam Deck version would be best. I just play the genre more on handhelds. Magical Delicacy is a game I should’ve loved given it is basically a blend of a Metroidvania and a crooking/crafting game, but it feels a little undercooked (I couldn’t resist) in parts thanks to some inventory and backtracking issues. While it is a very good game right now that feels at home on Switch, a few quality of life updates and polishing will make it an essential. -Mikhail Madnani SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 Aero The Acro-Bat 2 ($5.99) A lot of companies tried their hand at the whole mascot platformer thing in the 16-bit era in the wake of Sonic the Hedgehog‘s explosive success. Like, the sheer number of them is just baffling. Even more than I remembered. Not many of them managed to see sequels, but Aero The Acro-Bat is part of that elite few. How each member of that club got there is its own story, but in Aero’s case it seems to have been a combination of the first game going over well enough, and sheer force of will to try and make fetch happen. Sadly, fetch did not happen. Aero spin-off Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel launched several months after Aero 2, but outside of that Aero was never seen in another original title again. Does that make Aero The Acro-Bat 2 a bad game? I don’t think so. It doesn’t seem like it was a big enough success to merit another follow-up, at the very least. But then again, Sunsoft’s parent company had recently lost a ton of money on a bad investment involving golf courses, and that certainly put it in a fiscally conservative mood for a while. Either way, I don’t think the fault can be placed on the quality of the game. It’s as good as the first game was, with all that implies. A more polished experience that in shedding some of those rough edges loses some of its character, but a decent enough platforming romp. I was fully expecting this release to be in Ratalaika’s usual emulation wrapper, but much to my surprise there’s been an upgrade in the presentation. This feels a lot more tailor-made for the game, and in terms of both options and extras I think this is a far better experience overall. Box and manual scans, achievements, a gallery of sprite sheets, a jukebox, a bunch of cheats, and more. I frankly have no complaints at all about how the game plays and the suite of features here. The only nit I will pick is that you only get the Super NES version of the game here. I feel like the SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive version should have been included too, just to keep everyone happy. Those who enjoyed Aero The Acro-Bat should naturally give Aero The Acro-Bat 2 a shot. I even think those who were slightly put off by the first game’s quirks might have a better time here. I really have to commend Ratalaika for stepping up its game with the emulation wrapper for this release. Perhaps I’m being greedy, but I’d love to see the first game updated with a similar interface just for consistency. A fine release for Aero fans and those on the look out for 16-bit platformers to play, and one that makes me optimistic for the remaining reissues of this series. SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5 Metro Quester | Osaka ($19.99) I got quite a bit of enjoyment out of the original Metro Quester when it released a while back. It’s a bit of a bear to get into, but once you understand its rules and what you have to do, it’s an immensely satisfying dungeon-crawling turn-based RPG. Experimenting with party builds to try to find the optimal team was a task I truly enjoyed taking on. With that in mind, I was very happy to see that there was another game in the series coming. Metro Quester | Osaka feels a little more like an expansion pack than a proper sequel, but I’m more than happy with that given how much I got out of the original. The story here is a prequel to the original game, and we’ve moved to Osaka as a setting. You get a whole new dungeon to explore, and some new character types to do that exploring with. Osaka is a much wetter location, so you’ll need to use your canoe to travel over the water in places. With the new dungeon comes new weapons, skills, and enemies to deal with. Definitely more to chew on here for those who have wrung out the original game, and if you had a good time there then you will enjoy this one, too. That said, this game shares much of its broader mechanics with the original Metro Quester. If you need an explanation, please check out my review of that game for more details. Short version: turn-based combat, top-down dungeon exploration, and a whole lot of inching your way outward a little further each time before having to head back to camp. You know, the good stuff. Those who are careless will find themselves in hot water very quickly, as planning and cautious play is practically a necessity in this game. Those who found themselves fully absorbed in Metro Quester will find plenty to enjoy in Metro Quester | Osaka, and new players should probably just skip right to this game. It’s more of an expansion pack than a sequel, but that in no way should be taken as a bad thing. Rather, it just seems like the designer wanted to send players on another adventure that pushes out the existing systems in some fascinating ways. It’s certainly a game you’ll have to be patient with to get the most out of, but those willing to invest the time will enjoy the dividends. SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 Select New Releases NBA 2K25 ($59.99) NBA 2K is back… in 25 form! You know, I find myself wondering something. What happens to the name of this series when we hit the year 2100? NBA 2K100? Just feels weird. We’ll have to talk about that when the situation arises, I suppose. Apparently this year’s version has improved gameplay, a new feature called Neighborhood, and some nonsense about MyTEAM. I’m not going to pretend to know what’s going on here, so instead I will just toss out the amount of space you’ll need on your memory card for this game and then move on. Here we go. 53.3 GB! Shogun Showdown ($14.99) Got room in your heart for another riff on Darkest Dungeon? This one has a Japanese-inspired setting, and there are a few bits in here that change things up a little. Setting all of that aside, this is very much a familiar style of game and I think it’s a decent enough example of such to be of interest to those on the hunt for another one. Aero The Acro-Bat 2 ($5.99) Well, there’s a review up above this section, but in case you’re in the habit of skipping down the page, let me fill you in. This is the somewhat more polished sequel to the successful Aero The Acro-Bat, all done up in Ratalaika’s emulator wrapper. Said wrapper was given additional effort for this release, and it looks good! The version of the game included is the Super NES one, and you can play the North American release or the Japanese one. I wish the Genesis/Mega Drive version was in here, but I can’t imagine Aero fans being unhappy with this overall outside of that. Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection ($9.99) Sunsoft is back! Okay, Sunsoft has been back for a while now, and you probably don’t need a trio of heretofore non-localized Famicom games to sell you on that. So instead let the games sell you on themselves, as you get a trio of unique and varied titles in this bunch. A side-scrolling action platformer, an adventure game, and an action-RPG of sorts. I reviewed this set a couple of days ago, so I advise checking that out if you need more details. Short version: if you like weird old games, this is a good pick-up. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Some fun stuff in the inbox today, including a really good price on the Cosmic Fantasy Collection. A little dear at its normal price, but at 40% off I think it is worth considering for retro RPG fans. I’ll also call out the enjoyable platformer Tinykin, which is at its lowest price yet. Have a good look through those lists and see what catches your eye. Select New Sales Zombie Army Trilogy ($8.74 from $34.99 until 9/12) Zombie Army 4: Dead War ($14.99 from $49.99 until 9/12) Wild Seas ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/12) Chants of Sennaar ($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) The House of Da Vinci 3 ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/13) Warhammer 40k: Boltgun ($15.39 from $21.99 until 9/13) Toziuha Night: Dracula’s Revenge ($1.99 from $4.99 until 9/16) Monkey Barrels ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Banchou Tactics ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/19) Transiruby ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Picontier ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/19) Kamiko ($1.99 from $4.99 until 9/19) Fairune Collection ($3.99 from $9.99 until 9/19) Alchemic Dungeons DX ($3.19 from $7.99 until 9/19) Ninja Smasher! ($6.39 from $7.99 until 9/19) Ninja Striker! ($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/19) Great Ambition of the Slimes ($9.59 from $11.99 until 9/19) Shinobi Non Grata ($11.99 from $14.99 until 9/19) Let’s Build a Zoo ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/20) Owlboy ($8.74 from $24.99 until 9/20) Hakuoki: Wind & Blossom ($44.99 from $49.99 until 9/20) Omen of Sorrow ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/20) Dungeonoid 2 Awakening ($4.49 from $8.99 until 9/20) The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt CE ($23.99 from $59.99 until 9/22) Knights of Grayfang ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Gale of Windoria ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Justice Chronicles ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Armed Emeth ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Jinshin ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Alphadia Genesis ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Grace of Letoile ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/26) Tinykin ($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/26) Despot’s Game ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Cosmic Fantasy Collection ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/26) Cosmic Fantasy ($15.90 from $26.50 until 9/26) Cosmic Fantasy 2 ($15.90 from $26.50 until 9/26) Spirittea ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Punch Club 2: Fast Forward ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Railway Empire 2 ($37.49 from $49.99 until 9/26) Lil’ Guardsman ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Potion Craft Alchemist Simulator ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Euphoria ($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/26) Of The Red, the Light, & Ayakashi ($25.06 from $50.13 until 9/26) Modern Combat Blackout ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/26) The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/26) Arrest of a Stone Buddha ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/26) Fading Afternoon ($16.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Astor: Blade of the Monolith ($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/26) Tamarak Trail ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/26) Rigid Force Redux ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Yaga ($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/26) Rabi-Ribi ($13.99 from $19.99 until 9/26) Sales Ending This Weekend Dead in Vinland: True Viking ($2.79 from $27.99 until 9/7) Gunslugs ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Gunslugs 2 ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Heroes of Loot ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Heroes of Loot 2 ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/7) Meganoid ($5.39 from $8.99 until 9/7) NOISZ re:||COLLECTION G ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/7) Phoenotopia: Awakening ($6.99 from $19.99 until 9/7) Space Grunts ($8.39 from $13.99 until 9/7) Stardash ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/7) Superhot ($9.99 from $24.99 until 9/7) Dormitory Love ($24.49 from $34.99 until 9/8) Dying Light: Definitive Edition ($9.99 from $49.99 until 9/8) Fur Squadron ($2.79 from $6.99 until 9/8) Tchia: Oleti Edition ($23.44 from $34.99 until 9/8) That’s all for today, this week, this month, this year, and forever, friends. I haven’t been very loud about this, but this is not only the end of the SwitchArcade Round-Up, but also of my eleven and a half years at TouchArcade. I’ll still be writing here and there at my blog at Post Game Content as well as putting up exclusive articles on my Patreon, but other than that I think I’m hanging up the ol’ webs on this specific kind of work. Twenty-six years in this end of the business is a good run, and I’m ready for new challenges. Do look for me at one of the aforementioned places, hit me up on BlueSky and say hi, and if you’re a fancy executive looking to hire a very seasoned writer, I’m your guy. With that said, I will extend the highest possible gratitude to all of TouchArcade’s readers for being with me on this leg of my life’s journey. I treasure all of you more than you can know. I wish you all the sincerest happiness in your lives, and forever and always – thanks for reading.

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. If you missed my Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2 Steam …

Continue reading "Steam Deck Weekly: NBA 2K25, ARCO, ODDADA, DATE a LIVE Ren Dystopia, Star Trucker, Skull and Bones, & More Reviews With New Verified Games"

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. If you missed my Warhammer 40000: Space Marine 2 Steam Deck review, read it here. Today’s article focuses on Steam Deck impressions and reviews for many games I’ve been playing over the last few weeks with the Steam Deck Verified games and one notable set of discounts on right now. Steam Deck Game Reviews & Impressions NBA 2K25 Steam Deck Review While many scoff at yearly sports releases, I’ve always been a fan of 2K’s NBA games despite the issues. NBA 2K25 is notable for a few reasons. The first is that this is the first time since the PS5 generation began that the PC version of NBA 2K25 is actually the “Next Gen" version rather than being based on the older consoles. The second reason is that the official PC FAQ confirmed that NBA 2K25 is optimized for Steam Deck. While it doesn’t have an official rating from Valve yet, this was great to see. Now that I’ve played NBA 2K25 on Steam Deck and also both consoles thanks to review codes and buying a disc, I’m more than pleased with the game, but it has some of the usual issues you’d expect. If you’ve been playing NBA 2K on PC for a few years, the standout features of this year’s entry are the ProPLAY technology for improved gameplay which has only been on PS5 and Xbox Series X prior to NBA 2K25. WNBA also makes its PC debut with NBA 2K25 alongside the MyNBA mode. If you ended up skipping the last few years of NBA 2K games on PC in the hope of getting the full experience, NBA 2K25 is it for sure, and I hope it does well enough se we keep seeing not only the Next Gen version on PC, but also 2K doing good work on Steam Deck. On PC and Steam Deck, NBA 2K25 has 16:10 and 800p support which is already a good sign. Beyond that, it has AMD FSR 2, DLSS, and XeSS support, but I disabled this. I’ll get into why a bit later. You can also adjust v-sync, dynamic v-sync that targets 90fps during gameplay and 45fps outside that (including The City), toggle HDR (yes it works on Steam Deck), texture detail, overall quality, and two shader options. I recommend letting the game cache all the shaders on initial boot for the best possible experience during gameplay. For some reason, NBA 2K25 on Steam Deck does a quick shader cache on each boot. It isn’t too long but is notable. The NBA 2K25 PC graphics options have an advanced menu with many options including shader detail, shadow detail, player detail, crowd detail, NPC density, volumetric effects, reflections, era filters, global illumination, ambient occlusion, TAA, motion blur, depth of field, bloom, and max anisotropy. This is quite a feature packed PC port when it comes to settings. I left most on low or medium with turning off the upscaling since it made gameplay look a bit too blurry. The main settings I left at medium were player level and shader detail. I also capped the game to 60fps at 60hz using the Steam Deck quick access menu. This provided the best and most stable experience with better clarity than the defaults. Speaking of the default, if you don’t care about adjusting any settings, the game has a Steam Deck visual preset which works fine out of the box, but it looked a bit too blurry for my liking. This is what made me play around with the settings over the last few days. I was curious if NBA 2K25 is playable offline. I know many of the modes require an internet connection but what happens if you try booting up the game when not online? When trying this on my Steam Deck OLED in airplane mode with wifi turned off, the game booted up but didn’t let me load MyCAREER or MyTEAM. There’s a Connect option in the menu to retry connection, but I could get into quick play and eras fine while offline. I noticed some load times were quicker when offline as well. When looking at the console versions, NBA 2K25 is a much better experience than Steam Deck technically, but I find myself playing it more on Valve’s handheld after years of enjoying these games on Switch and more-recently on Steam Deck. The biggest differentiator is the load times. Even on my Steam Deck OLED’s internal SSD, NBA 2K25 doesn’t load as fast as PS5 or Xbox Series X. It isn’t as bad as older systems, but this was a notable difference. Beyond that, keep in mind that there is no crossplay for the PC version with both consoles. As with every recent NBA 2K, the microtransactions are still a problem. This is important if you want to play some of the modes that have a focus on them. If you just want to get this to have a great looking and playing basketball game, they might as well not exist, but keep that in mind when you make your purchase since NBA 2K25 is a $69.99 game on PC as opposed to being priced lower for the last few years. With NBA 2K25, the Steam Deck now delivers a fantastic portable basketball experience at feature parity with PS5 and Xbox Series X. With a bit of tweaking, it looks and runs great, and I’m glad to see 2K finally bring all the features to PC after many years. If you own a Steam Deck and were hoping for a good experience with NBA 2K25, 2K and Visual Concepts have delivered. Just be aware of the microtransactions in some of the game modes though. NBA 2K25 Steam Deck review score: 4/5 Gimmick! 2 Steam Deck Impressions If you’re not familiar with Gimmick! 2 yet, read Shaun’s review of the Switch version here. I was curious to see how it felt on Steam Deck. As of this writing, Gimmick! 2 hasn’t been tested by Valve, but it runs fine out of the box. In fact, it even has a mention of Steam Deck and Linux fixes in its newest patch. Gimmick! 2 is currently capped at 60fps on Steam Deck, and I even recommend forcing your Steam Deck screen to 60hz if you play on an OLED to avoid any jitter issues. There are no graphics options at all, but it does seem to support 16:10 display by default for the menus at least. When I forced the game to run at 1080p on the Steam Deck’s own screen, I wanted to make sure the game wasn’t stretching the visuals like some others do. I can confirm it indeed supports 16:10 properly after making sure of the aspect ratio of the UI and other elements. This only applies to menus though as the actual gameplay runs at 16:9. While I was hoping to see Gimmick! 2 support above 60fps, it isn’t a deal breaker or even close. I wouldn’t be surprised if this gets Steam Deck Verified soon because it runs perfectly out of the box. As for the game itself, I definitely agree with Shaun’s review linked above. I’m just glad to see Gimmick! 2 run so well out of the box on Steam Deck. Arco Steam Deck Mini Review Arco is a game I adored from the get go, but it felt like it was a few updates away from greatness. The dynamic turn-based RPG with pixel art visuals and a lovely story hit PC and Switch a few weeks ago, and it has gotten a major update on Steam already fixing most of my issues. As of this writing, the update isn’t live on Switch and I decided to review the Steam Deck version since that is the most up to date right now. When looking at Arco trailers, you might think it is just a nice looking tactical game. Well, it is a lot more than that, and the combat system is very interesting. In fact, the audio and story surprised me the most. Arco has you experiencing different stories with characters that have unique gameplay styles (in a way). While it is a turn-based affair, there are real-time elements. I saw someone call it Superhot meets a pixel art tactical RPG and I feel like that isn’t giving you the full picture, but it is a glimpse into the kind of blend of gameplay you can expect here. On Steam Deck, Arco ships Verified from the get go, and I had no issues playing it on both my Steam Decks. It is capped to 60fps as far as I can tell and has 16:9 support only. The current build on Steam Deck includes an assist mode (beta) letting you skip combat, get infinite dynamite, and more. These are good to have if you want to skip the combat, but I’m happiest about the option to skip the first act when replaying the game. On paper, Arco seemed like it would be very good, but I didn’t expect to love it as much as I do now. It feels dynamic across the board with superb visuals, music, and a lovely story. If you want an interesting tactical RPG with a memorable story, get Arco right now. There’s even a free demo you can try on Steam right now. Arco Steam Deck review score: 5/5 Skull and Bones Steam Deck Steam Deck Mini Review Skull and Bones is an interesting release to cover. It launched on PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC earlier this year, but wasn’t on Steam until just over a week ago. Having never played it before, I wasn’t sure what to expect aside from a friend of mine telling me he enjoyed it despite its many flaws on Xbox. I was also curious to see how it felt on Steam Deck as a current generation console title, but Ubisoft posting about it being playable gave me some hope. For this review, I’m focusing on the Steam Deck port more than the game. On Steam Deck, Skull and Bones has an official Valve rating of being Playable. On booting it up for the first time, you have to login to your Ubisoft Connect account and this process isn’t smooth because the interface feels sluggish. I was hoping it would just pick up my details since I logged into Ubisoft Connect for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, but I had to do it again for Skull and Bones. Beyond that, the tutorial runs fine, but I wanted to get more stable performance. I set it to a 30fps frame rate limit and it runs at 16:10 and 800p. I opted for FSR 2 quality upscaling as well, though performance is more stable with the performance upscaling preset. I left everything else on low aside from textures which I set to high. I found this delivered a good experience overall. As for Skull and Bones as a game itself, I’m still early on since I’ve only played it for just over a week now, but I see the potential here. If Ubisoft keeps supporting it, it will be an easier recommendation. It is already a better experience than before looking at what was added in recent updates. Skull and Bones is a hard game to recommend at full price, but I do recommend checking out the free trial. I enjoy naval combat and open world Ubisoft games, and Skull and Bones with all its updates so far is good, but it has potential to be better. If you do plan on playing Skull and Bones on Steam Deck, keep in mind that it is an online only experience. I will likely grab it on console to also play there with cross progression. Skull and Bones Steam Deck review score: TBA ODDADA Steam Deck Review I love interactive toys like Townscaper because they are excellent at letting me spend a few minutes trying to create something cool. When ODDADA was announced, it felt like the next great interactive toy for me, and that’s exactly what it ended up being with a small caveat in its controls. ODDADA is not technically a game, but a music maker hybrid that feels like a game. The aesthetic reminds me of Windosill in a way, but it really is a gorgeous and elegant little toolbox with a plethora of ways for you to create something special. You interact with it using a mouse or touch controls on Steam Deck, and slowly progress through the different levels and instruments working your way to the end. The randomness element makes it so every creation sounds and feels different. On Steam Deck, I mentioned ODDADA has no controller support yet, but it runs perfectly at 90fps out of the box. There are a few graphics options like resolution, v-sync, and anti-aliasing toggles. You don’t need to worry much about settings in this one, but the text in the menu is a bit small for Steam Deck. Aside from the lack of controller support, I have nothing bad to say about ODDADA. I would argue that even with full controller support, it will play best with touch or mouse controls, but I know some folks prefer a controller across the board. If you enjoy music, art, or just want to make your own music with a lovely little game, ODDADA is for you. In its current state, ODDADA doesn’t have controller support, but it plays perfectly with touch controls on Steam Deck. The team is working on getting it Steam Deck Verified so keep that in mind if you plan on purchasing it now or later. ODDADA Steam Deck review score: 4.5/5 Star Trucker Steam Deck Mini Review Sometimes, a game is released blending two genres together in a way that might not satiate either fanbase. These situations can result in a game that doesn’t hit as hard for anyone, but there’s also a chance that it manages to capture a new audience. I feel like Star Trucker is one of those with how it tries to do automobile simulation and space exploration at once, but without going too deep into either of those genres. This one hasn’t been rated by Valve, but I didn’t have any issues playing it on Proton Experimental right now. Your aim in Star Trucker is to explore space, take on jobs, earn money, and unlock more to do on the massive galactic map. It includes many difficulty options and the ability to tweak things as you like before starting a new game. While I love the gameplay loop, the real highlights are the visuals, writing, and voiced banter on the radio. On PC and Steam Deck, Star Trucker lets you adjust video mode, resolution (16:10 support included), refresh rate, v-sync, graphics quality, render scale, shadow quality, temporal anti-aliasing, ambient occlusion, mesh detail, and light shafts. I opted to use a custom preset with low shadows but left everything else at normal. I also turned off temporal anti-aliasing. This was good enough for a 40fps or so target. I’m sure someone will find a better compromise in visuals for improved performance, but I was happy with this while playing. The major issues holding Star Trucker back are the controls that took me a good while to get used to. I hope these see some improvements in updates. Star Trucker surprised me with its blend of truck simulation and its setting in a way I didn’t think was possible. This feels like a game catering to what I enjoy a lot in automobile simulation and exploration games. While it might not be for everyone, I’ve enjoyed playing Star Trucker quite a bit ever since I got review code on Steam Deck. I hope the developers optimize it a bit more for Valve’s handheld though. Star Trucker Steam Deck review score: 4/5 DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia Steam Deck Mini Review Originally released in Japan on PS4 only back in 2020, Sting and Idea Factory’s DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia has made its way to the West only on Steam, and it is a great follow up to DATE A LIVE: Rio Reincarnation. If you’re not familiar with it, Date A Live is a light novels series from Koshi Tachibana with illustrations by Tsunako. DATE A LIVE: Rio Reincarnation was a great introduction to that world, and every fan of that release needs to play DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia. DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia has you playing as Shido who has a dream about a girl named Ren, and this is where the narrative begins with multiple paths and returning characters. There are many choices to make as you’d expect, and it is all accompanied by very good art from Tsunako. DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia feels more lighthearted across the board, and it serves as a perfect compliment and follow-up to DATE A LIVE: Rio Reincarnation. I’m just surprised it took this long to see it released in English. DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia runs perfectly on Stema Deck out of the box. I didn’t need to change anything. It has 16:9 support at 720p and plays all cut-scenes without issues out of the box. I recommend checking the system settings to ensure the confirm button is set to A and not B. Also make sure it isn’t stretching the 16:9 image to 16:10 in fullscreen mode. DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia is an easy recommendation for fans of DATE A LIVE: Rio Reincarnation with its lovely art, music, and memorable characters. I don’t recommend playing it before Rio Reincarnation though. DATE A LIVE: Ren Dystopia Steam Deck Review Score: 4/5 Total War: PHARAOH DYNASTIES Steam Deck Review Impressions I can’t recall the last time I’ve seen a free game update or re-launch get a new store page on Steam, but that’s what happened with Total War: PHARAOH DYNASTIES. When SEGA reached out asking if I wanted to try the update early, I figured it would just be early access to the update, but not a brand new app on Steam. I always thought Total War: PHARAOH was good and had potential, but it clearly wasn’t ready for a full price launch when it debuted. Fast forward to today, Total War: PHARAOH DYNASTIES is exactly what the original should’ve been, and it is an easy recommendation on PC, but the Steam Deck version has some caveats. Total War: PHARAOH DYNASTIES builds on the original by nearly doubling the main campaign content, adding in four new factions, the Dynasty system, and tons of improvements to existing areas of the game. If you already own Total War: PHARAOH, Total War: PHARAOH DYNASTIES will feel like a sequel in some ways, but also an enhanced re-release in others. It is a great game right now. On Steam Deck, Total War: PHARAOH DYNASTIES still doesn’t have controller support, but it is playable with the trackpad and touch controls. I’m still playing it on and off to see how it feels, but my initial impressions are very positive as someone who enjoyed the original Total War: PHARAOH but thought it needed more work. Pinball FX Steam Deck Impressions Shaun has been talking about Zen Studios’ Pinball FX series so much over the years, that I’ve always wanted to check it out on a handheld. I ended up getting some of the tables for older games on Switch before, but with the new digital version of the game simply titled Pinball FX out on Steam since last year, I was curious how it would play on Steam Deck. When the two new DLC tables were released, I downloaded the game on Steam Deck to see how it and the DLC tables felt. What surprised me the most is the PC port features, and how it plays on Steam Deck. I’ve not played every single DLC table so I can’t comment on how the game will run there, but having access to a lot of PC graphics options including proper HDR support on Steam Deck makes it hard to not recommend at least downloading the free client to see how you find it. As for the gameplay, I’ve played about 7 tables since getting the game, and I love this release. I’m looking forward to covering more of these tables in the future, but Pinball FX feels like a love letter to the world of pinball. While not a review, Pinball FX is absolutely worth your time on Steam Deck. Even if you don’t want to buy anything, I recommend grabbing the free to play version on Steam to access a few of the tables at no additional cost. This will let you see how the game looks and runs on Steam Deck as well as sampling a bit of the many tables available as paid DLC. New Steam Deck Verified & Playable games for the week I’m surprised Black Myth: Wukong is marked Unsupported and not Playable given it performs better than a lot of Verified games. I’m glad to see Hookah Haze and OneShot: World Machine Edition Verified this week. I’m looking forward to playing them both. Black Myth: Wukong – Unsupported (Read my review here showing it is playable) F1 Manager 2024 – Playable Hidden Through Time 2: Discovery – Playable Hookah Haze – Verified METAL SLUG ATTACK RELOADED – Verified OneShot: World Machine Edition – Verified Slash Quest – Verified Syberia – Verified Toree’s Panic Pack – Verified Volgarr the Viking II – Playable Steam Deck Game Sales, Discounts, and Specials Check out the Games from Croatia sale with discounts on the amazing Talos Principle series and much more this week. This sale is on until Monday morning. That’s all for this edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. As usual, you can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here. If you have any feedback for this feature or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. I hope you all have a great day, and thanks for reading.

Apple just announced October 2024’s new Apple Arcade games with NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition as the headliner. Following yesterday’s news …

Continue reading "‘NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition’ Headlines October 2024’s New Apple Arcade Releases With Three App Store Greats"

Apple just announced October 2024’s new Apple Arcade games with NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition as the headliner. Following yesterday’s news about Balatro, Apple confirmed that NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition will release on October 3rd with three App Store Greats. NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition is notable because it marks the debut of The Neighborhood on iOS letting you explore the immersive world, outdoor streetball courts, NBA legends recruiting, a new badge system, and more with limited-time quests planned. Check out the NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition gameplay screenshot below: Alongside NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition, we have Smash Hit+, Furistas Cat Cafe+, and Food Truck Pup+ joining Apple Arcade as App Store Greats. I’ve only played the first of those before so I will be checking out the others assuming I can stop playing Balatro+. If you’d like to sign up to get the new games, check out NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition here on Apple Arcade. With Balatro+ and NBA 2K25 Arcade Edition this is definitely the best month in a while for the service. What do you think of the newly revealed Apple Arcade games?

Well here it is, friends. This will be the last of my retro game eShop lists, mostly because I am …

Continue reading "The 10 Best PlayStation 1 Games on Nintendo Switch – SwitchArcade Special"

Well here it is, friends. This will be the last of my retro game eShop lists, mostly because I am running out of retro consoles with a good variety of games to choose from. I’ve left one of the best for last, though: the PlayStation. Sony’s first whack at the ol’ console market succeeded beyond any expectations, and it’s little wonder it built a library so full of great games that we still see re-releases to this day. Sure, these games gave Nintendo a black eye a quarter of a century ago, but it’s all smiles now for everyone who can enjoy them on their platforms of choice. We’ve got ten of our favorites here, in no particular order of course. On with the PlaySta-Show! Klonoa: The Door to Phantomile – Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series ($39.99) Klonoa is a really great game that probably didn’t get as much attention as it deserved, but got enough that it didn’t go totally unnoticed. Probably one of the more successful 2.5D platformers on the console, even. You play as a little floppy-eared cat-creature who is navigating the world of dreams to stop a dangerous threat. Vibrant visuals, snappy gameplay, interesting bosses, and a surprisingly impactful story for what it is. The second game, originally released on PlayStation 2, isn’t quite as good as the first, but you have to get them as a set anyway. Final Fantasy VII ($15.99) This is one of the big ones, isn’t it? The Japanese RPG that finally woke the wider Western market up to the genre, Square Enix’s biggest success ever, and one of the main instruments of the PlayStation’s rocket to the top of the business. Sure, there is that remake of Final Fantasy VII out there, but I hope by now that people realize what that really is. If you want to play the original Final Fantasy VII story, you’ll have to risk getting your eye poked out on some sharp polygons. Still a very good game, and it’s not hard to see why so many people took to it the way they did. Metal Gear Solid – Master Collection Version ($19.99) Another very big name from the PlayStation, Metal Gear Solid dragged a franchise that was more or less dormant into the spotlight of a much bigger stage. The Metal Gear Solid series got a lot sillier over time, and perhaps started gazing into its own belly button a little too deeply. But it’s hard to argue with this first game, which feels less like a bizarre trip through Kojima’s philosophical musings and more like an episode of GI Joe. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a very fun game to play, either. And hey, if you enjoy it enough, both of the PlayStation 2 follow-ups are available on Switch too. G-Darius HD ($29.99) Alright, let’s venture into the weeds again just a little bit. G-Darius took Taito’s classic shoot ’em up series into 3D, and it’s amazing just how well it made that transition. Sure, those chunky rough-textured polygons haven’t aged as well as the sprites in the 2D games, but there’s a real charm to them. The vivid colors, enjoyable enemy-catching mechanic, and creative bosses make for one heck of a solid shooter. Chrono Cross: The Radical Dreamers Edition ($19.99) I could almost fill this entire list with Square Enix games, but I’m going to leave it with this one and Final Fantasy VII just to give other games a chance. Chrono Cross had an impossible job: follow up one of the most well-liked Japanese RPGs ever made. And no, it couldn’t quite manage that task. People today do not speak of Chrono Cross the way they do Chrono Trigger, and that’s fair. But pull it away from that comparison and you’ll find a really clever and gorgeous RPG with a huge cast of (admittedly poorly developed in the main) characters to recruit and play with. Also, one of the best video game soundtracks of all time. Feel free to @ me, I’m right. Mega Man X4 – Mega Man X Legacy Collection ($19.99) I love just about every Mega Man game to some extent, but I am well aware that my vision is clouded by bias stemming from a severe case of childhood nostalgia. As such, when it comes to recommending games in the series with clearer eyes, there are only a few games in each series I feel good about putting in the hands of non-fans. With the Mega Man X series, it’s just two games: Mega Man X and Mega Man X4. While I enjoyed the games between them, X4 just feels like it has itself put together better than most of its siblings. This was a short-lived slice of balance, because things went off the rails again with the next game. But hey, don’t take my word for it – buy the Legacy Collections and see for yourself! Tomba! Special Edition ($19.99) You know, there were a lot of games published by Sony as first-party releases that it ended up not owning. I always assumed Tomba was as much a first-party property as Crash Bandicoot was, but… oh wait, I guess it was. Anyway, Tomba! is a really interesting platformer. It incorporates a lot of adventure game elements, but the action is on point too. Just don’t forget that that creator of Tomba! is the same guy behind Ghosts ‘n Goblins. It might seem breezy at first, but it’s going to challenge you as it goes on. Very neat game, and I’m glad it’s available again. Grandia – Grandia HD Collection ($39.99) Okay, technically Grandia was a SEGA Saturn game first, but the PlayStation port was clearly used as the basis of this HD release so I’m putting it here. Grandia comes from many of the same people who made Lunar, and it channels much of its spirit. In a time period where many RPGs were taking heavy cues from Evangelion, Grandia dared to be a bright and cheerful adventure. It also has a very satisfying combat system that builds on what Game Arts was doing with the Lunar games in strong ways. The other game in this set isn’t too shabby either. Tomb Raider – Tomb Raider I-III Remastered Starring Lara Croft ($29.99) Another true icon of the PlayStation era, Lara Croft had five adventures on the PlayStation by the time the console reached its end. The quality varied from game to game, and some of them were stronger at some things and weaker at others. If you asked me to pick the best one, I think I’d have to go with the original. It was more focused on actual raiding of tombs and less on action, and I think that was putting the best foot forward as far as the Core Design period of the franchise went. But this is another chance to make up your own mind, because you get the first three games here whether you like it or not. moon ($18.99) Let’s finish up with a deeper cut. Originally only released in Japan, moon was something of a deconstruction of the contemporary RPG. Indeed, its creators refer to it as an anti-RPG. In practice, it’s more of an adventure game than anything else, and it is very… punk? Can I call it punk? There are parts of the game that aren’t very fun at all, but it’s also not trying to be fun all the time. There’s an interesting message to this game if you see it through, and I’m glad we finally got to see this come out in English. And that’s the list, friends. Are there any PlayStation 1 games you enjoy on the Switch? Feel free to sound off down in the comments and let us know what you’re thinking! It’s always interesting to hear the opinions of others on this kind of thing. I hope everyone has enjoyed this series of articles as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. As always, thanks for reading!

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 5th, 2024. Thursday already, eh? Where does the time …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring ‘Emio – The Smiling Man’, Plus Today’s New Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 5th, 2024. Thursday already, eh? Where does the time go? We’re going in hard on the reviews again today. I have two for you, covering Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate. Our pal Mikhail chimes in today too, with his looks at Nour: Play With Your Food, Fate/stay night REMASTERED, and TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK. We then move into the finest new releases of the day, then sweep up with the lists of new and expiring sales. Ah, Thursday. I shall miss you when it is Friday. Let’s go! Reviews & Mini-Views Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club ($49.99) It seems like the latest trend is making sequels to decades-dormant franchises. Video games, always trying to be like Hollywood. Nintendo has rather unpredictably decided to resurrect Famicom Detective Club, a series mainly known in the West through the “blink and you’ll miss it" remake of the first two games that came out on Switch a couple of years back. I feel like there may be a connection here. At any rate, for the first time this millennium we have a brand new Famicom Detective Club adventure! That’s nifty. The challenge with bringing back an old brand is in deciding how faithful to the original the new game should be. The risk of being too faithful is that the game could be seen as old-fashioned or out of date, but change too much and there’s a chance fans could be completely turned off. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club leans more toward maintaining the style of the recent remakes, themselves hewing quite closely to the originals. It’s an odd blend, to be sure. The visuals are as good as anything you would see in similar games from modern times, and the story certainly pushes a little further than what the Nintendo of the 90s would have done even in Japan. But the gameplay feels very old-school, and I think that is a determining factor in whether or not you enjoy this game. A student is found dead with a paper bag over his head that has a smiling face on it. This digs up some old unsolved murders from eighteen years ago that featured a similar calling card, which raises all manner of questions. Then there is the urban legend about Emio, a killer who promises to give his victims an eternal smile. Has a previous killer resurfaced after all this time? Is it a copycat? Is there really any such thing as Emio? The cops are stumped, so it’s time to call in the Utsugi Detective Agency! Using the powers of going around to places and badgering people, you’ll do what the law enforcement was powerless to: find the truth! Basically, you’re searching around every scene for clues, talking to all of the people you meet (sometimes you need to press the issue and ask multiple times to get what you want), and trying to find the connections you’ll need to solve the case. Think of the sections of Ace Attorney outside of court and you’re not too far off the mark. Depending on how well you take to this kind of gameplay, you mind find parts of the game to be annoying or a slog. There are certainly bits I feel could have been handled more smoothly, and it feels like specific chains of logic needed just a little more signposting. Well, this is a Cat Hair Mustache genre, and I suppose by that standards Emio isn’t doing anything particularly egregious. And you know what? That’s where I’m going to leave it. I have some criticisms of the story, but I enjoyed it on the whole. It was engaging, twisty, and well-written. Some of the plot beats didn’t hit me the way it seems they hit others, but I can’t really talk about that in detail without ruining the story. And I really don’t want to do that, because this is a tale that is best experienced fresh. I liked more than I didn’t, and when it picks up it really picks up. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is not the sort of thing we typically see from Nintendo, but if there was any rust on the team it assuredly doesn’t show. It’s perhaps a little too adherent to the original games in its mechanics, and while the plot is mostly excellent there are some times where the pace falls off or things resolve in ways I didn’t find as satisfying as I would have ideally hoped for. Still, these are minor complaints for what is otherwise a thoroughly enjoyable mystery adventure. Welcome back, Detective Club. Don’t stay away so long this time. SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate ($29.99) We’re starting to get a nice little set of TMNT games on the Switch, aren’t we? You can enjoy the Konami classics in the Cowabunga Collection, get an incredible modern take on the arcade beat ’em up formula with Shredder’s Revenge, bring the modern arcade home in Wrath of the Mutants, and now satisfy your urge for something with a little more home console flavoring in Splintered Fate. There are a couple more on the way, too. We’re swimming in Turtles! With Turtles? Turtles, they’re everywhere. So how is this one? Not too shabby, actually. I mean, if you’ve played this on Apple Arcade then you know the deal, and if you’re reading this site then the odds are somewhat decent you have. But just in case, let’s go over the broad pitch. Basically, imagine taking a TMNT-style beat ’em up and blending it with Hades. Alright, that pretty much does it. You can go it alone in the usual roguelite style, or play with up to four players via local or online multiplayer. Mikhail and I did the online multiplayer thing together and it worked rather well, so that’s a good way to go. The game is fine when you’re on your own, but adding more people predictably improves the experience. That’s TMNT for you. Anyway, some kind of shenanigans occur with Shredder and a mysterious power. Splinter is in trouble, and the Turtles have to try to figure out how to save him. When all you have is a katana, every problem looks like a Foot Soldier. Slice, dice, and/or bludgeon whatever enemies come in front of you, dash tactically to avoid attacks, pick up some perks that you can enjoy in your current run, and collect another currency to score some permanent upgrades. If you die, it’s back to the lair to try again. Roguelite beat ’em up. But with the Turtles, so it’s automatically better than it would be without them. It isn’t particularly inspired, but it does its job well enough. I wouldn’t call Splintered Fate a must-have in general, but TMNT fans will probably enjoy this twist on the usual fare. The multiplayer is well-implemented, and it’s good to see that important TMNT element wasn’t passed over despite this being the kind of game that is usually played solo. Those without an affinity for the Turtles can find better roguelite games to play on the Switch, but with this being such an intensely competitive genre on the platform it’s to the credit of Splintered Fate that it can manage to keep pace at all. Not bad. SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5 Nour: Play With Your Food ($9.99) When Nour: Play With Your Food originally released on PC and PS5, I was a bit surprised to see it not also released on Switch and mobile. It felt like a perfect fit for touchscreens as an experimental food art experience. I played it on PC and liked it quite a bit, but this isn’t a traditional game for everyone. If you enjoy playful sandbox-like experiences and love food, you will likely find a lot to love in Nour: Play With Your Food, but the Switch version is a bit lacking. If you’re new to Nour: Play With Your Food, it has you playing with specific food types across different stages with interesting music and a lot of over the top nonsense (compliment). It feels like a combination of an interactive app made for those who love food and art equally. Initially, you only get access to the basics, but I found myself surprised at how much the developers added to let you literally play with your food as the name suggests. This is when I realized why it might not be as easy to play on a touchscreen. I am disappointed in the lack of touchscreen support on Switch though. Aside from that, Nour: Play With Your Food was a bit of a heavy game on Steam Deck as well, and you can see the cutbacks on Switch to have it run decently. The biggest issue is the load times being long both docked and handheld on Switch. Nour: Play With Your Food is worth experiencing if you love food, art, and interactive apps. While the Switch version isn’t the best way to experience it, Nour still feels best on a portable, and I hope it does well enough to get more DLC or even a physical release. We don’t see many releases like this in gaming, but games like Nour and Townscaper are the perfect compliment to more-involved RPGs and story-driven games. -Mikhail Madnani SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5 Fate/stay night REMASTERED ($29.99) Fate/stay night REMASTERED launched about a month ago on Nintendo Switch and Steam worldwide. I was hoping to have it covered sooner, but the month has been really busy and Fate/stay night itself is very long. Before covering the game itself, I want to take you on a bit of a journey. Many years ago, a close friend convinced me to watch Fate/Zero as one of the first few anime I watched from start to finish. Back then, I wanted to experience more from the universe, but there wasn’t really something interesting I could officially play in English. I ended up importing the PS Vita version of Fate/stay night Realta Nua just to own it, and since then have basically been playing whatever Fate-related release or Type Moon property we see in the West. This includes Fate/EXTELLA, Fate/Samurai Remnant, watching Fate/stay night, and even trying out Fate/Grand Order for a bit. All of that led to me being very glad that Aniplex brought over Witch on the Holy Night and Tsukihime‘s remake recently, but there was the one game I was hoping we’d see released in English somehow. I didn’t bother with fan translations, and kept hoping we’d see Fate/stay night in English. Here we are. It still feels unreal that this is in English and on Switch. But is it worth your time and money? Well I can save you some time and say absolutely on both fronts with a few caveats. Fate/stay night REMASTERED is a remaster of the 2004-released Type Moon visual novel covering the story of Emiya Shirou, the Holy Grail war, and more. This is basically the best entry point into the Fate universe, and I know there are many who have only experienced it through anime and other games so far, so this is now a chance to see the origin of the series as it was meant to be. Fate/stay night REMASTERED even with its few quality of life features is still a 55+ hour experience at least, and that makes the low asking price shocking. I get that this is a remaster of an older game, but the volume of text and work done really makes it one of the best value releases on the eShop this year. If you already played the original versions of Fate/stay night in Japanese, Fate/stay night REMASTERED does a lot to improve the experience. Obviously it adds English, but the 16:9 support is welcome. It also feels like a lot more work went into this than I initially expected. I’ve been playing a bit of the PS Vita release to compare, and the developers of this remaster have done a great job at making Fate/stay night look good on modern displays, but don’t expect the gorgeousness of Tsukihime‘s recent remake. While I love Fate/stay night itself, I’m glad that the developers actually put in touchscreen support on Nintendo Switch. I played most of Fate/stay night REMASTERED on my Switch Lite (which is sadly busted now) and then synced it to my Switch OLED to play at home and also docked. It feels perfect on Nintendo’s hybrid system. Hopefully it gets more platform releases in the future like iOS and PS5 so more can experience it. Speaking of more platforms, I also played a good amount of Fate/stay night REMASTERED on Steam Deck. It works perfectly out of the box. If you were wondering where to play Fate/stay night REMASTERED assuming you owned a Steam Deck or Switch, get it wherever you want but make sure you play it. It is that good. There’s nothing really holding Fate/stay night REMASTERED back right now aside from no physical release on Switch, and I hope it does well enough to get one in the future to go on my shelf with Witch on the Holy Night and Tsukihime. Fate/stay night REMASTERED is basically an essential for visual novel fans and I still can’t believe it is not only available in English, but also on both Switch and Steam. The low asking price makes it an even easier recommendation. While it may not look as good as Tsukihime‘s recent remake, Fate/stay night REMASTERED is still worth your time, and I’m glad I finally got to play it in English after all these years of owning the Japanese PS Vita release. -Mikhail Madnani SwitchArcade Score: 5/5 TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK ($49.99) As someone who didn’t bother with VR outside of borrowing a PS VR headset on PS4 Pro years ago, I know I’ve ended up missing out on some great games. When looking at what my friends who own current VR headsets talk about, in addition to games like Thumper or Beat Saber, I used to see rumblings of TOKYO CHRONOS and ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos mentioned. Both were praised for their stories and also for being full experiences in VR. I never got to experience the stories until TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK hit Switch through Izanagi Games just over a month ago. When you first boot up TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK on Switch, you get to choose which game you want to play. The first game has you experiencing the story of high school friends in an alternate version of Shibuya, lost memories, killers, and more. If you’ve played many visual novels or adventure games, the narrative here will feel very predictable in parts, but it isn’t bad. It has good visuals and I feel like trying it out in VR after seeing how it feels on Switch just for the novelty of a full visual novel in VR. ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos on the other hand is a lot better with its production, music, writing, voice acting, and characters in general. It also goes beyond being a pure visual novel in parts, and I love when developers do this. Punching above your weight in a visual novel usually makes for a more memorable experience when coupled with important story beats. ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos is the standout of the two, but I think the pack is definitely worth buying if you’re ok with the controls and movement in the demo. Aside from some aspects of the stories not hitting as hard, the Switch version has some performance issues when it comes to camera movement. These aren’t a dealbreaker, but it is distracting having that happen during first person and other encounters. The rest of the Switch features more than make up for it though with touchscreen support (my favorite feature in adventure games) and good rumble. TOKYO CHRONOS & ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos TWIN PACK is a great experience on Nintendo Switch with its touch controls and rumble support added to make it even more immersive. I’m glad I got to finally experience these stories since I never owned a VR headset, and I hope to see more from this team in the future. If you enjoy sci-fi stories, I urge you to download the demo at least to see how this one feels on Switch. -Mikhail Madnani SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5 Select New Releases Fitness Boxing feat. Hatsune Miku ($49.99) This might be the winner for the title that does the most clear and concise work in explaining a game’s content. At least for 2024, anyway. So yes, this is Fitness Boxing. Featuring Hatsune Miku. It has 24 songs from Miku and friends, plus 30 more from the Fitness Boxing series. Plenty of tunes to punch it out to, in other words. Mechanically, it looks like the other games in the series. No surprise there. Pick it up if you want a Fitness Boxing game featuring Hatsune Miku. Gimmick! 2 ($24.99) I reviewed this yesterday, but in case you missed that, allow me to bring you up to speed. This is a very faithful follow-up to the original cult favorite, building on its foundations a bit, bringing in a slick new presentation, and still as hard as that piece of a Subway pizza sub you lost under the sofa back in the 90s. If you don’t mind a challenge and enjoy clever platformers, you’ll want to check this one out. Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost ($29.99) Are you tired of switching between games based on whether you feel like playing a rhythm game or a bullet hell shoot ’em up? Touhou Danmaku Kagura Phantasia Lost is here to save you from the inconvenience! There are two modes in this game, and it kind of feels like peanut butter and chalk in some sense. But the Touhou theme ties them together, and for fans of the property I’m sure it will pass muster. At least you know the music will be good? EGGCONSOLE Hydlide MSX ($6.49) We’ve already seen one version of Hydlide release in EGGCONSOLE, but here’s another one for good measure. It came after the one we have, but before the NES one. It falls somewhere in between them as a result, and I suppose if you are a Hydlide super-fan then you’ll want to grab as many versions as they release. For everyone else, I’m not sure how much more you’ll get out of this MSX version if you already played the PC-8801 release. Arcade Archives Lead Angle ($7.99) Well, at least Hamster’s mixing it up a little. This is a 1988 Seibu Kaihatsu release, a follow-up to Empire City 1931. It’s one of those gallery shooters that were all the rage at the time, though I can say with some confidence that Lead Angle was not all the rage at the time. It’s a decent enough example of the genre though, so if you enjoy this sort of game you probably shouldn’t be too quick to push the plate away. Shooting gangsters! You don’t see that kind of theme all that often anymore either, come to think of it. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Not much excitement going on today, but No Man’s Sky is never a bad choice. The rest of the good games in the inbox are frequently on sale, so do what you will with them. Oddly, one could say the same about the outbox. I’ll leave all of that business to you today, as I don’t have any strong feelings on the matter. Select New Sales No Man’s Sky ($23.99 from $59.99 until 9/17) The Last Campfire ($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/17) XALADIA: Rise of the Space Pirates X2 ($8.09 from $17.99 until 9/18) Scars of Mars ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/18) Die for Valhalla ($3.59 from $11.99 until 9/25) Moonlighter ($3.74 from $24.99 until 9/25) Thea: The Awakening ($5.39 from $17.99 until 9/25) Children of Morta ($5.49 from $21.99 until 9/25) Dungeon of the Endless ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) Yes, Your Grace ($2.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) Hypnospace Outlaw ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) Nowhere Prophet ($2.49 from $24.99 until 9/25) Soccer Story ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) Family Man ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) South of the Circle ($6.49 from $12.99 until 9/25) Wingspan ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/25) Sales Ending Tomorrow, September 6th Ambition: A Minuet in Power ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/6) Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey ($2.39 from $15.99 until 9/6) Fear Effect Sedna ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/6) Galak-Z The Void Deluxe ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush ($5.49 from $9.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush Frontiers ($5.49 from $9.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush Origins ($8.24 from $14.99 until 9/6) My Time at Portia ($4.49 from $29.99 until 9/6) PowerWash Simulator ($17.49 from $24.99 until 9/6) Skulls of the Shogun ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/6) Suhoshin ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/6) The House of Da Vinci 2 ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/6) Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/6) Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD ($10.49 from $29.99 until 9/6) Violet Wisteria ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/6) What the Fork ($4.49 from $17.99 until 9/6) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow to finish things up, with more reviews, new releases, and sales to look at. Hey, did you know? I have an at-the-moment dormant blog that is going to get active again soon. You can find it at Post Game Content. If you like reading Shaun’s thoughts on games, you’ll certainly find some there. I hope you all have a thrilling Thursday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Back in April, the Razer Nexus (Free) app on iOS and Android was updated with support added for an unannounced …

Continue reading "Razer Kishi Ultra Mobile Controller Review – The Best Mobile Controller in 2024?"

Back in April, the Razer Nexus (Free) app on iOS and Android was updated with support added for an unannounced “Razer Kishi Ultra" controller boasting features like analog stick deadzone customization and more. Since then, Razer has announced and released the Razer Kishi Ultra with support for more than just phones. The Razer Kishi Ultra is also the most expensive mobile controller as far as I’m aware, but it offers more features than expected for specific devices. Having used the Razer Kishi and the Backbone One including the new USB-C versions for years now, I didn’t think I needed a new controller, but the Razer Kishi Ultra changed my mind in a way the Hori Split Pad Pro did on Nintendo Switch a few years ago. Razer Kishi Ultra – what’s in the box The Razer Kishi Ultra box included the controller itself, a few sets of rubber cushions to use depending on your device, a sheet of stickers, and an instruction booklet. For the price point of $149.99, I expected to have a carrying case or at least a pouch included. Beyond that, the box and casing for the controller in the box are good quality as usual from Razer. The Razer Kishi Ultra rubber cushions come in pairs that are properly labeled for use with iPhone (Pair A), iPad Mini 6th generation (Pair B), and Android (Pair C). If you use a case, you don’t need to use any of these rubber cushions. Razer Kishi Ultra compatibility – iPhone, Cases, Android, and iPad Mini While most mobile controllers, especially the telescopic ones, only support iPhone and Android, the Razer Kishi Ultra also supports tablets like the iPad Mini 6th generation. We’ve also recently had some telescopic controllers ship with bluetooth support, but as for USB-C, this one seems to have some of the best compatibility. For the purpose of this review, I tested the Razer Kishi Ultra on my iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 14 Plus, and wired on my iPad Pro. I didn’t test on Android or Windows, but I did try it on my Steam Deck wired. It is detected as a generic Xbox gamepad, but it did work when I was playing NBA 2K25 on Steam Deck yesterday for review and it also supports decent rumble in games like Bakeru that I tested with. Razer Kishi Ultra buttons, d-pad, and triggers Before getting to the new features, how does the Razer Kishi Ultra actually feel and perform? I was a bit worried about the d-pad, but it ended up working great when I played games like Garou: Mark of the Wolves ACA NeoGeo or even newer ones like Hades and Hitman Blood Money Reprisal. Beyond the d-pad, the shoulder buttons and triggers work well just like Razer’s older controller. The analog sticks are comfortable and smooth to use with the face buttons being clicky albeit with more travel distance which I didn’t expect after the original Razer Kishi. Overall, I have no complaints with the Razer Kishi Ultra d-pad, buttons, or triggers after considerable use including some sessions lasting a few hours where I played Zenless Zone Zero while charging my phone through the passthrough charging here. In terms of feel, the textured finish isn’t rubbery, but it works well for a grip and remains very comfortable to hold even for a few hours. I don’t usually care for Chroma stuff on controllers, and just like the Razer Kitsune, I would’ve preferred if the lights could somehow match the gameplay on screen. Razer Kishi Ultra – new features The main draw of the Razer Kishi Ultra is the full-size form factor. Instead of feeling like a compact mobile controller as we’ve seen with Razer’s prior release or the Backbone One, the Razer Kishi Ultra is a full-size one that feels like you’re holding your phone in the middle of a good quality console controller. This may not be a plus for some looking for a compact solution, but it isn’t meant to be that. The full-size form factor makes this the comfiest mobile controller I’ve used by far. The other features are the Chroma customization through the app, haptics (for Android and Windows), and virtual controller mode (Android only). The virtual controller mode is good for Android games since we see some notable ones skip adding controller support outside iOS on mobile like Genshin Impact. Aside from the new features, the Razer Kishi Ultra has a 3.5mm headphone jack, passthrough charging (15W), and the L4 and R4 shoulder buttons. Razer Kishi Ultra features missing on iOS – haptics and virtual controller mode The haptics and virtual controller mode are only available on Android (or Windows as well for the former) and not available on iOS. I don’t really care about virtual controller mode, but I hope Razer can work on something to enable the haptics in some way for iOS devices as well. I love haptic feedback on PS5 and HD Rumble on Switch, so having something that tries to do similar things on iOS would be nice. Razer Kishi Ultra price point – is it worth it? I already think most folks are better off getting a PS5 or Xbox controller to play wirelessly on iOS as the best possible and cheaper option. If you do want a good controller that has a telescopic form factor and attaches onto your phone, the most popular options are already $99.99 so the Razer Kishi Ultra at $150 is definitely a more premium controller. Is it worth that much more? If you’re ok with the current Razer Kishi and Backbone One price point, this is definitely worth the extra price for the comfort, but the lack of the haptics makes it feel like a lesser experience on iOS compared to Android where you get the fully featured experience. It remains to be seen if the joysticks on this one don’t drift over time as well. Razer Kishi Ultra – the best mobile controller in 2024? If you’ve not read my review of Razer’s older controller, check it out here. Moving from that more compact form factor that I’ve gotten used to for years across Razer and Backbone products to this big one has been interesting. Just like the Hori Split Pad Pro for Nintendo Switch, I find myself wanting both a full-size controller and a more compact one for iPhone. The Razer Kishi Ultra is easily the comfiest mobile controller I’ve ever used, but I wish it was easier to travel with. I worry about how it might end up in my bag unless I carry it in the big box it ships with. I don’t know if the Razer Kishi Ultra will replace my normal Kishi or Backbone One when I travel, but I’m definitely only using it when I play at home. At the asking price, I was hoping for hall effect analog sticks though. I’ve had drift issues with multiple controllers over the years and while it hasn’t happened to the Razer Kishi Ultra yet (or the Razer Kishi itself), but I can’t say how things might be in a few more months. This is more of a thing to keep in mind when you buy it. Having now covered the Backbone One and Razer Kishi models, I definitely want to try out the GameSir lineup as they seem more than worth checking out. Hopefully in the near future. Razer Kishi Ultra 2 wishlist When thinking about what I’d like to see in an updated Razer Kishi Ultra, aside from hall effect sticks, I’d like some of the sharper edges like the passthrough charging port to be smoothed out a bit. Beyond that, while I love the L4 and R4 buttons as options, I vastly prefer having paddles on the bottom of the controller since they feel more natural to use. It would be good to have those as options given the premium price. Maybe even L5 and R5 as paddles on the bottom with remapping available in the Razer Nexus app. The final thing I want is a carrying case for this to come with the controller. When looking at the pro level controllers on console, they usually come with a nice hard case. Granted this one doesn’t cost as much as a DualSense Edge or Victrix Pro BFG, but it would be a nice addition to the package that wouldn’t cost too much. Razer Kishi Ultra review If you’re used to playing on traditional PS5 or Xbox Series controllers or basically any full-sized controller and don’t enjoy using the compact Joy-Con size buttons and sticks we usually see in mobile controllers, the Razer Kishi Ultra is perfect for you with its comfortable grip, great d-pad, and face buttons. The lack of full feature support on iOS is disappointing, but this is a great addition to the mobile controller space, and I hope Razer can build on this through the years while also offering a carrying case so I don’t have to worry about anything happening to this in my bag when I go out. Razer Kishi Ultra review score: 4.5/5 Amazon Link: Razer Kishi Ultra If you’re curious about the book in the header image, it is Andy Kelly’s upcoming book titled Perfect Organism: An Alien: Isolation Companion that I’m currently reading for review. You can pre-order it here. Disclaimer: TouchArcade may earn a small commission from purchases made using the affiliate links above.

In the latest look at retro game offerings on the Nintendo Switch, I’ve opted to take a different approach. You …

Continue reading "The 10 Best Game Boy Advance & Nintendo DS Games on Nintendo Switch – SwitchArcade Special"

In the latest look at retro game offerings on the Nintendo Switch, I’ve opted to take a different approach. You see, there aren’t quite so many distinct Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS ports on the Switch as some other consoles. I know, it surprised me too! So they’re going to be sharing a list, much like how they shared a few years on retail shelves. While you can find plenty of great games from the Game Boy Advance in the Nintendo Switch Online app, we’re instead looking at those games that dare to exist in the wilds of the Switch eShop. We’ve got ten of our favorites here, four from the Game Boy Advance and six from the Nintendo DS. No particular order, of course. On with the show! Game Boy Advance Steel Empire (2004) – Over Horizon X Steel Empire ($14.99) We’ll start off with a decent little shoot ’em up, Steel Empire. While the original Genesis/Mega Drive version is the better game in my opinion, this isn’t a bad take at all. Worth playing just to compare with the other version, and it’s certainly a breezier experience in some ways. Steel Empire is a pretty cool game no matter how you play it, and it’s one that even those who don’t normally get into shooters tend to enjoy. Mega Man Zero – Mega Man Zero/ZX Legacy Collection ($29.99) While the Mega Man X series started to flounder on home consoles, the true successor to the Mega Man crown was rising up on the Game Boy Advance. Mega Man Zero is the start of an excellent series of side-scrolling action games, and one that perhaps didn’t figure out how to present what it wanted to do in the smoothest way. Those rough edges would get sanded off as the series went on, but the first game is where you want to start. Feel free to continue on from there. Mega Man Battle Network – Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection ($59.99) Yes, I’m double-dipping on Mega Man here. But I think it’s warranted here, because Mega Man Zero and Mega Man Battle Network are very different kinds of games, and both are very good at what they do. This one is an RPG with a unique battle system that manages to incorporate a bit of action to go with the more strategic elements. The core concept of this whole virtual world existing inside of electronic devices is a clever one, and the game doesn’t do things halfway with it. The returns diminished harder on this series than they did with Zero, but there’s plenty of fun to be had here. Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow – Castlevania Advance Collection ($19.99) Another collection where you’ll probably just want to run the whole board, but if I have to pick one best one it’s clearly Aria of Sorrow. When I’m in the right mood, I’d rather play this than even the amazing Symphony of the Night. The soul collecting system encourages grinding, and the gameplay is so fun that I don’t even mind that. Throw in an unusual setting and some fun secrets and you’ve got a real winner here. One of my favorite third-party Game Boy Advance games full-stop. Nintendo DS Shantae: Risky’s Revenge – Director’s Cut ($9.99) The original Shantae was something of a cult hit, but the low distribution numbers meant that relatively few people had a chance to play it. It was with the DSiWare release of Shantae: Risky’s Revenge that the Half-Genie Hero had a chance to make a bigger splash, and she certainly did that. Indeed, this established Shantae so well that she hasn’t missed a console generation since. This game kind of sits on a fuzzy line since it was sort of built from the ashes of a Game Boy Advance game that never released. Curiously, that game will be getting a release soon and might fit this list when it does. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy ($29.99) Look, if you’re really bothered about the lists being imbalanced, you could (and maybe should) count this as a Game Boy Advance game. That is the console where it originated after all, it just wasn’t localized at that time. Anyway, you probably know Ace Attorney. Fun adventure games that blend on-location investigations with overly dramatic court scenes. Goofy humor, but rather good stories. This first game completely knocks it out of the park, and while I might prefer later installments I wouldn’t be able to argue against anyone who said this was the best. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective ($29.99) From the creator of Ace Attorney, Ghost Trick is just as well-written but has its own cool gameplay hook. You’re a ghost and need to use your abilities to save people, all with an eye to figuring out the truth behind your own untimely demise. This game is a complete wild ride and I recommend everyone play it from start to finish. It was a bit slept on in its original Nintendo DS form, and I’m glad to see Capcom hasn’t given up on it. Reward them for their tenacity. The World Ends With You: Final Remix ($49.99) The World Ends With You is, quite frankly, one of the top games on the Nintendo DS. Ideally, it’s the place where you should play the game. It’s just so tightly built around that hardware and its capabilities that none of the ports have been able to get just right. Still, time marches on. The Switch version of this game will do just fine if you don’t want to dig up a working Nintendo DS, and you really should play it somewhere. Why not here? A great game in just about every possible way. Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow – Castlevania Dominus Collection ($24.99) The Castlevania Dominus Collection just released not long ago, and it collects all of the Nintendo DS Castlevania games. This is another case where all of the games are worth playing, and I’m picking Dawn of Sorrow simply because having its gimmicky touch controls replaced with more fitting button controls makes for a significant improvement. But really, play all three of the Nintendo DS games in this collection. They’re all great in their own ways. Etrian Odyssey III HD – Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection ($79.99) This is another franchise that in some ways can’t exist easily outside of the DS/3DS ecosystem. But Atlus made a good attempt here, and I think the results are playable enough. Each of the Etrian Odyssey games stands alone, and they’re all pretty substantial RPGs. Etrian Odyssey III is the largest of the three, and while it’s more than a little wooly, it’s well-worth sinking your teeth into. And that’s the list, friends. Are there any Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS games you enjoy on the Switch? Feel free to sound off down in the comments and let us know what you’re thinking! It’s always interesting to hear the opinions of others on this kind of thing. As always, thanks for reading!

Feral Interactive’s tease seemingly was about Total War: Empire from Creative Assembly and SEGA because the developer just announced that …

Continue reading "‘Total War: Empire’ Is Coming to iOS and Android This Fall From Feral Interactive"

Feral Interactive’s tease seemingly was about Total War: Empire from Creative Assembly and SEGA because the developer just announced that it will be coming to iOS and Android this Fall with release date and pricing to be announced shortly. Feral Interactive also confirmed that Total War: Empire will feature intuitive touch controls for phones and tablets, a redesigned UI, new quality of life improvements, and more. If you’ve not played it yet, Total War: Empire takes the franchise to the 18th century Age of Enlightenment and it is considered one of the best games in the series. Watch the Total War: Empire mobile iOS and Android announcement trailer below: Ahead of Total War: Empire hitting mobile this Fall, you can try it out on Steam right now in its definitive edition release here. Total War: Empire on mobile will also be the first time (on mobile) the series will feature real-time naval battles. I can’t wait to see how it looks and feels on modern iOS devices. I also hope we get news for all the DLC and pricing soon. Have you played Total War: Empire before and what do you think of the trailer today for its iOS and Android release?

Balatro from developer LocalThunk and publisher Playstack is finally coming to mobile later this month on iOS, Android, and also …

Continue reading "‘Balatro’ Is Coming to Apple Arcade and Also iOS as a Standalone Premium Release Beginning September 26th"

Balatro from developer LocalThunk and publisher Playstack is finally coming to mobile later this month on iOS, Android, and also directly on Apple Arcade. Yes, this will be a premium release on iOS and Android, but also one available as a “+" version on Apple Arcade from day one. The Poker-inspired roguelike Balatro has sold over 2 million units across PS5, Switch, Steam, PS4, and Xbox platforms in less than six months, and I can’t wait to see how it performs on mobile with more planned including a major free update in 2025 bringing new ideas and strategies. Balatro will be launching for $9.99 on mobile and you can watch the mobile announcement trailer ahead of its September 26th release date below: If you’ve not played Balatro yet, read my 5/5 review of it here on Switch and check out my feature on the best games of the year so far on Switch where I included it here. I also interviewed LocalThunk about the game, the mobile release, and more. Read that here. You can pre-order Balatro on the App Store for iOS here and pre-register for it on Android here. The Apple Arcade version is here. Have you played it before and will you be getting one of the best games of 2024 later this month on mobile?

It has been pointed out to me that perhaps I could be fairer to other Marvel games. I’m always covering …

Continue reading "Check Out The Latest Events In ‘Marvel Future Fight’ & ‘Marvel Contest of Champions’"

It has been pointed out to me that perhaps I could be fairer to other Marvel games. I’m always covering Marvel Snap (Free) whenever it gets any kind of update, but the others tend to get relegated to the Best Updates articles on Mondays. That… is a valid point! And thus, let us enjoy a Marvel Minute and see how other Marvel games are faring at the moment. It turns out that both Marvel Future Fight (Free) and Marvel Contest of Champions (Free) have some cool events going on at the moment. Let’s have a look-see! First up, over in Marvel Future Fight, it’s Iron Man time! You know Tony. He’s always concocting new suits, finding bigger and better guns to deal with whatever the situation presents. This particular event is inspired by Invincible Iron Man, and has some new threads for Tony and Pepper. Here’s what you can look forward to in this event, straight from the update notes: “Invincible Iron Man has joined Marvel Future Fight. Beat the enemies with upgraded suits! 1. New Uniforms Added! – Iron Man, Rescue 2. New Tier-4 Advancement! – War Machine, Hulkbuster 3. The New World Boss: Legend+ Added! – Returned the Black Order, ‘Corvus & Proxima’ 4. The New Custom Gear, ‘C.T.P. of Liberation’ Added! 5. Getting 200 Crystals Event – Obtain 200 crystals by linking your e-mail account!" Okay, now over to the ever-popular fighting game, Marvel Contest of Champions. New events for this game typically bring some new playable fighters with them, and at this point in the game’s life some of these cuts are getting very deep indeed. I don’t think we’ll ever see a Marvel fighting game again with a roster this varied. Like, Count Nefaria? Seriously? As an old-butt Marvel fan from a very long time ago, I like seeing these less common characters show up at all, let alone as playable characters. Over to the update notes to give you the full skinny on all of this: “NEW CHAMPIONS Count Nefaria Count Luchino Nefaria was the descendant of a long line of Italian noblemen, and used his wealth and connections to become a powerful leader within the Maggia crime syndicate. He furthered his rise to power by subjecting himself to scientific experiments that granted him superhuman abilities, but cost him his life. He was later resurrected as a being made entirely of Ionic energy, rendering him effectively immortal as long as he drains other Ionic beings to maintain his power. Shathra Daughter of the Elder Goddesses Oshtur and Gaea, Shathra comes from the world that would come to be known as Loomworld. Shathra was tasked with creating the Celestial Map of Humanity, however, after being outdone by her younger sister Neith, she became enraged with jealousy and spite towards her sister and the Great Web she had designed. Consumed by her vengeance and envy, Shathra gave into her feral nature to tear down everything her sister created, one Spider at a time. NEW QUESTS AND EVENTS Event Quest – Lupus In Fabula There has been an undertaking to overthrow The Collector’s ship! The Summoner is being called in to evict these evil-doers! But as they make it deeper into the ship they also find themselves deeper in trouble as each villain seems to be making their own plans for how best to make the most of The Collector’s treasures. Will The Summoner be able to manage these miscreants? Or will they go down with the ship? Find out in LUPUS IN FABULA! Side Quest – Ludum Maximus The Maestro has declared four months of celebratory games to honor his return. The festivities begin with the Circus Maximus, an onslaught of games and challenges hosted by Count Nefaria. The Count will not accept anything less than the best, the mightiest, the greatest of games. So dare to enter LUDUM MAXIMUS! Nefaria knows that a true battle is a mix of skill and luck, so 5x weekly Maps will open which present randomized Paths filled with fearsome foes! Act 9; Chapter 1 Glykhan has self-destructed but the sinister plotting of Ouroboros is far from over. However clues for where to head next seem few and far between. Luckily (depending on your definition of luck) Superior Kang has some secrets to share in the form of holo-tapes scattered around Battleworld. Mister Fantastic and Doctor Doom send The Summoner on an intel retrieval mission, but they aren’t the only ones looking for answers. Will the past come back to haunt The Battlerealm? Find out in Act 9 – Chapter 1: THE RECKONING Glorious Games Introducing our third Saga: Glorious Games! To celebrate the history of the Contest and his triumphant return, The Maestro has declared four months of celebratory games. Each month of the Saga will revolve around a different element of games, starting with September’s Circus Maximus and culminating in the celebration of December’s Grand Banquet! Featuring a classical antiquity aesthetic, an exciting Champion chase, surprise Champion reworks and brand new kinds of Events and Quests, Glorious Games is sure to usher in our 10-year anniversary celebration in style! Realm Events Get ready to work alongside every Summoner in the Battlerealm! Realm Events are a brand new type of Event in which points will be contributed on a global level. Milestone rewards can be claimed once global and individual point contribution thresholds have been reached. For those more competitively-inclined Summoners, ranked rewards will also be up for grabs, including an exclusive and unique player title." And that’s that. Let it never be said that Shaun was not interested in a level playing field. Kind of. Anyway, both of these events look very cool in their own ways, and if you haven’t played these games before or fell off a while back, this might be another good opportunity to give them both a try. I mean, I know I’m going to try out Count Nefaria. Look at him! He’s so nefarious! He cavorts with nefarious fellows! Hadouken? More like Ha-Don’t-ken! Okay, sorry. I’ll leave now. Enjoy!

Beginning today, Apple will have released one new Apple Vision Pro game, one App Store Great, and upgrading an App …

Continue reading "NFL Retro Bowl 25, Monster Train+, and Puzzle Sculpt Release Today on Apple Arcade Alongside Major Game Updates This Week"

Beginning today, Apple will have released one new Apple Vision Pro game, one App Store Great, and upgrading an App Store Great to an Apple Arcade Original (as a standalone release) alongside some notable udpates. NFL Retro Bowl 25 (Edit: No longer an update) will let players create their own dynasty using official NFL teams and players featuring official retro art, attributes, stats, and contracts. Since this was announced, I was surprised at how much interest I saw for it online. I don’t follow the NFL much, but I didn’t expect as much of a positive reaction to the NFL Retro Bowl 25 announcement. Hopefully it ends up well when it goes live as an update later today. Alongside NFL Retro Bowl 25, App Store Great Monster Train+ has launched on Apple Arcade including The Last Divinity DLC from the get go. Check out a screenshot from NFL Retro Bowl 25 below: Puzzle Sculpt is a Vision Pro-only set to launch today on Apple Arcade letting players solve puzzles in their own living room by removing blocks to reveal a cute collectible in a cube. As for this week’s notable updates, Hello Kitty Island Adventure has the Jam Jamboree on with Petunias appearing in the Merry Meadow as a festive flower. Rabbids Multiverse has new cards, outfits, seasonal events, and quality of life improvements with this week’s update. Wylde Flowers has its Magical Creatures update now live with jewelry crafting, secrets in the lighthouse, and more. Disney Spellstruck adds Hercules with a limited time event, a high contrast event, and more. What the Car brings in yet another update with a “Meet the Developers" special, scissors, bear improvements (yes), and more. What do you think of this month’s new Apple Arcade additions? Update: It looks like they launched NFL Retro Bowl 25 as a new app and not an update.

After tackling the best party games on Switch in 2024, the recent release of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom …

Continue reading "The Best Switch Visual Novels and Adventure Games in 2024 – From Fata Morgana and VA-11 Hall-A to Famicom Detective Club and Gnosia"

After tackling the best party games on Switch in 2024, the recent release of Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club being as amazing as it is pushed me to write about what I consider the best visual novels and adventure games on Switch to play right now. I’ve included both because some games are pure visual novels while some are adventure games (and not visual novels). This list has quite a few games from across regions and release years, and I hope you find something you end up loving here. As usual, this list is in no particular order. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club ($49.99) + Famicom Detective Club: The Two-Case Collection When Nintendo not only remade both Famicom Detective Club games back in 2021, I couldn’t believe it. They were amazing adventure games, and my only complaint really was the lack of a physical release back then. Fast forward to 2024 and Nintendo has released Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club physically and digitally as a brand-new entry in the series, and I’ve been floored playing it. Not only does it feel like a true series entry which might be a negative to some, but this might be one of the most lavish productions I’ve seen in a game like this ever. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but the ending is shockingly good and it really justifies its M rating. I definitely didn’t expect to have a new Famicom Detective Club game in 2024 on my top games of the year list, but Nintendo managed to do that with Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club. Download the demo now. If you’d rather play the first two games before Emio, grab the Famicom Detective Club: The Two-Case Collection. If you are ok with some old school design and gameplay for adventure games, you will adore these. VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action ($14.99) If you’ve been reading the few “best Switch games" lists I’ve been doing this year, you’ve seen me feature VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action twice before already, but as you know, I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to write about one of my favorite games of all time. VA-11 Hall-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action is notable for its story, music, aesthetic, and most-importantly the characters. Having played it multiple times over the years on every system, it also feels right at home on Switch, and is a game I recommend to everyone literally. I don’t care if you like point and click adventure games or not. Go ahead and mix drinks and then change some lives. The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition ($39.99) The House in Fata Morgana: Dreams of the Revenants Edition is the definitive edition of one of my favorite stories in any medium. It includes the original game and much more to deliver a stunning version of a masterpiece in storytelling. This one is a pure visual novel, and I’m glad that after its many releases, it found a lot of success on Switch, where it plays best. If you want to play something that will stay with you for a long time, this gothic horror experience will do much more. It also happens to have some of the most incredible music ever. Coffee Talk Episode 1+2 ($12.99 + $14.99) Ok this one is cheating since the games are sold separately on the eShop and the physical releases I imported from Japan are also separate, but since there’s a bundle of both games sold in North America on Switch, I’ve included both Coffee Talk games as one entry here. I love them both, and while they didn’t hit the same highs as VA-11 Hall-A, Coffee Talk perfectly satiated what I wanted from a game set in a coffee shop, and delivered a very relaxing experience with a great story. If you enjoy coffee and listening to interesting people with great pixel art and music, this is for you. Type Moon’s visual novels: Tsukihime, Fate/stay night, and Mahoyo (Variable) This is another entry where I’m cheating. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to include just Tsukihime or Witch on the Holy Night (Mahoyo), but then the recent release of Fate/stay night Remastered made things even harder. Instead of worrying too much, I’ve included all three as essential visual novels in this article on Switch. They are all very long but very good. If you’ve wanted to sample a classic visual novel, go with Fate/stay night, but I recommend Tsukihime’s remake on Switch to everyone. Witch on the Holy Night is probably the game to play after these two in terms of quality. PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo ($19.99) Square Enix’s PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo reminds me of Nintendo’s Emio in a way that I’m surprised it even exists, let alone turned out this good. I went into it with no expectations, but was blown away by the narrative, its delivery, and even some wall breaking that I enjoyed quite a bit early on. Square Enix released one of the best mystery adventure games I’ve played with amazing characters, great art, and interesting mechanics here, and it is worth your time if you want a fantastic new horror adventure game. Gnosia ($24.99) People call Gnosia a sci-fi social deduction RPG, but it is more of an adventure and visual novel hybrid for me. Your aim here is identifying the Gnosia among a group using information you gather and then vote to put the Gnosia into cold sleep. You and your crew both improve over time, and aside from some RNG issues to get two specific outcomes, Gnosia was a fantastic experience. I liked it so much on Switch that I bought the physical release on both Switch and PS5 in addition to getting it on Steam. This one might not be for everyone, but it remains one of the nicest surprises in the genre. Steins;Gate Series (Variable) Spike Chunsoft’s Switch releases of the Steins;Gate series, especially Steins;Gate Elite, are as important as Fate/stay night when it comes to introducing newcomers to visual novels to the genre. While I still hope the publisher brings over the original version of Steins;Gate, Steins;Gate Elite is an easy recommendation for those who watch anime and want to get into a great visual novel. The Steins;Gate games are must plays only after you experience the original story in Steins;Gate Elite. I’ve cheated here as well by including multiple games, but my list my rules. AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES and nirvanA Initiative (Variable) AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES and nirvanA Initiative from Spike Chunsoft brought Zero Escape creator Kotaro Uchikoshi and No More Heroes character designer Yusuke Kozaki together for an incredible set of two adventure games that honestly feel too good to be true when it comes to the budget behind them with the quality they delivered on story, music, and characters. While a lot of folks lament the lack of Zero Escape on Switch, I think the two AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES games are absolutely worth experiencing at full price, and gems of the Switch library. Don’t make us wait too long for a new game in the series please. NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD ($19.99) When it comes to adventure games or visual novels, I’m often recommended games where a friend will say “trust me and just play it but don’t look up anything about it". One such game was NEEDY STREAMER OVERLOAD when I first played it on PC. It is an adventure game with multiple endings that can flip flop between disturbing horror and wholesome moments. It revolves around the daily life of a young girl trying to be the best streamer. I liked this one enough to pre-order the Switch limited edition from Japan, and I’m glad I did so. It is unforgettable. Ace Attorney Series (Variable) Capcom has now brought the entire Ace Attorney series to Switch with the Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney Trilogy (1,2,3), Apollo Justice Trilogy (4,5,6), The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (1+2 of those), and the two Ace Attorney Investigations games in this week’s Ace Attorney Investigations Collection release. I would say there are no excuses now, but this adventure game series is beloved for a reason and it has spawned a fanbase that has lasted for years since the DS debut in the West. If you are new to the series, I recommend The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles as the best entry point even above the original trilogy which feels dated in ways. Either way, you can now play the entire series on one handheld, and I love that. Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, NG, and Death Mark II (Variable) Another series rather than a single game? Yes. Aksys Games and Experience Inc’s Spirit Hunter trilogy is now fully available on Switch, and it manages to blend horror adventure and visual novel elements with one of the most striking art styles I’ve ever seen. It is a bit harder to recommend this series given how grotesque some of the designs are, but I don’t think I’ll ever forget some of the images I’ve seen while playing the Spirit Hunter games with their excellent localizations and stories. I hope we see a new entry in the next few years. 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim ($59.99) 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim isn’t a pure adventure game, but one that has real-time strategy battles. I usually try and include a fantastic game at the end and the double whammy of not being a full adventure game and also being one of the best games I’ve played in a decade has me ending this feature on Vanillaware and Atlus’ sci-fi masterpiece 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. I first played this on PS4 and enjoyed replaying it from start to finish on Switch thanks to the OLED screen in handheld mode. Regardless of where you play it, you need to experience 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim. If you made it this far, you’ve realized that this isn’t a top 10 but more, and the games are ones I recommend playing at full price. I didn’t want to cut out something I like a lot to hit an arbitrary number of games featured and that’s why I even included some full series here instead of just individual games. That’s my list of the best visual novels and adventure games on Switch to play in 2024. If you have a game you think I should’ve included, please let me know in the comments below. I’m always on the lookout for more amazing stories in two of my favorite genres that feel perfect on Switch. As always, thanks for reading! Note: I’m working on a separate list of otome games since there are too many good ones in that subgenre.

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 4th, 2024. The long summer has more or less …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring ‘Ace Attorney Investigations Collection’, Plus New Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 4th, 2024. The long summer has more or less come to an end. It was sometimes hot and uncomfortable, but we had some good times that are worth remembering. I’m a little older and a little wiser than I was at the start, and I’m grateful I got to make that journey with all of you. As we head into another new season in our lives, I just want to say that no matter what happens from here you were all the best summer pals a person could ask for. In today’s article? Tons of reviews! A few new releases! Some sales! Let’s get this done! Reviews & Mini-Views Ace Attorney Investigations Collection ($39.99) One thing I will say about the Nintendo Switch generation of gaming: it’s given us second chances at a lot of fish that got away from us in the past. Trials of Mana! Live A Live! The original Fire Emblem! And now, the one and only Ace Attorney game that remained unlocalized comes to us by way of the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection, a set including Miles Edgeworth’s two post-Trials & Tribulations adventures. One thing this series has proven good at is building on plot threads established in previous titles, and the second Ace Attorney Investigations title does this quite well. It’s one of those sequels that makes the original better in hindsight, and it’s amazing to finally have it officially in English. The Ace Attorney Investigations games, in focusing on Miles Edgeworth, show us how things look from the prosecution’s side of things. Outside of a couple of new gimmicks, things aren’t all that different mechanically. Search for clues, question witnesses, and try to crack each case. Still, the very different and rather cool presentation helps liven things up, and Edgeworth as a protagonist certainly lends the narration a particular feel. The pacing has less structure to it than the usual Ace Attorney games, and that can sometimes make some cases feel exhausting, but by and large I think anyone who enjoys the main games in the series will be happy with this sub-series. If you find the first game to be a bit of a drag, stick it through to the second. It’s a lot better, and as mentioned it makes some of the things you suffer through in the first game make more sense. In terms of bonuses, this feels more like the Apollo Justice set than it does the others. A gallery mode is on offer with art and music to enjoy, a story mode lets you chill out and let the game beat itself, and you have the option to switch between the original graphics/soundtrack and the fancy new stuff. There’s a dialog history you can access if you miss something that was said, which is something that should be a stock feature in games like this. I’m glad to see it. The two games in Ace Attorney Investigations Collection offer an interesting contrast, and taken as one whole I think it’s a great experience overall. Getting the second game localized officially is amazing, and the suite of options and extras make for an excellent package. With this, every Ace Attorney game outside of the weird crossover with Professor Layton is now available on the Switch. If you like the series enough to have picked those up, you’ll definitely want to grab this as well. SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5 Gimmick! 2 ($24.99) It is enormously odd to see a sequel to Gimmick!. I just want to say that before moving on. One of Sunsoft’s later games for the NES, Gimmick! didn’t even manage to get a release in the West outside of Scandinavia. Here we are thirty years later, and not only is the original game more widely available than ever, we now have a follow-up. This game was developed by Bitwave Games with no involvement from the original creator, but it’s incredibly faithful to the original anyway. Maybe too faithful in ways for some tastes, but there’s nothing wrong with a first sequel hewing closer to the line than farther. Six very lengthy levels of challenging physics-based platforming await you here, and as with the original you’re going to be up against the wall pretty quickly. There’s an easier mode this time, however, so those who want a slightly less bumpy ride can opt for it. Indeed, if you want to play the normal (Gimmick) difficulty, you’ll have to pass a little test right off the hop. The way protagonist Yumetaro’s star attack works is quite familiar also, with it serving as weapon, vehicle, and all-purpose puzzle solver all at once. One new element comes in the form of collectibles, often serving as rewards for completing more difficult sections that aren’t necessary for progression. These take the form of new customization options, but simply completing the more demanding tasks feels good in and of itself. It’s not a terribly long game if you just try to bolt through the whole thing, but it’s going to be a tough one either way. In that respect, it’s also quite similar to the original. You’ll die a lot here, often in spectacularly stupid ways, but generous checkpointing keeps the aggravation from boiling over. Well, most of the time. The adorable look and lively music also try to keep the fire from burning too hot, but don’t for one second underestimate Gimmick! 2. For all of its small concessions, this game understands that part of what made the original game so memorable came from its challenge. Platforming mastery is a must, and you’ll need to make clever usage of Yumetaro’s star and the enemies to make it much farther than the first level. Gimmick! 2 defies the odds by being a very good follow-up to a decades-old game made by another team entirely. It builds on the original game in some smart ways, but it never feels like it’s paying too much homage to be its own thing. If you enjoyed the first game, you’ll be thrilled with this. Platformer fans who aren’t put off by a high level of challenge will also want to check it out. That said, if you’re looking for something easy-going, don’t be fooled by the look of Gimmick! 2. It’s just as tough of a nut to crack as its predecessor, even with an easier difficulty setting. SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5 Valfaris: Mecha Therion ($19.99) Valfaris: Mecha Therion takes a real risk with its game design, dropping the action-platformer set-up of the original game in favor of shoot ’em up action along the lines of Lords of Thunder. The most surprising thing is that it kind of works. Indeed, the biggest problem is that it’s sometimes a bit too much for the Switch’s aging hardware to do proper justice to. I don’t think anyone can really be blamed here. This is just where we’re at in the console’s lifespan now, I think. It’s not terrible, mind you. If this is the only option you have, you’ll still get a kick out of Mecha Therion‘s intense action, rocking soundtrack, and creepy visuals. There’s a fun juggling act going on in Mecha Therion thanks to how the weapons are set up. You’ve got your usual gun, but when it runs out of energy it weakens significantly. You’ve got a melee weapon that you can use to slice bullets and enemies, which recharges your gun energy. Finally, there’s a rotating third weapon or item. You start off with a lock-on missile attack, but you’ll have access to others. You can also dash, an offensive and defensive maneuver depending on the situation, and it has its own cooldown. With how many enemies and obstacles the game throws at you, mastering the rhythm of keeping your weapons ready and fending off shots is essential and satisfying. Don’t come into Valfaris: Mecha Therion expecting a similar kind of game as the first, but you can look forward to a similar vibe. It’s a heavy metal shoot ’em up with a style all its own, and it thankfully avoids many of the traps that so many games that try something different in this genre end up falling into. You’ll get better performance on other platforms, and in this genre that’s important, but this Switch conversion will absolutely do the job should it be your console of choice. SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash ($44.99) Saying a licensed game is for the fans feels like a truism. Of course it’s for the fans. Some do a better job of pleasing that bunch than others, but typically speaking fans of the property used in a licensed game will get more out of it than non-fans. Which boils all of this down to two main questions. First, just how much fan service is baked in? In Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash, I can say that there is enough to please those who enjoy the exploits of these horse-girls. Indeed, I think that is the one thing the game does best. The writing is good and fits the property, and there are lots of meta-systems built in that reward you with things for the fans. The second question pertains to whether or not there is anything here for non-fans. Regrettably, I can’t be as positive here. You get a small number of half-baked mini-games to play, and while the presentation is solid there just isn’t much to do here if you aren’t really into Umamusume. You just play the same four mini-games again and again, watching a story unfold that only fans are going to properly enjoy. One of those mini-games offers so little interaction that I hesitate to even count it. The other three are better, but they just don’t have the staying power that a party game needs. The best part of all of this is an unlockable mini-game, and even that is a meager meal. Even for fans of the property, Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash feels like it emphasizes the wrong things at great expense. I think a great job has been done here in terms of serving the look, sound, and world of Umamusume, and the wide array of unlockables might be enough to keep those dedicated to the horse-girls interested for a while. But it fades far too fast, and if you’re lacking that attachment to start with, you’re probably going get tired of this well before the final furlong. SwitchArcade Score: 3/5 Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection ($9.99) I think when Western game enthusiasts think of Sunsoft, if they think of Sunsoft at all, they probably think of games like Blaster Master, Batman, or Fester’s Quest. Recently some of the publisher’s rarer treasures have gotten a new shot at fame, bringing Ufouria, Gimmick!, and Trip World into the light. Even short-term mascot Aero the Acro-Bat and his buddies are getting play again. But there is a whole other side to Sunsoft that is less well-known in the West, and what makes it amusing is that it is what the company is mainly known for in its home country of Japan: charmingly rough-around-the-edges 8-bit games. Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection aims to change that, offering up three such games in one very reasonably priced package. In this collection, you get the straightforward side-scrolling platforming of Firework Thrower Kantaro’s 53 Stations of the Tokaido (just rolls off the tongue, don’t it?), the adventure game Ripple Island, and the slightly hard to categorize action game The Wing of Madoola. All three games are delivered in a wrapper with most of the basic features you would want. That includes save states, rewind, some display options, manual scans, and a little art gallery for each game. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that all three games have been fully localized, all the way down to their title screens. For Ripple Island, that was no small task! This is the first time we’ve seen these games get an official release in English, and that’s worth celebrating on its own. So how are the games? A real mix, friends. 53 Stations is a frustrating game due to how your weapon is awkward to use against the swarms of enemies that appear, but there is a real charm to it thanks to how hard it leans into its theme. Ripple Island is a good adventure game, and I would lightly recommend it to anyone who enjoys that genre. The Wing of Madoola is the most ambitious game of the three, and it sometimes feels like it misses as often as it hits, but it’s worth putting some time into. None of these will make the list of top NES games by any means, but I wouldn’t call any of them bad either. Vexing, perhaps. Sunsoft fans and those who like digging into the margins of console libraries will get a real kick out of Sunsoft is Back! Retro Game Selection‘s offerings. Each game has been handled with care, and it’s great to see some games that missed their shot at localization back in the day finally get a chance. Hopefully this is just the first of a series of such collections, but even if this is all we get, it’s nice to see another side of this once-mighty publisher’s library of classics. SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 Select New Releases Cyborg Force ($9.95) If you like run, but also gun while running, you might want to give Cyborg Force a look. It’s a very tough action game in the vein of things like Metal Slug and Contra, and you can play alone or bring a buddy along for some local multiplayer fun. This has been out for at least a few months on a number of other platforms, including the NEOGEO, so you can probably find some feedback out there if you’re in need of it. I think fans of this genre will be into it, at the very least. Billy’s Game Show ($7.99) I know, this looks like a Five Nights rip-off at a glance. Thematically, it kind of is. But this is actually more one of those games where you’re moving around trying to find stuff while a weird creep stalks you. You have to hide or run away when he shows up, because you have no way to stop him. You’ll also need to watch out for traps and keep the three generators running, because you do not want the power to go out. Not my kind of thing, but it might be yours. Mining Mechs ($4.99) A very descriptive title that doesn’t leave me with much to add. Use mechs to do some mining. Collect ores and treasures, sell them, buy upgrades or better mechs that allow you to make even further progress underground. The deeper you go, the more dangerous it gets. As you reach certain profit levels, the story will progress. Not the fanciest of dining, but for a fiver I imagine you’ll get a fair amount of enjoyment from it. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) A tiny inbox, with very little worth getting fussed about. I know, I know. I don’t get to decide that. The outbox has some treats worth mulling over, however. I’ll let you comb through those lists. It is important to learn to find things on one’s own sometimes, I think. Select New Sales Nora: The Wannabe Alchemist ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Deflector ($1.99 from $22.99 until 9/10) Sky Caravan ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) The Blind Prophet ($1.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) They Know ($1.99 from $6.99 until 9/10) Conjured Through Death ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/15) Dark Days ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/24) Another Bar Game ($3.89 from $5.99 until 9/24) Cook Serve Delicious ($4.41 from $12.99 until 9/24) Blood Will Be Spilled ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/24) Feudal Alloy ($3.39 from $16.99 until 9/24) Sales Ending Tomorrow, September 5th Adventure Bar Story ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/5) Anomaly Agent ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/5) Avenging Spirit ($2.99 from $5.99 until 9/5) Bug & Seek ($11.24 from $14.99 until 9/5) Burst Hero ($5.99 from $11.99 until 9/5) Cat Quest II ($3.74 from $14.99 until 9/5) Corpse Party ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Deadcraft ($5.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Dice Make 10! ($3.59 from $3.99 until 9/5) Eldgear ($12.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Evil God Korone ($3.35 from $3.95 until 9/5) F1 Manager 2024 ($27.99 from $34.99 until 9/5) Fairy Elements ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/5) Freedom Planet 2 ($18.74 from $24.99 until 9/5) Genso Chronicles ($9.74 from $14.99 until 9/5) Gibbon: Beyond the Trees ($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/5) Hide & Dance! ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/5) Magical Drop VI ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/5) Marchen Forest ($6.99 from $34.99 until 9/5) Mom Hid My Game! ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/5) Mom Hid My Game! 2 ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/5) My Brother Ate My Pudding! ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/5) Port Royale 4 ($17.49 from $49.99 until 9/5) SCHiM ($17.49 from $24.99 until 9/5) Silent Hope ($13.99 from $39.99 until 9/5) Super Toy Cars Offroad ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) The Sinking City ($5.99 from $49.99 until 9/5) Untitled Goose Game ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Wing of Darkness ($5.99 from $29.99 until 9/5) WitchSpring R ($35.99 from $39.99 until 9/5) Yggdra Union: WNFA ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/5) That’s all for today, friends. There are still more reviews coming this week, so do look forward to those. Plenty of new releases coming to the eShop in the next couple of days, which is about what you would expect from September. Let’s try to reconvene tomorrow, but if we get separated somehow and are trying to find me, you can always head on over to my personal blog Post Game Content. It’s rarely updated, but something tells me I’ll be back into the swing of it soon. I hope you all have an amazing Wednesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Let’s dive in earlier this month to make up for last month’s slightly late edition. A new month and season …

Continue reading "The Best ‘Marvel Snap’ Meta Decks – September 2024 Edition"

Let’s dive in earlier this month to make up for last month’s slightly late edition. A new month and season is upon us, and I’m ready to help you out with some deck-building advice to keep you competitive in Marvel Snap (Free). Truth be told, I feel like the game got into a decently balanced zone over the course of the last month. A new season means new cards though, so it’s all about to go topsy-turvy again. Let’s do our best to figure out where things are going, shall we? Remember as ever: today’s winning deck could be tomorrow’s crunchy brown leaves. These guides are one way to keep your finger on the pulse of the scene, but they aren’t the only method you should be using. Note that most of these decks are the best of the best at this point in time. They assume you have access to a full range of cards. I’ll once again be including the five strongest Marvel Snap decks of the moment, and I’ll throw in a couple more decks that don’t need things that are too hard to get and are just sort of fun to play with. You know, a little variety and all of that. I would go as far as to say that most of the Young Avengers cards didn’t really make a big splash. Kate Bishop hit her mark, as she is wont to, and Marvel Boy definitely made a difference for fans of 1-Cost Kazoo decks, but the rest were kind of all over the place. You’ll see them here and there, but they haven’t shaken things up yet. I can’t say the same for the freshly launched Amazing Spider-Season, as it looks like it and the new Activate ability are coming in like a wrecking ball. Next month is going to look very, very different, I’m certain. Kazar and Gilgamesh Included Cards: Ant-Man, Nebula, Squirrel Girl, Dazzler, Kate Bishop, Marvel Boy, Caeira, Shanna, Kazar, Blue Marvel, Gilgamesh, Mockingbird So it has come to this, eh? Never thought I would see the day when Kazoo was among the top decks, but the Young Avengers have made it happen. At its heart, this is a very familiar deck. Get a bunch of low cost cards out there and then buff them with Kazar and Blue Marvel. The new tricks here are Marvel Boy adding more buffs and Gilgamesh benefiting big-time from all of that. Kate Bishop and her arrows can help fill spaces for Dazzler if needed, and her arrows will help bring down the cost of your other heavy hitter, Mockingbird. A very nice deck with strong performance. We’ll see if it can hang in there. Silver Surfer Still Never Dies, Part II Included Cards: Nova, Forge, Cassandra Nova, Brood, Silver Surfer, Killmonger, Hope Summers, Nocturne, Sebastian Shaw, Copycat, Absorbing Man, Gwenpool Silver Surfer is still flying high, with a few tweaks to react to balance changes and new cards. If you’ve been playing a while, you know how this goes. You’ve got the classic Nova/Killmonger pair for boosting your cards a bit once you have some out there. Forge ideally boosts Brood so that its clones will be stronger. Gwenpool boosts cards in your hand, Shaw gets beefier as he gets buffed, Hope lets you get more Energy, Cassandra Nova grabs power from your opponent, and the Surfer/Absorbing Man combo is there finish things off in style. Copycat steals Red Guardian’s spot, as she has proven an extremely useful general-purpose tool. Spectrum and Man-Thing Ongoing Included Cards: Wasp, Ant-Man, Howard the Duck, Armor, US Agent, Lizard, Captain America, Cosmo, Luke Cage, Ms. Marvel, Man-Thing, Spectrum Even the Ongoing archetype is up here at the top, which is another interesting outcome. You’ve got some generally useful cards here, all with Ongoing abilities. That means Spectrum will give them a nice final turn buff. The Luke Cage/Man-Thing combo is also a very nice one, and Luke will even protect your cards from US Agent’s powerful effect. The other good point of this deck is that it’s pretty easy to play, and I have a feeling Cosmo is going to become even more useful than he already was with things going the way they are. Discard Dracula Included Cards: Blade, Morbius, The Collector, Swarm, Colleen Wing, Moon Knight, Corvus Glaive, Lady Sif, Dracula, Proxima Midnight, MODOK, Apocalypse The classics are the order of the day right now, is the theme. Here’s the very reliable Apocalypse-flavor Discard deck, with the only real change from the standard being the presence of Moon Knight. He got better after his buff. Anyway, your big cards here are Morbius and Dracula, and if everything goes well you’ll end up with nothing more in your hand than Apocalypse on that last round. Dracula will eat him, you’ll get a Mega-Drac, and Morbius should be morbing all over the place with all that discarding you’ve been doing. Collector might even be a bit cheeky if you go to town on Swarms enough. Destroy Included Cards: Deadpool, Niko Minoru, X-23, Carnage, Wolverine, Killmonger, Deathlok, Attuma, Nimrod, Knull, Death Yes, it’s the Destroy deck. Very, very close to the traditional one even. Attuma has grabbed a spot here thanks to his recent change. A very successful buff, that one. Destroy Deadpool and Wolverine as much as possible, get extra energy with X-23, finish up with a nice Nimrod swarm or drop Knull if you’re feeling cute. Weird to see this kind of deck without Arnim Zola, but counter-measures are getting too common these days I suppose. And now, a couple of fun decks for those still climbing up the collection ladder or who simply want to try something different. Darkhawk Is Back (Did He Ever Leave?) Included Cards: The Hood, Spider-Ham, Korg, Niko Minoru, Cassandra Nova, Moon Knight, Rockslide, Viper, Proxima Midnight, Darkhawk, Blackbolt, Stature I have always liked Darkhawk, despite him being unspeakably goofy from virtually his first appearance. So I’m glad he’s a competitive card in Marvel Snap, to the point that I like to tinker around with decks using him. This one has the classic combos, with Korg and Rockslide adding cards to your opponent’s deck. It also has some spoiler cards like Spider-Ham and Cassandra Nova, plus a couple of cards that will cause your opponent to discard and make Stature cheap to play. Yay, Dorkhawk! Budget Kazar Included Cards: Ant-Man, Elektra, Ice Man, Nightcrawler, Armor, Mister Fantastic, Cosmo, Kazar, Namor, Blue Marvel, Klaw, Onslaught If that Kazar deck up there looks nice but you’re just starting out, you might as well practice with this beginner-friendly variant. No, it probably won’t win as reliably as the fancy version. But it will teach you how this kind of combo works, and that’s valuable experience. You still get that nice Kazar and Blue Marvel mix, with a flavorful Onslaught on top to spike the football. And that’s it for this month’s deck guide. With the latest season and whatever balance changes Second Dinner opts to make during the course of the month, I’m sure things will look quite different come October. That Activate ability really changes up the flow of games, and Symbiote Spider-Man is looking to be a complete beast. As ever, it’s also going to be interesting to see what cards and decks Second Dinner feels like addressing with balance changes. It’s interesting to see the classics on top again, but I can’t imagine it will stay that way. For now… happy snapping!

Mobile games don’t have to make sense, as evidenced by the enduring popularity of a franchise that sees players catapulting …

Continue reading "‘Foxy’s Football Islands’ Offers Up Something Very Different on Mobile"

Mobile games don’t have to make sense, as evidenced by the enduring popularity of a franchise that sees players catapulting birds (which can fly) at pigs (green). But even in the topsy-turvy world of mobile game concepts, Foxy’s Football Islands is gloriously out on a limb. The hypercasual gameplay spans a number of different genres, including football, building, collection, and multiplayer tit-for-tat. These genres aren’t natural bedfellows, any more than a fox is an obvious choice for a football game, but it all works like a dream. Here’s how it all works. Your first port of call is an island called Aztlan, a lush green habitat dotted with palm trees and building sites. Tap on one of these sites and you’ll begin construction on a building. Once that building is finished, you can tap again to upgrade it, and again, and again, all over the island, until every building has reached its final form. Then you move to the next island, earning stars that determine your place on the leaderboards. But hold up. It’s not that simple. Construction is an expensive business, and you’ll need to keep filling your coffers with gold coins to finance the work. And what’s the easiest way to earn coins fast? That’s right: by playing football. The soccer part of Foxy’s Football Islands sees you taking shots at a goal – or, more specifically, at targets nested within a goal. To take a shot, you slide your finger up the screen in the direction of the target. Unless, that is, there’s wind over the pitch, in which case you have to adjust for the gusts. Some targets move, too, requiring you to lead your shots. Hitting a target can have a number of different results, the most common of which is a great cascade of coins. The size of this cascade depends on the amount you stake. While a basic shot uses up one unit of energy (more on that later) it’s possible to double or treble the ante in exchange for proportionately greater rewards – as long as you don’t miss. You’ll also get to attack another player’s island, either at random or in a targeted fashion, destroying one of their buildings and setting them back in their quest to overtake you on the leaderboards. Sometimes you’ll bring up a moving target, opening the way for a major payday, and on other occasions you’ll obtain a special glove that lets you block a single attack on your own island. There are familiar elements in Foxy’s Football Islands, including an energy system that limits the number of shots you can take (unless you pay for more), gems for buying coins, a tiered upgrade system, and so on. But it’s the way the game manages to bring together a vast range of different genres that really helps Foxy’s Football Islands really stand out. One minute you’re enjoying a physics-based football game, and then next you’re expanding your territory by ploughing coins into the construction of an Aztec pyramid or an Ancient Egyptian monument. The multiplayer is equally varied, combining the extremely devious with the extremely wholesome. For instance, when you’re not taking revenge on players who have aggrieved you or targeting your friends for lols you’re trading the adorable relics that you obtain throughout the campaign. We’re not sure whether Foxy’s Football Islands is a nasty game with a nice streak or a nice game with a nasty streak. Either way, there’s nothing else quite like it. To play the game for yourself, head to the Google Play Store or the App Store and download Foxy’s Football Islands for free right now. Sponsored Content This article is sponsored content written by TouchArcade and published on behalf of Frank’s Football Studios to promote Foxy’s Football Islands. For questions or comments, please email ads@toucharcade.com

While most fans have been looking forward to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 or basically a sequel to Warhammer 40,000: …

Continue reading "Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Steam Deck Review (in Progress) – GOTY Contender, but Play It Elsewhere for Now"

While most fans have been looking forward to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 or basically a sequel to Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine for many years, I wasn’t really aware of the first game until I played Total War: Warhammer and was looking into other Warhammer 40,000 games. Since then, I’ve played many of them, with my favorites being Boltgun and Rogue Trader. I did end up playing some of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine on Steam Deck many months ago to see how it felt. Having played many of the Warhammer 40,000 games on PC and even console more recently, I was excited to see how Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 felt after that amazing reveal it had. Over the last eight days, I’ve put in about 22 hours into Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 across my Steam Deck and PS5 making use of cross progression and also testing out the online. This Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Steam Deck review is an in progress one for two reasons. The first is I cannot score a game like this without testing out cross platform multiplayer and also the online in general with public servers. The second is because Focus and Saber have confirmed that they are working on official Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Steam Deck support and aiming to have it out by the end of the year. Having seen how amazing Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine looks and plays on Steam Deck, and because Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has cross progression, I was very curious to see how it plays on Steam Deck if at all. There’s good news and bad news right now, and I’m going to cover all of that in this Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Steam Deck review in progress with the gameplay, online co-op, visuals, PC port features, PS5 features, and more included. Note that the screenshots in the article with the performance overlay or fps displayed are from my Steam Deck OLED while the 16:9 screenshots are from my PS5 playthrough. My testing has also been done on Proton GE 9-9 and Proton Experimental (bleeding edge). Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is a third person action shooter that is equal parts brutal, gorgeous, and fun, and this also applies to newcomers to the world of Warhammer 40,000. After a brief but well thought out tutorial-like intro segment that introduces you to the basics of combat and movement, you arrive at your main hub, the Battle Barge. This is where you choose your missions, game mode, adjust cosmetics, and much more. The moment to moment gameplay is superb with the controls and weapons all feeling perfect. I’m sure some will gravitate to using ranged more, but I adore the melee weapons and how visceral the combat feels up close. I never got tired of the executions and just plowing through tons of fodder enemies before the more powerful foes appear. The campaign is super fun solo and with a friend (or two) in co-op, but I hate any sort of defense missions. Thankfully I wasn’t too bothered by the implementation here. When playing with a friend of mine who lives in another country, I kept thinking how Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 felt like a big budget take on a co-op shooter from the Xbox 360 era that we don’t really see much of these days. It managed to get its hooks in me just like Earth Defense Force or the recent Gundam Breaker 4 have done, and I really hope Saber and Focus can somehow work with SEGA to give the original game’s campaign a modern facelift. Before going further, my knowledge of Warhammer 40,000 is through the Total War Warhammer, Dawn of War, Boltgun, and Rogue Trader more or less. With that said, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has been refreshing to play and is one of my favorite co-op experiences in years. It is too soon to say if this is my favorite Warhammer 40,000 game, but I just want to save this review draft and get back to playing right now. I’m addicted to playing with a friend in Operations mode while trying out the different classes and slowly progressing through the missions and unlocks. I don’t want to definitively say this since I’ve not played Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 once the full game launches with randoms, but what I’ve experienced in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 co-op so far is superb. I cannot wait to properly try out the online this week once the game launches with cross progression and cross platform online. Visually, I can only comment on how Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is on PS5 and Steam Deck, and it is definitely a looker in the 4K mode on PS5 when played on my 1440p monitor. While it has always looked good in trailers, I’m floored at how good the environments look and also how much work has clearly gone into making everything feel alive not only with the massive number of enemies in the swarms, but also the texture work and lighting. This is all complemented by stunning direction for the main character voice acting and all the gear and customization options included. You can tell a lot of care went into making it so that you can show off your creativity with the customization options and more. There’s also a photo mode you can access during singleplayer letting you adjust frames, expressions, characters visible, FOV, and much more. One thing to note is that if you do this on Steam Deck right now, some of the frames or effects don’t look too good when using FSR 2 and a lower resolution. On PS5 though, the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 photo mode is amazing. On the audio side, I didn’t know what to expect from the music. Ideally, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 would have shipped with Bolt Thrower’s Realm of Chaos, but that likely wasn’t an option. I know bringing this up is like when I wished God of War (2018) had some Amon Amarth music. That tangent aside, the real star of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2’s audio is the voice acting and general sound design. This is top tier stuff. The music is very good so far, but I’ve not heard anything (so far) that I would want to listen to a lot outside the game. It works perfectly in-game though. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 PC graphics options So how is the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 PC port? I’ve only played it on Steam Deck of course, but I can still cover what features it includes. When you boot up Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, it installs Epic Online Services, but there is no need to link your Epic account. I have one, but didn’t bother linking it. As for the Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 PC graphics options, you can adjust display, display mode (windowed, borderless, and fullscreen), resolution (800×600 and above), render resolution (native, dynamic to hit the fps target), quality, balanced, performance, and ultra performance), resolution upscaling type (TAA or FSR 2 on Steam Deck), dynamic resolution target, toggle v-sync, adjust brightness, motion blur intensity, fps limit (30, 60, 90, 120, unlimited), and then change many quality-related settings. The Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 visual quality settings include four presets that adjust the following: texture filtering, texture resolution, shadows, screen space ambient occlusion, screen space reflections, volumetrics, effects, details, and cloth simulation. As mentioned in the blog post linked above, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 on PC ships with DLSS and FSR 2 support. FSR 3 is planned for post-launch. I imagine the game will benefit from this on Steam Deck whenever it ships. I also hope the team adds full 16:10 support when the ultrawide update ships because the game is 16:9 only now. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 PC control options On the control side, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 has keyboard and mouse controls in addition to full controller support. Initially, I wasn’t able to get it to display PlayStation button prompts on Steam Deck by default, but turning off Steam Input fixed this. I noticed an adaptive trigger option under control settings, and this made me try disabling Steam Input. This menu also lets you remap keyboard and mouse bindings. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 displays PlayStation button prompts when I use my DualSense controller over Bluetooth, and it even supports Adaptive Triggers wirelessly on PC. This isn’t too common so I thought it was worth highlighting. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Steam Deck performance Before getting to the visuals and performance, I want to note that I had some freezing (only while booting up the game) on the default Proton or Experimental (bleeding edge), but I did not have any freezing when using Proton GE 9-9. Aside from that, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is playable (technically) on Steam Deck with no config change needed. The bad news is that it is a bit too much for Valve’s handheld right now. When playing at 1280×800 (it still is 16:9) and using the low preset with FSR 2.0 at Ultra Performance, it still cannot hold a locked 30fps. There are regular dips to the mid 20s in tense combat, and it can even go lower. Even when playing at a lower resolution, it drops below 30fps. For a game like this, that isn’t close to ideal. I hope it can eventually reach a stage where it can run at 30fps, but it isn’t possible right now as far as I can tell across the 10 hours I played on my Steam Deck OLED. When using the dynamic upscaling for a 30fps target and the low preset, it can hit the 30s, but it drops to the low 20s often. This mode does still look very good on the Deck’s own screen, but as you can tell, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is too much for Steam Deck right now. It also sometimes doesn’t exit out correctly requiring you to manually force close the game when you hit quit. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Steam Deck multiplayer impressions With all that aside, I wanted to make sure Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is playable online on Steam Deck. We sometimes have games where the developers add some anti cheat that blocks online play on Proton or Linux. Thankfully, I can report that Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 works perfectly online. I tested with a friend in Canada and we had a blast for a few hours playing in co-op. The only issue I had was some internet related disconnection, but since these are pre-release servers, I will be waiting to test out the game in a more public environment with randoms and friends once the game launches. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 PS5 features – DualSense, Activity Cards, and Performance Mode Since I also played Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 on PS5, I wanted to cover how it feels on a current console for those who play on Steam Deck and consoles like I do. I’ve only tried the performance mode so far, and it feels mostly great. Don’t expect a locked 60fps though, and there seems to be some dynamic resolution or upscaling happening because I noticed it got very blurry in two big fights in the operations mode with a friend. Aside from that, I have no qualms in recommending Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 on PS5 right now based on the time I’ve put into it, but I want to make sure the online works cross platform before giving it a definite recommendation. The load times are fast and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 also has PS5 Activity Card support for different modes and getting back into your save file saving time from the PS5 dashboard. As of this writing, there is no gyro support on PS5. If this changes, I will update this section, but sadly I didn’t see anything hinting at it in the build I’ve played pre-release. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 cross save progression explained While this may change with the full launch, I’ve been able to take my Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 progress across Steam and PS5. There is some sort of two day cooldown period before you can sync it back or to another platform. I reached out to Focus to check if the final build will let you do it again immediately or still have the cool down. Is Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 worth it for solo play only? This is a question I cannot fully answer yet because the servers are not as populated as they will be at launch. I will be updating this once I’ve played with randoms and seen how the matchmaking works in the Operations (PvE) and Eternal War (PvP) modes. Speaking of Eternal War, I’ve not been able to test that yet. I will be doing so to update this review in the near future. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 features I want to see in updates and patches Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is clearly going to get a ton of post-launch support through updates and DLC, and the main thing I want to see aside from improvements to Steam Deck performance is proper HDR support. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is gorgeous and the texture work, materials, and lighting would pop even more with HDR. Aside from that, I’m pleased with the DualSense implementation of triggers and vibration, but haptic feedback would be great. The blog post mentions haptics won’t be in “at launch" and I hope that means it is planned for later. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is an easy game of the year contender so far. While I still need a bit of time to test the online when cross play is available from launch day, the gameplay is sublime and Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 looks and sounds superb across the board. Having played it on PS5 and Steam Deck with cross progression, I don’t recommend playing it on Valve’s handheld right now. It gets an easy recommendation on PS5 though. I will be updating this with a full score once I’ve gotten enough time with the multiplayer and some patches. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 Steam Deck Review Score: TBA

With August in the rear-view mirror, taking the Young Avengers with it, we’re about due for another season in Marvel …

Continue reading "Swing Into ‘Marvel Snap’ With The Amazing Spider-Season"

With August in the rear-view mirror, taking the Young Avengers with it, we’re about due for another season in Marvel Snap (Free). And indeed, a new one has kicked off today! What is the theme, you might be wondering? Why it’s the best kind of Marvel theme! The deadly… the terrifying… the Amazing Spider-Season! BONESAW IS READY! Sorry, Bonesaw isn’t in this season. Maybe someday. But there are some cool new cards and locations, so let’s check them out! This season is a bit of a doozy as it is introducing a new type of card ability: Activate. With Activate, you choose when to fire off the card’s ability. It’s like an On Reveal that you can trigger at any time, while also dodging things that affect On Reveal abilities. The Season Pass card naturally takes advantage of this new feature, and so far he is looking like a real doozy. If you want to see the folks at Second Dinner introduce the new season, I’ve linked the video below. Read on for my summary. Symbiote Spider-Man is the new Season Pass card. He’s 4-Cost 6-Power, and he has an Activate ability that absorbs the lowest cost card at the location and copies the text of that card. If that includes an On Reveal ability, it will fire off again as though the card was just played. Combine with Galactus for HIJINKS. I’ll be really surprised if this card survives the season without being nerfed, but he sure is a whole lot of fun already. Now for the rest of the lot. Silver Sable is 1-Cost 1-Power, but she has an On Reveal ability that steals two power from card at the top of your opponent’s deck. Decent as a standalone, really useful in combinations with certain locations and other cards. Next, the star of the hit film Madame Web. She has an Ongoing ability that allows you to move one of the other cards at her location elsewhere once per turn. Next, Arana. Another 1-Cost 1-Power card, and she’s our next Activate ability user. Activate her to move the next card you play to the right and give it +2 Power. She’s going to be a staple of move decks, I’m sure. Rounding out our Spider-Friends is Scarlet Spider, the Ben Reilly variety. He’s a 4-Cost 5-Power card, and he has an Activate ability too! Use it to spawn an exact clone to another location. Power him up, then multiply him! Clones don’t have feelings! As for the new locations, there are two. The Brooklyn Bridge is a big part of Spider-Man lore, and it’s certainly due for an appearance in Marvel Snap. The gimmick with this location is that you can’t place cards there two turns in a row. You’re going to have to get creative to dominate this spot! The other location is Otto’s Lab, and it works a lot like Otto himself. The next card you play there will pull a card from the enemy’s hand to the location. Ooh, surprises! THE DIE IS CAST! And that’s the lot for the new season! Some very interesting cards this time around, and that new Activate ability is sure to create some fascinating possibilities. We’ll have our September deck guide up very soon, as we could all use a little help in handling this wall-crawling menace and his friends. What do you think of this season? Any cards you’ll be playing? Are you buying that Season Pass? Let us know in the comments!

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 3rd, 2024. In today’s article, I have a few …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring ‘Castlevania Dominus Collection’, Plus Today’s Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 3rd, 2024. In today’s article, I have a few more reviews for you. Some lengthy thoughts on Castlevania Dominus Collection, a look at Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn, and some quick critiques of a pair of Pinball FX tables that recently arrived as DLC. After that, we check out the new releases of the day including the quirky and cool Bakeru, then roll into the latest sales and expiring discounts for the day. Let’s get into it! Reviews & Mini-Views Castlevania Dominus Collection ($24.99) Say what you will about Konami in the modern era, but it has been absolutely killing it with most of its classic collections. Castlevania in particular has been enjoying a great deal of love in this regard, with Castlevania Dominus Collection being its third on modern platforms. This time around, the focus is on the Nintendo DS trilogy of games in the franchise. The development chores have again been handled by M2, with the usual excellent results. But there’s more here than meets the eye, and with everything taken into account this may well be the most essential Castlevania collection yet. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Let’s talk about the main course first. The Nintendo DS era of Castlevania was a historical one in some ways for the franchise, and not all of them good. On the positive side, all three of the games had a unique identity and make for a surprisingly varied trio. Dawn of Sorrow is a direct sequel to Aria of Sorrow. It hit very early in the Nintendo DS’s life, and is thus cursed to some stupid touchscreen gimmicks that have thankfully been mitigated in this release. Portrait of Ruin shoves the touchscreen nonsense into a bonus mode, relying on an interesting dual-character gimmick to distinguish itself. Order of Ecclesia really mixes things up, with considerably higher difficulty than its predecessor and a design that calls back to Simon’s Quest of all games. All good games. Great even? Would recommend. On the negative side, this was the last gasp of the run of exploratory Castlevania games created by Koji Igarashi, who gave the series a kick in the pants with Symphony of the Night when it needed it most. Returns were diminishing, and Konami thought it had a better play in MercurySteam’s Lords of Shadow. Well, hindsight is 20/20 I suppose. Were these games so distinct from each other because IGA wanted to stretch his creative legs, or was it a desperate attempt to find something that would stick with an increasingly disinterested audience? We’ll never know. I do remember at the time many people were feeling exhausted with this type of Castlevania, and I will shamefully admit that despite buying them on day one every time and playing the heck out of them, I was also feeling like the series was falling into a rut. Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone? So, weird thing here is that these games don’t appear to be emulated, but are instead native ports. That allowed M2 to do neat things like replace the annoying touchscreen seals in Dawn with far more manageable button presses, and show you not only the main screen and the status screen at all times, but also the map as a third screen. What is this, a Nintendo TS? There are still some very DS-like aspects to these games, but they all had to work with a controller for docked mode, and so they all do. This actually makes Dawn of Sorrow a lot better, and I would now put it within my top five Castlevania games of all-time. In terms of options and extras, there is plenty here. For general options, you get a choice of which region of each game you’d like to play, the ability to swap confirm/cancel button mapping, and the choice of whether you want the left stick to be mapped to character movement or the touch cursor. The latter is important for one of the bonus modes in Portrait of Ruin. There is also an incredibly adorable credits sequence where one of the unsung heroes of the series achieves his dreams. Make sure you watch them. There’s a nice gallery where you can view some art, manual scans, and box art for each of the three DS games. You can also listen to the music from all of the included games, and when the music is this good you know that’s a treat. You can even make your own custom playlist of tunes. Once in-game, you can make use of save states and a rewind feature, remap the controls as you like, adjust how the three screens are laid out, choose from a handful of background colors, and adjust the levels on the different audio elements. There is also an exhaustive compendium for each game, with information on equipment, enemies, items, and other points of interest. Pretty much anything you would need to enjoy these games to the maximum. About all I could ask for is perhaps a few other screen arrangement options that allow me to make the play area bigger, but that’s a very minor nitpick. This is a great way to enjoy three very cool games, and for the price it’s an absurd value. But wait! There’s more! The absolutely dreadful arcade Castlevania game, Haunted Castle, has been included here. I’m not sure why it was left off the first collection and shunted to the otherwise shooter-heavy Konami arcade collection, but here it is. Here too you get a variety of options, including the virtually necessary option for unlimited continues. Seriously, this game is brutally unfair. Good music, a terrific opening that sees Simon in a snazzy tux, but the game itself is horrible and completely irredeemable. Or… is it? The last extra, and it feels ridiculous to call something so substantial an extra but it’s M2’s wording not mine, is a complete remake of Haunted Castle. Much like when it took on the task of remaking Castlevania: The Adventure with Castlevania: The Adventure Rebirth on the Nintendo Wii (please reissue all of the Rebirth games), M2 basically took a look at the original game and decided to make a good one instead. Haunted Castle Revisited takes a lot of cues from the arcade original, but it really does its own thing virtually from top to bottom. Yes, we have a new Castlevania game! A very good one! It’s tucked away in the Extras tab of a Nintendo DS collection, but it’s here! If you like Castlevania, you really should buy Castlevania Dominus Collection. There’s an entire new Castlevania game here and it kind of rules. You also get what you’re ostensibly buying the collection for with the three Nintendo DS IGAvanias, presented in as fine a form as you could hope for. The original Haunted Castle is also here. If, on the other hand, you don’t like Castlevania, we are not friends. And finally, if you don’t know Castlevania, you should pick up all three of the collections and get to the good times. Another absolutely stellar showing from Konami and M2. SwitchArcade Score: 5/5 Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn ($19.99) I’ve been through a bit of a roller coaster with Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn. I’ve enjoyed all of Tengo Project’s releases so far, and I believe its versions of Wild Guns and The Ninja Warriors are definitive in every way. I had a few issues with Pocky & Rocky, but overall that was also a very enjoyable romp. Shadow of the Ninja seemed like a different kettle of fish in a lot of ways, however. The Tengo Project team members didn’t have much to do with the original game, and this was an 8-bit game being updated rather than a 16-bit one. I also personally don’t think the original game is as good as Wild Guns, The Ninja Warriors, and Pocky & Rocky were. As a result, when this remake was announced I was a little hesitant. Then I had a chance to play the first little part of the game at the Tokyo Game Show last year, and I enjoyed that well enough to get excited again. Now that I’ve played through the game a few times, I’ve settled somewhere in the middle. I think relative to the other games from this developer, Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn is a bit less well-rounded. The improvements from the original game are many, from the excellent presentation to a more refined weapon and item system. You don’t get any fun new characters in this one, but the two existing playable characters have been differentiated. It is, as one would expect, better than the original game while maintaining the important aspects of its spirit. If you loved Shadow of the Ninja, you’ll really love this. If on the other hand you’re like me and only found the original to be a decent action-platformer, you probably won’t land much further from that mark with Reborn. Having access to both the chain and the sword at all times is a great improvement, and the sword on the whole is more useful than it was in the original game. The new inventory system is cool, adding a little spice to a game that needed something like that. The presentation is excellent, and you would never know it was based on an 8-bit game. There are a couple of rude difficulty spikes, and I think this is actually a more challenging game on the whole than the original. Perhaps that’s necessary, as it’s not a very lengthy affair overall. It’s the best Shadow of the Ninja you could play, but it is still Shadow of the Ninja. Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn is another solid effort from Tengo Project, and in some ways is the most substantial improvement over its predecessor of any of their releases yet. Whether or not you should pick it up is really going to depend on how you feel about that original game, because the core is still very much in line with that NES title. Those without any prior experience will find an enjoyable but not essential action game here, one that very much subscribes to an 8-bit design sensibility. SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5 Pinball FX – The Princess Bride Pinball ($5.49) Just a couple of quick Pinball FX DLC reviews, partly to celebrate the massive update Pinball FX has received that finally makes it properly playable on Switch. To go with that, two new tables were released as DLC: The Princess Bride Pinball, and Goat Simulator Pinball. The former is based on the cult classic movie, and it includes not only real voice clips but also video clips from the film. Now that’s the kind of thing I want to see in these licensed tables, Zen. Mechanically speaking, this table feels like something you could actually see a real physical version of. Relatively straightforward to learn, relatively authentic to the license, and satisfying to score attack on. Zen Studios doesn’t always hit with its licensed tables, often missing things like music, real voices, and likenesses. The Princess Bride Pinball is one of the better ones in that regard, and I think any fan of the movie who isn’t allergic to pinball would do well to check it out. It’s not the most innovative of tables, relying on a lot of well-worn design choices, but I think that too fits. A good time for newcomers or veterans alike. SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5 Pinball FX – Goat Simulator Pinball ($5.49) Then we have Goat Simulator Pinball, and this one understands its license equally well. That means this is a very odd table in a lot of ways, and it certainly could only exist in video game form. You’ll get involved in a lot of silly goat-related incidents, adding effects to your ball to trigger various elements of the table. It’s a little bewildering at first, but stick with it and you’ll be rewarded. More of a table for the veteran players, I think. Goat Simulator fans with no pinball experience will probably have some difficulty getting a handle on it enough to see some of the funnier antics. Goat Simulator Pinball is another solid piece of DLC from the folks at Zen Studios, who have made so many tables by now that they likely relish a chance to do something off-the-wall like this. It’s a tricky table to learn, but once you do you’ll get to see some truly wacky stuff. Fans of the Goat Simulator games who can stick with the game long enough to learn the ropes will be rewarded, but it’s going to take a bit more work to get there than with some other tables. SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 Select New Releases Bakeru ($39.99) If you read my review yesterday, you’ll know I really enjoyed this breezy, charming 3D platformer from the fine folks at Good-Feel. Play as a tanuki named Bakeru who is on a mission to save Japan from an evil overlord who has trapped people in an eternal festival. Battle enemies, get interesting Japan trivia from hidden poo, collect souvenirs, and maybe even laugh here and there. The framerate in this Switch version is inconsistent, so tech heads may want to play it elsewhere. If you don’t mind that aspect, this is a nice game to play on your Switch. Holyhunt ($4.99) This is a top-down arena-based twin-stick shooter. It describes itself as a love letter to 8-bit games, but I don’t really remember seeing many games like this back then. At any rate, it looks amusing enough for what it is. Shoot, shoot, dash, dash, get new gun, repeat. Watch out for bosses. That kind of thing. Shashingo: Learn Japanese with Photography ($20.00) I don’t normally include these language-learning things since we’re more game-focused here, but this one at least seems to have some additional effort put into it. You go around, take pictures of things, and learn the Japanese names for them. Would I spend twenty on it? Probably not. But everyone learns in different ways, and this might be how you learn. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Some decent games in the inbox today, including OrangePixel’s selection of great pick-up-and-play titles. Alien Hominid is enjoying an extremely rare discount, and you can also scoop up Ufouria 2 at a nice price. Over in the outbox, titles from THQ and Team 17 are finishing up their latest discounts. Check out their publisher pages as I’ve only included a handful for each. Have a gander through both lists, as ever. Select New Sales Space Grunts ($8.39 from $13.99 until 9/7) Meganoid ($5.39 from $8.99 until 9/7) Stardash ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/7) Gunslugs ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Gunslugs 2 ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Heroes of Loot ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/7) Heroes of Loot 2 ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/7) Warhammer 40k Dakka Squadron ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/9) Castle Crashers Remastered ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Alien Hominid HD ($9.59 from $11.99 until 9/10) Alien Hominid Invasion ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Conscript ($17.59 from $21.99 until 9/15) Overdelivery ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/15) Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption ($2.99 from $19.99 until 9/16) Agent Intercept ($7.99 form $19.99 until 9/16) Secret Files Tunguska ($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/16) Secret Files Puritas Cordis ($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/16) Secret Files Sam Peters ($2.02 from $6.99 until 9/16) Lost Horizon ($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/16) Lost Horizon 2 ($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/16) Zombo Buster Advance ($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/16) Skautfold Usurper ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/17) Nuclear Blaze ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/17) Helvetii ($5.09 from $16.99 until 9/17) Heidelberg 1693 ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/17) Sophstar ($6.49 from $12.99 until 9/17) Harmony’s Odyssey ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/17) Ufouria 2: The Saga ($17.49 from $24.99 until 9/17) Promenade ($12.49 from $24.99 until 9/17) Shinorubi ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/17) Last Night of Winter ($6.99 from $9.99 until 9/17) Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/18) Nobody Saves The World ($9.99 from $24.99 until 9/23) Summer in Mara ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/23) Guacamelee 2 ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/23) Railbound ($2.59 from $12.99 until 9/23) Sales Ending Tomorrow, September 4th Capes ($29.99 from $39.99 until 9/4) Fates of Ort ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/4) Floogen ($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/4) Fluffy Horde ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/4) Gum+ ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/4) Hopping Girl Kohane EX ($16.74 from $24.99 until 9/4) Kingdom Come Deliverance ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/4) Kona II: Brume ($11.99 from $29.99 until 9/4) Metro 2033 Redux ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4) Metro Last Light Redux ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4) Outward Definitive ($23.99 from $39.99 until 9/4) Overcooked Special Edition ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4) Rolling Car ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/4) Stunt Paradise ($5.19 from $7.99 until 9/4) Tiny Pixels Vol 1 Ninpo Blast ($3.99 from $4.99 until 9/4) Worms WMD ($5.99 from $29.99 until 9/4) Yoku’s Island Express ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new releases, more sales, and perhaps some news. Maybe a review? No promises. I think we’re officially in the season of TOO MANY GOOD GAMES, so hold on to your wallets and enjoy the fun. It’s probably the Switch’s last holiday ride, so let’s make it worth the while. I hope you all have a terrific Tuesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home has been a very interesting game to follow pre-release. I say this not only because …

Continue reading "‘Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home’ iOS Review – A Great Start, but Needs More Work"

Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home has been a very interesting game to follow pre-release. I say this not only because it is a premium mobile-first Harvest Moon game, but also because the reactions from my friends who are longtime fans of the series have gone from apathy to interest with every bit of gameplay shown. Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home launched recently on iOS and Android as a mobile-exclusive entry in Natsume’s Harvest Moon series, and I’ve been playing it for about a week and a half now on iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro for review. Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home is a very good farming simulation game, but one that is held back by a few issues right now. A lot of fans of the Harvest Moon series of games from Marvelous have been around since the SNES or N64 days, but I only got into it on 3DS with Story of Season. Back then, I had no idea about the name change and that Marvelous’ releases would be called Story of Seasons while Harvest Moon would be the name used by Natsume going forward. I’m making that clear now because I don’t want people confused about what Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home is and also to give you my history with the series before getting into how I feel about Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home ($17.99). If you’re new to farming and life simulation games, Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home takes you back from the city to a calming village where you fish, farm, interact with many NPCs, partake in festivals (that need to be unlocked), and even find a companion. The village of Alba, your new home, is dense and cozy (sorry but I had to), and I’m glad it isn’t a big open location because those usually result in a lot of empty spaces when it comes to life simulation games. If you’ve played many in the genre, think of Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home as one that focuses more on the characters with a bit less depth when it comes to farming. After a short tutorial explaining the basics of movement and a bit of farming, you unlock the map and main menu letting you save just about anywhere (this is very important for a mobile game), and this is where you get into the flow of Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home where you try and finish quests for NPCs, upgrade your tools, gather, mine (this unlocks a bit later), and of course farm through the game’s main chapters. The more I played Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home, the more I realized that the developers understood what makes life and farming simulation games great, but fell short in some ways. These may or may not affect newcomers to the genre, but those who have played many recent games will find them lacking. The potential partners are likely the weakest aspect of Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home. They just aren’t as interesting as other games in the genre. If you don’t care about that aspect, Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home is quite a polished entry in the genre. Approaching Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home from a general life simulation game enthusiast’s perspective feels different though. While other platforms are spoiled for choice with tons of games from big and small developers, we don’t really see much like that on mobile, but that doesn’t make up for some of the flaws here, especially at a much higher price point. I think this is a very solid base that the developers can build on to the point where it would even be a great fit for PC and consoles. The only “mobile" aspect of Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home right now is the touch control option. Visually, aside from the performance and load times that I will cover below, Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home looks very good. Some characters look generic, but the interface, farm, building layout, and everything looks good. I also appreciate that Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home supports fullscreen on iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro. It really feels like a game properly tailored to mobile with its visuals and controls. While Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home does look nice visually for the most part, it is lacking when it comes to the character designs. This applies to your own character with customization options that should’ve been more detailed and also the main NPCs in the town. A lot of them feel lifeless even during cut-scenes. Barring that, I like the aesthetic a lot, and Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home looks excellent on my iPhone and iPad. The one disappointment is in performance. Right now, Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home is capped at 30fps on my iPhone 15 Pro and iPad Pro. I was expecting above 60fps let alone 60fps, but it isn’t possible to play at a higher frame rate now. The load times are also not as fast as they should be. On the audio side, I was pleased with the music and sounds in Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home. Nothing stood out to the point where I’d listen to it outside the game, but it sounded good and the music changes were appropriate to the gameplay. When Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home was announced as a mobile-exclusive game, I was curious how it would control. The developers have done a fantastic job with the touch controls here letting you play by tapping to move, dragging to move, and more. Interacting with objects or characters, farming, and navigating menus all feel good. Some text and touch targets feel a bit too small on iPhone, but they are fine on iPad. I would’ve loved some haptic feedback on iPhone though for using tools and even fishing. Maybe this can be added in a future update. If you’ve played the two best life simulation games on mobile: Stardew Valley and My Time at Portia, Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home feels closer to the former, but it isn’t as polished. I dislike bringing up other games in the same genre to compare, but I’m doing it here specifically for the mobile port. Those two games were built for PC/console and brought over to mobile while Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home was built for mobile and yet it doesn’t feel as tailored to the platform in its features. Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home is a mobile-exclusive game, and while I appreciate the touch control scheme, it has a few issues right now when it comes to features. The lack of cloud saves is beyond disappointing. When I first downloaded Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home on my iPhone, I played it for about three hours before picking up my iPad to see how it feels there. I found no way to get the save across, and still haven’t been able to move saves across devices. The lack of controller support is also disappointing for a game like this. The developers did a great job with touch controls, but it would be nice to have controller support for when I play on iPad. I would also like some quality of life features for movement, like we’ve seen in recent games in the genre. As a newcomer to Natsume’s new Harvest Moon games but a fan of all the recent Story of Seasons and other life simulation games, Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home ended up being worth playing, but it needs a few updates and features to be truly essential at full price. I have no issues with developers wanting to charge premium prices on mobile, but Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home lacking basic features like cloud saves and controller support definitely makes it harder to recommend alongside a few other design issues. If the developers continue working on this, it will be one of the best in the genre on mobile, and I’m glad to see them take a chance on a premium mobile life simulation game because that is very rare.

Summer holidays might be over, but fans of Gunship Battle: Total Warfare are still in for a treat as Joycity …

Continue reading "‘Gunship Battle: Total Warfare’ Launches Massive Sky Ace Update"

Summer holidays might be over, but fans of Gunship Battle: Total Warfare are still in for a treat as Joycity released one of the game’s most impressive updates that introduces Sky Ace alongside numerous QOL enhancements and a special event to keep things as exciting as possible this fall. Sky Ace is a classic 2D puzzle shooter that pays homage to the legendary shooters of console gaming with an unquestionably high level of polish and prestige. It also has its own storyline. With the help of a famous cast of fighter jets, players will be able to engage in aerial battle against enemy troops in Sky Ace and retrieve lost allies and locations. Players control their fighter jets left and right against a barrage of guided missiles and fast-moving enemy incursions as they shoot and strafe their way through simple calculation-based tasks. This vibrant, engaging feature combines the thrill of solving puzzles with traditional shooter action. But Sky Ace is not the only thing to look forward to and we are sure that players will enjoy the enhanced unit, the inventory navigations, rings that provide fast access to more easily control essential features at log in. Additionally, a new statistics tool has been implemented to let players confirm, use, and increase things more quickly. Together with input from both new and experienced players, these improvements significantly improve player convenience on all fronts. And to mark this special occasion, Joycity also decided to treat the GBTW with a special event that awards all players with an exclusive Jet, the ‘F-35 Sky Pro’ when they successfully complete specific Sky Ace stages. You can find out more about this major update on the official website or on the game’s Facebook page for the latest developments. Gunship Battle: Total Warfare is available for free on the Google Play Store or App Store. Sponsored Content This article is sponsored content written by TouchArcade and published on behalf of Joycity to promote the new Sky Ace update for Gunship Battle: Total Warfare. For questions or comments, please email ads@toucharcade.com

[youtube] Netflix has just showcased its full Netflix Geeked Week 2024 trailer alongside the announcement of tickets going up for …

Continue reading "Netflix Geeked Week Trailer Teases More Game News for Event on September 16th"

[youtube] Netflix has just showcased its full Netflix Geeked Week 2024 trailer alongside the announcement of tickets going up for sale on the official website. Netflix has been announcing and releasing new games at a regular pace for a while now, and the next releases will be SpongeBob: Bubble Pop and the original Monument Valley (Free). Today’s new trailer for Geeked Week 2024 includes a tease for more games news including but not limited to (as far as I can tell) Monument Valley and more. I’m curious to see what else we get at the event. Watch the full trailer below: I hope we see some more premium indie game ports get announced for Netflix because the year has been bonkers good for indie game releases, and I’d love to replay some of them on iOS. If you somehow haven’t played Monument Valley on mobile and would like to on Netflix, you can sign up here for it on iOS. Aside from games, the event will have updates on many shows and there will also be an in-person event on the 19th in Atlanta with a Games Lounge to play some of Netflix’s latest mobile games. What would you like to see at the event?

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 2nd, 2024. I think it’s a holiday today in …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring ‘Bakeru’ & ‘Peglin’, Plus Highlights From Nintendo’s Blockbuster Sale"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for September 2nd, 2024. I think it’s a holiday today in the United States, but here in Japan it’s Monday as usual. That means I’ve got some goodies for you, and in our typical week-starting fashion that means a bunch of reviews. Three written by yours truly, and one from our pal Mikhail. I take a look at Bakeru, Star Wars: Bounty Hunter, and Mika and the Witch’s Mountain. Mikhail dives once more into Peglin, a game he can speak to better than anyone else at TouchArcade Towers. Beyond that, we’ve got a bit of news from Mikhail, and a massive list of deals from Nintendo’s Blockbuster Sale. Let’s get to it! News Guilty Gear Strive Nintendo Switch Edition Coming January 2025 Arc System Works has done it. They’re bringing Guilty Gear Strive to Nintendo Switch on January 23rd with 28 characters included and rollback netcode for online battles. It won’t be crossplay sadly, but should be good for playing offline and with other Switch owners. I adore the game on Steam Deck and PS5, and will definitely try this one out. Check out the official website here. Reviews & Mini-Views Bakeru ($39.99) Bakeru is not Goemon/Mystical Ninja. It is made by some of the people who worked on that series. There are some superficial similarities. But it is not Goemon, and coming into it expecting Goemon is both a disservice to Bakeru and yourself. Bakeru is Bakeru. Goemon is still on the milk carton, to the upper-left of the Sunset Riders. Expectations set, let’s talk about this game instead. Bakeru comes to us by way of Good-Feel, a studio that has frequently worked with Nintendo on games in the Wario, Yoshi, and Kirby franchises. Most recently, it developed Princess Peach: Showtime!. Its specialty appears to be in cute, low-friction, well-polished platformers. Guess what Bakeru is? Bad things are going down in Japan, and a little goober named Issun stumbles on some assistance in the unlikely form of a tanuki named Bakeru. With his mighty abilities to change forms and wield a taiko drum and drumsticks, Bakeru might just be the guy for the job. You’ll tour Japan prefecture by prefecture, whacking baddies, grabbing cash, talking to poop, and looking for secrets. You’ve got more than sixty levels to play here, and while I wouldn’t say they’re all super-memorable, it’s an easy-going experience that remains rather engaging throughout. I genuinely enjoyed the collectibles in this game more than those in most platformers I’ve played, just because they usually reflect the location you’re in. Lots of little nuggets about Japan, and some things that even a long-time resident like me didn’t know. Boss fights! Okay, this is one part where I’ll allow comparisons to Goemon. Or any other Good-Feel game, I suppose. This is a development team that understands the value of a good boss battle, and gosh are they fun here. Creative spectacles that nicely reward the player for winning. Indeed, Bakeru takes a lot of creative swings for what is essentially a straight-up 3D platformer, and I will admit some work out better than others. Well, that’s how this kind of thing goes. I genuinely appreciated the ones that worked out well, and I can forgive the ones that didn’t. I kind of fell in love with this game despite seeing all of its flaws as I went along. It’s that sort of game. Intensely likeable. The only real fly in the ointment here is the performance on Switch, something I believe Mikhail talked about in his look at the Steam version of the game. The framerate is quite variable here, at times climbing up to 60 fps but frequently dipping considerably when things get busy. With the full admission that I am not a person that tends to be bothered by inconsistent framerates, I will say that it wasn’t enough of an issue to dampen my enjoyment of the game. But if you are more sensitive to that than I am, I want to make it very clear that there are still problems here despite the improvements since the Japanese launch last year. Bakeru is a highly endearing little 3D platformer, one with a well-polished design and lots of fun ideas to spice things up during its relatively lengthy adventure. It really commits to its bit, and that part of it is almost infectious. Some framerate issues keep this from being all it could be on Switch, and I think people who come into this expecting Goemon are going to be disappointed by the fact that it’s not even trying to be that, but otherwise this is a highly-recommended title to close out your summer with. SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5 Star Wars: Bounty Hunter ($19.99) There was a lot of merch put out around the releases of the films in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Video games were a big part of that, and it’s kind of impressive how many Star Wars games we saw put out in that era after going entire generations of consoles with only a handful. And while the movies weren’t exactly critical darlings, it’s inarguable that they opened up a lot of new story-telling avenues. Remember Boba Fett? The guy with the cool armor who got knocked into a living pit by a guy who couldn’t even see? Well, here’s his dad! He also has cool armor, and is also defeated in a very undignified way. But maybe you’re wondering about how his life was before we met him in Attack of the Clones? Star Wars: Bounty Hunter fills in that story, whether you asked for it or not. This is the tale of Jango Fett, a bounty hunter so cool and awesome that an entire army ended up being cloned from him. The finest in the galaxy! Don’t ask what happened ten seconds after he had to face off against a Jedi Master. Cool armor! Besides being the number one manhunter in the business, what else made him fit to be the model for the clone army? That’s what this game is about, actually. Jango’s try-out for the job, if you will. He is sent to hunt a Dark Jedi by the totally innocent Count Dooku, and if he picks up a few extra bounties on the way, more’s the better. That’s pretty much how this one goes. You take on each level with a particular target in mind, but there are optional targets you can find, mark, and bring in dead or alive. You get access to a wide array of weapons and other toys, including the iconic jetpack. It’s pretty interesting at first, but the gameplay doesn’t really change things up enough as it goes on so it’s quite repetitive over the long haul. It has a lot of problems you would expect from a 2002 video game, an era where some of this stuff was still being figured out. Targeting is an absolute mess. Cover doesn’t work as well as you might hope. Level designs are often trying to be open but somehow end up feeling cramped and badly sign-posted. Even in its time, this was an average game at best, tied to the worst Star Wars movie. Well, at least that’s not the worst Star Wars movie anymore. In some ways age has not been kind to Bounty Hunter, but Aspyr has done what it could to improve it without changing too much. The game looks and runs better than it ever did, and the new default control scheme is a lot better. Nothing was changed in how it saves your progress mind you, so be prepared for the very real possibility of having to start the lengthy stages over if you mess up too much. Oh, but you can unlock a Boba Fett skin, so that’s neat. If you were ever going to play this game, this new version is the way to do it. There’s a certain nostalgic charm to Star Wars: Bounty Hunter. There is a particular flavor to games from the PlayStation 2/GameCube/Xbox generation of consoles, and this game is absolutely steeped in it despite the nips and tucks made by Aspyr in the porting process. And it’s really in that capacity that I can most confidently recommend it, when I think about it. Are you in the mood to time travel back to 2002 and play a thoroughly rough-edged yet genuinely earnest action game? Here you go. If on the other hand you lack that proclivity, this might be a bit too much Jank-o Fett for you. SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5 Mika and the Witch’s Mountain ($19.99) After some horrible video games based on Nausicaa, Hayao Miyazaki put his foot down in a very Miyazaki way and essentially forbade any further games based on his work. Did that extend to all of Ghibli? I’m not sure, the story isn’t clear on that. It seems likely, since we have not seen even one video game based on a Ghibli movie since then. I respect that, but it does mean I will never have my epic Porco Rosso open world flying game. It happens. Game studios Chibig and Nukefist clearly had another Ghibli movie in mind when they made Mika and the Witch’s Mountain, and I’ll trust your reasoning skills enough to sort out witch on your own. You’re a rookie witch, ready to get going on witchy things. The teacher you were sent to see decides to chuck you off the mountain top, breaking your flying broom. Get back up and she might help you out, but your broom isn’t going to bring you there in its current condition. The good news is that there is a town nearby with someone who can fix brooms and even make new ones. The bad news is nothing is free in this world, so you’ll have to take up a job delivering packages to earn some scratch. Zipping around on your broom makes that kind of a job a bit easier and a lot more fun, and the town in question has a lot of things that need delivering. That’s pretty much how it goes. There are some side jobs you can do, but most of the time you’ll be going back and forth in the world trying to get things where they need to go, when they need to go, and hopefully with a minimum of damage done in the process. It works well enough, and the vibrant world and interesting cast of characters contribute greatly to the experience. The Switch is clearly struggling with all of this at times, and the resolution and framerate both take regular hits depending on what part of the world you’re in and what’s going. I would imagine this would play better on more powerful hardware, so if you have that option you might want to take it. Otherwise, people who can forgive some technical flaws (and we’re Switch owners, I imagine most of us are getting good at that) will probably be able to roll with the punches here. Mika and the Witch’s Mountain wears its inspiration on its sleeve, and it is so dedicated to its core gameplay mechanic that it can wear a little thin before the game is up. It also suffers from some performance issues on the Switch. With all that said, I can’t say I didn’t have some fun zipping around on my broom, delivering packages to a bunch of quirky characters. This is one of those games where if you think the concept sounds good, you’ll probably like what you get well enough. SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5 Peglin ($19.99) About a year ago, I reviewed the early access version of Peglin on iOS. We also featured it as our Game of the Week when it hit mobile. Peglin, a pachinko roguelike, has always had a lot of promise, and things have only gotten before for it through major updates over time. Last week during Nintendo’s Indie World and Partner Direct combo, Peglin was announced and released for Switch. I thought the team had just brought the current game to Switch, but I didn’t realize it was actually 1.0 until a few hours later when I got the game. Peglin hit 1.0 last week on Steam and mobile as well alongside the Switch debut, and it definitely is a more complete experience now, but Peglin is a great game for a very specific kind of person. Your aim is to, well aim, your orb to target specific pegs on the board. This lets you damage enemies (above the board) and you make your way towards the end of each zone map like you would in Slay the Spire. There are events, bosses, shops, tons of battles, and more in Peglin, and it is very difficult early on. As you make your way through the zone, you can upgrade or unlock new orbs, heal, and collect relics. You don’t just need to get your orb to a specific portion of the board at the bottom though. Peglin’s strategy is aiming so you correctly use critical or bomb pegs depending on the situation with enemies. You can also refresh the board by hitting a specific peg. There’s a lot to take in at the start, but it all clicks soon and you will be humming the songs even when you aren’t playing Peglin. Having played Peglin on Steam and mobile, I was curious to see how the Switch port would feel. It is mostly great when it comes to performance. The aiming isn’t as smooth as on other platforms, but I got around this by using touch controls. Aside from that, the load times are longer than mobile and Switch. These aren’t huge issues given how some recent Switch ports ship in a miserable state, but it is worth keeping in mind if you own multiple platforms and are curious where to buy Peglin. I’d say Peglin is best on Steam Deck, but the second place is close between mobile and Switch. While the Switch has no achievements, there’s a system in place inside Peglin to track those. I like it when developers do their own achievements since the Switch lacks them on a systemwide level. You can ignore these as usual, but I liked the addition here. One feature I wished to see in 1.0 was cross save across platforms. This likely isn’t feasible for a small developer, but some way to carry over or unlock things on Switch from mobile/PC would’ve been nice. Other than that, my only issues with Peglin on Switch have to do with the load times and aiming not being smooth. Hopefully these can be improved over updates because more free updates are coming as confirmed by the developers at Red Nexus Games. I already thought Peglin was fantastic even in its early access state. While some balance issues hold it back a bit, it is an essential on Switch if “pachinko x roguelike" sounds good to you. I also love that the developers made full use of the Switch hardware features by adding good rumble, full touchscreen support, and button controls making it so that you can play however you want. Now we just need a physical release. -Mikhail Madnani SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5 Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Okay, wow. A lot of stuff on sale, and while I’ve got a lot of it here this is only scratching the surface. I’ve put together another article with what I think are the best picks from the sale, so keep your eyes open for that as well. Anyway, good luck with all of that. I’ll meet you at the bottom. Select New Sales Avenging Spirit ($2.99 from $5.99 until 9/5) NOISZ re:||COLLECTION G ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/7) Fur Squadron ($2.79 from $6.99 until 9/8) Agnostiko Origins ($13.74 from $24.99 until 9/9) Sonic Mania ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle ($13.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Puyo Puyo Tetris ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap ($5.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Super Bomberman R ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) The Red Strings Club ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Goat Simulator The GOATY ($5.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Downwell ($2.00 from $2.99 until 9/10) Sayonara Wild Hearts ($7.79 from $12.99 until 9/10) Ghostbusters: The Video Game ($7.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Hotline Miami Collection ($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Torchlight II ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Huntdown ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Captain Tsubasa: Rise of New Champions ($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Streets of Rage 4 ($11.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Disc Room ($3.74 from $14.99 until 9/10) Kathy Rain: Director’s Cut ($4.94 from $14.99 until 9/10) Mayhem Brawler ($6.79 from $19.99 until 9/10) TMNT Shredder’s Revenge ($16.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Gal*Gun Returns ($16.49 from $49.99 until 9/10) Gal*Gun Double Peace ($13.19 from $39.99 until 9/10) Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Infernax ($13.39 from $19.99 until 9/10) Rise of the Third Power ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Astroneer ($11.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Lair Land Story ($5.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Return to Monkey Island ($12.49 from $24.99 until 9/10) Shiro ($2.19 from $4.99 until 9/10) Horgihugh And Friends ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Card Shark ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Pac-man Museum+ ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Sonic Origins ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Sonic Frontiers ($20.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Sonic Superstars ($29.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Escape Academy: Complete Edition ($17.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Gunbrella ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Unicorn Overlord ($41.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Terra Nil ($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Reverie Knights Tactics ($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Windjammers 2 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Two Point Hospital: Jumbo Edition ($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Blizzard Arcade Collection ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak Deluxe ($24.49 from $69.99 until 9/10) Gloomhaven: Mercenaries Edition ($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Fae Farm ($41.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Mr. Sun’s Hatbox ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Best Day Ever ($5.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Willy Morgan & the Curse of Bone Town ($7.49 from $24.99 until 9/10) FEZ ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Tales of Kenzara: ZAU ($13.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Make Way ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) ARK: Ultimate Survivor Edition ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Cult of the Lamb Cultist Edition ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Life is Strange 2 ($12.79 from $31.99 until 9/10) Strayed Lights ($5.19 from $12.99 until 9/10) Rakuen: Deluxe Edition ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Valrithian Arc: Hero School Story 2 ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Stones Keeper ($8.79 from $19.99 until 9/10) Bat Boy ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Jack Jeanne ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Bandle Tale: League of Legends Story ($12.49 from $24.99 until 9/10) Song of Nunu: League of Legends Story ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Convergence: League of Legends Story ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) The Mageseeker: League of Legends Story ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Vanaris Tactics ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) The Last Spell ($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Charon’s Staircase ($2.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) The Vale: Shadow of the Crown ($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Dungeon Drafters ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Pentiment ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Demon Slayer KnY – Sweep the Board ($41.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Tetris Effect: Connected ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Boomerang X ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Tenderfoot Tactics ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) CEIBA ($4.39 from $9.99 until 9/10) LEGO Marvel Super Heroes ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Tears of Avia ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Vengeful Guardian Moonrider ($11.04 from $16.99 until 9/10) Dorfromantik ($11.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Undernauts: Labyrinth of Yomi ($29.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Persona 3 Portable ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Persona 4 Golden ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Persona 5 Royal ($29.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Persona 5 Strikers ($17.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Persona 5 Tactica Digital Deluxe ($39.99 from $79.99 until 9/10) Astebros ($7.79 from $12.99 until 9/10) Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble ($37.49 from $49.99 until 9/10) GetsuFumaDen: Undying Moon ($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Ys Origin ($5.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Archetype Arcadia ($20.09 from $29.99 until 9/10) Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood ($10.79 from $17.99 until 9/10) Solar Ash ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Adore ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Prison City ($7.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Two Point Campus ($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) OMNIMUS ($4.39 from $9.99 until 9/10) Ring Racer ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/10) RWBY: Arrowfell ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) The Dragoness: Command of the Flame ($11.69 from $17.99 until 9/10) Die After Sunset ($13.39 from $19.99 until 9/10) Outer Wilds ($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) COCOON ($14.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) The Talos Principle ($4.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Alien: Isolation ($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Dicefolk ($11.24 from $14.99 until 9/10) Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown ($23.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Heads Will Roll: Reforged ($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Eternal Threads ($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Paper Trail ($13.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Spellbearers ($10.04 from $14.99 until 9/10) Wrath: Aeon of Ruin ($20.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Spy x Anya: Operation Memories DE ($45.49 from $69.99 until 9/10) Luxor Evolved ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) MotoGP 24 ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Reigns: Beyond ($3.24 from $4.99 until 9/10) The Mildew Children ($6.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Class of Heroes 1 & 2: CE ($27.99 from $34.99 until 9/10) Tengoku Struggle: Strayside ($34.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Plague Inc: Evolved ($5.09 from $14.99 until 9/10) Catherine: Full Body ($9.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark ($7.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Spyro Reignited Trilogy ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Wobbledogs ($8.19 from $19.99 until 9/10) Adventure Academia: TFC ($17.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) McPixel 3 ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Crypt of the NecroDancer ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Her Majesty’s Spiffing ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) South Park: The Stick of Truth ($7.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Into the Breach ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Raging Loop ($10.49 from $29.99 until 9/10) Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Rogue Legacy ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Rogue Legacy 2 ($13.74 from $24.99 until 9/10) Valkyria Chronicles ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Valkyria Chronicles 4 ($5.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Minit ($2.49 from $9.99 until 9/10) Contra Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Castlevania Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Castlevania Advance Collection ($11.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Arcade Classics Anniversary Collection ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Reigns Game of Thrones ($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/10) Spirit Hunter: Death Mark ($19.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Spirit Hunter: NG ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Spirit Hunter: Death Mark II ($34.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) SEGA AGES Sonic the Hedgehog ($2.39 from $7.99 until 9/10) Darkest Dungeon ($7.49 from $24.99 until 9/10) GRIS ($3.39 from $16.99 until 9/10) The Lara Croft Collection ($19.99 from $24.99 until 9/10) Gorogoa ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Enter the Gungeon ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/10) Exit the Gungeon ($2.49 from $9.99 until 9/10) Ion Fury ($6.24 from $24.99 until 9/10) Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid ($4.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Power Rangers: BftG Super Edition ($12.49 from $49.99 until 9/10) Minecraft Legends Deluxe Edition ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/10) Minecraft Dungeons Ultimate Edition ($24.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Parasite Pack ($3.19 from $7.99 until 9/12) Rider’s Spirits ($4.19 from $5.99 until 9/12) Shockman Collection Vol. 1 ($7.69 from $10.99 until 9/12) Cities Skylines ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/12) Empire of Sin ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/12) Demon’s Tilt ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/12) Shadowrun Trilogy ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/12) Date Z ($13.49 from $14.99 until 9/14) Gerda: A Flame in Winter ($6.99 from $19.99 until 9/14) Cardfight! Vanguard Dear Days ($48.99 from $69.99 until 9/20) West of Loathing ($4.18 from $11.00 until 9/20) Shadows Over Loathing ($15.87 from $23.00 until 9/20) Adventure Field Remake ($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/20) MADiSON ($20.99 from $34.99 until 9/20) Frowntown ($7.79 from $12.99 until 9/20) Infantry Attack: Complete ($2.99 from $10.99 until 9/20) 100 Demon Fantasia ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/20) Shadow Gangs ($14.39 from $23.99 until 9/22) Suicide Guy: The Lost Dreams ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/22) Sales Ending Tomorrow, September 3rd Balatro ($13.49 from $14.99 until 9/3) Blade of Darkness ($2.75 from $14.99 until 9/3) Door Kickers ($1.99 from $11.99 until 9/3) Kamitsubaki City Ensemble ($3.59 from $3.99 until 9/3) Neodori Forever ($1.99 from $4.99 until 9/3) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more reviews, some new releases, more sales, and perhaps some news. The typhoon has fizzled out, giving way to hot temperatures and sunny skies. I suppose I’ll take it for a day or two. I hope you all have a magnificent Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!

It’s that time again: eShop sale time! Nintendo’s calling this one the Blockbuster Sale, so I’m sure we can expect …

Continue reading "The Best Nintendo Switch eShop Sales From The ‘Blockbuster Sale’"

It’s that time again: eShop sale time! Nintendo’s calling this one the Blockbuster Sale, so I’m sure we can expect a lot of VHS tapes and stale candy. Hm? Oh, it means big games. Alright, that does make some sense. At any rate, there are a ton of games on sale right now, too many to really deal with on your own. As ever, TouchArcade is here to help you out with a list of fifteen hot discounts you should consider. No first party games, but there are still a ton of great games to pick from. No particular order as usual, so let’s get into the deals! 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim ($14.99 from $59.99) A unique blend of side-scrolling adventure and top-down real-time strategy gameplay, 13 Sentinels tells the story of thirteen individuals from various points in time who must battle against invading kaiju in an alternate 1985. They do that through use of their Sentinels, large mechs designed for taking down giant monsters. It has a very good story and the presentation is at the level we’ve come to expect from Vanillaware. The RTS bits are… somewhat less good, but they’re not bad. A sleeper hit that is well worth checking out at this deeply discounted price. Persona Collection ($44.99 from $89.99 until 9/10) If you need to fill a few months’ worth of free time, this will be the best forty-five bucks you could spend. You get Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal, all excellent RPGs and great Switch ports. That works out to fifteen bucks per game, and each of them will easily keep you busy for hours on end while also teaching you the important value of friendship as a means of defeating any evil. It totally works in real life, too! JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R ($12.49 from $49.99) I’ll start with a proviso: if you mean to seriously get into JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R, you’re probably better off heading over to one of the other platforms where it runs at 60 fps. This Switch port is solid enough to play, however, and JoJo fans will likely have a good time with it. This is a quirky fighter in a lot of ways, and it’s well-suited to the license. Something a little different if you’re tired of the usual Capcom fighters and Mortal Kombat games. Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 1 ($41.99 from $59.99) Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 could have been better than it is, particularly with regards to performance and game options. It has received a number of updates to improve it, however, and for what it is, it’s an easy title to recommend. You get a bunch of absolutely top-tier games to play and some really cool extra materials to dig through. Sure, there isn’t much new here for people who have played these games before. But for those craving Metal Gear on the go, or those who somehow haven’t dug into these titles in the past, Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 is a fantastic value with this tidy discount. Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown Deluxe Edition ($41.99 from $59.99) Ace Combat 7: Unknown Skies is an excellent port of a high-quality action game, and it fills a gaping hole in the Switch’s library almost perfectly. It’s more approachable than you might expect, and it’s very easy to get sucked into both its story and gameplay. It’s unfortunate that the multiplayer seems to have a handful of oversights and balance issues, but you’ll get your time and money’s worth out of the campaign and its many unlockables all on its own. Definitely one to add to the collection for those feeling the need for speed. Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection ($39.99 from $79.99) Hm, I guess this is an Atlus list now. The excellent Etrian Odyssey series came to Switch with these HD remakes of the first three games. These are awesome, challenging games that just kept upping the ante with each new installment, and trying to buy the Nintendo DS cartridges now can get very expensive indeed. The signature mapping feature doesn’t work as smoothly here as it did on the DS, especially if you’re playing docked, but it’s as good as it can be. Plus, you can use auto-mapping if you don’t want to deal with it. At half the usual price, you get a lot of game for your buck here. Darkest Dungeon II ($31.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Embrace the fact that Darkest Dungeon II isn’t interested in building on the original game’s structure but rather in doing its own thing, and you’ll be able to enjoy the charms of this moody, chunky roguelite. Its merits are many, from its distinctive style to its combination of traditional story-telling bits and the magic of emergent, personalized stories. Roguelite fans will want to check it out, even if Darkest Dungeon fans might feel like pushing away from the table and going back to the original. Braid: Anniversary Edition ($9.99 from $19.99) One of the poster children of the indie boom that kicked off in the late 00s, Braid came back with a big splash in this fancy Anniversary Edition. You get a nicely remastered version of the original game, with one of the best developer commentary features seen in a game so far. Braid might not have the punch it once did, but only because so many games that followed were so heavily inspired by it. Even if you’ve played it before, the discounted price should be enticing enough for a replay. Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes – Definitive Edition ($11.69 from $17.99) Might & Magic – Clash of Heroes: Definitive Edition doesn’t add very much to the original, but it was already a strong game that stands for itself quite well in modern times. Dotemu did a capable job of bringing it to the Switch, and it fits the platform almost as well as it fit the Nintendo DS. If you’re looking for a cool puzzle game that offers both a substantial single-player mode and enjoyable multiplayer gameplay, you’ll likely be quite satisfied with what this game has to offer. Life is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection ($15.99 from $39.99) While the Switch versions of the games in Life is Strange Arcadia Bay Collection suffer from a number of visual and technical flaws compared to other platforms, the games themselves still shine as brightly as ever. It’s hard to say what the future holds for this franchise, but if you’re new to it all and just want a quick and slightly dirty way to explore its origins, picking this up at its sale price is a fine enough way to do that. Loop Hero ($4.94 from $14.99) Loop Hero is as hard to put down as the finest of idle games, but with enough meat on its bones to make it feel like your input actually matters. It’s the kind of game that has something to offer no matter how much or how little time you have to throw at it, and one that will likely keep you coming back now and then to play again. While it isn’t the most challenging of affairs, it’s certainly engaging and full of enough surprises to keep your interest over the long haul. Death’s Door ($4.99 from $19.99) Death’s Door is one of those nice combinations of a superb presentation and strong gameplay. The game could coast well enough on either of those points, but it hits them both and is excellent as a result. There’s nothing overly deep about the gameplay mechanics, and its brand of action is going to be familiar to most. The most impressive bits are the bosses, which require strong pattern recognition and good reflexes. The gorgeous sights and sounds along the way add tremendously to its atmosphere, doing their part to keep the player pulled into this unusual, compelling world. Action-RPG fans will certainly want to give this a go. The Messenger ($3.99 from $19.99) This is the lowest price yet for the Switch version of this popular indie action game, and it’s so low that I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to give it a punt. What seems like a straightforward ninja action game gets bigger and more ambitious as you go, and it juggles things relatively well as it does so. It’s not a perfect game, and I feel like its star has faded a bit over time, but it’s one of those indie games that everyone with any love for 8-bit and 16-bit classics should at least try out once. Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 Turbocharged ($14.99 from $49.99) Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 – Turbocharged is just as fun of an arcade racer as the first game, and the various tweaks and improvements to the formula makes it a far smoother experience. Some players might run into some issues with the challenging post-game content, but that’s why it’s in the post-game. If you enjoyed the first game, you’ll probably like this one even more. Series newcomers should feel comfortable jumping immediately to this sequel, too. For fifteen bucks, it’s hard to go wrong if you like racing. Pepper Grinder ($9.74 from $14.99) Pepper Grinder is an enjoyable, unique platformer with a zippy pace, interesting mechanics, and some cool level designs. The boss battles are a bit clunky and only subtract from what is otherwise a very tight experience. It’s also worth noting that the game is quite brisk in its run-time, so do take that into account before buying. I personally think it ends a little too soon, but that’s not a terrible problem for a game to have, especially with a little shaved off the sticker price. And those are our picks from the Blockbuster Sale on the Nintendo Switch eShop. There are plenty more great games on sale right now besides these, so make sure to check your wishlists and dig into the pages for your favorite publishers just to be sure you aren’t missing anything. If you have any sales you’d like to share, please hit those comments below. Thanks for reading!

Following developer TRAGsoft bringing monster collecting game Coromon to mobile after it debuted on PC and Switch, we are getting …

Continue reading "Roguelite ‘Coromon: Rogue Planet’ in Development for Release on iOS, Android, Switch, and Steam in 2025"

Following developer TRAGsoft bringing monster collecting game Coromon to mobile after it debuted on PC and Switch, we are getting a roguelite spin-off in the form of Coromon: Rogue Planet (Free) due next year for not only Steam and Switch, but also iOS and Android. Coromon: Rogue Planet aims to blend in the turn-based combat of the main game with roguelite gameplay to deliver an endlessly replayable monster collecting gameplay loop. The Steam page mentions “10 ever changing biomes", 7 different playable characters, over 130 monsters, and more. Watch the Coromon: Rogue Planet official announcement trailer below: The original Coromon is a free to play game on mobile. I’m curious to see how Coromon: Rogue Planet ends up on mobile when it does arrive and also whether it hits alongside the Switch and Steam versions. As of now, you can wishlist Coromon: Rogue Planet on Steam here. I haven’t played Coromon in a while, but the gameplay in Coromon: Rogue Planet sounds more interesting. It feels like the perfect pick up and play game based on the Steam screenshots as well. Until this one is out, you can grab the original for free on iOS here. What do you think of Coromon: Rogue Planet so far and did you play Coromon?

Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of …

Continue reading "Best iPhone Game Updates: ‘Peglin’, ‘Brawl Stars’, ‘Genshin Impact’, ‘Royal Match’, and More"

Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. You know it’s one of those weeks when Shaun has to throw more than one free-to-play matching puzzle game update in the list. Don’t worry, we have some cool stuff in the mix too. And you get to see Shaun kick King Robert, an activity we all enjoy. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s go for it! Peglin, Free I know it’s somewhat rare for me to do this, but I’m giving out the coveted UMMSotW award to the first game in the list this week. Peglin‘s 1.0 update allows you to challenge up to level 20 in Cruciball, battle a new Slime Hive mini-boss, and take advantage of a whole ton of tweaks, bug fixes, balance adjustments, and other improvements. This game didn’t really need much in the way of updating, but I’ll take it anyway. Brawl Stars, Free Brawl time! Stars time! Dare we say… Brawl Stars time?! Yes, we dare. SpongeBob. SpongeBob is here in a new event, and that is cool. A couple new Brawlers coming in the form of Moe (Mythic) and Kenji (Legendary), and a handful of new Hypercharges for various characters. All of this will roll out over the course of the next couple of months in the usual Brawl Stars fashion, but the SpongeBob stuff should be kicking off rather soon if it hasn’t already by the time you read this. stitch., What more would one expect from an update to the soothing and satisfying stitch but more Hoops to play? That’s just what you get here, this time with a bit of a martial arts theme. Sort of, anyway. Like with any good puzzle game, it doesn’t really matter as much what the theme of the puzzles are so long as you get more of them. So yes, update your app and go do some Hoops. You’ll feel better. Genshin Impact, Free I guess this game is called Genshin Impact: Natlan Launch now. Nothing to be done about it. You’ve got a new region, Natlan, and three new characters to go with it: Mualani, Kinich, and Kachina. New weapons as well, of course. Plenty of new events and stories to take on, and some new artifacts too. Regular players likely know by now what to expect from Genshin Impact updates, and while this one is a little bigger than the usual one, it’s very much in line with previous ones in the broad strokes. Temple Run: Puzzle Adventure, Alright, here we go. At least this one is on Apple Arcade, so it’s not completely free-to-play. It sure is a matching puzzle game update, though. There are one hundred new levels to play in this Temple Run spin-off, which is quite a lot as these things go. The tournaments have also been refreshed, as usual. That’s about all, but I’m sure it will keep many players busy for a bit. Maybe even until the next update? I’ve seen how people who play games like these chew through levels, so I’m not super-confident about that! Jetpack Joyride 2, In this very special update to the Apple Arcade sequel to Halfbrick’s mega-hit auto-runner: Barry Steakfries escapes to the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism – SPACE! It’s a shame that leaving that be would ruin the formatting for the article. Really best as a mic-drop reference, but if I do that things will look very messy, so I have to stand here and ramble a bit so that everything stays properly in its place. Tim Curry, folks. He’s a treasure. We were graced by his many performances, big and small. Much love to Mr. Curry, who I am 99% sure is reading this. Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop, Moving right along, it’s another matching puzzle game. But to be fair, this is one the all-timer matching puzzle games. At least in it’s original form, anyway. As for this particular version, there are new character episodes for Sig, Carbuncle, and Rafisol in the Adventure Mode. Meena has been added as a playable character, minus an episode of her own. An additional seven music tracks are available in the shop, all arrangements of fan favorite tunes from previous entries. Add in some bug fixes and that’s that. Hearthstone, Free Hearthstone time! This one is usually pretty good with its update notes, so let’s open the ol’ paperwork and see what’s in front of us. Hm. Well, we’ll make do. Battlegrounds Season 8, Trinkets & Travels, is incoming. All the kinds of new stuff we’ve seen in previous seasons, which is nice. The Trinket Shop is here, with Buddies taking a hike. Two times per game you can buy Trinkets with Gold, which will affect the rest of the match. That seems troublesome for balancing, but I suppose that is where Hearthstone is at by this point. Toon Blast, Free The first of the two actual obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game updates for this article is Toon Blast. There’s a whole new episode here, giving you fifty new levels to play. Some business involving bees, or happiness, or the combination thereof. Bees are pretty cool, even if I am a little scared of them sometimes. They’re cool little buddies that help the ecosystem, and I’d give them tiny hugs if not for the pointy ouchy bit. Hang in there, my bug friends. We’ll get through it all together. Royal Match, Free I don’t know which is more preferable to me: King Robert perishing permanently and never appearing again, or King Robert continually perishing and returning to perish again, in a perpetual and heckish cycle of pain. One hundred new levels. A new jousting arena. That seems to have some potential. I love that one ad where they have swapped King Robert in for the freezing pregnant lady and her child, like we’re supposed to care about this garishly garbed monarch who’s a little chilly. Burn your velvet robes to warm your flesh, you decadent old ogre. That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!

Among Us (Free) has done loads of crossovers and collaborations over the years, but one I didn’t expect at all …

Continue reading "‘Among Us’ Is Collaborating With ‘Ace Attorney Investigations’ for Its Newest Free Cosmetic DLC Out Next Week"

Among Us (Free) has done loads of crossovers and collaborations over the years, but one I didn’t expect at all just got announced for next week. Later this week, Capcom is releasing the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection for PC and consoles bringing remasters of both games to modern platforms. Read my preview covering the Switch and PC versions here. Among Us is bringing in Miles Edgeworth from those games as a free cosmetic DLC on September 9th as a collaboration with the Ace Attorney series. Check out the promo art for Miles Edgeworth in Among Us below: Among Us x @aceattorneygame let's hope ur accusations aren't ludicrous. Miles Edgeworth is coming to Among Us as a free cosmetic drop on Sept 9th! pic.twitter.com/6XHdrD29zi — Among Us PAX West (@AmongUsGame) September 1, 2024 If you’ve not gotten Among Us yet, it is available for free on the App Store for iOS here and Google Play for Android here. Check it out on Nintendo Switch here and Steam here. Here’s our forum thread for the game. Ace Attorney Investigations Collection releases on September 6th for PS4, Xbox One, Switch, and Steam worldwide. Hopefully it comes to mobile in the near future as well. Have you been playing Among Us often on mobile and what do you think of the current state of the game?

One thing I love is when a game can successfully blend two fairly different types of gameplay into one cohesive …

Continue reading "TouchArcade Game of the Week: ‘Ocean Keeper’"

One thing I love is when a game can successfully blend two fairly different types of gameplay into one cohesive package. I’m thinking of games like the Blaster Master series with its vehicle-based side-scrolling platforming that’s coupled with cool top-down on-foot sequences. Or heck, a recent favorite like Dave the Diver with its roguelike diving portions blended with restaurant management. Well, Ocean Keeper from developer RetroStyle Games is another one of those games that successfully blends two sets of different mechanics together, and it does so with a gameplay loop and upgrade path that has you coming back over and over again. The basic gist of Ocean Keeper is that you’ve crashed onto a strange underwater planet in your big cool mech. You’ll need to dive down into underwater caves to harvest resources, but you can’t spend too long down there because waves of enemies are approaching and you’ll need to man your mech to defend against them. The mining portions play out from a side-view and involve digging out rocks to unearth various types of resources or special artifacts. Mining also earns you coins, for some reason. As mentioned you only have a short window to mine before enemies show up. Once you’re back in your mech things turn into a top-down twin-stick shooter with light tower defense elements as you attempt to fend off multiple waves of all types of crazy underwater creatures. All your resources go towards upgrading both your miner and your mech, and there is no shortage of branching skill trees to work your way through for both. This is a roguelike so if you die during the enemy encounter portion your game is over and you’ll lose any upgrades or abilities you unlocked during that particular run. However, there are also persistent upgrades and customizations you can unlock in between runs so this is the type of game you always feel like you’re making progress in even if you have a bad run or two. You can also expect the layouts of the overworld and the caves to be different each time you play. This is probably a good time to mention that Ocean Keeper starts off kind of slow, and you definitely will have some real clunker runs in the beginning. Just power your way through and before you know it the upgrades start flowing, your skills begin to improve, you start to get a better grip on the flow of the game, and before long you’ll be a whirling underwater mech of destruction. The synergies between the weapons and upgrades are really the heart of the game and it’s endlessly fun to try different builds or different tactics as you progress. I wasn’t quite sure about Ocean Keeper when I first started since things do start out so slow, but man once things pick up it’s been hard to want to play anything else.

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. If you missed my Gundam Breaker 4 Steam Deck review, …

Continue reading "Steam Deck Weekly: Visions of Mana and More Reviews, Reynatis Preview, Age of Mythology Retold Steam Deck Impressions, News, and More"

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. If you missed my Gundam Breaker 4 Steam Deck review, read it here. Today’s article has Steam Deck impressions and reviews for Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash, Visions of Mana, Gori: Cuddly Carnage, Bloons Card Storm, and more. This week also sees a few notable new Steam Deck Verified games and the usual slew of sales and discounts. Let’s get into the reviews and impressions first. Steam Deck Game Reviews & Impressions We are officially in the very busy season of the year, and I’m going to try and cover as much as I can this week through a few scored reviews and impressions of games on Steam Deck with one preview as well. Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash Steam Deck Impressions Over the years, we’ve seen Cygames try and expand its Umamusume property through indirect ways with DLC in its other games, through the anime, and more. Umamusume: Pretty Derby itself is finally getting localized this year as well on mobile, and Cygames has released a party game based on Umamusume with Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash. I need a bit more time for my full review of Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash when I’ll likely also cover the Switch version, but I’ve been playing Cygames’ first ever official Umamusume: Pretty Derby release in the West on Steam Deck ahead of its launch this week. Until then, I wanted to give you an idea of how Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash is on Steam Deck. Out of the box, Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash seems to run at full 16:10, but it is stretched. I recommend going into the settings and changing the resolution to 720p and display mode to full screen so it displays correctly. One thing to keep in mind is Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash currently has some video playback codec issues resulting in a color bar pattern for some videos. I tested 3 different Proton GE versions including 9-9 with no luck as the game wouldn’t load some modes unless I used Proton Experimental. Aside from the videos, Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash runs fine at its 60fps target. I’m looking forward to playing more of it for my full review that hopefully covers the console versions as well. As of now Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash doesn’t have a Steam Deck rating from Valve, and I imagine it will be marked unsupported until the cut-scene issue is addressed. Reynatis English Release Preview Reynatis from NIS America and Furyu is set to release on September 27th for Steam, PS5, PS4, and Switch following its Japanese debut. Ahead of its launch, I had a chance to attend a preview event for the game to check out some of the English build. Usually, I don’t bother doing hands-off previews, but I’ve been curious to see how the English localization is, and also learn more about this release. Since this was a hands-off preview, I can’t comment on how the game feels or how it is on PC, but Reynatis is shaping up to be one of Furyu’s more ambitious games with its story, setting, and seemingly smooth combat. Over the years, I usually end up clicking with Furyu game stories and soundtracks, but one or two aspects always feel lacking. With Reynatis, I’ve been interested in the narrative and combat as well. Reynatis takes place in a recreation of modern-day Tokyo and the different perspectives make it seem like it will be unique. I won’t comment on much of the gameplay until I try it out for myself, but the English localization so far seems very good. I am a bit disappointed at no English dub though. A lot of folks likely are interested in Reynatis because it has music by Yoko Shimomura and a scenario from Kazushige Nojima both of whom are well known to Square Enix fans for their work on Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, and more. If we do get a demo in the near future, I recommend trying it out to see how you find it for yourself. I’m looking forward to playing Reynatis myself hopefully soon for review, but it definitely feels like this might end up one of Furyu’s better games in recent years. While the story and setting are definitely highlights, I’m very interested in seeing how the combat system feels. Stay tuned for more Reynatis coverage in the near future. Visions of Mana Steam Deck Review When Visions of Mana was announced, I was very happy to see the series back after we saw the superb Collection of Mana and then the remake of Trials of Mana released across multiple platforms. When I tried the demo for Visions of Mana, I was concerned because there were some aspects that didn’t work for me at all, but I was hopeful. Fast forward to today and Visions of Mana is available on PS5, Xbox Series X, and Steam. I’ve been playing it on both Steam Deck and PS5 for review, and it ended up surprising me in a good way, but I feel like it would have benefited from a few months of polish and tweaking when it comes to its general movement. I’m going to focus on the game on Steam Deck in this review, but also cover how it feels on PS5. If you’re new to the Mana series, you can still start with this one. Visions of Mana is a new game in the series covering the Mana Tree and more. If you, like me, have played prior games, this will feel great in some ways, but you might be let down in parts, especially for the story. Visions of Mana’s strength is in its gorgeous world, the combat, and general gameplay. It is a huge step up over Trials of Mana in its scope and visuals, just like Tales of Arise felt in a way when it was released. The issues I have with Visions of Mana are to do with its general feel. The movement and camera never feel good. While I managed fixing this on PS5 with the camera distance and movement speed, I wish it was snappier in general. On the PC port side, Visions of Mana is quite bare-bones. You can adjust screen mode, resolution, frame rate target (30fps to unlimited), toggle v-sync, adjust FSR 2, and just “graphics settings" presets. These presets are low, standard, and high. It doesn’t tell you what the three options change, but it does affect draw distance, post-processing, and more. While the game boots up seemingly fullscreen at 16:10, it is actually stretched. Don’t be fooled into thinking the game supports the native resolution. Changing the display mode from borderless to windowed or fullscreen will have it adjust to 16:9 where the elements and screen are not stretched. A friend of mine recommended trying out forcing a lower resolution in the demo to get better performance, but that seems to come with its own issues where the resolution options bug out even when you go back to forcing native or higher resolution on the Deck’s own display. Visions of Mana is currently rated as Steam Deck Playable by Valve, but it has notable performance issues right now. Regardless of the settings I used when it comes to frame rate target or upscaling, I couldn’t get a locked frame rate even targeting 30fps with it dropping below in crowded areas. When using the low preset and different upscaling methods for testing purposes, the game runs above 60fps in parts, but it also drops below 30fps. Some areas just stutter in general, and even playing on Ultra Performance upscaling with the really low image quality isn’t enough. Visions of Mana’s art style really doesn’t work with heavy upscaling so I would not recommend it. After spending about 5 hours just testing out different settings across my save files in Visions of Mana, I settled on playing with FSR set to quality and the high preset for a 30fps target with drops below to the high 20s. If you’re ok with around 30fps and regular drops below to the high 20s, Visions of Mana is fine on Steam Deck, and looks excellent on the handheld’s screen when playing at the high graphics preset. I would recommend downloading the free Visions of Mana demo to try out the different graphics options, but note that the final game runs a bit differently. It is still worth checking to see how the aesthetic scales on Steam Deck with different settings used. Visions of Mana needs more optimization right now on PC in general though. I’d also love for the PC port to actually see more detailed graphics options added so that players can adjust things individually rather than relying on console-like modes. On the control side, Visions of Mana has support for controller and keyboard + mouse inputs. You can also change the controller glyphs which is always a welcome option. Speaking of console, Visions of Mana on PS5 is great after some tweaking. The default camera movement and distance felt awful. Having changed it to zoomed out and the camera speed to 10 resulted in a massively better feeling experience. The default gave me motion sickness in parts. I would also recommend toggling on auto-run. If you, like me, play on both current consoles or Steam Deck, I would grab Visions of Mana on PS5 for sure over Steam Deck until it gets some patches on the latter. Visions of Mana has higher highs but also lower lows than Trials of Mana, but it is a game I’m glad I got to experience by the end. If you enjoyed Trials of Mana and games like Tales of Arise specifically on the gameplay side, Visions of Mana is worth your time. I just wish the movement and PC port were better. In its current state, it is excellent to have a modern Mana game and Visions of Mana delivered on that front. Just don’t expect it to reach the highs of Secret of Mana. While it is rated Steam Deck Playable by Valve, I recommend playing it on PS5 rather than Steam Deck with how bare-bones the PC port is in its current state. Visions of Mana Steam Deck review score: 3.5/5 Gori: Cuddly Carnage Steam Deck Review When I first saw promotional art for Gori: Cuddly Carnage, I thought it would be a short horror game. I didn’t expect it to be a blend of Ratchet & Clank, Cyril Cyberpunk, and an action game with a ton of early 2000s humor sprinkled across. If that sounds good to you, just go download the demo because it is great. Gori: Cuddly Carnage has you playing as a badass cat in an action platformer that happens to have better combat than any recent game in the genre. While the aesthetic might not work for some, I found it perfectly suits the writing and was impressed by the smooth animations and visuals throughout my time playing it. On PC, Gori: Cuddly Carnage lets you adjust graphics presets (low, medium, high, very high), resolution, display mode, FOV, frame rate target (30fps to unlimited), toggle v-sync, toggle motion blur, toggle ray tracing, upscale method (off, DLSS, XeSS), and also adjust the quality for anti-aliasing, shadows, textures, effects, and post-processing. The PC version is quite a feature packed port for a game like this, and it controls perfectly on Steam Deck with good rumble as well. On Steam Deck playing at the very high preset with no upscaling used, expect to play with a 30fps target. I didn’t want to settle for just 30fps of course. Using the medium preset with no upscaling is good for playing with 45fps at 90hz on Steam Deck OLED. If you want to aim for 60fps or higher, I recommend playing with higher visuals but XeSS. Taking things all the way down at the low preset and XeSS set to ultra performance results in 90fps with some drops. It doesn’t look bad even now, but it is definitely a visual step down from native anti-aliasing. I also had access to Gori: Cuddly Carnage on PS5, and that version is just as impressive as the PC version with multiple performance modes including a ray tracing mode, 120fps mode, and more. It also has good DualSense support. When it comes to the game itself, Gori: Cuddly Carnage has some camera issues that affect platforming sections and also a few boss battles that annoyed me. While the latter could just be certain encounters not clicking with me, I hope the former can be addressed. Overall, I’m very pleased with how Gori: Cuddly Carnage is on Steam Deck, and expect it to get Verified very soon. The game itself surprised me with its quality, and it is one I won’t forget for a while. It excels with its fun gameplay, good writing, and great combat and feels right at home on Steam Deck from start to finish. It is just held back by a few annoyances. Gori: Cuddly Carnage Steam Deck review score: 4/5 Bloons Card Storm Steam Deck Gameplay Impressions When I learned about Bloons Card Storm, a collectible card game set in the Bloons game universe, I was curious about it. I had access to a Steam preview build of the game ahead of its full launch later this year on mobile and Steam, and it has been an interesting experience. Having played the Bloons games on iOS with touch controls, I wasn’t sure what to expect with Bloons Card Storm, but it feels right at home on Steam Deck with touch controls. As of now there is no controller support in the preview build, but it plays perfectly with touch controls. As for the game itself, Bloons Card Storm feels like a nice addition to the crowded genre. I played a few levels of the PvE mode and like how the team brought over Bloons characters and abilities to this world. If you’re new to Bloons, I recommend playing the super popular Bloons TD 6 or TD Battles 2 before, but you can still play and enjoy this one. I just hope the monetization is handled well when it launches because I can’t see what the in-game store is selling right now. I can safely say that it runs and looks great on Steam Deck even in its early preview build. Hopefully it gets controller support at or around launch though. It is shaping up to be a nice and accessible card game, and the cross platform multiplayer means I’m definitely going to get a few friends to give it a shot at launch. Age of Mythology: Retold Steam Deck Gameplay Impressions I’ve been very excited for Age of Mythology: Retold because I played the original a ton back in the day. The action RTS bringing together gods and monsters was already great on PC, but this remake had me more interested because it was coming to console day one. You might be wondering why that matters for a Steam Deck review, and I need to go back a bit to Age of Empires coming to Xbox for that. When Microsoft brought Age of Empires II Definitive Edition to Xbox, it played wonderfully with full controller support and a fantastic port. The company sadly did not bring this controller support to the PC version and I’ve had to rely on using the trackpad on Steam Deck to play Age of Empires II Definitive and also Age of Empires IV. I ended up playing both of those more on Xbox because I really love the controller support. It isn’t as good as playing with a mouse and keyboard for some specific areas, but I played enough of these games with a keyboard and mouse when they first released. Age of Mythology: Retold had a beta test on Steam, and when I tried it out, I was glad to see it included controller support even on Steam. This was enough for me to pre-order the game’s Premium Edition a few days ago to play on Steam Deck. So far, Age of Mythology: Retold feels great on Steam Deck, after making one change. By default, Age of Mythology: Retold is marked as Steam Deck Playable by Valve, but I actually couldn’t get it to boot up at all on my Steam Deck OLED or LCD models. It kept freezing or crashing. Moving to GE Proton 9-9 fixed this issue for me. I haven’t played enough to do a full review yet, but I’m glad at how good Age of Mythology: Retold feels and looks on Steam Deck right now. I’m looking forward to playing it more over the coming weeks. As for the best graphics settings for Age of Mythology: Retold on Steam Deck OLED, I need a bit more time to see how it performs later on. Right now, I’ve settled for 45fps at 90hz with a combination of medium settings with FSR 2 set to quality. It is going to be interesting to see how it fares later on in the campaign. Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn Steam Deck Gameplay Impressions Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn is Tengo Project and NatsumeAtari’s newest remake of a classic, and it is a damn fine release overall. Shaun is working on a full review of this one, but I wanted to cover how it feels on Steam Deck and also Xbox briefly. Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn on PC lets you adjust resolution and screen mode (borderless, windowed, and fullscreen). It only has 16:9 support, but the aesthetic absolutely shines on Steam Deck with the particle effects and crisp animation work. As for the PC port itself, there are some control issues if you want to use a keyboard, but I played Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn on Steam Deck only and it felt right at home on Valve’s handheld with fast loading and no performance issues. While Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn’s source game isn’t as amazing as the likes of Pocky and Rocky or even The Ninja Warriors like we’ve seen from Tengo Project in the past, it has gotten an excellent release that runs and looks perfect on Steam Deck and Xbox Series X. I also enjoyed playing it online through Steam Remote Play Together with a friend of mine in another country. If you aren’t sure about this one yet, I recommend downloading the demo and trying it out for yourself. News and Trailers Let’s start this week’s section with a brand-new extended showcase for Atlus’ upcoming RPG Metaphor: ReFantazio. It continues to look amazing and I can’t believe it is only a little over a month away. Watch the trailer below: Following that, Square Enix just posted new details for the upcoming Romancing SaGa 2 remake titled Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven coming to Steam and consoles this October. Check out some new screenshots here and one showcasing Glimmer below: Now let’s shift gears to the Nintendo Indie Direct + Partner Showcase that had 99% games coming to or on Steam. I’ve included the highlights here. Marvelous USA had an impactful trailer for Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma coming to Switch and Steam in Spring 2025. Watch it below: Bandai Namco announced Tales of Graces f Remastered for January 2025 release on Steam and all consoles with visual upgrades and DLC included. Watch the trailer below: Konami and M2 have released Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia in one collection out now on Steam and all consoles. I’ll be reviewing this one next week so stay tuned for that. Capcom announced Capcom Fighting Collection 2 featuring Capcom Vs SNK, Power Stone, and 6 other games coming in 2025 to Steam, Switch, and PlayStation. Capcom also announced that the Marvel Vs Capcom collection launches in under 2 weeks. The excellent Cuisineer from Marvelous USA is coming to Switch and other consoles early next year alongside a big update for the Steam release. I’m definitely getting the physical edition. The Ghibli-inspired action-adventure game Europa was showcased for Switch during the Nintendo Indie World showcase and will launch on October 11th for Switch and Steam. Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land, the next mainline Atelier game is coming to Steam and all consoles including Xbox, a series first, in early 2025, and it looks incredible. Tetris Forever is the new Gold Master Series release from Digital Eclipse coming this year featuring more than 15 playable classic games from the series’ history. Some have never seen a release outside Japan before. PowerWash Simulator is going deeper into the madness with the Shrek Special Pack coming soon for Steam and all consoles. FAIRY TAIL 2 from Gust and Koei Tecmo is finally coming to Steam, Switch, and other consoles beginning December 11th. Watch the trailer below: Fantastic Games: Presented by Day of the Devs will be taking place from September 20th to 22nd, and the full list of games and developers has been revealed. I’m excited for quite a few of those, and I even have played a few of those already (but I can’t say which ones yet!). Channel: Death by Night City, Big Sir Games darkwebSTREAMER by We Have Always Lived in the Forest Fear the Spotlight by Cozy Game Pals and Blumhouse Games Five Nights at Freddy’s: Secret of the Mimic by Steel Wool Grunn by Sokpop Collective Hollowbody by Headware Games Holstin by Sonka Horses by Santa Ragione Karma: The Dark World by Pollard Studio, Wired Productions and Gamera Games Pinball M (DLC) by Zen Studios Post Trauma by Red Soul Games and Raw Fury Skate Story by Sam Eng and Devolver Digital Tom the Postgirl by Oopsie Daisies SWORD ART ONLINE Fractured Daydream got two new character trailers this week. Check out the Yui and Oberon trailers below: D3 Publisher launched the first DLC pack for Earth Defense Force 6 in the form of Earth Defense Force 6 – Lost Days DLC 1. It is out now on Steam and PS5. Super Evil Megacorp posted a roadmap for TMNT Splintered Fate following its launch on Apple Arcade and Switch revealing that it will be Steam Deck Verified and more. Taiko no Tatsujin: Rhythm Festival is coming to Steam and current consoles on November 7th with 120fps support and more. It plays amazing on Steam Deck already. Try the demo here. Panic’s newest showcase aired a few days ago and it is absolutely worth watching if you like interesting games. Ahead of Tokyo Games Show, SEGA and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio announced the next RGG Summit for September 20th at 3 AM PT. You can watch it below when the event begins: Pinball FX brings in Goat Simulator and The Princess Bride as DLC tables this week on Steam and other platforms. Stay tuned for my coverage of both of these and the game itself in the near future: The first DLC for That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime ISEKAI Chronicles, “A Strange Fate" is now available with Hinata as a new playable character and an original story by the original author. Watch the launch trailer below: SYNDUALITY: ECHO OF ADA has a new trailer with closed network test sign ups now live. Sign up here and watch the trailer for it below: The final bit of news is The First Descendant’s Season 1: Invasion now available bringing in a new descendent: Hailey, battle pass rewards, new dungeon invasions, and much more. New Steam Deck Verified & Playable games for the week A lot of interesting additions this week with the newly released Castlevania collection and Gundam Breaker 4 being marked as playable alongside Marvel Vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics getting Verified ahead of its launch in under two weeks. I’m also glad to see the upcoming Dragon Quest Monsters release and Regency Solitaire II get tested by Valve. Age of Mythology: Retold – Playable Castlevania Dominus Collection – Playable DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS: The Dark Prince – Playable GUNDAM BREAKER 4 – Playable MARVEL vs. CAPCOM Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics – Verified Pool Panic – Verified Regency Solitaire II – Verified Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse – Verified The Elder Scrolls Online – Playable Visions of Mana – Playable Steam Deck Game Sales, Discounts, and Specials The notable sales of the week include a Tales of franchise sale where I recommend Tales of Berseria as the best game in the series on Steam followed by Tales of Arise, Kingdom Come Deliverance at 90% off, and Red Dead Redemption II at 60% off on Steam. Note that for Red Dead Redemption II, you can’t buy the Steam version outside Steam while you can for the other games I’ve mentioned here. That’s all for this edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. As usual, you can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here. If you have any feedback for this feature or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. I hope you all have a great day, and thanks for reading.

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 30th, 2024. In today’s article, we have a handful …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Umamusume: Pretty Derby’, ‘Super Dark Deception’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 30th, 2024. In today’s article, we have a handful of new releases to look at as we bid farewell to August. A few decent ones, and a few unique ones. Outside of that, there isn’t much more than the lists of new sales and expiring discounts. This has been a busy week for me in many ways, but we should be back to the normal routine next week. Let’s get to what we’ve got! Select New Releases Umamusume: Pretty Derby – Party Dash ($44.99) I say thee neigh, Umamusume! Everyone’s favorite horse-girls arrive on Switch with this party game for up to four players via local or online multiplayer. There are four different minigames to play, and you get a full story mode with twenty-five playable characters to enjoy. It’s unbridled excitement for fans of the series, so if that’s you it’s time to start horsing around with your friends. I give you free rein to be as sore of a winner as you like, but get ready to hoof it if they get mad about it. Super Dark Deception ($17.99) Take Dark Deception, and then imagine how that would look as a sprite-based 2D game. Would it look like Super Dark Deception? Maybe not, but someone’s idea of it clearly did because here we are. Try to escape the mazes with your life intact, using anything and everything at your disposal to avoid being killed by the roaming creatures that go bump in the night. At launch, the game only includes the first chapter, consisting of four levels. More will be added over time as free DLC, but do consider that relatively low amount of content and admittedly uncertain future before purchasing. Forest, Fields and Fortresses ($4.99) A tile-placing puzzle game where you’re building a kingdom one piece at a time. There are two modes of play here. One is a puzzle mode where you have a set number and type of pieces and need to place them in such a way that you’ll earn enough gold to pass. The other mode is called Adventure Mode, where you can unlock and use a variety of starting maps and a random assortment of pieces to build with. Not bad at all if you’re looking for an affordable bit of puzzling fun today. Date Z ($14.99) A choice-based visual novel dating sim where you have to find a date by Friday or die. Well, no pressure there. There are five potential partners to woo, and naturally a bunch of different endings to uncover. I was ready to write it off as another in the big pile of games like this, but then I saw the above screenshot. How do I not include a game with that kind of screenshot on its store page? Bedrotting ($14.99) Well, this is a horror game premise I haven’t seen before. You play as a young girl who has been in a car accident. While your body is fine, your mental state isn’t. You can’t seem to get up out of your bed, basically. You need to survive for twenty days, which means eating, using a bucket as a toilet, and doing whatever you can to keep yourself together. That last bit becomes a very big problem as strange visions start to appear. Are they real? Your imagination? Does it matter? One for the enjoyers of creepy games, I’d say. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Not quite as interesting a list of new sales as yesterday’s, but if you’re looking to fill up on Pinball FX tables a number of them are discounted right now. Retro City Rampage DX and Shakedown: Hawaii are at their lowest prices yet, and that may be of interest to some. Over in the weekend outbox, the latest sale from Limited Run Games is wrapping up. Grab what you must. Select New Sales WitchSpring R ($35.99 from $39.99 until 9/5) Dice Make 10! ($3.59 from $3.99 until 9/5) Bug & Seek ($11.24 from $14.99 until 9/5) The House of Da Vinci 2 ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush ($5.49 from $9.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush Origins ($8.24 from $14.99 until 9/6) Kingdom Rush Frontiers ($5.49 from $9.99 until 9/6) Dance of Death: Du Lac & Fey ($2.39 from $15.99 until 9/6) Charlie Brown Christmas Pinball DLC ($2.74 from $5.49 until 9/9) Marvel Pinball Collection 1 DLC ($11.99 from $23.99 until 9/9) Tiny Thor ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/12) Cilla ($5.59 from $6.99 until 9/12) The Legend of Dark Witch ($3.49 from $6.99 until 9/12) The Legend of Dark Witch Ep. 2 ($8.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) Brave Dungeon + Dark Witch Story ($4.49 from $8.99 until 9/12) Forward To The Sky ($9.79 from $48.99 until 9/13) Wall World ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/13) The Oregon Trail ($17.99 from $29.99 until 9/19) Sherlock Holmes The Awakened ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/19) Mercenaries Saga Chronicles ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Shadows of Adam ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Retro City Rampage DX ($3.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Shakedown Hawaii ($3.49 from $19.99 until 9/19) Rise: Race the Future ($6.59 from $16.49 until 9/19) Speed Overflow ($7.79 from $12.99 until 9/19) Path to Purge ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/19) Sales Ending This Weekend Another Crab’s Treasure ($23.99 from $29.99 until 8/31) Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore ($11.99 from $19.99 until 8/31) Cosmic Star Heroine ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/31) Dark Quest 3 ($7.59 from $18.99 until 8/31) Geometry Survivor ($1.99 from $4.99 until 8/31) Hot Wheels Unleashed ($5.99 from $39.99 until 8/31) Hot Wheels Unleashed GotY Edition ($11.99 from $79.99 until 8/31) Jurassic Park Games Collection ($17.99 from $29.99 until 8/31) Night Trap ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/31) Oddworld Soulstorm ($17.49 from $49.99 until 8/31) Operation Wolf Returns ($10.49 from $29.99 until 8/31) The House in Fata Morgana ($19.99 from $39.99 until 8/31) Frog Detective: The Entire Mystery ($13.96 from $19.95 until 9/1) That’s all for today, this week, and this month, friends. As mentioned in the opening paragraph, this was an unusually busy week for me beyond my work here on the site. I apologize if things have seemed a bit light as a result. We’ll be back to the normal schedule next week, and that means plenty of reviews, new releases, sales, and some news. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and as always, thanks for reading!

In our tour through retro games available to buy on Switch, we’ve worked our way through the NES, Game Boy, …

Continue reading "The 10 Best Super NES Games on Nintendo Switch, Plus 5 We’d Like to See – SwitchArcade Special"

In our tour through retro games available to buy on Switch, we’ve worked our way through the NES, Game Boy, and SEGA Genesis selections among other more recent console libraries. This time we’re taking a look at the games that originated with Nintendo’s 16-bit console, the Super NES. While you can find plenty of great games from the console in the Nintendo Switch Online app, we’re instead looking at those games that dare to exist in the wilds of the Switch eShop. We’ve got ten of our favorites here, plus five more games that we’d like to see. No particular order, of course. Oh, and to cut off potential comments at the pass: Mega Man X isn’t here because I feel the input lag in the Legacy Collection hurts it too badly. Stone-cold classic, just not a great play experience on Switch. On with the show! Sparkster – Rocket Knight Adventures: Re-Sparked ($29.99) A very rare case of a Konami franchise born on a SEGA platform, Rocket Knight Adventures was a game Super NES owners could easily envy. While that game never came to Nintendo’s console, a version of the sequel did. Sparkster is the name of two distinct games, and the Super NES offering bearing that title is probably the better of the two. Not quite up to the original game, but plenty of fun. Rock ‘n Roll Racing – Blizzard Arcade Collection ($19.99) Before Blizzard became a household name for joking about phone ownership, it was making some very good console games. Also a pretty iffy Justice League fighting game, but we’re not here to talk about that. Instead, we’re talking about the highly enjoyable isometric racer that fused exciting gameplay with a fantastic licensed soundtrack. This game alone is worth the price of admission for this collection, but you get a handful of other cool Super NES games with it. Top Racer – Top Racer Collection ($19.99) More popularly known under the title Top Gear, Top Racer is one of the better choices in the racing genre on the Super NES. It rides the line between arcade and sim very well, and the soundtrack is absolutely outstanding. You get all three of the games in this set, and I’d argue the second game goes toe-to-toe with the first. The third game… well, how about those first two games, eh? Secret of Mana – Collection of Mana ($39.99) Square Enix seems to favor remakes with its Switch takes on its Super NES classics, and while those aren’t technically against my rules for these lists I think I’ll go with a purer choice. Secret of Mana can be found in the excellent Collection of Mana alongside the Game Boy original and the Super NES third game in the series. The emulation was handled by M2, so it’s working just as it did back in the day, bugs and all. Secret of Mana is a thoroughly enjoyable action-RPG, despite its many rough edges. You get to save Christmas at the behest of Rudolph! What more do you need? A fluffy dragon you can ride in a Mode 7 overworld map? Well, you get that too! TMNT IV: Turtles in Time – TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection ($39.99) The 16-bit generation was the era of beat ’em ups, and Turtles in Time jostles with Streets of Rage 2 for the title of king among the many challengers. It looks almost as good as the arcade game, plays even better, and leans into its time-traveling gimmick in a lot of fun ways. One of the best games on the Super NES full-stop, and I’m glad we’re able to buy it on modern consoles for the time being. Contra III: The Alien Wars – Contra Anniversary Collection ($19.99) Lots of Konami here again. It occupies a lot of spots in these lists, but it has earned it. Here’s the third Contra game, and the first to have no roots in the arcades whatsoever. It aims for a more futuristic setting and feel, and in true Konami style it pushes the hardware in a variety of fun ways. Sure, those Mode 7 overhead levels don’t play quite as well as you might like them to, but there’s no denying the style that runs through this entire game. Super Castlevania IV – Castlevania Anniversary Collection ($19.99) For some people, this is the best action-based installment in the Castlevania series. I’m not sure I’m fully on-board with that, but this is one heck of a great game. The visuals, sound effects, and music create an incredible vibe, and Simon’s overpowered whip skills make you feel like a real pro. The Super NES would see a lot of great action games, but few of them are as confidently showy as this one. A highly memorable game, and if you’re looking for a somewhat fairer entry point into the series this is one of the better choices. Zombies Ate My Neighbors – Zombies Ate My Neighbors & Ghoul Patrol ($14.99) Okay, Konami published this back in the day, but it’s really a Lucasarts title. A really unique one, at that. A stage-based top-down action game with tons of wacky enemies, locations, and tools you can find and use, Zombies Ate My Neighbors offered an experience you couldn’t find anywhere else on the console. Play alone or pull in a friend, especially if you want to make an actual go at beating this tough game. Aladdin – Disney Classic Games Collection ($29.49) The debate rages on about which 16-bit console version of Aladdin is better, but the nice thing about the Disney Classic Games Collection is that it doesn’t force you to choose. Both are here, have fun. Since this is a Super NES list, we’re talking about that version of the game. Directed by Shinji Mikami, who later got up to some zombie nonsense, this version of Aladdin can’t match the authentic presentation of the Genesis game, but makes up for it with some excellent Capcom platforming action. A bit of a breezy affair, but that’s not so bad sometimes. Puzzle Bobble/Bust-A-Move (16-Bit Console Version) ($7.99) Let’s squeeze a puzzle game in here to finish things out. Call it Bust-A-Move, call it Puzzle Bobble, either way you’re in for a good time. Shoot the bubbles, make the matches, and try to clear the field before you get squashed. A charming presentation and some devilish stage designs make this a hard one to put down. Sure, the sequels have a lot more to offer, but you can have plenty of good times with this version all on its own. And… 5 Super NES Games We’d Like to See on Switch Chrono Trigger I mean, of course. One of the best games on the console, and cited by many as the finest game in the genre. It’s a bit silly that it isn’t on Switch, even if there are probably good reasons for it. Well, this is a wishlist. I don’t care about reasons! I want results! Bring me pictures of Chrono! Er, bring me Chrono Trigger on Switch! SimCity The theme of these picks is going to be licensing issues from here on out, though I have to believe SimCity is somewhat possible. All we need is Electronic Arts and Nintendo to come together to make it happen, and it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Why don’t we have any SimCity on Switch? Mysterious stuff. Give me this one and I’ll forget about how you parked the IP in the river, EA. For a while, anyway. Terranigma The one that got away for North American Super NES owners. Quintet’s run on the Super NES was outstanding, and I’d love to see all of them available to buy again. If I had to pick just one, it’s this one. A very enjoyable action-RPG with a story that will definitely stick with you, wrapped up in a gorgeous package that rivals what Square was doing on the console in a lot of ways. I’m hoping this can one day slip out of the vault it’s currently trapped in, even if that place isn’t on the Switch. U.N. Squadron There’s something about U.N. Squadron that tends to click with people who aren’t usually into shoot ’em ups. Maybe it’s the manga/anime-born style. Perhaps it’s the lenience afforded by the life bar. The cool jets? Maybe it’s the cool jets. Whatever the case, it would be amazing to see this game get a reissue. It’s tied up with a license which probably makes things difficult, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed that Capcom makes it happen someday. Spider-Man & Venom: Maximum Carnage The author’s bias on full display here, wow. Maximum Carnage? That iffy beat ’em up based on the comic event where Spider-Man defeats Carnage with the literal power of friendship? Yes. I love this game. It is stupid and kind of bad and I love it. I want it, even if I have to put up with it being packaged with Separation Anxiety or something. Get Green Jelly on the phone, patch Marvel into the conference call, find whoever bought the husk of LJN/Acclaim, and get it done. And that’s the list, friends. Are there any Super NES games you enjoy on the Switch? Any you would like to see? Feel free to sound off down in the comments and let us know what you’re thinking! It’s always interesting to hear the opinions of others on this kind of thing. As always, thanks for reading!

HoYoverse’s Honkai Star Rail (Free) version 2.5 update titled “Flying Aureus Shot to Lupine Rue" was just showcased during a …

Continue reading "‘Honkai Star Rail’ Version 2.5 “Flying Aureus Shot to Lupine Rue” Update Releases on September 10th, New Trailer Showcased During Livestream"

HoYoverse’s Honkai Star Rail (Free) version 2.5 update titled “Flying Aureus Shot to Lupine Rue" was just showcased during a livestream. It will release on September 10th for iOS, Android, PS5, and PC. This update’s highlights are the Wardance ceremony, many new enemies, new characters: Feixiao, Lingsha, and Moze alongside the silkpunk saga in the Shackling Prison reaching its climax, and also reruns of Black Swan and Kafka (!). Topaz will be returning for a rerun in part 2 of version 2.5. Watch the newest Honkai Star Rail version 2.5 update trailer below: If you’ve not played the game yet, you can download Honkai Star Rail on the App Store for iOS here, on Google Play for Android here, and here on the Epic Games Store in addition to its regular PC version. Check it out here on PS5. Have you been playing Honkai Star Rail recently and what do you think of 2.5 so far?

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 29th, 2024. We’ve got another big plate of new …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Emio: The Smiling Man’, ‘Gundam Breaker 4’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 29th, 2024. We’ve got another big plate of new releases to check out today, and that’s going to be the bulk of the column as it usually is on Thursdays. We also have a relatively hefty list of new sales to delve into, and that’s really about it. We can’t have Nintendo Directs every day, after all. Let’s get to the games! Select New Releases Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club ($49.99) After a few decades without any sequels, Famicom Detective Club is back. This new case is very faithful to the original games, for better or worse. You get an entirely new mystery to unravel, and in terms of the presentation it’s relatively similar to the remake releases in Switch a little while back. Can you solve the latest serial murder case? I’ll be giving it a try in my review, coming soon. Gundam Breaker 4 ($59.99) Mikhail has already written a veritable book on this game in his review, so I’ll just direct you towards that if you want a full breakdown of the gameplay and how it performs on Switch. The short version is that you’re building and battling Gunplas, and while this Switch port is obviously going to falter behind the others in terms of performance, it does the job well enough that if it’s the option in front of you, it’s more than fine. Anyway, go read Mikhail’s review. It’s a goodie. Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn ($19.99) Tengo Project has had a very good run with its remakes/re-imaginings so far. Wild Guns Reloaded, The Ninja Saviors: Return of the Warriors, and Pocky & Rocky Reshrined brought back some 16-bit cult favorites with a lot of awesome extras. Shadow of the Ninja – Reborn sees the team applying its touch to an 8-bit game, and as you might imagine it’s quite a bit more different from its source material than the aforementioned games. Still, if you’re fixing for an action-platformer with a classic style, this will serve you. I’ll be reviewing this early next week, so watch for that. Valfaris: Mecha Therion ($19.99) This is a follow-up to Valfaris, but don’t expect more of the same kind of gameplay you saw in that game. No, this is a 2.5D side-scrolling shoot ’em up, and it’s decent enough. I think some people were caught off guard by the genre shift and were put off as a result, but embrace the change and you’ll find plenty to enjoy. Yes, this is another one I’ve got a review coming up for. Funny how that works! Nour: Play With Your Food ($9.99) I’d like to pretend I know what’s going on with this game, but I really don’t. Those sure are some nice images of food, though. And you’re meant to play with all of that? Take some pictures, I guess? Look for secrets? Maybe I’ll dispatch our pal Mikhail to investigate this further. It seems like his sort of thing. Monster Jam Showdown ($49.99) If you like monsters, or you like jam, then… I have no idea if you’ll like this game. It’s about Monster Jam, the monster truck thing. No preserves or strawberries or goblins at all. Well, what can you do? It has support for multiplayer, both local and online, and seems to have plenty of modes and such to play around with. It seems to have met with a middling reaction on other platforms, but monster truck fans don’t have a whole lot of choices in front of them, I suppose. If that’s you, do what you must. WitchSpring R ($39.99) I think this is a remake of the original WitchSpring, but I might be wrong about that. WitchSpring to me was always the mobile “we have Atelier at home" series, and in that capacity and at that price point, it served its role well enough. Now that it’s getting very near to the price of an actual Atelier game, I’m not sure if I’m quite so on board with it. But if you’re willing to give it a go, it does look like the nicest WitchSpring game so far. Depths of Sanity ($19.99) Oh, this is one of those undersea exploration games. Those always have an interesting vibe to them. This one leans into the fantastical horror side of things, as you might expect from the title. You’re trying to figure out what happened to your missing crew, and you’ll have to poke around a big, dangerous interconnected underwater world to sort it all out. Yes, there will be fighting. This one is well-regarded on other platforms by fans of exploratory action games, and I suspect it will find an eager following on the Switch as well. Voltaire: The Vegan Vampire ($19.99) Kids, am I right? Voltaire is rebelling against his vampiric daddy by taking up a vegan lifestyle to prove there are other ways to live than biting necks. Daddy doesn’t dig that, and is going to try to teach his son a lesson. What this amounts to is farming, of course. This is the Switch, after all. But also some action, because you’re going to need to fend off daddy’s attempts to mess things up for you. I’m a little bit burnt out on this genre at the moment, but if you’re more energetic about picking up a hoe than I am you might want to check this one out. Marble Abduction! Patti Hattu ($11.79) One of those marble roller games, this one with seventy stages and eighty marbles to collect. There are some secret collectibles to find, and special challenges that will score you some of the rarer marbles. The usual appeal is here of trying to go as fast as you can without flying off the track, so if that’s your thing then here is a heaping helping of it. Leo: The Firefighter Cat ($24.99) We’ve seen a few firefighting games on the Switch so far, but most of them aim for a somewhat realistic style. But you know what? Kids can often be interested in firefighting too, and there might be something in a firefighting game more geared towards their tastes. There are twenty missions here, and it seems to have the main details you would want to see in this kind of thing. I doubt it’s Fancy Feast, but it will probably do the job for the right kind of kid. Gori: Cuddly Carnage ($21.99) And on the opposite end of the cat game spectrum, here is a grotesque action game about a hoverboarding cat who slices and dices his foes with glee. Early reports seem to indicate that the game itself is decent enough, but this Switch version suffers from a lot of technical issues that drag down the overall experience to a meaningful degree. Not to the point where there isn’t any joy to be had in it, but worth thinking twice about if you’re bothered by framerate issues at the very least. Arcade Archives Finalizer Super Transformation ($7.99) You know, I consider myself a relatively knowledgeable fellow when it comes to video games. But every once in a while, Hamster pulls out a game for Arcade Archives that I really have no memory of, and this 1985 Konami vertical shooter fits that bill. The gimmick here is that instead of a ship, you’re a transforming robot hero of some sort. Let’s call it a Blundam. Grab power-ups to change your form or activate various powers. As shooters go, this is very much a post-Xevious pre-Tiger Heli affair. There’s a charm to that, if that’s the flavor you’re after. EGGCONSOLE Xanadu Scenario II PC-8801mkIISR ($6.49) A very early example of an expansion pack for a video game, Xanadu Scenario II gives you a whole new underworld to explore. Since this was originally an expansion and not a new game, the gameplay mechanics and many other elements are identical to the first game. It’s naturally more difficult too, so you’ll likely want to finish the first game before trying this one. The most noteworthy thing about it? This game features the debut of the legendary video game composer Yuzo Koshiro, then just 18 years old. That might be reason enough alone to drop the cash for this depending on your tastes and interest in gaming history. The Backrooms: Survival ($10.99) A bit of horror, a bit of survival, a bit of roguelite, and overall a game that many players have enjoyed over on PC. You can play with up to ten players online, and that’s really the ideal experience for this game. Playing solo, it’s going to be more of a specific taste thanks to its repetitive-by-design nature. Can of Wormholes ($19.99) You are a sentient tin can, and you need to deal with worms in a variety of ways in this clever little puzzle game. You get one hundred hand-crafted puzzles to solve, and the game is really sharp about sprinkling in new ideas as you go so that it never gets stuck in a rut. Something of a whiff of Stephen’s Sausage Roll about it, and that is in no way a bad thing. A real winner for puzzle game fans, if you ask me. Ninja I & II ($9.99) A pair of modern NES games running under emulation that are essentially a ninja spin on Wario Ware-style microgames. All of them are competitive, so you’re either pulling in a friend for local multiplayer or going up against a CPU that may or may not drive you up the wall. Kind of neat to see game like these running on NES specs, if nothing else. Dice Make 10! ($3.99) Sometimes these unassuming titles can be a lot of fun, and this is one that does it for me. You have two modes of play here, one with Tetris-style falling blocks and the other where you’re just placing pieces like those wood block puzzle games. Regardless of which version you play, your goal is make rows or columns where the faces of the dice add up to ten or multiples of ten. They’ll clear out, and on you go with the next line. Yes, I like it. Very good. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) It’s the 30th anniversary of The King of Fighters, and Hamster and SNK are celebrating with a sale on every single game in the series on Arcade Archives. Time to finish your collection if you haven’t got them already. There are also a ton of Pixel Game Maker Series games at their lowest prices yet, so if you’ve been holding off on those, perhaps now is the moment. Nothing too thrilling outside of those, but you might as well check while you’re at it. A few good indies in the outbox, so I recommend giving that a scan as well. Select New Sales Kamitsubaki City Ensemble ($3.59 from $3.99 until 9/3) Floogen ($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/4) Rolling Car ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/4) Fluffy Horde ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/4) Gum+ ($1.99 from $7.99 until 9/4) Stunt Paradise ($5.19 from $7.99 until 9/4) My Time at Portia ($4.49 from $29.99 until 9/6) SpongeBob Krusty Cook-Off ($4.94 from $14.99 until 9/9) PPA Pickleball Tour 2025 ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/11) Talisman: Digital Edition ($2.99 from $5.99 until 9/12) Mystic Vale ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) Baron of Blood ($4.95 from $9.90 until 9/12) Fighting Fantasy Legends ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) Deathtrap Dungeon ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) White Eternal ($3.24 from $6.49 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’94 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’95 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’96 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’97 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’98 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters ’99 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2000 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2001 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2002 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) ACA NEOGEO The King of Fighters 2003 ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) Kittey 64 ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/12) Last Bloody Snack ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Cat and Tower ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Cat and Castle ($3.74 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Pentacore ($6.59 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS BombMachine Gunzohg ($3.95 from $5.99 until 9/12) PGMS Pearl Vs Grey ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) PGMS Hunter of Devil ($3.74 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Lunlun Superherobabys DX ($3.74 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Storm Swordsman ($5.27 from $7.99 until 9/12) PGMS Project Nosferatu ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/12) PGMS Ninja Runner ($2.50 from $5.00 until 9/12) PGMS Ninja Sneaking R ($3.59 from $5.99 until 9/12) PGMS Ninja Sneaking VS ($3.60 from $6.00 until 9/12) PGMS Angel’s Gear ($7.49 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Angel’s Blood ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Ninja Otedama R ($3.59 from $5.99 until 9/12) PGMS Tentacled Terrors ($8.99 from $11.99 until 9/12) PGMS Loplight ($3.29 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS ClaM KNight ($2.99 from $5.99 until 9/12) PGMS Jetman ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Lab ($4.19 from $6.99 until 9/12) PGMS Steel Sword Story S ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Arcanion: Tale of Magi ($6.59 from $10.99 until 9/12) PGMS Shiba Mekuri ($2.74 from $5.49 until 9/12) PGMS Buraigun Galaxy Storm ($8.99 from $11.99 until 9/12) PGMS Block Slime Cave ($3.50 from $7.00 until 9/12) PGMS Game Battle Tycoon ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/12) PGMS MessiahEnd Refrain ($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/12) PGMS Oma2ri Adventure ($2.47 from $4.95 until 9/12) PGMS Dandan Z ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Cham The Cat Adventure ($5.49 from $10.99 until 9/12) PGMS Verzeus ($7.91 from $11.99 until 9/12) PGMS Oumuamua ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) PGMS Jewelinx ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) Sushi Battle Rambunctiously ($13.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) My Incubi Harem ($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/13) Hot Blood ($7.49 from $9.99 until 9/13) Jenny LeClue Detectivu ($2.99 from $24.99 until 9/18) Asterix & Obelix Slap Them All ($12.49 from $24.99 until 9/18) The Sisters 2 Road to Fame ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/18) Noob: The Factionless ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/18) New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja ($11.99 from $29.99 until 9/18) Garfield Lasagna Party ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/18) Muv-Luv Remastered ($26.99 from $29.99 until 9/19) Muv-Luv Alternative Remastered ($35.99 from $39.99 until 9/19) Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 30th #BLUD ($19.99 from $24.99 until 8/30) 8th Millennium: WAtPG ($7.49 from $29.99 until 8/30) Alpha Particle ($3.39 from $9.99 until 8/30) Batman: The Enemy Within ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/30) Batman: The Telltale Series ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/30) Empire of Angels IV ($6.79 from $19.99 until 8/30) Enter Digiton: Heart of Corruption ($2.39 from $7.99 until 8/30) Forager ($6.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Hell Well ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/30) Midnight Fight Express ($11.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Mineko’s Night Market ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Moonscars ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) OBAKEIDORO ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Puddle Knights ($2.99 from $9.99 until 8/30) Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic ($6.99 from $9.99 until 8/30) Slay the Spire ($8.49 from $24.99 until 8/30) Space Mercenary Defense Force ($3.49 from $4.99 until 8/30) Super Woden GP ($5.99 from $11.99 until 8/30) Supraland ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Surmount ($9.89 from $14.99 until 8/30) The Last Dragon Slayer ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/30) The Last Worker ($3.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Thunder Ray ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/30) Unpacking ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/30) Void Bastards ($8.99 from $29.99 until 8/30) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow to finish up the week, with the remaining new releases, sales, and major news items on the schedule. Maybe some reviews? Perhaps. We’ll see. There’s a huge typhoon blowing through here this week, and I should acknowledge there is a chance I won’t be able to get to my office to do tomorrow’s article. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I hope you all have a thrilling Thursday, and as always, thanks for reading!

This week, Apple Arcade sees a major game update for Apple Vision Pro and a few notable updates. Castle Crumble …

Continue reading "Castle Crumble for Apple Vision Pro Is Now Available on Apple Arcade Alongside Big Updates for Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop, Crayola Adventures, and More"

This week, Apple Arcade sees a major game update for Apple Vision Pro and a few notable updates. Castle Crumble [apprice url="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/castle-crumble/id1616814625"] for Apple Arcade has been updated to be a fully universal game with support for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple is treating this like a new release ahead of September’s game launches. Read about those here. As for the regular game updates, the highlights include Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop bringing in three new character episodes, Meena as a playable character, and seven new BGM songs from the series. Crayola Adventures has a new micro story added with Video Games Day celebrations going on with Lights Camera Action and Pixel Madness. The Koala Face accessory is also available in-game. Time to Puyo-Party with even more Playable Pals! #PuyoPuyoPuzzlePop Update 1.5.0 has arrvied! Join additional playable characters and jam to 7 new BGM selections! #PuyoPuyoPuzzlePop is available now on @AppleArcade!https://t.co/PFEStkKxeO pic.twitter.com/e29H0op4k9 — Puyo Puyo Official (@PuyoOfficial) August 28, 2024 SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit brings in its next Tale of the deep with Karate Island where you can play as Sandy. Jetpack Joyride 2 brings in a new event taking Barry to outer space looking for a new signal. stitch. brings in new hoops featuring Taekwondo. The final notable update is Zookeeper World bringing 12 new puzzle stages. With the updates done, head over to our forum threads for Puyo Puyo Puzzle Pop here, Castle Crumble here, Crayola Adventures here, SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit here, and Zookeeper World here. For all other Apple Arcade related things, check out our dedicated Apple Arcade forum for discussion on the service and every game included here. What do you think of Apple’s newly released games and updates recently?

Last month, GungHo announced a new casual RPG for mobile in the form of Disney Pixel RPG (Free), due later …

Continue reading "Casual RPG ‘Disney Pixel RPG’ From GungHo for iOS and Android Gets New Gameplay Trailer, Listed for October 7th"

Last month, GungHo announced a new casual RPG for mobile in the form of Disney Pixel RPG (Free), due later this year. Today, Gungho has released (via Gematsu) the first trailer for Disney Pixel RPG. Disney Pixel RPG aims to let players explore with pixel versions of Disney characters across multiple worlds with battles, action, rhythm, and more challenges. It features an original story taking you on a journey with Mickey Mouse and other characters with many customization options. Watch the first gameplay trailer for Disney Pixel RPG below: Disney Pixel RPG is currently listed for October 7th on the App Store, but this should be treated as a placeholder date since it was originally listed for early September as a placeholder and that has already changed. Disney Pixel RPG is set for release this year on iOS and Android as a free to play game with in app purchases. Check out the official English website for Disney Pixel RPG here. If you’d like to play Disney Pixel RPG, you can pre-order it on the App Store for iOS here and pre-register for it on Google Play for Android here. What do you think of Disney Pixel RPG so far based on its debut trailer? Update: Added new English trailer.

Earlier this month, Bandai Namco Entertainment and developer Ganbarion revealed Dragon Ball Project:Multi, the franchise’s first 4v4 team based battle …

Continue reading "‘Dragon Ball Project:Multi’ Gets New Character Trailers Showcasing Super Saiyan Goku, Krillin, and Piccolo"

Earlier this month, Bandai Namco Entertainment and developer Ganbarion revealed Dragon Ball Project:Multi, the franchise’s first 4v4 team based battle game, with a regional closed beta planned. Today, Dragon Ball Project:Multi has gotten three new character trailers with the closed beta now available in select regions. The new trailers focus on three characters focusing on their gameplay. Watch the Dragon Ball Project:Multi Piccolo trailer below: Watch the Dragon Ball Project:Multi Super Saiyan Goku trailer below: Watch the Dragon Ball Project:Multi Krillin trailer below: Dragon Ball Project:Multi still doesn’t have a release date or window yet, but the closed beta is available now until September 3rd at 5:59 AM UTC on iOS, Android, and Steam. You can currently wishlist Dragon Ball Project:Multi on Steam here. The Dragon Ball Project:Multi regional closed beta is available in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and the United States. Check out the official Dragon Ball Project:Multi English website here. What do you think of Dragon Ball Project:Multi and the new character trailers?

Square Enix just announced that Final Fantasy Brave Exvius (Free) is shutting down on October 30th (this year) following its …

Continue reading "‘Final Fantasy Brave Exvius’ Is Shutting Down on October 30th"

Square Enix just announced that Final Fantasy Brave Exvius (Free) is shutting down on October 30th (this year) following its debut back in June 2016. Since launching on mobile, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius has seen many collaborations including ones with some of Square Enix’s best games like NieR: Automata and also its other titles like Final Fantasy XV. It is being shut down because Square Enix says that it will be “difficult to maintain the app experience." Following this announcement, in app purchases will no longer be offered but you will be able to use anything you’ve bought until service ends. Bundles will no longer be sold as well. [Important Notice] Thank you for playing FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS. We regret to announce we have made the difficult decision to discontinue the FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS app service as of October 30, 2024 23:59 (PDT). Please see details here: https://t.co/vcL5Dn8xe4 pic.twitter.com/W6U9QArq5O — FINAL FANTASY BRAVE EXVIUS (@FFBE_EN) August 29, 2024 On October 30th at 23:59 PDT, service will end and accounts will be deleted. If you’d like to play Final Fantasy Brave Exvius until then, you can grab it on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. Read our review of the original game launch here. If you’d like to check out discussions from the game’s launch until now, check out our very old forum thread here. Have you played Final Fantasy Brave Exvius before and what do you think of today’s announcement?

Each and every day new mobile games are hitting the App Store, and so each week we put together a …

Continue reading "Out Now: ‘Harvest Moon Home Sweet Home’, ‘Ocean Keeper Mobile’, ‘Ogu and the Secret Forest’, ‘Death Travelers’, ‘Snake.io’, ‘RWBY: Arrowfell’ and More"

Each and every day new mobile games are hitting the App Store, and so each week we put together a big old list of all the best new releases of the past seven days. Back in the day the App Store would showcase the same games for a week, and then refresh those features each Thursday. Because of that developers got into the habit of releasing their games throughout Wednesday or very early Thursday in order to hopefully get one of those coveted features spots. Nowadays the App Store refreshes constantly, so the need for everyone to release all on the same day has diminished. Still, we’ve kept our weekly Wednesday night format as for years that’s the time people knew to check TouchArcade for the list of new games. And so without further ado please check out the full list of this week’s new games below, and let us know in the comments section which games you’ll be picking up! Death Travelers (Free) iTunes Description The Afterworld needs your help to stop it from collapsing! Travel the Afterworld’s various realms to save lost souls. Dodge and destroy obstacles along the way while stabilizing it with the resonance of music. Build your base, upgrade your car, unlock various abilities, play new music, and above all have some fun! Can you save the lost souls and stabilize the Afterworld? Forum Thread: Death Travelers (by Death Travelers LLC) Dusk of Dragons: Survivors (Free) iTunes Description Survive in a Medieval Fantasy World with Dusk of Dragons: Survivors! Immerse yourself in a thrilling survival sandbox where you’ll face extreme weather, hunger, traps, and hordes of zombies. As a true survivor, you’ll need to master the wilderness and outwit the undead. Forum Thread: Dusk of Dragons: Survivors (by COREGAMES) Harvest Moon Home Sweet Home ($17.99) iTunes Description Head back to your roots and leave the city life for your childhood village of Alba in Harvest Moon: Home Sweet Home, where the freshest fish and tastiest veggies are grown and caught by the local farmers and anglers! However, with its population getting older and younger villagers leaving for the big city, Alba Village has seen better days, so can you help turn it from a village on the decline to one of prosperity? With its beautiful surroundings, Alba definitely has the potential, so work hard to bring tourists and even new residents to this sprawling green village! Reunite with your childhood friend and other familiar faces to help put Alba on the map! Forum Thread: Harvest Moon Home Sweet Home (by Natsume Inc) MMC KENKEN Math (Free) iTunes Description Stretching the ability to make fun becomes academic ability – Solving puzzles in a fun way improves academic ability The hit teaching material that has sold over 2.5 million copies has been turned into game software as “Daizen"! A total of 3,000 math puzzles for children and adults to learn while having fun. Forum Thread: MMC KENKEN Math (by Tetsuya Miyamoto / KenKen Puzzle LLC / Gakken / MAGES.) Ocean Keeper Mobile ($1.99) iTunes Description A roguelike shooter with a top-down view where you play as a Miner whose spaceship has crashed on a planet, filled with underwater monsters! Use the time between each attack to power up your diver, mech, or weapon. Build automatic turrets, use drones to gather resources and improve your skills to increase your chances of survival. Discover mysterious locations and fantastic undersea deep biomes. EACH time you explore the underwater worlds, the layout changes, making every journey unique. You never play the same scenario twice in this drill dungeon core roguelite. Forum Thread: Ocean Keeper Mobile (by RetroStyle Games) Ogu and the Secret Forest (Free) iTunes Description Explore the wonderful world with baby Ogu! ‘Ogu and the Secret Forest’ is a 2D adventure game with hand-drawn characters and various types of puzzles. Befriend bouncy characters and defeat strange creatures to unravel the mystery of the charming world. Forum Thread: Ogu and the Secret Forest (by Sinkhole Studio Inc.) RWBY: Arrowfell (Free) iTunes Description Dive into an explosive new RWBY action-adventure! Instantly switch between all four members of Team RWBY — Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long — and use their signature weapons and Semblances to battle the Creatures of Grimm and other foes in this in-canon story set during RWBY Volume 7. Featuring voiceovers from RWBY’s original cast, all-new cutscenes from the team behind the show, and a brand-new theme song by Jeff Williams and Casey Lee Williams, RWBY: Arrowfell lets you explore Atlas and the surrounding areas to solve environmental puzzles, slay massive bosses, power up with Skill Points, and interact with characters such as Penny, Winter, and General Ironwood, as well as the enigmatic new team of Huntresses, Team BRIR! Only Team RWBY can protect Remnant from a mysterious new threat in RWBY: Arrowfell! Forum Thread: RWBY: Arrowfell (by Crunchyroll) SlidewayZ: A Musical Journey (Free) iTunes Description Welcome to SlidewayZ, a new kind of sliding block puzzle! Slide adorable character pieces through fun worlds to collect soothing classical music. Easy to learn and fun to play, SlidewayZ adds a new twist to sliding block puzzles with moves from games like chess and other classic board games. A gentle soundtrack of Classical music helps you unwind from the stresses of the day. Perfect for commuting or a quick brain break, no internet connection required! Filled with collectables, beautiful art and engaging gameplay, SlidewayZ will provide hours of low-key puzzling fun! Forum Thread: SlidewayZ: A Musical Journey (by DiG-iT Games) Snake.io (Free) iTunes Description It’s a snake-eat-snake world: Slither around the screen to collect energy, grow bigger and devour your competition in this fast-paced arcade game. You’ll start out as a small snake in each round. Eat energy pellets to expand your size, and surround or cut in front of other snakes to explode them into (edible) segments. But watch out — because they’ll be trying to do the same to you. In this reptilian battle royale, how long can you stay in one piece? Forum Thread: Snake.io (by Kooapps) Spidersaurs (Free) iTunes Description Alert! Alert! The nightmarish dinosaur-spider hybrids known as Spidersaurs have run amok and only you (and a friend in co-op mode) can stop them! Created by InGest Corp to provide the meat and muscle that humanity needs to end world hunger, the Spidersaurs are now on the loose, leaving it to two former taste-testers – officer-in-training Adrian and punk-rocker Victoria – to use their awesome firepower to overcome six stages of ferocious run-‘n’-gun action. Blast through a sweltering jungle, an infested laboratory, the heart of a live volcano, and more! The tangy food source with a bite is biting back, but by grabbing power-ups, gaining new abilities, and obliterating everything in sight, you can send these mutant monstrosities back to the stone age. Forum Thread: Spidersaurs (by WayForward)

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 28th, 2024. Gosh, that presentation yesterday sure had a …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Pizza Tower’, ‘Castlevania Dominus Collection’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 28th, 2024. Gosh, that presentation yesterday sure had a lot of good stuff in it, didn’t it? A bunch of shadow dropped games, too. That means our usually quiet Wednesday is anything but, and that’s not a bad thing. We’ve got a bit of news, a look at all the new games on the eShop today, plus the usual lists of new and expiring sales for the day. Lots to see, so let’s get going! News The Partner/Indie World Showcase Had Plenty to Offer Sandwiching together two slightly smaller versions of the usual types of Directs was an interesting choice, and it means we got a bunch of announcements. I can’t go through all of them here, but highlights included some shadow drops we’ll talk about in the New Releases section, Capcom Fighting Collection 2, the Suikoden I & II remakes, Yakuza Kiwami, Tetris Forever, MySims, Worms Armageddon: Anniversary Edition, new Atelier and Rune Factory games, and many, many more. I’d advise just setting aside some time and watching the video. Skim if you must. Plenty of great games there for a variety of tastes. Select New Releases Castlevania Dominus Collection ($24.99) One of the many cool shadow drops from the Direct was a third Castlevania collection. This one includes the three Nintendo DS games: Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin, and Order of Ecclesia. It also includes the absolutely rancid arcade game, Haunted Castle, and as an extra, a remake of Haunted Castle by the folks at M2. It’s a lot better. As you would expect from this developer, this is a top-notch treatment that features great emulation and pretty much all of the features you’d want. An absurd value for the price. Pizza Tower ($19.99) The Wario Land-inspired frenetic platformer dashes on to the Switch with this Direct shadow drop. Make your way through the five massive floors of the Pizza Tower in order to destroy it and save your restaurant. If you miss Wario’s handheld adventures, you’ll really want to grab this. If you have no strong Wario feelings but like platforming, you should also give this a look. We’re hoping to review this one, but we’ll have to see how things go. Goat Simulator 3 ($29.99) The shadow drops continue. Look, it’s a Wednesday. If it weren’t for these, we wouldn’t have much at all. Anyway, Goat Simulator 3. You know how Goat Simulator works by now. I can’t verify how this game runs on Switch, but I know more powerful consoles struggle with it in places. So, you know, proceed with caution. Though I suppose even if it does run badly, it might just play into the whole sh**post nature of the game. Well, I leave it to you to decide. Silly goats doing silly things in an open world, may or may not make your Switch vomit blood. Peglin ($19.99) I know it’s cliche to armchair quarterback and talk about companies leaving money on the proverbial table, but I genuinely think Electronic Arts made a giant mistake by not putting Popcap’s games on the Switch in some form or another. Maybe even a collection? Well, they didn’t. They aren’t going to. And so we must scratch that itch in other ways, and for my fellow Peggle fans I can’t recommend Peglin enough. This one has been available on mobile for a while, and it’s just as good here on Switch. It’s basically Peggle blended into a turn-based RPG roguelite. We’ll have a review of this soon in case you need more details. Doraemon Dorayaki Shop Story ($20.00) How can Kairosoft spice up its now incredibly well-worn formula for simulation games? Well, I suppose one way is to add a license to the mix. That’s what we’ve got here with Doraemon Dorayaki Shop Story, a standard Kairosoft shop sim featuring the characters from the popular Doraemon manga and anime series. A decent effort has been made to do the license justice, and you might even spot some characters from the manga artist’s other works popping in as customers. Cute. Pico Park 2 ($8.99) More Pico Park for the Pico Park fans out there. Up to eight players can join in via local or online multiplayer, and this is one game where the rule of the more, the merrier is in full effect. Play through a bunch of puzzle stages that require some sharp thinking and cooperation to solve. One for those who didn’t get their fill with the first game, but not really different enough to be likely to pull in anyone new. And that’s fine. Kamitsubaki City Ensemble ($3.99) An affordable little rhythm game featuring music from Kamitsubaki Studio. Hit the notes, follow the story, enjoy the tunes. Not the fanciest dining, but for that price it doesn’t have to be. SokoPenguin ($4.99) Yes, that’s a Sokoban-style crate-pushing puzzler starring a penguin, alright. One hundred levels. You know if you want it or not. Q2 Humanity ($6.80) More quirky physics-based puzzles, over three hundred this time around. You’ll have to make use of your character’s abilities in addition to drawing to solve the problems now. Up to four players can get in on the fun, either via local or online multiplayer. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Mostly NIS America games in the inbox today, but you can also score some deals on Balatro, Frogun, and The King of Fighters XIII Global Match if you want. The outbox has a fair bit in it, so you’ll probably want to have a careful look through there and see if there’s anything you want. Select New Sales Bilkins Folly ($12.59 from $19.99 until 9/2) Balatro ($13.49 from $14.99 until 9/3) MLB The Show 24 ($19.79 from $59.99 until 9/10) Frogun ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/11) Frogun Encore ($11.04 from $12.99 until 9/11) Death Road to Canada ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/11) Demon Gaze Extra ($17.99 from $59.99 until 9/12) The King of Fighters XIII GM ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/12) Lapis x Labyrinth ($7.79 from $29.99 until 9/16) Raiden III Mikado Maniax ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/16) GrimGrimoire OnceMore ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) Void Terrarium 2 ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails ($24.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Rhapsody: Marl Kingdom Chronicles ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) Saviors of Sapphire Wings/Sword City ($17.49 from $49.99 until 9/16) Disaster Report 4 ($17.99 from $59.99 until 9/16) Labyrinth of Galleria: TMC ($24.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) The Cruel King & the Great Hero ($13.49 from $29.99 until 9/16) R-Type Final 2 ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) The Legend of Legacy HD ($34.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) Poison Control ($3.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Labyrinth Legend ($5.99 from $14.99 until 9/16) Giraffe and Annika ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/16) LA-MULANA ($4.99 from $14.99 until 9/16) LA-MULANA 2 ($9.99 from $24.99 until 9/16) The Princess Guide ($3.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Ys VIII Lacrimosa of DANA ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Fallen Legion: Rise to Glory ($4.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Fallen Legion: Revenants ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) RPG Maker MV ($14.99 from $49.99 until 9/16) Happy Birthdays ($7.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Penny-Punching Princess ($3.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) The Longest Five Minutes ($3.99 from $39.99 until 9/16) Disgaea 4 Complete+ ($17.49 from $49.99 until 9/16) Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 29th A Cat & His Boy ($1.99 from $2.99 until 8/29) Alan Wake Remastered ($14.99 from $29.99 until 8/29) April’s Diary ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/29) Astebreed ($3.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Bio Inc. Redemption ($10.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Botany Manor ($22.49 from $24.99 until 8/29) Crashout Xtreme ($2.49 from $9.99 until 8/29) Cyber Citizen Shockman ($4.19 from $5.99 until 8/29) Dead Cells Castlevania Bundle ($18.89 from $31.49 until 8/29) DoDonPachi Resurrection ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Double Dragon & Kunio-kun Bundle ($19.99 from $39.99 until 8/29) DRAINUS ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Ebenezer & the Invisible World ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Escaping a Fireworks Factory ($2.00 from $4.90 until 8/29) Espgaluda II ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Gematombe ($4.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Gnosia ($17.49 from $24.99 until 8/29) Gunman Tales ($2.09 from $6.99 until 8/29) Gynoug ($3.49 from $6.99 until 8/29) Hero of Fate ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Kero Blaster ($2.99 from $9.99 until 8/29) Kowloon High-School Chronicle ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Matchpoint: Tennis Championships ($31.99 from $49.99 until 8/29) Mighty Goose ($7.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Moonshine Inc ($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) My Little Universe ($6.74 from $14.99 until 8/29) Noel the Mortal Fate ($9.99 from $24.99 until 8/29) OnlyUP! ($5.27 from $7.13 until 8/29) Operation Steel ($5.99 from $9.99 until 8/29) Overboss ($13.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Pogo Joins the Circus ($2.49 from $9.99 until 8/29) Radiant Silvergun ($7.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Red Colony ($2.99 from $6.99 until 8/29) Red Colony 2 ($2.99 from $6.99 until 8/29) Red Colony 3 ($2.99 from $6.99 until 8/29) Remote Life ($9.49 from $18.99 until 8/29) Retro Mystery Club Vol.1 ($7.90 from $9.90 until 8/29) Retro Mystery Club Vol.2 ($7.90 from $9.90 until 8/29) Retro Revengers ($7.90 from $9.90 until 8/29) River City Saga: Three Kingdoms ($20.99 from $29.99 until 8/29) Satay Shop Tycoon ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/29) Smashing the Battle ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/29) Smashing the Battle Ghost Soul ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Spy Bros. ($4.79 from $7.99 until 8/29) Super Sean 007 ($2.49 from $9.99 until 8/29) Taboo Trial ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) The Good Life ($15.99 from $39.99 until 8/29) The Ouroboros King ($6.99 from $9.99 until 8/29) The Sokoban ($8.99 from $17.99 until 8/29) UNO Ultimate Edition ($7.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Vera Blanc: Supernatural Mysteries ($5.59 from $7.99 until 8/29) Within the Blade ($3.29 from $10.99 until 8/29) That’s all for today, friends. Tomorrow is Thursday, and that means we’ll have another pretty big day for new games. The new Famicom Detective Club is among them, but there are other big names in there too. We’ll have summaries of the games worth summarizing, plus whatever sales and major news items roll in over the course of the day. I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Fans of Jujutsu Kaisen and beautiful, anime-inspired JRPGs received a special reason to rejoice this week following the announcement that …

Continue reading "BILIBILI GAME Will Launch ‘Jujutsu Kaisen Mobile’ Worldwide Before the End of 2024"

Fans of Jujutsu Kaisen and beautiful, anime-inspired JRPGs received a special reason to rejoice this week following the announcement that Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade, the mobile game adaption of the acclaimed manga series, will finally receive its global release before the end of 2024. This announcement was part of Juju Fest 2024, which featured several notable reveals for fans of Jujutsu Kaisen, including a Hidden Inventory movie slated for 2025 and a Season 2 Guide Book set to be released for Japanese audiences in October. However, the most significant revelation was that publisher BILIBILI GAMES would be bringing Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade to players across all regions this year, with pre-registration already underway. Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade is free-to-play and you can pre-register right now via the game’s official website as well as stay up to date with the game’s latest developments via Discord, Twitter/X, and Facebook. But, if you’re only just now hearing of Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade and would like to know what it’s all about then here’s a quick breakdown of what lies in store. Gameplay Overview Developed by Sumzap, Inc. and initially launched in Japan by TOHO Games in 2023, Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade gives players the chance to immerse themselves in a dark and mystical world where gifted sorcerer’s battle cursed spirits to keep humanity from being destroyed. The core gameplay involves players forming teams of four sorcerers from various classes, such as tank, support, and damage dealers, and engaging in turn-based battles against cursed spirits. Players will have the opportunity to utilize the abilities of beloved characters like Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro, Nobara Kugisaki, and Satoru Gojo, all of which faithfully capture the character traits that fans have grown to love through the manga and anime series. Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade allows players to revisit several pivotal moments from the first season of the tv anime, while also introducing an entirely new storyline set in the Fukuoka Branch Campus, offering a fresh and unique narrative experience. Pre-registration Rewards Pre-registration for Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade is currently in progress, and participants will be rewarded with exclusive bonuses upon the game’s release. The exact rewards they receive will depend on the game hitting the following key milestones: 1 million pre-registrations: Cube x500 2 million pre-registrations: Cube x1000 3 million pre-registrations: Cube x1000 5 million pre-registrations: Cube x2000 8 million pre-registrations: Cube x3000 10 million pre-registrations: [Redrawable!] SSR-Character-Guaranteed Gacha Ticket x1 There’s little doubt that the game will hit the 10 million mark, but just to ensure it gets there, pre-registered players will also receive Cubes worth 25 draws to go alongside their re-drawable SSR-Character Guaranteed Gacha Ticket. Sponsored Content This article is sponsored content written by TouchArcade and published on behalf of BILIBILI GAMES to promote the global launch date for Jujutsu Kaisen Phantom Parade. For questions or comments, please email ads@toucharcade.com

Yesterday during the Nintendo Indie World Partner Direct whatever it is called for the double feature, Red Nexus Games’ pachinko …

Continue reading "The Huge ‘Peglin’ 1.0 Update Is Now Live on iOS, Android, and Steam Following Switch Launch Yesterday"

Yesterday during the Nintendo Indie World Partner Direct whatever it is called for the double feature, Red Nexus Games’ pachinko roguelike Peglin (Free) got announced and released on Switch. I didn’t realize it was then that it hit 1.0 on Steam as well. I got it on Switch and while we need a bit more time for our review, Peglin has also finally hit 1.0 on iOS and Android following its Switch launch yesterday and Steam update a few hours later. The highlights of this include the final Cruciball levels (17-20), a new forest miniboss, a new rare roundrel relic, tons of balance adjustments, gameplay changes to how dull pegs work, bestiary research rate changes, and much more. Read the full patch notes from the game’s Steam news story here. Watch the gameplay trailer for Peglin below if you’ve not played it yet: With Peglin hitting 1.0 today, it is still planned to get more updates, and I can’t wait to see what else the team does with over time. If you’re interested in playing it right now, read my review of Peglin on iOS here from its launch last year. You can also read my interview with Red Nexus Games here covering the game, pricing, and a lot more. Peglin on mobile is a free to try game, and you can grab it on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. We featured it as our Game of the Week when it launched. Check it out on Steam here and Switch here. Head over to our forum thread for more impressions and discussion around the iOS version. Have you played Peglin before on mobile or PC, and what do you think of this huge update?

It looks like SNK is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the superb The King of Fighters series with a big …

Continue reading "All of SNK’s The King of Fighters ACA NeoGeo Games Are Discounted on iOS and Android, Switch Later Today"

It looks like SNK is celebrating the 30th anniversary of the superb The King of Fighters series with a big discount on the complete set of ACA NeoGeo games on mobile and Switch (coming later today). Many years ago, Hamster started releasing SNK’s older games through its ACA NeoGeo lineup. These saw a few useful emulation features arrive for classic games on consoles over the years. We started seeing these hit mobile at half the price ($3.99 compared to $7.99 on console) published by SNK as well. While the pricing was already great, you can now buy all the games in The King of Fighters ACA NeoGeo series of releases on mobile at just $1.99 each. ACA NeoGeo The King of Fighters game discounts list on mobile: The King of Fighters 94 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) The King of Fighters 95 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) The King of Fighters 96 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) The King of Fighters 97 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) The King of Fighters 98 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) The King of Fighters 99 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) The King of Fighters 2000 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) The King of Fighters 2001 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) The King of Fighters 2002 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) The King of Fighters 2003 ACA NeoGeo ($3.99) Check out the games on Android here. I own a few of these on iOS, but all of them barring 96 on Nintendo Switch. The Switch eShop deals should go live in a few hours today in North America with the deals already being up in other parts of the World on Switch and PS4. Check out the official website for the series on mobile here. What’s your favorite recent ACA NeoGeo release and are you grabbing any of the KOF games today with this sale?

Following pre-installation going live earlier in the week, HoYoverse has just released the major Genshin Impact (Free) version 5.0 “Flowers …

Continue reading "‘Genshin Impact’ Version 5.0 Update Is Now Available Worldwide on iOS, Android, PC, PS5, and More"

Following pre-installation going live earlier in the week, HoYoverse has just released the major Genshin Impact (Free) version 5.0 “Flowers Resplendent on the Sun-Scorched Sojourn" update on mobile, PC, and PlayStation worldwide. The highlights of this update include the new nation: Natlan which is open to early and mid-game players, new characters like Mualani, reruns for Raiden Shogun, and much more. The first Genshin Impact 5.0 banner features: Mualani, Kachina and Kaedehara Kazuha while banner 2 has Kinich and Raiden Shogun. Read about the improved visuals in Genshin Impact 5.0 here and the full patch notes for the update here. Watch the new Genshin Impact trailers for Mualani and more below: If you pre-installed the update on iOS, you should be able to play without downloading much, but the game will take a bit of time to split up old resources once you login. If you’d like to play Genshin Impact and don’t own it yet, you can download it for free on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. The PC version is available on the official website here and the Epic Games Store. If you play on iOS, with iOS 14.5 or iPadOS 14.5 and later, you can use PS5 and Xbox Series X|S controllers to play Genshin Impact. We featured Genshin Impact as our Game of the Week when it released and awarded it our 2020 Game of the Year. I also featured it as one of the best iOS games to play with a controller. What do you think of Genshin Impact 5.0 so far?

When Square Enix released the monster collecting RPG Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on Switch last year, I loved …

Continue reading "‘Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince’ Is Coming to iOS, Android, and Steam on September 11th With All DLC Included From the Switch Release"

When Square Enix released the monster collecting RPG Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince on Switch last year, I loved my time with it. It had technical issues, but the charm and gameplay loop elevated it well beyond other Dragon Quest spinoffs on the platform bringing up to the same level as the superb Dragon Quest Builders 2. I always expected Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince to be ported to PC soon after just like Dragon Quest Treasures, but I didn’t even consider it hitting mobile anytime soon. Today, Square Enix announced that the Switch-exclusive Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince ($23.99) is coming to iOS, Android, and Steam on September 11th with all prior DLC included. This means the Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince Digital Deluxe Edition content will also be included. Watch the trailer for Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince below: Square Enix has also posted comparison images of the game on mobile, Switch, and Steam on the official Japanese website. Check out one of them below: The store pages also confirm that the network mode for Online Battles from the Switch version where players battle one another in real time will not be included in the Steam and mobile versions. Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is currently available on Nintendo Switch priced at $59.99 for the standard edition and $84.99 for the Digital Deluxe Edition. Having loved this on Switch, I’m looking forward to replaying it for review on iPhone, iPad, and Steam Deck for the new platforms launch on September 11th. It is great to see Square Enix bring more Dragon Quest to mobile soon after the original platform launch. I expected we might see this one by 2027 on mobile given delays between console and mobile these days for the series like we saw with Dragon Quest Builders. It is priced at $29.99 on mobile and $39.99 on Steam. Check it out on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here where you can pre-register for it. Have you played Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince before on Switch or will you try it out on mobile and Steam in two weeks when it releases? Update: Added comparison image and website information.

About two and a half years ago we were treated to a lovely gaming experience titled Dungeons of Dreadrock from …

Continue reading "‘Dungeons of Dreadrock 2’ Announced, Launching on Nintendo Switch in November with Mobile and PC Versions to Follow"

About two and a half years ago we were treated to a lovely gaming experience titled Dungeons of Dreadrock from developer Christoph Minnameier. The game was a dungeon crawler inspired by the likes of classics such as Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, but played from a top-down perspective rather than a first-person one. It also had a more puzzle-like focus in the designs of its 100 different levels, each one a different floor in the dungeon you were descending in order to rescue your brother. Dungeons of Dreadrock was quite challenging, with some levels almost feeling like logic puzzles as you sussed out when exactly to activate a trap or how to approach a certain batch of enemies. We loved the game in our review, and Dungeons of Dreadrock went on to release on basically every other gaming platform where it was similarly well-received. And now we’ve got a sequel to look forward to. Say hello to Dungeons of Dreadrock 2 – The Dead King’s Secret. That red background and big ‘ol Switch logo with the familiar finger snapping sound is an indication that this time around this new Dungeons of Dreadrock game is targeting Nintendo’s platform first, and according to the game’s website it’ll be launching on the Switch’s eShop on November 28th of this year. Fear not though! A PC version is also planned, and in fact can be wishlisted on Steam as we speak, and iOS and Android versions are also in the cards. It’s not super clear exactly when we’ll be getting Dungeons of Dreadrock 2 on mobile, but it makes me happy just knowing that it’s coming. Once more news on release dates for other platforms materializes we’ll be sure to update you.

Back in April we took a look at the trailer for Super Farming Boy from developer LemonChili. It took the …

Continue reading "‘Super Farming Boy’ Available for Pre-Order on iOS with 20% Discount, Launch Planned for Next Year"

Back in April we took a look at the trailer for Super Farming Boy from developer LemonChili. It took the basic idea of a cozy farming game–planting crops, harvesting, building out your own little dream property–and amped it up with lighting fast arcade-style gameplay mechanics and a devious antagonist to fight against. They dubbed it “Harvest Moon on steroids" and I got that same sort of vibe from watching the trailer. You play as a boy with super powers (your name is literally Super) so you’re able to zip around your farm harvesting crops, and the act of harvesting can trigger cool combos and chain reactions. Check out the trailer if you missed it before. Anyway, I love the idea of a farming sim turned up to 11, and this week LemonChili has announced a more specific roadmap for the release of Super Farming Boy and have even put the iOS version up for pre-order on the App Store. The launch isn’t exactly close, and the plan as of now is to release in Early Access in Q2 of next year with a full launch to follow afterwards. That’s definitely a while away, but if you’re really sure this is the type of game that’s up your alley then pre-ordering the mobile version now will net you a 20% discount off the price, so there’s some incentive. You can also check out how the game is shaping up thanks to a playable Windows demo on both Steam and Itch.io. Whether you feel like taking the plunge on the pre-order or not, Super Farming Boy is definitely one you’ll want to keep your eye out for next year.

JOYCITY has launched an exciting new update for Pirates of the Caribbean: Tides of War, inviting everyone to join in …

Continue reading "‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Tides of War’ Adds Cross-Server Battles in Latest Empire Invasion Update"

JOYCITY has launched an exciting new update for Pirates of the Caribbean: Tides of War, inviting everyone to join in on thrilling conquests against other Captains all over the world. In particular, the Empire Invasion event offers server-versus-server competitions that will have you vying for first place in exchange for valuable pirate treasure. Gear up for an all-out sea brawl – can you fight to stay afloat and sink those enemy ships across servers? After the matchmaking phase, you’ll need to clear missions in the Eve Festival preliminary round to enjoy some handy buffs for the final battle. This includes server-wide perks and the ability to switch between servers – a handy trick to have up your sleeve when you’re conquering the opposing Empire’s territories. During the Invasion Conquest, victorious Captains can switch to the opposing server and wreak havoc in Port Royal, while defenders need to hold their ground and remain in their Empire to see if they can survive the attack. Whoever wins the Empire Invasion Port Royal Conquest will not only grab bragging rights but will also nab awesome in-game goodies such as special base skins to boot. If all that sounds absolutely fabulous to you, you can head on over to Pirates of the Caribbean: Tides of War’s official website and start your naval dominance today. Sponsored Content This article is sponsored content written by TouchArcade and published on behalf of JOYCITY to promote the latest update to Pirates of the Caribbean: Tides of War. For questions or comments, please email ads@toucharcade.com

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 27th, 2024. In today’s article, we kick things off …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Today’s Nintendo Direct, Full Review of ‘EGGCONSOLE Star Trader’, Plus New Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 27th, 2024. In today’s article, we kick things off with a bit of news. After that, we’ve got one review for you to snack on. Just my look at the latest EGGCONSOLE release from last week, and the regulars probably know how that’s going to play out. After that, we have just one new release to take a gander at. Luckily, it’s a good one. We finish things up with the usual lists of new and expiring sales, and they’re okay as well. I have no idea what’s in that Direct tonight, so maybe it will make for a more exciting Tuesday? That is a mystery I cannot solve as I write, but you already know the answer to as you read. Let’s get into it! News Check Out Today’s Nintendo Direct/Indie World Showcase As recently prophesized by the once-in-a-while-correct insiders, Nintendo has scheduled a Nintendo Direct for August at nearly the last minute. We’re getting 40 minutes in total, split between a Partner Showcase and Indie World Showcase. Don’t expect any first-party stuff, and definitely do not expect anything about the Switch’s successor console. As you read this, the presentation should be long since finished. You can watch it above, and I’ll summarize the most important points tomorrow. Reviews & Mini-Views EGGCONSOLE Star Trader PC-8801mkIIsr ($6.49) It always comes down to two questions with these non-translated EGGCONSOLE releases. First, how is the game itself? Second, can it be enjoyed without understanding Japanese? Star Trader is an interesting game, though not what I would call a great one. Falcom fused a Japanese-style adventure game format with some side-scrolling shoot ’em up stages, and it doesn’t do either of those things amazingly well. The adventure game side at least has some nice art, and it’s interesting to see a shoot ’em up try to tell a story in this way. You’re mostly talking to people and picking up quests, the successful completion of which will earn you money you can use to upgrade your ship. This is important, because you’ll need to keep that cash coming in to stay on top of the action segments. As for the shoot ’em up parts… well, the PC-8801 wasn’t very good at scrolling the screen smoothly. So what you get here is a very choppy experience, and one that I’m not sure would even be all that great if things were moving at a normal clip. I’m not sure which part of the game is meant to serve the other, but in the end Star Trader is more interesting than it is good. Which naturally brings us to the second question. As you might expect, the adventure game segments are text-heavy and require some informed input from the player to achieve the best outcomes. If you can’t understand them, you’re not only missing out on half of the game, but you’re likely hobbling yourself for the other half because you’ll fail to earn enough credits to keep your ship up to date. You can brute force this one better than some EGGCONSOLE releases, but it’s not going to be a good time. Star Trader is an interesting piece of gaming history, showing a developer working outside of the lane we usually associate them with. Unfortunately, what joy could be had from poking at this curio is severely dampened by the fact that there is a ton of Japanese text in here that most Western players won’t be able to read. You might still get something out of messing around with it, but it’s hard to recommend it with much vigor. SwitchArcade Score: 3/5 Select New Releases Crypt Custodian ($19.99) A top-down action-adventure game about a recently-deceased cat named Pluto who, after a bad meeting with the Afterlife Guardian, is banished from the palace of the afterlife and sentenced to eternally clean. Dang. Explore, fight enemies with your broom, meet weird characters, battle bosses, expand your abilities, and so on. You know how this kind of game works. You know what? This is pretty good. If you enjoy this genre, I’d say you should give it a go. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) If you like colorful shoot ’em ups with some quirky mechanics, I recommend checking out the Dreamer games and Harpoon Shooter Nozomi. I’ve enjoyed all three of them. Over in the outbox, buy 1000xRESIST. Do it. Other things to consider: Star Wars games, Citizen Sleeper, Paradise Killer, and Haiku, the Robot. Maybe some Tomb Raider, as a treat. Check those lists! Select New Sales Return ($10.49 from $13.99 until 9/2) Summer Daze: Tilly’s Tale ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/9) Please Fix the Road ($5.99 from $9.99 until 9/9) Ticket to Ride ($26.99 from $29.99 until 9/9) King ‘n Knight ($9.59 from $11.99 until 9/9) Spiritfarer ($7.49 from $29.99 until 9/9) Harpoon Shooter Nozomi ($6.98 from $9.98 until 9/16) Like Dreamer ($5.99 from $11.99 until 9/16) Cosmo Dreamer ($4.10 from $8.20 until 9/16) Mortal Kombat 11 Ultimate ($8.99 from $59.99 until 9/16) Gluck ($5.59 from $6.99 until 9/16) Love Love School Days ($4.19 from $10.49 until 9/16) Ugly ($6.79 from $19.99 until 9/16) Replik Survivors ($3.44 from $4.99 until 9/16) Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 28th 1000xRESIST ($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Citizen Sleeper ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Genesis Noir ($4.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Haiku, The Robot ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Heads Up! Phones Down Edition ($1.99 from $39.99 until 8/28) Legend Bowl ($18.74 from $24.99 until 8/28) MythForce ($14.99 from $29.99 until 8/28) Paradise Killer ($5.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Battlefront Collection ($28.00 from $35.01 until 8/28) Star Wars Bounty Hunter ($14.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Episode I Racer ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Jedi Academy ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Jedi Outcast ($4.99 from $9.99 until 8/28) Star Wars KotOR ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars KotOR II: Sith Lords ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Republic Commando ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars The Force Unleashed ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Super Mutant Alien Assault ($1.99 from $9.99 until 8/28) Suzerain ($4.49 from $17.99 until 8/28) The Pale Beyond ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Times & Galaxy ($17.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Tomb Raider I-III Remastered ($22.49 from $29.99 until 8/28) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow to talk a bit about whatever was in that Direct, plus have some new games, sales, and perhaps a review or two on top. I hope you all have a terrific Tuesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Action adventure game RWBY: Arrowfell from WayForward is now available on mobile through the Crunchyroll Game Vault. RWBY: Arrowfell, developed …

Continue reading "‘RWBY: Arrowfell’ Now Available on Mobile Through Crunchyroll Game Vault"

Action adventure game RWBY: Arrowfell from WayForward is now available on mobile through the Crunchyroll Game Vault. RWBY: Arrowfell, developed by WayForward, is an action adventure game featuring Ruby Rose, Weiss, Blake, and Yang using their signature weapons and Semblances to take on Grimm and more enemies. It has the original cast included, new cut-scenes from the show creators, and more. Shaun wasn’t too hot on RWBY: Arrowfell when it hit Switch, but he did say it is worth playing if you like the show. Read his review here. Watch the RWBY: Arrowfell Crunchyroll Game Vault trailer below: Check out RWBY: Arrowfell on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. If you have an active Crunchyroll Mega or Ultimate membership right now, you can play RWBY: Arrowfell at no additional cost today. While it didn’t have the best reviews on PC and console, I’m happy to see more WayForward titles hit mobile. I’m excited to try it out today since I skipped the original release. What do you think of today’s new Crunchyroll Game Vault release and have you played RWBY: Arrowfell before?

Usually, updates for premium priced ports on mobile are good to have for optimization or compatibility reasons, but Capcom’s newest …

Continue reading "Capcom Updates ‘Resident Evil 4′, ‘Resident Evil Village’, and ‘Resident Evil 7’ on iOS With Online DRM"

Usually, updates for premium priced ports on mobile are good to have for optimization or compatibility reasons, but Capcom’s newest update pushed out an hour ago for Resident Evil 7 biohazard (Free), Resident Evil 4 Remake (Free), and Resident Evil Village (Free) on iOS and iPadOS adds an online DRM that checks purchase history when you launch the games. This checks to see if you own the game or DLC and then proceeds to the title screen. If you click no, the game will close. If you’re connected to the internet, this takes a few seconds before you can get back to your save, but you cannot boot up any of these three games and play it offline. You will need to be online for the purchase check on launching the game. This is unfortunate, and frankly is awful because the games are all now worse off with online DRM as opposed to being playable and launchable offline before. I tested this with all three games before updating them and verified that they did launch and work offline as of the update prior to today. With today’s update, you see the alert above or a similar one and clicking no closes the game. If this doesn’t matter to you, that’s fine, but I’m not a fan of online DRM like this being patched into a game people have already paid for before. Hopefully Capcom can find a better solution for checking purchases or do it once in a while and not on every launch. Stuff like this makes it harder to recommend Capcom’s premium priced ports. If you’ve not gotten the games yet, they are free to try, and you can grab Resident Evil 7 biohazard on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, here. Check out Resident Evil 4 Remake here on the App Store and Resident Evil Village here. Read my reviews of them here, here, and here. Do you own the three modern Resident Evil games on iOS and what do you think of this update for all three?

Back in early 2016 when I was looking for import-friendly games on PS Vita, I used to often see Gundam …

Continue reading "Gundam Breaker 4 Review – Steam Deck, Switch, and PS5 Tested"

Back in early 2016 when I was looking for import-friendly games on PS Vita, I used to often see Gundam Breaker mentioned. If you’ve never heard of the series before, think of them as hack and slash action games with RPG elements, deep customization, and a pure unadulterated love of Gunpla. Around the time I was looking into the series, Bandai Namco announced an Asia English release for Gundam Breaker 3 on PS4 and PS Vita, and I decided to buy both versions. I ended up loving it as my first Gundam game. Since then, I’ve imported and played Gundam Breaker 1 and 2 on PS Vita, and also gotten basically every Gundam game released in English across platforms. To see Gundam Breaker 4 announced earlier this year and confirmed for a global multi-platform simultaneous release remains one of 2024’s biggest surprises. Fast forward to today and Gundam Breaker 4 is finally here on Steam, Switch, PS4, and PS5. Having put in about 60 hours across platforms, I adore Gundam Breaker 4, but it has a few issues right now. Gundam Breaker 4 is a very important release not only because of the game itself, but because of how far we’ve come with the series in the West. So what makes Gundam Breaker 4 a big deal? Gone are the days of waiting for an Asia English release to import. Gundam Breaker 3 was an Asia English release not released in the West, and just on PlayStation. I can’t recall the last Gundam game that had an English dub option, but here we are with a dual audio option and multiple subtitle options (EFIGS and many more). But what about the game itself and the different platform versions? I’m going to cover all of that in this extended review that will also take you on a journey of me starting my first Master Grade Gunpla (Gundam Plastic Kit if you’re new to this) after building some High Grade (easier and smaller kits) before. Gundam Breaker 4’s story ranges from getting the job done to some highs and lows. The lows are when I felt like certain pre-mission dialog was going on a bit too long, and the highs were in the latter half of the game when there are interesting character reveals and also more interesting dialog. If you’ve not played a single game in the series before, Gundam Breaker 4 still does a good job of bringing you up to speed, but you might wonder why the appearance of certain characters is a big deal later on. The embargo only allows me to talk about the first two chapters of the story, and it feels like a straightforward affair during those two. I ended up liking the main characters quite a bit by the end, but my two favorite characters appear much later in the story. The real draw of Gundam Breaker 4 is not the story though. It is building your own perfect Gunpla, improving it over time, getting better gear, and becoming stronger to tackle higher difficulties and more quests. When you begin, you get the basics, but what the team really underold in the promotion is the customization aspect. It is incredible. Not only can you adjust individual parts like left and right arms, but you can also adjust ranged weapons for each arm, melee with dual wielding, and adjust the individual part size and scale. This means you can even use SD (super deformed) parts on your normal Gunpla and either have it look like this weird frankenstein suit or scale things to your liking. Beyond the actual parts for each main category in assembly, the customization in Gundam Breaker 4 takes things further with builder parts that let you add even more things to your Gunpla. Some of these even have their own skills. Speaking of skills, you have EX and OP skills to use in combat. These depend on your parts and weapons. Later on, you also unlock ability cartridges that have their own specs that give you buffs or debuffs. As you go through the missions breaking parts and earning S-rank reward parts, you also get materials. These can be used to level up your parts. Each mission in Gundam Breaker 4 usually has a recommended parts level indicating how suitable it is for your current gear. In addition to materials you earn to upgrade parts, you start earning materials to increase part rarity later on. This lets you upgrade for more skills as well, and you can use older or lesser part skills when you upgrade and cannibalize those older parts. During the main story, I spent a bit of time on the optional quests to earn money or parts, but feel like the game is balanced enough where you won’t really need to grind during the main story on the standard difficulty at least. Speaking of the difficulty, you unlock three higher difficulties as the main story progresses, and these up the challenge and part level recommendation quite a bit. If you do plan on skipping most of the optional quests during the main story, make sure to keep an eye on the new unlocks because some of the optional quest types are a lot of fun, especially the survival mode. Outside of all of this, you can also adjust the paint of your suit which lets you color schemes you’ve unlocked through progression or from DLC. If you put time into Gundam Breaker 4, there’s a ton of stuff for you to get out of it, and I’m floored by how much has gone into this. When you’re done with paint, you can work with decals and weathering effects as well. Gundam Breaker 4 is the real deal for Gunpla enthusiasts, but does it play well? Having enjoyed everything Gundam Breaker 4 has to offer in its gameplay through story missions, side content, and boss fights aside from one specific mission type, I think the team nailed it. I never got bored of combat even though the normal difficulty is on the easier side. I kept swapping out weapons and trying the various types before settling on a greatsword style weapon for the rest of my playthrough. Everything feels varied enough, and the individual skills and stats make for a fresh experience throughout. When it comes to the bosses and minibosses, I love having them appear on the stage in the Gunpla boxes and then breaking out before fighting you. This never gets old, and seeing one of the Gunpla kits I built appear as a boss later on was awesome. Most boss fights involve targeting weak points, damaging the many health bars, destroying shields, and the usual. I did have trouble with one particular boss’ weak points using specific weapons, but I changed to a whip and sorted it immediately. The only real hard boss fight in the story was dealing with two of a specific boss at once. I won’t get into details for spoiler reasons, but I did struggle with the AI in one specific fight. Visually, Gundam Breaker 4 ranges from great to fine. The environments look lacking early on, but I found the variety good overall. Most of the work went into making sure the Gunpla kits and animations look the best, and it shows. The developers clearly weren’t trying to go for a realistic art style here, so don’t expect something like Gundam Evolution or even how some bits of Gundam Breaker 3 looked. The aesthetic in Gundam Breaker 4 works well and it scales as it should on lower end hardware. The effects look great, and the scale of many boss fights is awesome. The music in Gundam Breaker 4 ranges from forgettable tunes you won’t think of outside the game to a few really great songs in specific story missions. I am disappointed in no way to set music from the various anime and movies here. Usually we’d see some anime music pack DLC or a premium bundle for Asia and Japan, but I’ve not seen any of that yet in the game or announced. I also don’t see a way to load custom music like in Mobile Suit Gundam Extreme Vs Maxiboost ON on PS4. The voice acting has been a pleasant surprise. I played through the game completely with English on one save, and also spent about a dozen hours with the Japanese voice option on another platform save. Both were very good and I found myself liking the English more during missions because I hate reading small subtitles during action battles when I’m focusing on fighting enemies. So far, aside from one mission type really annoying me (thankfully not too prevalent) and a few bugs, I’ve had no real issues with Gundam Breaker 4. If you are new to this series and aren’t a fan of replaying missions to grind out better gear and drops, you may find things repetitive. I’ve always viewed Gundam Breaker like Earth Defense Force and Monster Hunter where after finishing the story, I spend time building my perfect Gunpla. As for bugs, I ran into one where certain names wouldn’t save or two I think are Steam Deck-specific. The first is that returning to the title screen from in-game takes way too long. The second is one specific mission that crashed for me only when playing on my monitor. I replayed it on the Deck itself and it was fine. It might just have been relating to the performance penalty I see in some games docked, but I can’t say for sure. The one aspect I’ve not touched on so far is the online. Pre-release I managed to play a good amount of the network test on PS5 and Switch, but I only managed to test a bit of the retail release on PS5 with a friend who is reviewing that version. The PC version’s servers have not been online pre-launch at all, so I cannot test if the online works fine on Steam Deck yet. I will be updating this once servers go online and I’ve managed testing the PC version on Steam Deck with friends online. At this point, you’re probably wondering about the Gunpla I was building. I made some progress and got through 5 sets of runners, but made a mistake with one small part. I panicked and almost broke it while trying to separate things. This is where my guitar pick came into the picture and saved me. I ended up stopping with my RG 78-2 MG 3.0 about halfway done. Once the review embargoes of this week are over, I’ll get back to it and finish it. Now let’s get to the platform differences and features. Gundam Breaker 4 PC port controls – keyboard, mouse, and controller support Gundam Breaker 4’s on PC is the only version of the game that supports above 60fps. The PS5 version is capped at 60fps and the Switch version hovers around the 30fps mark. The Gundam Breaker 4 PC release also has mouse and keyboard support in addition to controller support with multiple button prompt options. When playing on the Deck itself, it displayed Xbox button prompts. When using my DualSense controller over the Dock on my monitor, Gundam Breaker 4 showed PlayStation prompts correctly. It also auto switches between keyboard mouse and controller prompts based on your input. The only controller-related issue I ran into is the game not correctly detecting when I’ve reconnected a controller. I tested this on my DualSense and 8BitDo Ultimate controllers wirelessly. Gundam Breaker 4 ships with three controller presets and a custom option. You can adjust the keyboard mouse and controller settings independently. One setting I recommend changing immediately or after you try out the first few missions is camera sensitivity and distance. You can do this in Player Mode from the game settings. I found the default too slow and close. Gundam Breaker 4 PC graphics settings and display options Gundam Breaker 4 supports multiple resolutions and frame rate caps. On the Steam Deck itself, it sadly doesn’t support a full 800p and runs at 720p and 16:9. On the frame rate side, it can go from 30fps to 360fps and unlimited on PC. I set it to 120fps when playing on Steam Deck since I played it almost exclusively on my Steam Deck OLED. You can also toggle v-sync. On the graphics side, you can adjust the quality of textures, anti-aliasing, post-processing, shadows, effects, and also adjust brightness and toggle motion blur. Gundam Breaker 4 Steam Deck performance – does it work out of the box? I played Gundam Breaker 4 with Proton Experimental (bleeding edge) as I normally do for untested games, but I also tested it on the default Proton. It works perfectly out of the box and even invokes the on-screen keyboard for text input. I have confidence in this being Steam Deck Verified pre-launch or soon after. The 35 hours I put into it on just my Steam Deck OLED prove that. When playing with all settings at High aside from shadows, Gundam Breaker 4 easily hit 60fps, but I wanted more. For this, I turned things to medium and played at 80-90fps almost across the board. A few late-game missions saw drops to the high 60s during gameplay, but otherwise I had no issues in actual gameplay. In-engine cut-scenes do take a hit to performance and run in the 50-70fps range for me on Steam Deck. I did run into one issue where the assembly section suddenly dropped to 1-3fps for a few seconds before shooting back up to 90fps. This didn’t happen more than three times total, but I couldn’t figure out what caused it. If this is a Proton related issue, I hope Valve can fix it. The only visual issue I had when playing on the Deck itself is some of the icon glyphs and menus had either smaller than expected fonts, or they weren’t as crisp as they should’ve been. I noticed this even on Switch so it likely is an issue with the game being designed for a higher res and bigger screen. Not a dealbreaker, but worth pointing out. Gundam Breaker 4 Switch vs PS5 – what to buy? On the console side, I didn’t have time to test Gundam Breaker 4 on my PS4, so I focused on the Switch (Lite and OLED) and PS5 versions. Gundam Breaker 4 on PS5 looks amazing and runs basically perfectly at 60fps in the time I put into it, but I didn’t reach the few missions in the story towards the end that were more visually demanding. I also didn’t reach here on Switch, but I put nearly two dozen hours into the Switch version to see enough of how it runs there. Check out a comparison of the opening tutorial mission on PS5 and Switch in the screenshot comparison below: The biggest downgrades on Switch aside from the performance are with resolution, detail, and reflections. This applies not only to the stages, but also the Gunpla parts. During the network tests, a friend of mine pointed out how the Switch version looked like an HG Gunpla while the PS5 version looked like an RG in some scenes. If you built Gunpla you will understand this, but for everyone else, it just means Gunpla in the Switch version ends up lacking in many details like decals, lining, and even weathering effects in specific situations. They do appear, but I think the lower resolution and draw distance makes it so that they are invisible sometimes. This is one of those changes you won’t realize until you see the game outside Switch. I honestly expected this to run at 120fps on PS5 given the visuals. Playing Megaton Musashi at 120fps was good as a recent release. Maybe the developers capped this to 60fps for multiplayer reasons with the PS4 version, but I’m not sure. Aside from the 60fps cap, Gundam Breaker 4 has decent rumble support and even has PS5 Activity Card support to load into your save quicker. Since the review embargo prevents me from showing anything beyond chapter two in the story, the screenshot below is from when I just began playing showing the Activity Card implementation for story mode. I hope this supports online play and lobbies in the future as well. Speaking of loading, the Switch load times are really long compared to PS5 and Steam Deck. Even running the game off the SD card on my old Steam Deck LCD had much faster load times than Switch. If you only care about portability, you obviously won’t bother with the PS5 version, but the Switch port currently has one major issue that makes me hesitate to recommend it. The assembly section and diorama mode feel very sluggish. While the main lobby or hub is also sluggish, the performance in missions is better albeit still not a perfect 30fps. I saw drops even in early missions from 30fps, but again, this is a lot better than I expected given some recent Switch ports. I would be ok with this given the hardware if the assembly section ran better considering you will be spending a lot of time there after each mission. Diorama mode also needs more optimization on Switch with how sluggish it feels. If you played Gundam Breaker 3 on PS Vita, you will be more than fine with the Switch version, but I was hoping for a better port all things considered. Since there are more content updates planned, I hope we see some optimization on this front. For those who own multiple platforms, I only recommend the Switch version if you exclusively want to play portably and don’t own a Steam Deck. Speaking of portable play, I enjoyed Gundam Breaker 4 on my Switch Lite aside from the text size in some menus. Gundam Breaker 4 is also sadly the final game I reviewed on it before the screen developed some LCD-related issues. Is the Gundam Breaker 4 Ultimate Edition worth it? I had access to some of the DLC included in the Gundam Breaker 4 Deluxe Edition and Gundam Breaker 4 Ultimate Edition. I can’t comment on the story DLC yet since it isn’t available, but the early unlocks aren’t game changing. You get level 1 parts for the suits listed on the store page, but I found the builders parts to be better as early DLC to help you get started. Beyond that, the Diorama content doesn’t seem to be fully available right now, but there is some content from the DLC I had access to, and it was really good for posing Gunpla and using the cel-shaded filter as well. Having tried the Diorama mode a lot across my playthroughs on all platforms, photo mode enthusiasts and those who enjoy those kinds of modes in games will find a lot to love here. Having more items and accessories in this mode will be good, but you could get those separately I assume. I love how Gunbarrel Strike Gundam – Gundam Breaker Ver looks, so having those parts was nice. I liked the design enough to order the collector’s edition the moment pre-orders went up as well. Is Gundam Breaker 4 worth it for the story? I’ve seen some folks excited to play Gundam Breaker 4 for its story, and while it is a fine story, you really are here for customization, battles, and building your ideal Gunpla. If you want a story-focused game instead, look at Megaton Musashi. Both games have their strengths and weaknesses, but I ended up clicking with the gameplay in Gundam Breaker 4 more as a fan of the older games. When I got my review codes for Gundam Breaker 4, I had a fun idea of starting the MG 78-2 Version 3.0 kit and building it alongside the game to finish both at the same time, but sadly there are too many other games releasing for me to be able to do that. Not only was it great to play a new Gundam Breaker alongside building my newest Gunpla kit, but there’s a new found appreciation I have for the work that goes into designing these kits now after moving to an MG and also an RG from HG kits. I’ve also been lucky enough to have some friends who are super helpful with Gunpla tips for decals, panel lining, and also what to do when stuck. I look forward to finishing this kit and then working on my RG next. The wait for Gundam Breaker 4 has been super long, and I didn’t even think we’d see a new game in the series after New Gundam Breaker, but here we are. Gundam Breaker 4 is real and it is spectacular in almost every way. It is my favorite Steam Deck game this year since Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance, and one I look forward to playing online and offline over the coming months with all the DLC planned. Gundam Breaker 4 Steam Deck review: 4.5/5

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 26th, 2024. In today’s article, we get the week …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Fragrant Story & Papaya’s Path’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 26th, 2024. In today’s article, we get the week started with a somewhat lighter edition than we usually go with. No reviews today as I’m a bit busy on other projects, which means we just have a few new releases to go through plus the usual lists of new and expiring sales. Well, at least one of the new releases is interesting. The sales lists aren’t too shabby either. I’ll have some reviews tomorrow, hopefully. Let’s head on in and check out what we’ve got! Select New Releases Fragrant Story and Papaya’s Path ($7.99) Ah, the sordid tale of Fragrant Story, one of the would-be final Nintendo 3DS releases. There’s a lot of confusion out there around this game, so let me sort it out. Despite being a seemingly star-studded tactical role-playing game, those who bought the game on its release were surprised to get a game that lasted all of twenty minutes. The real story? Nintendo’s deadline for 3DS releases was coming quickly, so the developer pushed an unfinished game to the eShop. It was later updated into its intended from, a far more substantial game that lasts more than ten hours. So don’t worry if you see anything about this game being ridiculously short. It’s not. This version has the updates already packed in, and is a pretty solid pick-up for eight bucks if you’re into the genre. Quack Jump ($3.99) A simple platformer, but a functional one. It tries to keep things fresh through its 40-level run by sprinkling in new gimmicks as you go. For four dollars, it’s amusing enough. Underground Station ($7.90) Something of an idle game where you’re trying to repay your debts by working in a dungeon. It doesn’t look very fancy, but on a day where we have to wade through Moist Editions of AI-generated bikini anime girls, we take what we can get. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Okay, let’s check that inbox first. Another sale from Limited Run Games, which is nice if you’re missing any of their quirky releases. Most of TROOOZE’s junk is on sale, of which I’ve listed only a few. Some Team 17 sales, too. Over in the outbox, the recent somewhat rare sale on the Front Mission remakes is drawing to a close. You might want to add them to your collection if you’re interested, because it seems like they’re discounted far less frequently than Forever’s other games. Select New Sales Jurassic Park Games Collection ($17.99 from $29.99 until 8/31) The House in Fata Morgana ($19.99 from $39.99 until 8/31) Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore ($11.99 from $19.99 until 8/31) Night Trap ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/31) Cosmic Star Heroine ($3.74 from $14.99 until 8/31) Phoenotopia: Awakening ($6.99 from $19.99 until 9/7) Enoh ($5.49 from $19.99 until 9/13) CosmoPlayerZ ($5.49 from $10.99 until 9/13) Knowledge Keeper ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/13) Three Minutes to Eight ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Fall of Porcupine ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) Star Gagnant ($22.80 from $38.00 until 9/13) Moon Dancer ($13.29 from $18.99 until 9/13) Re:Touring ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/13) Life of Slime ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/13) Cybertrash STATYX ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/13) Awesome Pea 3 ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/13) Itorah ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) Pizza Tycoon ($2.09 from $14.99 until 9/13) Lacuna ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/13) Alien Survivors: Starship Resurrection ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/13) World War: Battle of the Bulge ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/13) World War: D-Day Part One ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) World War: D-Day Part Two ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Out Racing: Arcade Memory ($10.49 from $14.99 until 9/13) Last 4 Survive: The Outbreak ($8.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Modern War: Tank Battle ($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Counter Delta: The Bullet Rain ($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Haunted Dawn: Zombie Apocalypse ($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Urban Warfare: Assault ($11.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Operation Scorpion: Takedown ($11.99 from $14.99 until 9/13) Hamster on Rails ($5.99 from $14.99 until 9/14) Ultimate Chicken Horse ($6.74 from $14.99 until 9/14) Our Field Trip Adventure ($3.99 from $14.50 until 9/15) Overcooked! All You Can Eat ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/15) Worms Rumble ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/15) The Survivalists ($2.49 from $24.99 until 9/15) Blasphemous 2 ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/15) Moving Out ($7.49 from $24.99 until 9/15) Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 27th Aeterna Noctis ($8.99 from $29.99 until 8/27) Arise: A Simple Story ($2.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) ATONE: Heart of the Elder Tree ($1.99 from $14.99 until 8/27) Badland: GotY Edition ($1.99 from $5.99 until 8/27) Bang-On Balls: Chronicles ($9.99 from $24.99 until 8/27) Blazing Beaks ($1.99 from $14.99 until 8/27) Bus Driving Simulator 22 ($2.99 from $27.99 until 8/27) Chippy & Noppo ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) Cult of the Lamb ($12.49 from $24.99 until 8/27) Descenders ($4.99 from $24.99 until 8/27) Everdream Valley ($9.99 from $24.99 until 8/27) Flame Keeper ($3.99 from $11.99 until 8/27) Front Mission 1st: Remake ($17.49 from $34.99 until 8/27) Front Mission 2: Remake ($23.44 from $34.99 until 8/27) Gamedec: Definitive ($2.99 from $29.99 until 8/27) LOUD: My Road to Fame ($1.99 from $7.99 until 8/27) Nine Parchments ($4.39 from $19.99 until 8/27) Ready, Steady, Ship! ($8.99 from $14.99 until 8/27) Red Wings: American Aces ($1.99 from $11.99 until 8/27) Soundfall ($4.49 from $29.99 until 8/27) Summum Aeterna ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) SuperEpic: The Entertainment War ($1.99 from $17.99 until 8/27) Terra Flame ($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) Tools Up ($1.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) Trine 2: Complete Story ($3.73 from $16.99 until 8/27) Trine 3: Artifacts of Power ($4.39 from $19.99 until 8/27) Trine Enchanted Edition ($3.29 from $14.99 until 8/27) War Titans ($1.99 from $14.99 until 8/27) Xiaomei & the Flame Dragon’s Fist ($8.99 from $14.99 until 8/27) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new releases, more sales, and perhaps some reviews and news. It really depends on what else I’ve got to deal with. Wish me luck in getting things done in a timely manner. I hope you all have a magnificent Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of …

Continue reading "Best iPhone Game Updates: ‘TMNT Splintered Fate’, ‘Subway Surfers’, ‘Another Eden’, and More"

Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. Lots of big names in the list this week, though one heavily skewed towards free-to-play stuff. Some Apple Arcade games as well, naturally. Still, it’s a good mix of games with some interesting updates to consider. Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s go for it! Subway Surfers, Free Sydney is a city, and Sydney is the center of a couple of updates this week. Apparently in the world of Subway Surfers, there is a veggie revolution happening. Veggie, not Vegimite. Collect Veggie tokens, build a bean burger, and unlock Billy Bean. On top of this, you can look forward to a bunch of green-themed characters, boards, and bundles. Oh, I see. It’s a whole “green" thing. Okay, that’s fun. Save the planet, kids. It’s the only one we’ve got. Mars isn’t happening anytime soon. Tiny Tower: Tap Idle Evolution, Free Out with the Olympics event, in with the summer event. It’s still summer! So says the calendar, so says the temperature. Anyway, the gist of this event is that you serve up VIPs and roll the dice to earn event points, and at certain thresholds you get rewards. Each week is its own thing, and at the end you’ll get rewards based on your overall progress across all weeks. Different VIPs are worth different amounts of points, and you know the pay to win option is real here. But hey, free stuff. MARVEL Puzzle Quest: Hero RPG, Free I don’t talk enough about Marvel Puzzle Quest, but that’s more because it trucks along consistently and quietly. As with other Marvel games, this one was doing an event tied in with Deadpool and Wolverine. It’s over now, and all the sweeping up has been done. That includes a rebalance for Old Man Logan, complete with a new costume. The latest PVP Season of Mind has come to a close, so keep your eyes out for the next one. Hm. I’m now realizing this update is mostly clean-up, but at least you’re thinking about Marvel Puzzle Quest now. ANOTHER EDEN, Free The King of Fighters! In addition to being a pretty good little RPG in its own right, Another Eden has been home to some truly strange collaboration events. Is The King of Fighters the strangest? Probably not, but it’s up there. On top of that cross-over, this update adds a new Parallel Time Layer Ally, the Thornbound Witch Shanie. Is Mai here? Let me check the paperwork. Yes, she is. Good. Terry, Kyo, Mai, and Kula. Good enough. I’ll give this the UMMSotW award for this week because Mai is cool. Temple Run: Legends, The relatively recently-launched stage-based Temple Run game already has a nice little update to enjoy. The new Outfit System does pretty much what you would think it does. Unlock new Outfits to equip to the characters to change their looks. But wait, there’s more! Those Outfits have some useful new traits to give you a variety of advantages during your runs. Wacky looks that work for you? If only real life was like that! Instead people just point and laugh, which is not an advantage at all. TMNT Splintered Fate, Those Toitles are at it again! Splintered Fate launched on other platforms recently, and it seems the developers have decided to bring over some of the improvements for those versions over to the mobile release. Couch co-op! Cross-platform online multiplayer! Improved controller interfaces! All that, plus some nice upgrades to the graphics, audio, and more. It’s like getting extra cheese on your pizza without asking for it! Disney Dreamlight Valley, The Princess and the Frog is in the spotlight in the latest version of Disney Dreamlight Valley. Tiana is here to set up a restaurant and a new Stall, and apparently Remy is somewhere around too. Makes sense. Cooking is kind of his thing. You can also get a New Orleans style parade going on. That’s fun. I always like seeing Disney movies outside of the biggest hits get some representation in games like these. Outlanders, Okay, let’s try to parse the update notes for Outlanders. Always a challenge. Volume VI of Outlanders Chronicles is here, giving you six new playable leaders and following the rise and subsequent fall of a community. Something to do with a comet not appearing when it should have. Maybe they’re one of those weird cults? Well, I’m not about to bother them to find out. They seem sad about it. You, however, can feel free to bother them by checking out this latest version of the game. SimCity BuildIt, Free Here’s our other Sydney-themed update today, and it’s also somewhat focused on the whole green angle. Okay, that’s fine. Captain Planet would certainly approve, and I never mess with someone with a green mullet. Add buildings like the Beam Wireless, Green Exchange, and Flower Bud to your city. There are also some limited-time structures like the Sydney Zoo and Paper Bag. Jump in on this Mayor’s Pass Season and liven up your city with these new sites. Sights? Sites and sights. Merge Mansion, Free The obligatory free-to-play matching puzzle game update of the week is our closer this time, and I’ve picked Merge Mansion. A new area is available in the form of the Speakeasy. Wait, are those legal? Like Grandma would care. Some improvements have been made to the Landing Room and Lounge, a new Mystery Pass offers an intriguing new pet, some balance adjustments have been made, and a whole mess of events have been seeded in that you’ll see pop up in the coming weeks. Add in some bug fixes, and that’s about it for this one. That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!

Niantic and Capcom just detailed the next major update coming to Monster Hunter Now (Free). Monster Hunter Now Season 3 …

Continue reading "‘Monster Hunter Now’ Season 3 To Add Magnamalo, Heavy Bowgun Weapon, Cooking, and More on September 11th"

Niantic and Capcom just detailed the next major update coming to Monster Hunter Now (Free). Monster Hunter Now Season 3 “Curse of the Wandering Flames" sees Magnamalo arrive as the first Monster Hunter Rise original monster joining the Monster Hunter Now roster. Alongside Magnamalo, two other monsters join in the action including my favorite: Rajang. The final monster addition is Aknosom. Monster Hunter Now’s Season 3 update also brings in a new weapon, the Heavy Bowgun, cooking as a feature, and more. I’m curious to see how Magnamalo and Rajang are in-game as I adore hunting both of them in Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak and Monster Hunter World: Iceborne for Rajang. Check out Magnamalo’s artwork for Monster Hunter Now below: Check out some of the new gear from the update below: If you’ve not played Monster Hunter Now recently or are planning to just start playing, I put together tips and tricks for the game, details on the weapons, special skills, the current monsters list, my wishlist for future update monsters, and more. You can grab Monster Hunter Now on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. The in app purchases include different sets of gems and upgrades. Check out the official website here. What do you think of the current state of the game and are you looking forward to Teostra next month?

At Anime NYC this weekend, Aniplex USA shared more details for its upcoming 3D action RPG Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist …

Continue reading "3D Action RPG ‘Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist Another Story’ From Aniplex Gets a New Trailer Ahead of Its Launch on Mobile and PC"

At Anime NYC this weekend, Aniplex USA shared more details for its upcoming 3D action RPG Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist Another Story . Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist Another Story is in development for iOS, Android, and Windows release this year. Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist Another Story is based on the Blue Exorcist IP, and the story of the game features new original characters showcased in the game’s new trailer. In addition to this new trailer, pre-orders and pre-registrations have gone live for the game. Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist Another Story sees you taking on the role of an exorcist assigned to the Special Investigations Unit in the Japanese branch of the Knights of the True Cross. Watch the new trailer below: Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist Another Story doesn’t have a confirmed release date yet, and the App Store page also confirms that the date listed there is a placeholder. If you’d like to try Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist Another Story, you can pre-order it on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. Check out the official website here where a lot of the pre-registration reward tiers are detailed. Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist Another Story is due this summer on iOS, Android, and Windows. What do you think of Alterna Vvelt: Blue Exorcist Another Story so far?

Netflix recently announced more games coming to its service in the coming months, but an unannounced (as far as I’m …

Continue reading "‘SpongeBob: Bubble Pop’ Is a New Bust-a-Move-Like Coming to iOS and Android Through Tic Toc Games, Nickelodeon, and Netflix"

Netflix recently announced more games coming to its service in the coming months, but an unannounced (as far as I’m aware) casual Bust-a-Move-like game in the form of SpongeBob: Bubble Pop has gone up for pre-order on the App Store and pre-registration on Android. SpongeBob: Bubble Pop (Free) from Tic Toc Games and Nickelodeon is due on September 17th going by the App Store listing, and it aims to offer players hundreds of puzzles where you match colors and free sea snails to save Bikini Bottom. It will include boosters, various unlocks, SpongeBob cosmetics, a skill crane to earn even more costumes, and more. Check out some screenshots from it below: If you’d like to play SpongeBob: Bubble Pop at launch, you can pre-order it on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. If we get a gameplay trailer, Ill post about it, but I think everyone knows what to expect from a game like this. I’m curious if we see more games announced at Netflix Geeked week in the near future. What do you think of SpongeBob: Bubble Pop and Netflix bringing more casual games like this to its service?

HoYoverse has begun pre-installation for the major Genshin Impact (Free) version 5.0 “Flowers Resplendent on the Sun-Scorched Sojourn" update for …

Continue reading "‘Genshin Impact’ Version 5.0 Update Pre-Installation Now Live, New Trailer Released"

HoYoverse has begun pre-installation for the major Genshin Impact (Free) version 5.0 “Flowers Resplendent on the Sun-Scorched Sojourn" update for on supported platforms. If you’ve not followed the game recently, Genshin Impact 5.0 brings in the sixth nation: Natlan, new characters like Mualani, reruns for Raiden Shogun, and much more. The update will launch beginning August 28th for mobile, PC, PS5, and PS4 with the game launching on Xbox Series X this November. The first Genshin Impact 5.0 banner features: Mualani, Kachina and Kaedehara Kazuha while banner 2 has Kinich and Raiden Shogun. This update is also supposed to bring in updated visuals. Read about that here. Watch the new Genshin Impact trailer for Kachina below: You can pre-install it by tapping the pre-install resource package button. The download size is 2.67GB on iOS and about 16GB on PC. If you’d like to play Genshin Impact and don’t own it yet, you can download it for free on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. The PC version is available on the official website here and the Epic Games Store. If you play on iOS, with iOS 14.5 or iPadOS 14.5 and later, you can use PS5 and Xbox Series X|S controllers to play Genshin Impact. We featured Genshin Impact as our Game of the Week when it released and awarded it our 2020 Game of the Year. I also featured it as one of the best iOS games to play with a controller. What do you think of Genshin Impact 5.0 so far?

In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show I talk about how I finally ended up getting sick after weeks …

Continue reading "Ok I’m Actually Sick Now – The TouchArcade Show #601"

In this week’s episode of The TouchArcade Show I talk about how I finally ended up getting sick after weeks of being teased with it, and then I really bum out the vibe of the show sharing my horrible cat-sitting story. We then go into the fiasco that is the latest Overcast update which really screwed the pooch for Eli’s podcast listening lifestyle, and touch on some of Apple’s latest upcoming changes in the EU region. We also hit on some more iOS 18 beta talk and finish things off by going through some listener emails, which is always a blast. Don’t forget to shoot us emails with any questions, feedback, or anything else relevant or irrelevant to podcast@toucharcade.com. We read ’em all, and love decoding messages written entirely in emoji. As always, you can listen to us with the links below… And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and/or drop us a review in iTunes. Much appreciated! As a companion to this audio podcast, we also do a video version of the same show that is exclusive to Patreon which allows you to see us playing the games we’re talking about. Backers can view the most recent video episodes of the TouchArcade show by clicking here. Be sure you’re logged in to see the latest content. For everyone else who is curious, you can check out our public patreon posts to see older episodes of the video podcast. If you like what you see, consider becoming a TouchArcade Patreon backer. Stitcher: The TouchArcade Show via Stitcher Radio for Podcasts RSS Feed: The TouchArcade Show Direct Link: TouchArcadeShow-601.mp3

I’m a simple man. Give me an old-school first-person dungeon crawler and I’m a pretty happy guy. Make one centered …

Continue reading "TouchArcade Game of the Week: ‘Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat’"

I’m a simple man. Give me an old-school first-person dungeon crawler and I’m a pretty happy guy. Make one centered around rescuing a cat and, oh boy, now you’re really speaking my language. Throw in a really unique touchscreen control scheme that I’ve never seen in a game of this type before and we’ve got a winner winner chicken-that-you-found-in-a-barrel dinner. That accurately describes Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat from developer ZombiSoft, who appears to be just a single person named Anders Gustavsson. There are some rough edges here, and some negative things to note, but by and large I’m just having a super good time with Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat and I’m excited to see where it takes me. So as the story goes, you’re an apprentice wizard who is tasked with finding the runaway cat of your mentor wizard, and you graduating to become a full-blown wizard hinges on you completing this mission. Just when you think you’ve cornered the adorable little feline you find yourself transported to a dungeon labyrinth filled with traps and enemies. You also spot the kitty roaming around and so your mission now becomes more difficult as you try to make your way through this dungeon alive as well as rescue your boss’s pesky little cat. Now, Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat isn’t a highly complex game by any means. There’s some light RPG elements in the form of leveling up and finding cool new weapons and gear, but there’s no party system or any extensive character progression. It reminds me a lot of Questlord in that it’s a pretty simple affair mechanically but the story, the visuals, and the personality of the game compel you to keep moving forward. Also, just because this game is bright and colorful and has a fairly straightforward design don’t think it’s some pushover. The game actually gets rather difficult rather quickly, but thankfully you can save anytime and anywhere, which is something you should practice doing often. The really neat feature here is the control scheme. You can choose between virtual arrows or swipe gestures for directional movement, which is pretty par for the course. But if you lay a second thumb down on the screen you can free look in any direction. It takes a little getting used to but the swipe gesture movement coupled with the free look gesture combines to make for a very satisfying touchscreen control scheme. It almost feels like you’re playing a first-person shooter at times, once you get comfortable and start zipping around to and fro, but you’re actually still playing a game with grid-based movement. My small nitpicks are that I really wish this game had an option to play in portrait, and the swipe detection for movement is a bit finicky. It recognizes short, fast swipes as opposed to longer ones, and before I figured that out I was having a really frustrating time thinking the game wasn’t detecting my inputs. Probably something that can be smoothed out in an update. Overall though, despite being a bit basic overall and having some rough edges, Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat is a very enjoyable retro dungeon crawler, which is something we don’t get too many of nowadays. If that’s not worth a couple of bucks then I’m not sure what is.

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. I delayed publishing this because Gamescom 2024 is on right …

Continue reading "Steam Deck Weekly: Gamescom 2024 Steam Deck News, Reviews Including Bakeru and SCHiM, New Verified Games, Discounts, and More"

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. I delayed publishing this because Gamescom 2024 is on right now with news from Geoff Keighley’s Opening Night Live, game announcements, show floor information, and more. If you missed my Black Myth: Wukong Steam Deck review, read it here. Today’s article has Steam Deck impressions for Bakeru and Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, reviews of a few notable indies, Shaun’s take on the Warhammer 40K: Boltgun DLC, bundles, new Steam Deck Verified games, and more. Let’s get into the reviews and impressions first. Steam Deck Game Reviews & Impressions Bakeru Steam Deck Review When Bakeru was released in Japan, a friend of mine imported it and praised it quite a bit. I tried the demo and was turned off by the technical issues. It was charming, but not enough to put up with no localization and performance issues on Switch. When it leaked on the eShop, I was hoping we’d see performance improvements or a port to PC. We ended up getting both more or less. Bakeru’s Switch release in the West is improved over the Japanese launch version, and it is also now on PC with an excellent port. Bakeru is an action platformer from Good-Feel who are most known for the Yoshi games and also more-recently Princess Peach Showtime from Nintendo. The studio has done some games outside Nintendo brands, and the newest in this line of non Nintendo games from Good-Feel is Bakeru. Shaun will be doing a full review for this one, but so far Bakeru feels and plays great on Steam Deck. On Steam Deck and PC, Bakeru lets you adjust display mode (windowed and borderless only), resolution (with full 16:10 support), toggle v-sync, adjust frame rate cap (Note that v-sync off means the game runs at 60fps. Turn it on if you would like to play at your monitor’s refresh rate or at 90fps on Steam Deck OLED), anti-aliasing (off, FXAA, SMAA), adjust filtering quality (trilinear, 2x, 4x, 8x, and 16x), and draw distance (low, medium, high). I played Bakeru on both my Steam Decks. My LCD is running the newest SteamOS beta. On that, I had zero issues with the game and it ran at a locked 60fps at maximum settings. On Steam Deck OLED running the public build of the OS, I only had some issues at 90fps. This seemingly wasn’t related to the settings, but something in the game because I had some shader-related or traversal stuttering in parts, but they only happened initially. I imagine Bakeru will be Steam Deck Verified soon as it runs perfectly if you play at 60fps and near-perfectly at 90fps. The one issue I ran into pre-release that Spike Chunsoft and the developers already fixed is button prompts being incorrectly displayed. This had the game showing Switch positions instead of Xbox ones when using my 8BitDo Xbox controller or the Steam Deck itself. I’m glad this was resolved pre-release as the game has no port issues, and it is dramatically better than the Switch version. When using a DualSense, it correctly showed PlayStation prompts with the proper labels and positions as well. Bakeru is a good platformer that I recommend playing on PC over Switch right now. The Switch version, despite performance improvements over the Japanese demo, still has too much variance in its performance to be an easy recommendation. The HD Rumble there is nice, but everything else holds it back. On PC, you miss out on the HD Rumble, but Bakeru runs a lot better across the board, and I’ve been enjoying digging into it over the last week. Stay tuned for Shaun’s full review of the Switch version in the near future. Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Steam Deck Review There have been many game franchises that I completely missed out on over the years. The Sam & Max series of games is one of those. When I was offered a code to play Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, I figured now was the time to finally play these games with the new remasters. If you’re just here for the game itself, I urge you to read Shaun’s Switch review here. I’m going to focus on how it plays on Steam Deck. Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse is the final game in the episodic Sam & Max main trilogy. This new remaster is amazing in basically every way. This includes how it controls, looks, sounds, and feels. It even has many accessibility options to make things go smoothly if you’re new to this kind of adventure game. You can toggle different hint levels and disable flashing in the accessibility settings. On the graphics and display side, you can play Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse at higher resolutions when docked on Steam Deck, but performance doesn’t hold close to 60fps if you play at 4K. I recommend sticking to it in handheld mode for a 60 or higher experience. You can adjust the graphics quality, texture quality, anti-aliasing, toggle v-sync, and adjust display mode and resolution in the graphics settings. With Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, I’m glad I finally got around to playing these games. Not only are they all absolutely worth your time and money, but they play superbly on Steam Deck. I’d love for the remasters to hit iPad, but until then the Steam Deck is my favorite way to play Skunkape Games’ remasters. SCHiM Steam Deck Review Given the sheer amount of releases lately, I didn’t get around to playing SCHiM much at launch. I’m glad I finally rectified that because it is equal parts charming and gorgeous, and it has been the perfect game to relax with as a break from the longer upcoming games I’m playing for review right now. Developers Ewoud van der Werf and Nils Slijkerman have released a brilliant take on a 3D platformer using light, shadow, and more for puzzles, and it is all elevated by excellent audio. Aside from the striking aesthetic, what really carries SCHiM through its four or so hours long runtime is the animation work and sound design. As you work towards solving the various puzzles in the game, every interaction has a lovely little animation, and it all feels beyond polished when played at a rock solid 90fps on Steam Deck OLED. The blend of the shadows and lights for puzzles also are enhanced by the screen in handheld mode. So SCHiM runs perfectly out of the box on Steam Deck at 90fps, but how about docked? When played at 720p docked, it nearly does a locked 144fps. Playing at 1080p results in well over 100fps at all times. SCHiM supports 16:10 as well which is great to see on Steam Deck. I have no complaints with it aside from the fact that it might seem short for its price to some, and that there really is no evolution of the mechanics over the course of the game. While this isn’t a dealbreaker, it does hold SCHiM down from perfection. SCHiM is a lovely abstract take on games like Frogger for the modern era. Come into this expecting a work of art with excellent audio design more than a complex puzzle game. I enjoyed just about every level despite the mechanics not really evolving. I enjoyed it enough on Steam Deck to order a physical copy of the Switch version from Japan already. This is definitely worth your time if you enjoy delightful, gorgeous, and relaxing puzzle games. SCHiM Steam Deck review score: 4.5/5 Gestalt: Steam and Cinder Steam Deck Review Gestalt: Steam and Cinder is another game I wish I got around to playing sooner like SCHiM above. It has been on the review backlog for a bit now, but having played it, this action platformer is fantastic. Not only does it nail the aesthetic with its blend of 16 and 32-bit visuals, but the sound design, story, and gameplay are sublime. What initially drew me to Gestalt: Steam and Cinder, is the steampunk visual style in pixel art. I adore the character designs, but wasn’t sure another action platformer would be able to hit hard enough for me in recent years. Having played it, the story is very good, but without getting into spoilers, I feel like there’s more to this tale. Hopefully we see some story DLC in the future. On the gameplay side, Gestalt: Steam and Cinder felt a bit easier than I expected outside of two bosses I had trouble with. Nothing major though, and the responsive controls help across the board. Gestalt: Steam and Cinder ships Steam Deck Verified, and it is perfect on Valve’s handheld. The only thing I’d like to see, if feasible, is support for 90fps. Right now, the game is capped at 60fps and 16:9. I tested this on both my Steam Decks docked and in handheld mode. Given how crowded the genre is, I know most people roll their eyes when they see another action platformer, but Gestalt: Steam and Cinder is one you cannot afford to miss. It is one of the best in the genre with its excellent gameplay, narrative, music, and slick visuals. Gestalt: Steam and Cinder is also perfect on Steam Deck from start to finish. Gestalt: Steam and Cinder Steam Deck review score: 4.5/5 Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun – Forges of Corruption Expansion Steam Deck Review The original Boltgun was a refreshing surprise for me when it was released last year. While I’m not as into first-person shooters as deeply as some, I can certainly enjoy a good boomer shooter. Give me fast, furious action with some interest levels to explore, a satisfying selection of weapons, and challenging enemy encounters and I’m there. Boltgun had all of that, all dressed up in a Warhammer theme that if nothing else helps the world feel like it extends outside of the borders of the game. A thoroughly enjoying game to play through, and one that left me properly sated… or did it? While I thought I had had my fill of Boltgun, I was actually quite happy when Forges of Corruption was released. I guess I was still hungry. This expansion gives you five more levels of carnage to engage in, and they run on the larger side. You get two new guns to play with, one being an enhanced flamethrower and the other a rocket launcher. Sure, can’t argue with that. You also get some new enemies to try those toys out on, and you’ll need every edge you can get to deal with them. When compared to the original game’s levels, Forges of Corruption‘s stages favor more wide open spaces. This puts your mobility skills to the test, as you’ll have to keep on moving to avoid getting surrounded or cornered. If you haven’t mastered the dash already from playing the main campaign, you’ll need to get up to speed fast here. It’s an interesting change-up from the more compact design that the base game relied on so much. The enhanced flamethrower’s spread can really help you out here, and rockets always prefer open spaces. Difficulty-wise, these levels are mostly going to be a relative breeze for those who played through the first game. The last one is a real beast though, and you’re going to have to use everything you’ve learned to overcome it. Which is to say that while you can play this expansion without finishing the main game, you really should leave it for after. All-up, it takes a few hours to get through it all. Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun – Forges of Corruption keep the party rolling with a set of new stages that show off a slightly different design intent than those of the original. The new weapons and enemies are appreciated, and the level design makes the most of both. I do wish there was something more interesting going on visually here, and the difficulty curve isn’t as smooth as it was in the base game. Still, those looking for more Boltgun challenges to tackle will find them here.-Shaun Musgrave Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun – Forges of Corruption Expansion Steam Deck review score: 4/5 News and Trailers Let’s begin the massive (and fast-paced) news section of this week with a brand-new trailer for my most anticipated game of 2025: Monster Hunter Wilds. The trailer has the game looking better than before, and I’m getting more excited reading all the details from hands-on gameplay sessions people have at Gamescom. Watch the third Monster Hunter Wilds trailer below: The next bit of news I’m excited for is Final Fantasy XVI, the best singleplayer Final Fantasy game since XII, is coming to Steam in a few weeks with pre-orders and a demo now live. It is sadly pretty rough on Steam Deck, but I hope things improve. Terry Bogard launches on September 24th in Street Fighter 6 as the second DLC for the Year 2 Pass. His gameplay trailer looks incredible. While not directly Steam-related, Capcom is also bringing Resident Evil 2 to GOG on August 27th. I couldn’t get Resident Evil 1’s GOG release to work on Deck, but I hope this one works. Capcom also released a demo for the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection on Steam and consoles. Check it out here. Read my preview of the full game here. Silent Hill 2 from Konami got a new story trailer, and this is the first trailer that’s been liked by a friend of mine who is a huge fan of the series. This will be my first Silent Hill game, so I’m excited to try it. Square Enix released a new “Final" trailer for Visions of Mana ahead of its launch next week. I can’t wait to talk about the full game soon. A few days ago, Cygames released the big Version 1.50 update for Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising on Steam and consoles bringing in big balance adjustments, the new DLC character Versusia, and in-game content included with Battle Pass Round 5. Watch the trailer below: Persona 3 Reload’s expansion Episode Aigis is adding Joker as a boss fight. I didn’t expect that one, but I’m looking forward to playing the DLC very soon. Atlus will host a new ATLUS Exclusive showcase for Metaphor: ReFantazio on August 28th at 8 PM. It will be on YouTube. I’m looking forward to playing this hopefully soon for review. Atlus also revealed the English voice cast for the game. Check it out below: Protagonist – Caleb Yen Strohl – Stewart Clarke Hulkenberg – Kristin Atherton Gallica – Alejandra Reynoso Heismay – Phillipe Spall Junah – Emma Ballantine Eupha – Emily Burnett Neuras – David Monteith Louis – Joseph Tweedale More – Greg Chun Grius – Gordon Cooper A new trailer for Metaphor has also gone live, and it is the best one yet for the game ahead of its launch in October. Watch it below: SEGA released a new trailer for Sonic X Shadow Generations that makes me wish the game was out sooner. We need anime music videos based on this for sure. Tempest Rising from 3D Realms got a new PvP teaser trailer this week at Gamescom 2024. It looks superb. Check out the footage below: A game I’m excited to play later this year, Slitterhead from Bokeh Game Studio, got a new story trailer this week. Watch it below: A game most thought wouldn’t release this year, The Plucky Squire from Devolver Digital, launches on September 17th with a lovely new trailer you can watch below. I’m excited to try this out on Steam Deck and Switch. Devolver Digital is also launching Sumerian Six, the real time tactical stealth game via Steam, on September 2nd. Raw Fury is releasing the horror survival game Post Trauma on October 29th. Check out its release date trailer below: Blizzard is celebrating Warcraft’s 30th anniversary in Overwatch 2 with a new skin for Widowmaker as Sylvanas next month. Check it out below: Action adventure game Unknown 9: Awakening from Bandai Namco launches on October 18th for Steam and consoles. Pre-orders are now live with a new gameplay trailer you can watch below: Eternal Strands, set to launch in 2025, got a new gameplay trailer at Gamescom 2024 from Yellow Brick Games. Watch it below: Superhero-themed visual novel Sacrifice Villains from Shiravune is set to release on Steam this year. It will be priced at $19.99. Check out the Steam page here. Little Nightmares III also had a new trailer during Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024. It releases on Steam and all consoles next year. Diablo IV’s Vessel of Hatred expansion got a new trailer showcasing the Mercenary companions ahead of the expansion’s launch this October. Inti Creates is releasing a demo for Card-en-Ciel on September 4th for Steam. Alongside this news, a new gameplay trailer has been released. Watch it below: A sequel to Wilmot’s Warehouse is set to release on Steam on October 23rd in the form of Wilmot Works It Out. I loved the original and cannot wait to play this. Risk of Rain 2’s Seekers of the Storm DLC launches on August 27th for PC and consoles. I’ll be checking this one out on Steam Deck. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II launches on February 11th, 2025 and a new gameplay showcase this week makes me wonder if this will even run on Steam Deck with how good it looks. I’ll definitely try it. Watch the showcase below: Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves from SNK launches on April 24th, 2025 for Steam, PS5, PS4, and Xbox Series X. The launch price is a special edition with the first pass. Watch the new trailer showing off the amazing Mai Shiranui and the release date showcase below: Level Infinite streamed its recent “Into the Infinite" showcase featuring updates from its partners covering games like Soulframe, Warframe, and much more. Watch it below: https://www.youtube.com/live/KAIFQ8TZCp8 Sharkmob’s Exoborne had a new trailer released during the showcase above as well. Watch it below: Civilization VII from Firaxis and 2K launches for Steam and all consoles on February 11th, 2025 with pre-orders now live. Check out the gameplay trailer below: 2K also revealed two other games for 2025, and they’re big ones. Borderlands 4 and Mafia The Old Country are in development for Steam and consoles for 2025 release. Watch the trailers below: Arc System Works has revealed new details for Double Dragon Revive including the composers and story details. The composers include Raito and many more. Check out the website here. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launches on Steam and Xbox on December 9th with pre-orders now live on Steam. I’m looking forward to playing this. The newest Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream trailers focus on Leafa and Sinon. Watch them below: Delta Force, the first person multiplayer shooter, previously known as Delta Force: Hawk Ops launches later this year for PC via Early Access on Steam from Level Infinite. It is also set to come to iOS and Android and consoles. Amazon Prime is doing a series on video games titled Secret Level with a focus on specific games over 15 episodes. These include Armored Core, Spelunky, New World: Aeternum, and more. It is set to begin streaming this December. Speaking of New World: Aeterum, a new video series based on the game can now be watched ahead of the game’s launch on October 15th: Marvel Rivals from NetEase Games launches as a free to play game on December 6th for Steam and consoles with all heroes included for free. Starfield’s Shattered Space DLC launches on September 30th for Steam and Xbox. A new update is also available now on all platforms. Akatsuki Games released a new trailer for the extreme action game Tribe Nine ahead of its launch on Steam and mobile. Free to play third person MOBA Predecessor is now available on Steam and consoles from Omeda Studios. Watch the trailer for it below: Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO gets another trailer showing off more of the game in its “50 days from now" trailer. Watch it below: Path of Exile 2 launches on Steam and consoles via Early Access on November 15th. Watch the new trailer from Grinding Gear Games below: Dying Light: The Beast is a standalone open world game that’s free for owners of Dying Light 2 Ultimate Edition. It is set to release in the future. Idea Factory International announced that Date A Live: Ren Dystopia releases on September 5th for Steam. I’ll be reviewing this one. Check it out on Steam here. Torn Banner Studios (Chivalry 2) announced that the UE5-powered shooter No More Room in Hell 2 will launch in Steam early access this Halloween. Watch the trailer below from Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024: Warner Bros Games also showcased a new Mortal Kombat 1: Khaos Reigns gameplay trailer focussing on Cyrax who is a part of the new DLC. Tokyo Xtreme Racer from Genki is a new entry in the long-running series coming to Steam in 2025. I’m glad to see this because a friend of mine is a huge fan. Watch the trailer below: Square Enix released a new trailer for Life is Strange: Double Exposure showcasing Max’s powers. Watch it below: New Steam Deck Verified & Playable games for the week This week, Yakuza 4 and Devil Blade Reboot are the highlights for new Verified games, and EA’s anti-cheat issues continue to make more games unplayable on Steam Deck. Check out every notable game tested by Valve since the last article below: #BLUD – Verified Atlas Fallen – Unsupported Battlefield 1 – Unsupported (new anti-cheat issues) DEVIL BLADE REBOOT – Verified EA SPORTS Madden NFL 25 – Unsupported (new anti-cheat issues) Eastward – Playable Flatout 3 – Playable hololive treasure mountain – Verified Isles of Sea and Sky – Verified LISA: The First – Unsupported Metropolis: Lux Obscura – Playable Mika and The Witch’s Mountain – Verified Plants vs. Zombies Garden Warfare 2: Deluxe Edition – Unsupported (new anti-cheat issues) Pocket Bravery – Playable shapez 2 – Playable Skull and Bones – Playable SNK VS. CAPCOM SVC CHAOS – Playable SPY×ANYA: Operation Memories – Playable Squirrel with a Gun – Verified Sword of Convallaria – Unsupported Teeny Tiny Trains – Playable The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker – Playable THE LAST BLADE – Playable Tomba! Special Edition – Playable Wild Bastards – Verified Yakuza 4 Remastered – Verified Steam Deck Game Sales, Discounts, and Specials The highlights of the week when it comes to sales and discounts are the Steam Rhythm Fest until August 26th with discounts on games like Crypt of the Necrodancer, Trombone Champ, and DJ MAX RESPECT V, and also the new Capcom Resident Evil Humble Bundle. Next week, following the Rhythm Fest, the Isometric Games Sale begins with many discounts from publishers and developers including Owlcat Games. Check out a trailer for the event below: That’s all for this edition of the Steam Deck Weekly. As usual, you can read all our past and future Steam Deck coverage here. If you have any feedback for this feature or what else you’d like to see us do around the Steam Deck, let us know in the comments below. I hope you all have a great day, and thanks for reading.

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 23rd, 2024. It’s the end of another week, and …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Thermonuclear’, ‘Magnus Trilogy’, Plus Today’s Other New Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 23rd, 2024. It’s the end of another week, and we’re creeping ever closer to the end of the month and the season. In the world of Switch, sometimes a slow Thursday means a big Friday. Well, not this time. We’ve got a few new releases to look at amidst the junk, plus the usual lists of new sales and expiring discounts for you to consider. Things will be busier next week, but only a little. September can’t come soon enough. Let’s finish up the week! Select New Releases Operation: Polygon Storm ($14.99) A relatively basic real-time base defense game, just from a slightly different point of view than the one we usually see in this genre. I wouldn’t exactly call it visually impressive, but the destructible environments do add a little spice to an otherwise straightforward take. Not my genre of choice, but if it’s yours then you might want to give it a closer look. Thermonuclear ($7.99) Set in a distant future where a third World War has broken out, Thermonuclear casts you as a member of a megacorporation out to claim victory. You have access to a powerful new technology called Thermonuclear, an advanced combat cyborg. Guide your cyborg through procedurally-generated stages, engaging in turn-based strategic combat with the enemies found within. You’ll upgrade your cyborg as you go, and if you’re lucky you might just be able to take down the Allfather AI and save the world. If not? Well, you can always try again. Seems decent from what I’ve seen so far. Magnus Trilogy ($8.99) A series of visual novels in the Magnus series, bundled together in one simple package. These lean more towards the bizarre and psychological end of the curve. At the very least, you can’t argue with the price per title here. Not for everyone, but some will get a lot out of this. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) An intriguing assortment of new sales, but a short enough list that I’ll mainly leave it to you. What I will mention is that PowerWash Simulator is not only featuring a discount on the main game, but also all of its paid DLC packs. Now is the time to stock up if you don’t already own them. In the weekend outbox, Team 17’s got a round of titles finishing up their sales. They’ll certainly be back on sale again soon, but maybe you want them now? Choices to make. Select New Sales Botany Manor ($22.49 from $24.99 until 8/29) Puddle Knights ($2.99 from $9.99 until 8/30) Batman: The Telltale Series ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/30) Batman: The Enemy Within ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/30) Fuga: Melodies of Steel ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/2) Fuga: Melodies of Steel 2 ($23.99 from $39.99 until 9/2) Kingdom Come Deliverance ($29.99 from $49.99 until 9/4) Outward Definitive ($23.99 from $39.99 until 9/4) Metro 2033 Redux ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4) Metro Last Light Redux ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/4) Kona II: Brume ($11.99 from $29.99 until 9/4) F1 Manager 2024 ($27.99 from $34.99 until 9/5) Adventure Bar Story ($15.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Anomaly Agent ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/5) Ambition: A Minuet in Power ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/6) Skulls of the Shogun ($3.99 from $19.99 until 9/6) Galak-Z The Void Deluxe ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/6) PowerWash Simulator ($17.49 from $24.99 until 9/6) Fear Effect Sedna ($1.99 from $19.99 until 9/6) Suhoshin ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/6) Ty the Tasmanian Tiger HD ($10.49 from $29.99 until 9/6) Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/6) Hampuzz ($3.49 from $6.99 until 9/11) Yeah! You Want Those Games, Right? ($7.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) Carry Onward ($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/12) Abyss of the Sacrifice ($11.99 from $39.99 until 9/12) Starward Rogue ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/12) Commandos 2: HD Remaster ($14.99 from $19.99 until 9/12) Commandos 3: HD Remaster ($20.99 from $29.99 until 9/12) Incredible Mandy ($5.99 from $14.99 until 9/12) 4 The Elements ($7.19 from $8.99 until 9/12) Lunar Axe ($3.99 from $4.99 until 9/12) TMNT Wrath of the Mutants ($17.99 from $29.99 until 9/12) Frogue ($3.99 from $4.99 until 9/12) Toridama2: Brave Challenge ($3.99 from $7.99 until 9/12) The Fall of Elena Temple ($2.39 from $2.99 until 9/12) Omega Labyrinth Life ($17.99 from $59.99 until 9/12) Funghi Explosion ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/12) A Dark Room ($2.79 from $6.99 until 9/12) Samurai Maiden ($29.99 from $59.99 until 9/12) Beholgar ($2.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) Raccoo Venture ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/12) Time Rift ($2.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) Doomsday Hunter ($8.99 from $17.99 until 9/12) Super Trunko Go ($2.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) WorldNeverland: Elnea Kingdom ($8.99 from $29.99 until 9/12) Zero Tolerance Collection ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12) The Tale of Clouds & Wind ($2.49 from $4.99 until 9/12) Sales Ending This Weekend All Noobs Must Die ($1.99 from $12.99 until 8/24) Demon Turf ($12.49 from $24.99 until 8/24) Full Metal Sergeant ($7.99 from $9.99 until 8/24) Mystic Academy: Escape Room ($5.49 from $10.99 until 8/24) Right and Down and Dice ($5.99 from $11.99 until 8/24) Venari Escape Room Adventure ($4.19 from $5.99 until 8/24) Blasphemous ($6.24 from $24.99 until 8/25) Blast Brigade vs. The Evil Legion ($11.99 from $19.99 until 8/25) DREDGE ($16.24 from $24.99 until 8/25) Overcooked 2 ($6.24 from $24.99 until 8/25) Rack and Slay ($5.09 from $5.99 until 8/25) That’s all for today and this week, friends. We’ll be back next week with more new games, more sales, more reviews, and some news. I have a lot of things I need to get done this weekend, so wish me luck in doing them. I hope you all have a fantastic Friday, and as always, thanks for reading!

For our next dive into the retro games available on Switch, we’re going all the way back to 1989. Er, …

Continue reading "The 10 Best Game Boy and Game Boy Color Games on Nintendo Switch, Plus 5 We’d Like to See – SwitchArcade Special"

For our next dive into the retro games available on Switch, we’re going all the way back to 1989. Er, and then to 1998. We’re heading back to the old monochrome beast and its colorful successor: the Game Boy and Game Boy Color. While there is a robust selection of games from these handhelds in the Nintendo Switch Online app, we’re instead looking at those games that dare to exist in the wilds of the Switch eShop. We’ve got ten of our favorites here, plus five more games that we’d like to see. No particular order, of course. Time to Play It Loud! Shantae ($9.99) Once a genuine scarcity that would cost you hundreds of dollars to get your hands on in any legal capacity, Shantae is now quite readily available in digital form. This game is considerably rougher than its sequels, but it pushes the Game Boy Color hardware in a lot of interesting ways, providing a platformer with a bit more to it than the average Game Boy hop-and-bop. Wow, I haven’t seen the term “hop-and-bop" in something like twenty-five years. Well, there you go. Shantae: it’s pretty good fun. Trip World DX ($19.99) Here’s another game that would have cost you a pretty penny to play officially until very recently. Trip World is an interesting platformer from Sunsoft that offers up a short but sweet experience. This release of the game does a full-on colorization job while also including a number of extras to dig into. It’s an excellent way to play this quirky, charming tale. Final Fantasy Legend II – Collection of SaGa Final Fantasy Legend ($19.99) Time to wade into the compilations, and we’ll start with one that is all Game Boy games: Collection of SaGa. You get all three games in the Final Fantasy Legend series here, and they’re all really good handheld RPGs. I’m picking out Final Fantasy Legend II to highlight here, simply because I think it’s the best of the three. It has plenty of the weird mechanics that make SaGa games so interesting, but feels more well-rounded and approachable than the first game. Probably the best turn-based RPG on the system pre-Pokemon. Final Fantasy Adventure – Collection of Mana ($39.99) Going hand in hand with the Final Fantasy Legend games, Final Fantasy Adventure is the game that kicked off the long-running Mana series. As such, you’ll find it in the Collection of Mana with the two Super NES follow-ups. Again, all games worth playing. This action-RPG provided an excellent alternative to the superb Link’s Awakening on the system, with a snappy pace and some surprisingly ambitious storytelling. It’s been remade a couple of times, but there’s nothing quite like the original. TMNT III: Radical Rescue – TMNT: The Cowabunga Collection ($39.99) Konami did some great Game Boy games, and it has made a handful of them available through its various collections. The Cowabunga Collection has all three of its original Game Boy TMNT games included, and I think they all have their merits. The open-ended, pseudo-Metroidvania TMNT III: Radical Rescue is the pick of the bunch, though. Plenty of action as you would expect, but the additional layers from exploring the world, rescuing your brothers, and finding all the upgrades makes this one you can really sink your teeth into. Operation C – Contra Anniversary Collection ($19.99) After the somewhat tepid attempt to bring Castlevania to the Game Boy via Castlevania: The Adventure, one would be forgiven for thinking there was little hope the tense run-and-gun action of Contra would survive the transition. Surprisingly, Operation C turned out to be really awesome. Sure, you can’t play with another player. Strictly a solo affair. But it’s fast, fun, and challenging in the way you want a Contra game to be. Perhaps there was hope for Konami action-platformers on the handheld after all! Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge – Castlevania Anniversary Collection ($19.99) How’s that for foreshadowing? Yes, after mostly biffing the first Game Boy Castlevania game, Konami turned things around in a big way with Belmont’s Revenge. This is an excellent Castlevania game, one that easily hangs with the home console entries even if it can’t quite surpass them. Given it was sandwiched by some less-than-great games, it’s possible many players skipped out on this one thinking it would be the same. If you haven’t played it yet, here’s a handy way to do that. Ninja JaJaMaru: The Great World Adventure – Ninja JaJaMaru: Retro Collection ($14.99) Ninja JaJaMaru: The Great World Adventure isn’t the best game in this bunch by any means, but I think it’s an important representation of some of the more off-beat titles that filled out the library around the releases from huge publishers. Some proper work was put into this reissue, too. It has a new localization and has been colorized, giving a nice spit-shine to a game that might not have topped anyone’s lists for such an effort. While The Great World Adventure is the only Game Boy game in the lot, this collection is an interesting one to poke at in general. Xtreme Sports ($9.99) WayForward’s most famous wholly-original property on the Game Boy Color is obviously Shantae, but Xtreme Sports is no slouch either. Essentially a collection of sports mini-games tied together with an open world, Xtreme Sports is a lot better than it has any right to be. The graphics are good, the gameplay is great for pick-up-and-play grazing, and those looking to completely finish everything will find a stiff challenge ahead of them. The Rescue of Princess Blobette – A Boy and His Blob Retro Collection ($9.99) Another game that is here more for its unique feel than anything, The Rescue of Princess Blobette brings the home computer-esque puzzle-adventure gameplay of the NES original to the small screen quite well. In some ways it’s a more polished game than its predecessor, delivered in a more compact and well-paced form. If you like games that take some figuring out due to occasional bits of opacity, you’ll love this one. And… 5 Game Boy and Game Boy Color Games We’d Like to See on Switch Batman: The Video Game Yes, it’s kind of weird that Batman is using a gun the whole way through this early Game Boy action game. But it’s also weird that Keaton’s Batman gleefully murders bad guys, so let’s just call it a sign of the times. The important thing is that this is another really great Sunsoft Batman game, and while I know the odds of any of these movie-based Batman games ever resurfacing are next to nil, I will never stop asking. Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal I’m generally avoiding games that I think might show up on Nintendo Switch Online at some point, which means most first-party Nintendo stuff is out. I really hope I’m wrong about this, but something tells me that while the Pokemon spin-offs will probably keep appearing in the subscription service, the mainline games won’t. Thus, I formally request the ability to purchase and play these fine Game Boy RPGs on my Switch. Gradius: The Interstellar Assault I waffled between including this or the excellent R-Type DX, but ultimately we have R-Type Dimensions on Switch to scratch that itch, whereas Gradius: The Interstellar Assault only exists in Game Boy form. For a platform whose display should have made it terrible for shooting games, the Game Boy had a good handful of excellent ones. This was Konami’s second kick at the Gradius can on the platform, and while that first one was fine this one really kicked things into gear. Honestly, I just kind of want a Gradius collection in the vein of Konami’s Contra, Castlevania, and TMNT ones. If that happens, this game ought to be in there. Metal Gear Solid Lots of Konami in this article, I’m coming to realize. Anyway, this is arguably the best third-party Game Boy Color exclusive. Just about everything that was great about the PlayStation Metal Gear Solid was somehow squeezed into this completely original adventure. This game completely blew me away at the time thanks to that fidelity, and it still impresses me today. Yes, much of the template was laid down in the MSX2 Metal Gear 2, but it’s cool to see something like this on a Game Boy Color. Maybe this will show up in the next Metal Gear collection? Dragon Warrior Monsters Pokemon spawned a lot of imitators, but to be fair to Dragon Quest it had monster-catching elements in the main games before Pokemon arrived. So, you know. We forgive you, King. Dragon Warrior Monsters is one of the better Game Boy games inspired by Pokemon‘s success, and I think it would be terrific to see it available on Switch. And you know what? It is available on Switch, but only in Japan. Come on, Square Enix. Just drop the Western ROM in the wrapper and help some Dragon Quest fans out! And that’s the list, friends. Are there any Game Boy or Game Boy Color games you enjoy on the Switch? Any you would like to see? Feel free to sound off down in the comments and let us know what you’re thinking! It’s always interesting to hear the opinions of others on this kind of thing. As always, thanks for reading!

Playtonic Friends just announced that Victory Heat Rally from developer Skydevilpalm is coming to mobile through Crunchyroll and also on …

Continue reading "‘Victory Heat Rally’ From Skydevilpalm and Playtonic Friends Is Coming to PC and Crunchyroll for Mobile on October 3rd"

Playtonic Friends just announced that Victory Heat Rally from developer Skydevilpalm is coming to mobile through Crunchyroll and also on Steam this October. Victory Heat Rally is an arcade racer with stylish visuals. I aims ot be a 2.5D pixel perfect racer featuring 12 drivers, solo play, multiplayer, a world tour mode, and more. It also features tons of customization across paint jobs, parts, and more. Playtonic Friends also confirms that Victory Heat Rally will be playable on Switch at Gamescom. Watch the Victory Heat Rally release date announcement trailer for mobile through Crunchyroll and Steam below: While the mobile page isn’t up yet, you can wishlist Victory Heat Rally on Steam here. Victory Heat Rally is confirmed to have 4 player splitscreen, but I’m unsure if this is just Steam or also on mobile. If you have an active Crunchyroll Mega or Ultimate membership right now, you will be able to play Victory Heat Rally when it releases at no additional cost on October 3rd. This is definitely one of the better Crunchyroll Game Vault announcements as it is a day one release alongside PC. I’m excited to check it out. What do you think of today’s announcement and the Crunchyroll Game Vault releases so far?

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 22nd, 2024. In today’s article, we continue to bear …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Rise Eterna War’, ‘As Per My Last Email’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 22nd, 2024. In today’s article, we continue to bear witness to the slow yet clear decline of Switch releases in this eighth year. It’s Thursday, but we don’t even have a dozen games worth mentioning today. Even among the ones we have, there isn’t anything that is jumping out. Sure, it’s August. Things are going to pick up soon. But it’s still odd to see such dry Thursdays, even at this time of the year. At least the sales are healthy. Let’s have a look at all of that! Select New Releases Verne – The Shape of Fantasy ($14.99) Play as Jules Verne, who has been brought into a world sprung from his own imagination, in this adventure game. He’ll join forces with Captain Nemo as they try to fend off an evil force determined to destroy all imagination, which I reckon would be pretty bad. Solve puzzles, engage in dialogue, and enjoy the story. An interesting premise, and that’s a big part of the battle when it comes to this genre. Rise Eterna War ($9.99) A prequel story to Rise Eterna, this looks to be a base defense-style game to me. Build your team and use your limited resources to deploy them against the enemy. Seems fine for what it is, even if what it is isn’t terribly novel. With more than forty stages to play, it will keep you busy for a few days at least. As Per My Last Email ($6.29) One of those stress relief games. You’re an office worker and you have a sledgehammer. You can break pretty much everything in the office. Go for it. Play the ten-level campaign mode, or enjoy the infinite Mayhem Mode as you like. The affordable price is about right for the experience on offer. Ring Sculptors ($14.99) A choice-based narrative adventure where you pick from nine different characters and try to survive a trip to the Ring Sculptors’ base. On top of making choices at various points, there are also stats to manage, dice rolls to try to luck out on, and plenty of endings to uncover as a result. Argol – Kronoss’ Castle ($8.99) This is a side-scrolling action-platformer in the vein of games like Castlevania or Valis. You play as a sword-wielding warrior on a quest to vanquish evil. Or at least I presume that’s the story, anyway. All I know is that there is a fellow named Kronoss and his castle must be stormed. A decent game with a pretty lively soundtrack backing it. Nothing I’d run down the street yelling about, but it might scratch an itch. Ataraxie ($4.99) An affordable Metroidvania-style game starring a mummy. It’s really rough around the edges, but for the price you might not mind. I at least appreciate the novel protagonist. Shame about the ropey collision detection, though. Arcade Archives The Ninja Kids ($7.99) Taito’s 1990 beat ’em up featuring puppet ninjas is the latest Arcade Archives release. Up to four players can join in on the fun via local multiplayer, and that’s probably the best way to enjoy this one. Even going alone, the wacky tone makes this an enjoyable game to play through. The mechanics aren’t as tight as in the better titles in this genre from Capcom or Konami, but there’s some charm in the janky nature of it all. Tales from Toyotoki: Arrival of the Witch ($29.99) Here’s a visual novel with some simulation elements. Maybe it isn’t right to call it a visual novel because of those elements? Forgive me if my choice of words isn’t on point. Your character ends up homeless on a mysterious island, and soon runs into a witch that is having some problems of her own. They decide to work together, and they’re eventually joined by several others. Can this rag-tag group survive Toyotoki Island and grow along the way? Play to find out! I should write box copy, I swear. EGGCONSOLE Star Trader PC-8801mkIISR ($6.49) When you think of Nihon Falcom, you definitely think of… shoot ’em ups? Okay, maybe not. But this one did happen back in the day, and as you might expect it’s not an orthodox take by any means. There are adventure game scenes mashed in with the shooting action here, and your skill at handling trading will determine your available funds for upgrades. Naturally, this is all in Japanese. EGGCONSOLE and all that. If I think it’s even remotely playable for someone who can’t understand the language, I’ll do a review soon. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Another sale for 1000xRESIST. Buy 1000xRESIST. Maybe Freedom Planet 2 and Haiku, the Robot too, depending on your tastes. The latest sales from id Software and Inti-Creates are finishing up today, so fill your boots while you can. Check those lists! Select New Sales 1000xRESIST ($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Times & Galaxy ($17.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Super Mutant Alien Assault ($1.99 from $9.99 until 8/28) The Pale Beyond ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Suzerain ($4.49 from $17.99 until 8/28) Paradise Killer ($5.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Genesis Noir ($4.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Citizen Sleeper ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Haiku, The Robot ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Ebenezer & the Invisible World ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/29) Freedom Planet 2 ($18.74 from $24.99 until 9/5) Deadcraft ($5.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Silent Hope ($13.99 from $39.99 until 9/5) Untitled Goose Game ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Corpse Party ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/5) Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed ($14.99 from $29.99 until 9/5) Wing of Darkness ($5.99 from $29.99 until 9/5) SCHiM ($17.49 from $24.99 until 9/5) Marchen Forest ($6.99 from $34.99 until 9/5) Violet Wisteria ($7.49 from $14.99 until 9/6) Oops, I Said Yes?! ($20.99 from $29.99 until 9/9) even if TEMPEST Dawning Connections ($34.99 from $49.99 until 9/9) Pirate Bloopers ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/11) Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 23rd Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 ($14.99 from $29.99 until 8/23) Berserk Boy ($14.00 from $20.00 until 8/23) Blaster Master Zero 3 ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/23) Bloodstained Curse of the Moon 2 ($5.99 from $14.99 until 8/23) CounterAttack: Uprising ($4.49 from $14.99 until 8/23) Dead End City ($9.89 from $14.99 until 8/23) DOOM ($7.99 from $39.99 until 8/23) DOOM 3 ($3.99 from $9.99 until 8/23) DOOM 64 ($1.99 from $4.99 until 8/23) DOOM Eternal ($9.99 from $39.99 until 8/23) Dragon Marked for Death ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/23) Fireside ($11.99 from $14.99 until 8/23) For The Warp ($1.99 from $17.99 until 8/23) Froggie ($2.99 from $4.99 until 8/23) Gal Guardians: Demon Purge ($13.74 from $24.99 until 8/23) Gunvolt Records: Cychronicle ($10.49 from $14.99 until 8/23) Little Kitty, Big City ($19.99 from $24.99 until 8/23) Luminous Avenger iX 2 ($12.49 from $24.99 until 8/23) PuzzMiX ($2.99 from $3.99 until 8/23) QUAKE ($3.99 from $9.99 until 8/23) Quake II ($3.99 from $9.99 until 8/23) Sally Face ($8.99 from $14.99 until 8/23) TES V: Skyrim ($29.99 from $59.99 until 8/23) TES V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition ($34.99 from $69.99 until 8/23) Umbraclaw ($17.49 from $24.99 until 8/23) Wolfenstein II: TNC ($5.99 from $39.99 until 8/23) Yohane the Parhelion: Blaze in the Deepblue ($20.39 from $29.99 until 8/23) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with the remaining releases for the week, plus whatever sales and major news items roll in during the course of the day. We’ve been getting so many thunderstorms lately around here. Hot and sunny during the day, stormy in the evening. Very odd, and not conducive to the laundry schedule. Oh well. I hope you all have a thrilling Thursday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Each and every day new mobile games are hitting the App Store, and so each week we put together a …

Continue reading "Out Now: ‘Punch Club 2: Fast Forward’, ‘Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat’, ‘TENSEI’, ‘Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York’, ‘Auto Pirates: Captains Cup’, ‘Jenny LeClue – Detectivu’ and More"

Each and every day new mobile games are hitting the App Store, and so each week we put together a big old list of all the best new releases of the past seven days. Back in the day the App Store would showcase the same games for a week, and then refresh those features each Thursday. Because of that developers got into the habit of releasing their games throughout Wednesday or very early Thursday in order to hopefully get one of those coveted features spots. Nowadays the App Store refreshes constantly, so the need for everyone to release all on the same day has diminished. Still, we’ve kept our weekly Wednesday night format as for years that’s the time people knew to check TouchArcade for the list of new games. And so without further ado please check out the full list of this week’s new games below, and let us know in the comments section which games you’ll be picking up! Auto Pirates: Captains Cup (Free) iTunes Description Auto Pirates is a competitive player vs world strategy game where you choose your crew, equip your ship and battle, earning plunder based on your global rank. Earn plunder and collect trophies for your exploits on the seas and create the perfect pirate hideout for your crew. Combine pirates from four fantasy factions with magical relics and a multitude of ships to optimize your strategy or create crazy hijinks. You can shoot, board, blast, burn, sink or push your opponents to get the upper hand and go for the top 1% prize. Forum Thread: Auto Pirates: Captains Cup (by Featherweight Games) Baron of Blood (Free) iTunes Description Baron of Blood is a 2D pixelart platformer game in which you have to fight your way through numerous levels and defeat different monsters. Collect coins to buy powerful items. 24 different levels in 5 different zones and boss fights await you and offer an exciting and varied gameplay. Hidden diamonds and various achievements will keep you busy even longer after you finish the game. Forum Thread: Baron of Blood (by Castle Village Games) Cube Farm (Free) iTunes Description -no ads or pay-to-win mechanics -quick sessions, break from scrolling -endless progression with prestige bonuses -time slows at higher layers, with larger harvests -dynamic produce market with supply and demand -pets to collect, feed, train, and battle Forum Thread: Cube Farm (by Tarot Focus) Dadish Collection ($8.99) iTunes Description Three great games in one! He’s a dad AND a radish! Join Dadish on his quest to rescue his missing kids in three classic platforming adventures. Dadish Collection combines Dadish, Dadish 2 and Dadish 3 in one rad package. Forum Thread: Dadish Collection (by Tomas Young) Demon Squad (Free) iTunes Description A long time ago, the demons had lost the war and scattered away. “Now, they shall gather for the revival of the Demon Lord and the demon race" 1. Team idle RPG that takes strategy to new levels Train 3 demons to form the ultimate squad! Auto or manual control. Utilize both options to conquer the battlefield! Forum Thread: Demon Squad (by SuperPlanet) Fish Hero! (Free) iTunes Description Discover a world as a fish outta water! A physics, parkour adventure! Launch yourself up a collection of biomes as a lonely fish to become Fish Hero! Explore a unique world as a fish out of water. Good Luck! Forum Thread: Fish Hero! (by Henry Mead) Going Up ($1.99) iTunes Description Going Up is a strategy game where you control groups of lifts in a skyscraper to deliver passengers before they lose their patience. Optimise elevator movement as you deal with a fussy cast of passengers—impatient CEOs, mean soldiers and confused tourists. There is no one solution to elevator optimisation: every stage will have its unique bottlenecks, passengers and problems. Forum Thread: Going Up (by Dylan Kwok) Jenny LeClue – Detectivu ($6.99) iTunes Description Jenny LeClue is a thrilling story of mystery, adventure and growing up. Set in the sleepy town of Arthurton, the game is filled with memorable, complex characters and rendered in a unique aesthetic. Embrace the choosiness and shape the metanarrative. You are not the only guiding hand shaping Jenny’s destiny, but your choices will help her unravel the tangled mystery and become the detective she was born to be. Forum Thread: Jenny LeClue (by Mografi) Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat ($1.99) iTunes Description Enter the dungeon and help the master wizard to find his missing cat in this oldschool dungeon crawler game with nice retro pixel art graphics. Make your way deep into the dungeon. You will explore levels filled with challenging enemies and various traps & puzzles. Discover powerful magical items and weapons and fight your way through hordes of enemies in this real time combat dungeon crawler. Forum Thread: Labyrinth: The Wizard’s Cat (by Anders Gustavsson) LEVELS II (Free) iTunes Description This is a dungeon where treasures slumber. Level up and strengthen adventurers, defeat monsters blocking your path, and gather treasures. # New Feature: Tile Appearance Rules In previous LEVELS, the color and level of appearing tiles were determined randomly. However, in this game, the next appearing tile is determined based on how the player moves the tiles. Forum Thread: LEVELS II (by flow Incorporated) Lyra 2 (Free) iTunes Description Lyra 2 is the sequel to a simple, relaxing, minimalist puzzle game that offers endless levels. The only goal is to clear the level, there are no timers, no achievements, no distractions, just the number of cleared levels going up. Are you looking for a game that you can just relax and play without thinking too much, a game that you can play anytime, anywhere? Lyra 2 is here for you. Forum Thread: Lyra 2 (by Cold Hours) Overboss ($3.99) iTunes Description Become a villain in this retro-inspired board game. Draft terrain tiles, recruit monsters, build your dungeon, and become the OVERBOSS! Forum Thread: Overboss (by Goblinz Studio) Phantom Rose 2 Sapphire (Free) iTunes Description Unique roguelike deckbuilding adventure. Explore, fight, and collect powerful cards. ◆ A Special Card Adventure Phantom Rose is an indie game by solo developer & artist makaroll. Craft your deck with cards obtained by defeating Phantoms. There’s no random card draw during battle. Instead, manage your card’s cooldown to defeat your foe swiftly and efficiently. Forum Thread: Phantom Rose 2 Sapphire (by Studio Maka) Punch Club 2: Fast Forward (Free) iTunes Description You’ve spent your whole life living in the confines of your overbearing mothers garage, your father mysteriously vanished before you were born. But hey, you had plenty of time to work out and dream about the wonders of the world. Sucks to be you though, people eat slime, corruption is rife and everyone wants to fight you… But maybe you can find your father and become the ‘dark fist’ people whisper about, somehow you could actually be humanity’s savior, the one who uncovers the super secret secrets of the Goodness Corporation… Or not. It’s a choose your own adventure, stay in the garage if you want. Forum Thread: Punch Club 2: Fast Forward (by TinyBuild) TENSEI ($2.99) iTunes Description An experience of self-discovery set in soothing Zen landscapes. “Tensei" is an ultra-casual endless action game. Leap and fall over and over in the style of a brush flowing across paper, and go on a relaxed journey into the sky. Leave the hectic routine of life behind for a chance to enjoy this deeply immersive experience. Forum Thread: TENSEI (by NEURON AGE) Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York ($4.99) iTunes Description **Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York** is a visual novel set in the rich universe of Vampire: The Masquerade, and is the continuation of the story started in **Coteries of New York.** You don’t need to have played **Coteries** to appreciate and understand the story behind **Shadows of New York.** While Coteries was a general introduction to the world depicted in the 5th Edition of the hit tabletop role-playing game, Shadows presents a more personal and unique tale. Forum Thread: Vampire: The Masquerade – Shadows of New York (by Plug In Digital)

Back in October last year, Feral Interactive announced that cross platform multiplayer was in the works for Company of Heroes …

Continue reading "‘Company of Heroes’ Mobile Multiplayer Beta Announced for Next Week on Android, Full Update Coming to iOS and Switch As Well"

Back in October last year, Feral Interactive announced that cross platform multiplayer was in the works for Company of Heroes ($13.99) on iOS, Android, and Switch. If you’ve not played it yet on mobile or Switch, read my iOS here and Switch review here. Today, Feral Interactive confirmed that the first Company of Heroes mobile multiplayer beta will take place only on Android from August 29th until September 3rd. A full FAQ is here covering what you need to know about the test. Watch the Company of Heroes Collection Switch trailer below: The FAQ also confirms that the update with full multiplayer will be shipping simultaneously on Switch, iOS, and Android using learnings from the Android test. The test is only on Android since the Google Play Store has a better functionality for opt-in betas. As of now, the multiplayer update has no release date. If you’ve not kept up with the game on Switch and mobile, read my interview with Feral Interactive here. If you’ve not bought the base game yet on mobile, Company of Heroes is available on the App Store for here and on Google Play here. Check out our forum thread for it here and the official website for the mobile conversion here. Have you played Company of Heroes on mobile or Switch yet and will you be checking out the Android beta next week?

Following yesterday’s big Disney Dreamlight Valley update on Apple Arcade and other platforms, a few more notable games on Apple’s …

Continue reading "Apple Arcade Weekly Round-Up: New Content and Feature Updates Are Now Live for TMNT Splintered Fate, Temple Run: Legends, Vampire Survivors, Simon’s Cat, and More"

Following yesterday’s big Disney Dreamlight Valley update on Apple Arcade and other platforms, a few more notable games on Apple’s gaming service have gotten big updates. Alongside its standalone release, Vampire Survivors+ got a new stage, secrets, character skins, and more. Read about this update here. TMNT Splintered Fate on Apple Arcade now supports couch co-op on the save device and also online co-op with cross platform support. This is great since it is also coming to Steam following its Switch release. Temple Run: Legends adds support for a new Outfit system with the ability to unlock new cosmetics, powerful traits, and more. Outlanders’ Volume VI of the Outlanders Chronicles: Wandering Stars is now live with six new playable leaders and more. Simon’s Cat – Story Time has a Summer Search Party on for daily rewards when you find beach balls in the gardens. SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit concludes the latest Tales of the Deep in this week’s update. The final notable update of the week is Disney Coloring World+ bringing in the Muppets in a new coloring pack featuring Kermit, Fozzie, and more. With the updates done, check out our forum threads for Outlanders here, SpongeBob: Patty Pursuit here, Simon’s Cat – Story Time here, Disney Coloring World+ here, and TMNT Splintered Fate here. Head over to our dedicated Apple Arcade forum for discussions on the new and older releases on the service. What do you think of the state of Apple Arcade right now and this week’s updates?

Nintendo just announced that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (Free) is shutting down on November 28th at 3 PM UTC. Animal …

Continue reading "‘Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp’ Shutting Down This November, New Paid Game Set To Release With Save Transfer"

Nintendo just announced that Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (Free) is shutting down on November 28th at 3 PM UTC. Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp debuted on iOS and Android nearly seven years ago, and it has since received multiple content and feature updates. From November 28th, you will no longer be able to play this version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp, but the team is developing a version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp for mobile with save carrying over. This will be a flat-fee paid version of Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp. Social aspects from the original game will not be available here. Details for the new paid app are here. A full release date announcement for the paid app will be made around October. Check out the full announcement below: We have an important announcement for everyone playing the Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp app. Please see the following page for details as well.https://t.co/JGacPgXFyo pic.twitter.com/RHZt5u7SPU — Pocket_camp (@Pocket_Camp) August 22, 2024 While this is good news for those playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp since we rarely see games like this get paid standalone releases, I can’t help but be annoyed that Nintendo didn’t do something like this for Dragalia Lost. That game deserved so much better. At least I still have the music from it. Either way, you can play Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp on iOS and Android right now ahead of it shutting down in November. I’m curious to see how the paid version feels when it launches. Check out our forum thread for Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp here. Do you still play Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp regularly and what do you think of today’s news?

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 22nd, 2024. In today’s article, we’ve got a handful …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: ‘Mika and the Witch’s Mountain’, Plus Today’s Other Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 22nd, 2024. In today’s article, we’ve got a handful of new releases to check out. That’s unusual for a Wednesday, but I suppose it makes up for the slowness of the last couple of days. After summarizing those, it’s time for the lists of the latest sales and expiring discounts. Star Wars and Capcom, if one must make long stories short. Let’s get to those games! Select New Releases Mika and the Witch’s Mountain ($19.99) If you’ve ever been watching Ghibli’s classic Kiki’s Delivery Service and felt like playing a video game version, you might be into what Mika and the Witch’s Mountain is offering. I mean, it isn’t Kiki, but it’s clearly inspired by it. You play as an apprentice witch who has to fly around on her broom to deliver all kinds of packages to the various residents of a mountain town. The game has a nice, colorful vibe and I’m certainly going to be investigating it further to see if it lives up to its initial potential. My Lovely Empress ($19.99) A lovely wife, a lovely daughter, and now a lovely empress? Phew. In this game you play as an Emperor who reigns over a massive empire. Seems like you’ve got it all, but your wife passes away and suddenly none of it matters anymore. Still, you’ve got to keep things running. This is a simulation game of sorts, but one with a heavy narrative bent that will eventually lead to you having to make a critical choice. The previous games in the series have been fascinating despite their rough edges, and I expect this will deliver in the same way. Cyber Mission ($9.99) I’d call this a run-and-gun action game, but it’s probably better classified as a fly-and-gun action game. You play as a cyber trooper who is on a mission to destroy hostile alien forces. If you don’t feel like being a one-trooper army, you can grab a friend or family member for some local co-op multiplayer. Looks like a pretty good time for those enjoy things like S.C.A.T. or Contra, and reasonably priced to boot. Mangavania 2 ($4.99) More Mangavania for those who want it. A gentle reminder that these games are not Metroidvanias, just linear stage-based platformers with very light exploratory elements. If that’s your thing, this does that. Not terribly well, mind you. But it does it. That’s all I’ve got to say about that. White Eternal ($6.49) After his friend goes missing during the harsh winter, Simon sets out from his mountain town to try to find out what happened to them. This is a turn-based RPG where you explore a land cursed to harsh winters (Winnipeg?), seeking out allies and battle monsters as you go. You can actually get in battles where you have as many as sixteen party members. Neat! The description promises over twenty hours of gameplay, which would be quite a lot of game for the price. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Bounty Hunter is already on sale? Wow. Well, that’s good news for Star Wars fans, who likely already own everything else in that sale. We also have a good selection of the usual Capcom stuff, a sale on the Tomb Raider remasters, and a very deep discount on the Switch version of Heads Up!. Over in the outbox, don’t forget to stock up on Picross. Everyone needs more Picross! Have a look through both lists. Select New Sales Star Wars Bounty Hunter ($14.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Battlefront Collection ($28.00 from $35.01 until 8/28) Star Wars The Force Unleashed ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Republic Commando ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Episode I Racer ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Jedi Academy ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/28) Star Wars Jedi Outcast ($4.99 from $9.99 until 8/28) Star Wars KotOR ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Star Wars KotOR II: Sith Lords ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/28) Tomb Raider I-III Remastered ($22.49 from $29.99 until 8/28) MythForce ($14.99 from $29.99 until 8/28) Heads Up! Phones Down Edition ($1.99 from $39.99 until 8/28) Street Fighter 30th Anniversary ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Ultra Street Fighter II TFC ($19.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Capcom Fighting Collection ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Capcom Fighting Bundle ($19.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Monster Hunter Generations Ult. ($9.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak ($19.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil Revelations ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil Revelations 2 ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil 0 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil 4 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil 5 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Resident Evil 6 ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mega Man Legacy Collection ($7.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mega Man X Legacy Collection ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mega Man X Legacy Collection 2 ($7.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Mega Man Zero/ZX Collection ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Mega Man Battle Network Collection ($29.99 from $59.99 until 9/10) Mega Man 11 ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective ($19.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Shinsekai Into the Depths ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Okami HD ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Ghosts n Goblins Resurrection ($9.99 from $29.99 until 9/10) Capcom Beat ‘Em Up Bundle ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10) Capcom Arcade Stadium Bundle ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium Bundle ($15.99 from $39.99 until 9/10) Disney Dreamlight Valley Gold ($45.49 from $69.99 until 9/10) Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 22nd A Fragile Mind ($2.99 from $5.99 until 8/22) Bunny Garden ($19.54 from $22.99 until 8/22) Conjured Through Death ($2.24 from $14.99 until 8/22) Dead Cells: Return to Castlevania ($6.99 from $9.99 until 8/22) Football Manager 2024 Touch ($19.99 from $49.99 until 8/22) Hard Racing Stunt Car Driving ($1.99 from $4.99 until 8/22) Hero’s Hour ($8.99 from $17.99 until 8/22) Inkulinati ($17.49 from $24.99 until 8/22) Insurmountable ($18.74 from $24.99 until 8/22) Life of Delta ($6.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Love on Leave ($12.49 from $24.99 until 8/22) Maid of the Dead ($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Pickleball Smash ($7.99 from $39.99 until 8/22) Picross LogiartGrimoire ($15.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Picross S Genesis & Master System ($7.99 from $9.99 until 8/22) Picross S8 ($7.99 from $9.99 until 8/22) Picross S9 ($7.99 from $9.99 until 8/22) Plantabi Little Garden ($4.54 from $6.99 until 8/22) Sentimental Death Loop ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Smurfs Kart ($13.99 from $39.99 until 8/22) Starward Rogue Complete ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Survivor Castaway Island ($11.99 from $29.99 until 8/22) The Night of the Rabbit ($14.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Trinity Fusion ($14.99 from $19.99 until 8/22) Ultimate Racing 2D 2 ($6.69 from $9.99 until 8/22) You Suck at Parking ($6.79 from $19.99 until 8/22) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with the big Thursday new releases. Should be some goodies in there. I hope, anyway. August. It’s rough. We’ll also have whatever sales and major news items that arrive during the course of the day. I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Digital Extremes has released the next big update for Warframe in the form of The Lotus Eaters update. This update …

Continue reading "‘Warframe’ Prologue Quest for Warframe 1999 The Lotus Eaters and Sevagoth Prime Now Available"

Digital Extremes has released the next big update for Warframe in the form of The Lotus Eaters update. This update brings in a prologue quest for Warframe 1999 which is due this Winter. Alongside that update, Warframe also adds in Sevagoth Prime access from today. If you’ve not played Warframe in a while, The Lotus Eaters is the game’s next story beat available a free narrative chapter. As for Sevagoth Prime access, this includes cosmetics, the Epitaph Prime weapon, and much more. You can collect the required blueprints to craft Sevagoth Prime for free or buy it from the Warframe Marketplace. Digital Extremes also confirms new Jade Shadows TennoGen with a deluxe Ares Skin for Warframe Styanax, the Rhodora Syadana backpiece, and more. Check out the Warframe patch notes here and key art for the update below: Check out Sevagoth Prime art below: Watch the newest game trailer below: If you’ve not played Warframe in a while, read my interview with Creative Director Rebecca Ford about Warframe Jade Shadows and more here. If you’d like to play Warframe on iOS now, you can get it on the App Store for iOS here. Check out the official Warframe Mobile iOS website here. You can pre-register or check out the Android website for the game here. You can also read my interview with Warframe Creative Director Rebecca Ford & Mobile Product Lead Jussi Elonen about the game, cross platform support, controls, and a lot more from launch here. I featured Warframe Mobile as one of the best mobile games of 2024 so far as well. What do you think of Warframe so far if you’ve played it on iOS and what would you like to see added in the next update?

Last week, Gameloft announced the next major and free Disney Dreamlight Valley update for PC and consoles alongside Disney Dreamlight …

Continue reading "‘Disney Dreamlight Valley’ Dapper Delights Update Now Available for Apple Arcade, Consoles, and PC"

Last week, Gameloft announced the next major and free Disney Dreamlight Valley update for PC and consoles alongside Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition () for Apple Arcade in the forming of the Dapper Delights update. This update has now gone live alongside Act III of A Rift in Time. A Rift in Time is the paid expansion for PC and consoles, but it is included in the Apple Arcade release. Today’s update brings in Tiana from Disney’s The Princess with you trying to help set up her own restaurant: Tiana’s Palace. A Rift in Time Act III brings in Rapunzel, EVE, Gaston, and Oswald joining in for a final confrontation with Jafar. Watch the new Disney Dreamlight Valley Dapper Delights update launch trailer below: If you’ve not gotten it yet, you can download Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition on Apple Arcade here. Read my review of Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition here. It is also available as a paid game with the expansion pass sold separately or in a bundle on all other platforms including Switch and Steam. It plays great on Steam Deck if you’re curious about that version. Check out the official website here for details on the expansion pass and more. Head over to our forum thread for Disney Dreamlight Valley Arcade Edition here. We also have a dedicated Apple Arcade forum for discussion on the service and every game included here. What do you think of Disney Dreamlight Valley if you’ve been playing it recently and will you be getting back for this update today?

Another mobile reveal from Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024 was the latest trailer for the open world dress up game …

Continue reading "Open World Dress Up Game ‘Infinity Nikki’ Gets New Trailer With Closed Beta Sign Ups Now Live, Pre-Registrations Also Available"

Another mobile reveal from Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024 was the latest trailer for the open world dress up game Infinity Nikki from developer Papergames. This was announced for mobile and PC a little while ago, and was also confirmed for PS5 which seems like the home for free to play games these days on the console side. The newest reveal for Infinity Nikki includes a trailer and also pre-registrations going live. The full game for Infinity Nikki will also have English voice over and the German localization is available for those to try out at the Gamescom showfloor. Sign-ups for the global Closed Beta Test are also now live. Watch the newest trailer for Infinity Nikki below: Infinity Nikki will launch with text support for English, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Japanese, Korean, German, French, Thai, Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Italian, and Indonesian. Audio support will be available for English, Chinese (Simplified), and Japanese. If you’d like to sign up for the closed beta, you can do so here. A release date has not been announced so treat the date listed on the App Store page as a placeholder for now. You can pre-order Infinity Nikki on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. Pre-registration for console is not live yet. As a different premise than usual for an open world game, I’m curious to try this one on iOS and PS5. What do you think of Infinity Nikki so far?

Following its announcement recently, Netflix’s upcoming multiplayer game based on Squid Game, Squid Game: Unleashed, has gotten its first reveal …

Continue reading "‘Squid Game: Unleashed’ Gets Full Trailer at Gamescom 2024, More Games Announced for Netflix"

Following its announcement recently, Netflix’s upcoming multiplayer game based on Squid Game, Squid Game: Unleashed, has gotten its first reveal gameplay trailer during Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024. Squid Game: Unleashed is a 32 player showdown featuring challenges from the show in addition to new ones for the game. There will be daily missions and events inspired by the brand’s universe. Squid Game: Unleashed is in development at Boss Fight (a Netflix Game Studio) and Season 2 of the show arrives this December. Watch the first Squid Game: Unleashed gameplay trailer below: Alongside that, Netflix also revealed other games coming to the service in the near future including the Monument Valley series. These include recently-released games like Diner Out and Ludo King: Netflix with more coming soon like Battleship, Roller Coaster Tycoon, and Snake.io. So far, Netflix has been killing it with quality releases on mobile. I hope the service continues to bring premium quality titles and also older games to the service while not just adding engagement focused releases like other gaming services have been doing these past months on other platforms. What do you think of the current slate of Netflix Games titles arriving this year and will you be trying any of the new games?

During Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024, HoYoverse had reveals and new information for each of its main games. Genshin Impact …

Continue reading "Gamescom 2024: Zenless Zone Zero, Honkai Star Rail, and Genshin Impact See New Announcements and Trailers"

During Gamescom Opening Night Live 2024, HoYoverse had reveals and new information for each of its main games. Genshin Impact (Free) will see its major 5.0 update release next week bringing in the brand new region and much more. For Genshin Impact, HoYoverse’s big reveal was that it is coming to Xbox Series X on November 20th. Alongside this news, a new look at Natlan was also revealed in the Gamescom 2024 trailer for Genshin Impact. Watch it below: Zenless Zone Zero (Free) just had its major 1.1 update launch, the first big one for the game since launch, and Gamescom 2024’s trailer had a tease of the new region coming in version 1.2. This will be the base for the next chapter of the Zenless Zone Zero story. The trailer also highlighted some of the Zenless Zone Zero 1.1 characters. Watch it below: Honkai Star Rail (Free) had a trailer showcasing Feixiao, who is joining the game in the near future. Feixiao is a female warrior from the Xianzhou Yaoqing who will be added to Honkai Star Rail in version 2.5. The trailer also had new information about the upcoming Honkai Star Rail Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works] collaboration. Watch it below: You can grab Genshin Impact on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. The PC version is available on the official website here and the Epic Games Store. It is coming to Xbox Series X on November 20th. Grab Honkai Star Rail yet for iOS here, on Google Play for Android here, and here on the Epic Games Store in addition to its regular PC version. Check it out here on PS5. You can download Zenless Zone Zero on the App Store for iOS here and on Google Play for Android here. Check out the links to the PS5 and PC versions here. What do you think of HoYoverse’s reveals?

I did not have Another Eden, beloved mobile role-playing game, having a crossover event with The King of Fighters, legendary …

Continue reading "Legendary Fighting Series ‘The King of Fighters’ Crosses Over into ‘Another Eden’ with the “Another Bout” Event that Kicks Off August 22nd"

I did not have Another Eden, beloved mobile role-playing game, having a crossover event with The King of Fighters, legendary fighting game series from SNK, on my Bingo card, but here we are! Actually I shouldn’t be surprised, as Another Eden crossing over with popular IPs from all walks of the universe is nothing new, and they always do a fantastic job with it. This latest crossover, which is titled Another Bout, is no exception. Aldo gets a mysterious invite to a fighting tournament, and before he knows it him and his party are transported into the world of The King of Fighters, where they get to fight alongside some of the series’ most recognizable and beloved characters: Terry Bogard, Kyo Kusanagi, Mai Shiranui, and Kula Diamond. Together you’ll play through a brand new branching story with the ability to unlock the King of Fighters characters for use throughout the rest of Another Eden. The Another Bout event really leans into its fighting game crossover by providing a new battle arena where you can pick a team of 3 fighters and fight against another team of 3. Skills have been replaced with actual fighting game-style input combos, and you’ll need to learn to chain your moves together in order to unleash your Special Moves. At the end of it all you’ll face off against Rugal, longtime King of Fighters boss and tournament mastermind. The Another Bout crossover event in Another Eden officially kicks off this Thursday, August 22nd across PC, iOS, and Android, so be sure to check it out.

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 20th, 2024. In today’s article, I’ve got a couple …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring ‘Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse’, Plus the Latest Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 20th, 2024. In today’s article, I’ve got a couple more reviews for you. I’ve got my take on the lovely remaster of Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, plus my thoughts on the rather messy Elrentaros Wanderings. Then there’s one new release to check out, plus the usual lists of new and expiring sales. Not a very busy day today, but that works out well for my schedule. Let’s go! Reviews & Mini-Views Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered ($19.99) Ten years ago, you would never have expected things to end up the way they did for Telltale Games. Having just wrapped up The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead: Season Two, the adventure game publisher seemed like it was nigh unstoppable. Just a few years later, everything fell apart. And here we are in 2024, happy to see any of those pieces picked up and made available again. For all of Telltale’s problems, there was really something to the games it released. Adventure games were finally part of the popular conversation again, and it was in no small part thanks to Telltale’s work. That’s why I’m happy to see what I feel is the heart and soul of Telltale Games fully available on Switch via this release. To a great extent, Sam & Max Save the World brought Telltale into the eyes of many players. The follow-up, Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space kept the ball rolling. The last of the trilogy, Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse feels in some ways like the end of a particular era. Scant months later, Back to the Future: The Game would launch its first episode, and it laid down the track that Telltale would drive on for the next several years. Big licenses, a focus on character relationships, and less of a focus on traditional puzzle-solving. Nothing wrong with that, of course. I just happen to like what Telltale was up to before that. So, Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse. The first two Sam & Max seasons from Telltale came off like the developer was trying to find its feet. Good, to be sure. But sometimes lacking in confidence, and the games seemed to be put together on a shoestring budget. The Devil’s Playhouse was different. The writers were clearly comfortable with these characters enough to take them places. Telltale had sharpened its skills significantly and had more money to put into projects. It shows. The story here is excellent. Irreverent, funny, and smart the way you would hope a Sam & Max game would be, but with a slightly darker tone that adds a bit of spice. The puzzle design is refined without being toothless. The locations you visit are well-realized. The last episode (remember episodic games?) doesn’t quite stick the landing, but it’s hard to be too upset about it given the quality of the rest. This Remastered version follows in the footsteps of the last two. In cooperation with members of the original team, the visuals have been enhanced in a number of ways. The lighting is more interesting, the lip-flap is better, and there have even been some adjustments to the cinematography. It’s not too strong by any means, maintaining the feel of the original release. It’s Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse as you perhaps remember it, not how it actually was. I’ve been quite pleased with how these remasters have been handled thus far, and I didn’t expect the team to drop the ball here. A fine job all-around, one the whole team can be proud of. Out of all the things that could be salvaged from the defunct original form of Telltale Games, the Sam & Max trilogy was just about the highest on my list. Now, with this excellent remaster of The Devil’s Playhouse, that job is complete. If you’ve never played a Sam & Max game before, feel free to slide on in with Sam & Max Save the World and see it through to the end of The Devil’s Playhouse. It’s quite the wild ride. If you have played these games before, the enhanced presentation might just convince you to go for a replay. They quite literally don’t make them like this anymore. SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5 Elrentaros Wanderings ($39.99) Sometimes it feels like a game is just a few smart tweaks away from greatness. And then there are games like Elrentaros Wanderings. The basic premise is solid enough, and one that gets the engine running when you find out this game is from Rune Factory’s creator. You’re an amnesiac wanderer who comes across the town of Elrentaros. The people there are friendly, if a little one-note, and they have all kinds of work for an adventurer like yourself. Dungeon work, mainly. As time progresses you can get closer with the townspeople and deepen your bonds with them. So far, not so unusual. But then you beat a boss, and suddenly you’re in a school setting in modern Japan. All the townspeople of Elrentaros are there, but they’re acting differently and don’t seem to know you. What is going on? That’s a good hook. Good enough to keep me happily playing despite how tired I was getting of running the uninteresting dungeons again and again, trying to complete objectives and get my gear in shape. Bored of seeing the same enemies, just in a new color palette. If I beat that next boss, I can move towards resolving this mystery. If I keep talking to these uninteresting townspeople, maybe I can see where this all goes. I wish I could say it was worth it in the end, but it wasn’t. A decent story, but not one worth the slog of playing through this game. Anyway, the basic loop here follows a fairly standard looter dungeon crawler template. Dive into the dungeon, battle enemies, get some new gear, dive in again, and so on. There are multiple dungeons to tackle here that each culminate in a boss battle. What’s different here is that powering up your character is more a matter of completing particular tasks in each dungeon and reaping the rewards. You won’t know what those tasks are on your first run, and you really do need to check off those lists to keep your character strong enough to push forward. At a bare minimum, you’ll be doing each dungeon twice. Beyond gear and more direct power-ups, you’ll also get your hands on gifts that you can offer up to the townspeople to win their favor. That pursuit has its own rewards, so you don’t want to neglect it either. The problem is that just about none of this is very interesting. The townspeople aren’t very deep or well-written. The dungeon layouts are bland and certainly aren’t better on subsequent runs. The enemies are cool the first time you see them, but you’ll be seeing them again and again in slightly different colors. The battle system offers little to sink your teeth into, and the loot fails to hit the spot the way it ought to in a game like this. The story is spread far too thin across the gameplay, a meager oasis in a vast, exhausting desert of repetition. I was enjoying this game early on, patient to see how things unfolded as it went on, but the reward never came. I think if you are okay with a pure grind, Elrentaros Wanderings might not turn you off the way it did me. But if you have even the slightest allergy to excessive banality, then this game is likely to have you heading for the hills. Its few good ideas are squandered by watering down the broth too much, stretching far too little content far too far. Not without any merit, but thoroughly disappointing. SwitchArcade Score: 2.5/5 Select New Releases Stumble Guys (Free) Here’s a Switch version of Stumble Guys, the game that seems to have wrested the ball away from Fall Guys and ran with it. Up to thirty-two players compete online in a variety of events and modes. The game is free to start, just like on other platforms. But there are a wide range of ways to spend your real cash, so don’t you worry about that. Anyway, it’s free, it’s here, try it if you want or walk on past if you don’t. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) Not a whole lot to get excited about today, beyond Dadish and company being on sale. All good games, from Dadish on down. Buy and enjoy. Over in the outbox, the main thing of note is Kairosoft’s latest sale wrapping up. It won’t take but a minute to check those lists, so you might as well do just that. Select New Sales Rack and Slay ($5.09 from $5.99 until 8/25) Sagres ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/26) Gravity Oddity ($1.99 from $14.99 until 8/26) Warhammer 40k Dakka Squadron ($1.99 from $19.99 until 8/26) Guilt Battle Arena ($1.99 from $9.99 until 8/26) Chippy & Noppo ($13.99 from $19.99 until 8/27) Soundfall ($4.49 from $29.99 until 8/27) Last Encounter ($1.99 from $14.99 until 9/2) Ultra Foodmess ($1.99 from $3.99 until 9/2) Dadish ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Dadish 2 ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Dadish 3 ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Dadish 3D ($2.99 from $14.99 until 9/10) Daily Dadish ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Super Fowlst ($1.99 from $9.99 until 9/10) Super Fowlst 2 ($2.00 from $10.00 until 9/10) Molecano ($1.99 from $8.00 until 9/10) Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 21st 50 Pinch Barrage ($4.29 from $4.99 until 8/21) 8-Colors Star Guardians + ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/21) Attack of the Karens ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/21) Cafe Master Story ($6.00 from $12.00 until 8/21) Children of Morta Complete ($7.99 from $26.99 until 8/21) Claire: Extended Cut ($2.99 from $14.99 until 8/21) Goliath Depot ($3.49 from $6.99 until 8/21) High Seas Saga DX ($6.00 from $12.00 until 8/21) Oh!Edo Towns ($4.62 from $14.00 until 8/21) Pocket Stables ($3.96 from $12.00 until 8/21) Whitestone ($3.99 from $19.99 until 8/21) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new games, more sales, perhaps some news, and maybe even a review? I wouldn’t bet too much money on that last one, but who knows? I have a family thing tonight, and so I’m cutting out a little early today. Don’t tell the boss! I hope you all have a terrific Tuesday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Gamescom is kicking off in Cologne, Germany as we speak, and during their Opening Night Live event they’ve already revealed …

Continue reading "‘Monument Valley 3’ Coming to Netflix Games in December, ‘Monument Valley 1 & 2’ Heading to the Service in the Coming Months As Well"

Gamescom is kicking off in Cologne, Germany as we speak, and during their Opening Night Live event they’ve already revealed some major news across all of gaming. One of the big announcements that pertains to us in the mobile gaming world is the official unveiling of Monument Valley 3 from developer ustwo, which will be arriving as part of the Netflix Games library on December 10th. We’ve known that Monument Valley 3 was in the works since at least July of 2019 so it’s very satisfying to see some real news about when we’ll be able to get our hands on this latest entry in the legendary puzzle game series. Here’s the announcement teaser. As you can see, it’s not just Monument Valley 3 that’s heading to Netflix Game, but the previous two entries will also be making their way to the service. The original Monument Valley will hit Netflix next month on September 19th with the sequel Monument Valley 2 making its way to Netflix on October 29th. It’s been clear for a while now that Netflix Games is not messing around when it comes to bringing high profile titles to their mobile library, and Monument Valley 3 is certainly another one to add to the list. The trailer also says to expect more news about the game during the Netflix Geeked Week which is set to take place from September 16-19th, so look for some more about Monument Valley 3 then.

When thinking about the classics or games I’d recommend people play on mobile, Mini Metro is one of the best …

Continue reading "Exclusive: Dinosaur Polo Club Interview – CEO Amie Wolken on Mini Metro, Mini Motorways, the Team, Free DLC, Working With Apple, Ports, and More"

When thinking about the classics or games I’d recommend people play on mobile, Mini Metro is one of the best by far. Sure, it is on other platforms, but having played it just about everywhere, the iOS version is my favorite. When Dinosaur Polo Club announced and released Mini Motorways, I was curious if it would manage to deliver something amazing again. The team did. Since then, we’ve seen both games get multiple updates including a collaboration between them. A few weeks ago, I had a chance to talk to Dinosaur Polo Club’s new CEO Amie Wolken about the studio, the Mini series, canceled projects, coffee, expanding the studio, working with Apple, Nintendo, the future, and more for an exclusive interview. This was conducted on a video call. It was then transcribed and edited for brevity in the case of some portions. TouchArcade (TA): Before getting to the things you’ve been doing recently, can you tell me a little bit about what you’re doing right now at Dinosaur Polo Club. Amie Wolken (AW): I’ve come on board as the new CEO and it means working with the team to set strategy and vision for the next few years, and to really get them humming on the next project that they’re working on. TA: You previously were the Studio Director at Weta Workshop’s games studio and you worked on Tales of the Shire as Lead Game Programmer. How was it working at the game studio and also how was it working on Tales of the Shire which is supposed to finally be coming out later this year? AW: It was amazing. I was the Lead Game programmer on Tales of the Shire and before that, I had been working closely with the Magic Leap and Weta Workshop collaboration working in the augmented reality space. I’d been focused on the technical side of things and after Weta Workshop went on its own journey of game development after the Magic Leap collaboration, we decided to pursue Tales of the Shire as our first game as an independent game studio and it was amazing to be there from the ground up working on the Prototype. TA: Since you joined earlier this year, I think it was April, how involved have you been with the two current live game projects: Mini Metro and Mini Motorways. I ask because both of them still get updates despite Mini Metro being really old now. It is getting a lot of great support. AW: I try to stay involved over only in the periphery. The game teams know best what their games need, and so my role is more to support them to make sure that they have what they need to make the games great, and to work closely with them on long-term strategies for those games. What does the studio need out of those games and then really enable the teams to just do their good work on the games itself. TA: How did you end up getting in touch with Dinosaur Polo Club to basically take over as CEO? When I was looking at when you took over, everyone was very positive from the start looking at reactions from developers around. AW: So I saw the role advertised, and I’ve also known quite a few people who worked at dinosaur Polo Club over the years. So a couple of people let me know that they were looking for a new CEO and so I applied. So I just went through their application process. Yeah. TA: Did you play a lot of Mini Metro and Motorways before taking over? AW: I did not. In fact, I think I played Mini Metro when I applied for the job. I thought I better play the games. *laughs* TA: What does the day in your life look like right now as CEO of Dinosaur Polo Club? AW: That’s a good question and honestly it changes all the time. Recently and after a few months of being in the job, I thought that the studio could benefit from sort of a few weeks of tools down and coming together as a team, and working on sort of high level studio goals. So actually a lot of my time over the past couple of months has been working on that. We called it a studio pause, and we put tools down on the games, and we really focused on coming together as a team and trying to envision the future that we wanted as a studio. So a lot of work was done around that and then there’s a lot of work around budgeting and finance, making sure that we’re compliant, and making sure that we have good practices and processes in the team. So policies, making sure that leadership development is well supported and it really kind of depends on what the team needs at the moment. Working with the teams on pitching upcoming products and projects. TA: So when you joined Dinosaur Polo Club, I saw “Foster great culture and games" mentioned a few times. Obviously the studio pause seems like one of the major steps to having great culture to get everyone together and stuff. But I was curious what other things are planned for this year on that front to help grow the team? AW: I mean, we always take growing the team and onboarding quite seriously. So having good recruitment processes and practices to make sure that you’re finding people who want to come on the same journey as the studio is on, and part of that means having a clear idea of where you’re kind of going as a studio, and exactly like you said, the pause was really designed to make sure that everyone in the studio, because we’re a small studio at 30 people, so everyone is on the same page with the way we’re going, which means that everybody can be ambassadors for who we are, and what we’re creating together, and it also helps to speed up decision making processes because everybody is on the same page about where we are going and we’re going there together. Now we’ve actually got a lot of really great information and the pause as well. So we generated a lot of really good ideas for what we could do going forward, and part of what I’ll be doing is looking at that and carrying forward some of the ideas that came out of that around how we sort of live our values and what it means to be part of Dinosaur Polo Club, and what it means for us to create an impact in the world in the way that we want to do it sustainably and looking after our people while we make games. The future and for the rest of this year I suppose, a significant portion of that will be taking what we’ve learned in the pause and applying that in practice going forward. TA: So you’ve been there since April till right now. That’s less than six months. How have you grown with the team? How does it feel for you and have you accomplished what you wanted to in a few months? I know it is a very short time for this kind of question, but given the positive sentiment around the studio and announcements, I was curious how it has been for you over the course of this period. AW: It has been great. I do feel like I have grown with the team over the last few months. A lot of my time, especially in the first couple of months, was just listening to the team trying to figure out where everyone was at, trying to figure out where the pain points were. Everything that you put out you try to look at the positives. Every team has things that they can work on and Dinosaur Polo Club is no different. The first few months were listening to the team, figuring out where I could have the biggest impact, and then the pause was sort of what came out of that. TA: Before asking specific questions about the games, since you’ve been the CEO for a few months, have you been involved with any of the teams working with Apple and other platform holders? Dinosaur Polo Club has Mini Motorways which is one of the best Apple Arcade games right now even though it is also on other platforms. Have you been working with Apple in any way or is that another team at the studio? AW: I have been involved in conversations with Apple on a regular basis. TA: I first played Mini Metro on iOS many years ago. Since then the game has been ported to a lot of platforms. Mini Motorways launched directly as an Apple Arcade exclusive and that made its way to Nintendo Switch and Steam. I still feel like the games are best on a nice big touch screen like an iPad because you get the gorgeous visuals and you have direct interaction with them. I wanted to know if you could comment on how the games have been doing outside mobile because it feels like these are very much designed for touch screens? I know some folks play them with a controller or a mouse as well on Switch or Steam. AW: It’s not something I’m really super close to. I don’t think it’s any surprise that the games do play really well on the touchscreens, but there is a wide audience that are enjoying the games, and we try and make sure that we’re designing the games to support those audiences too, and all of the controls that we support. But I agree, I think that there is some nice synergy there with the touch screen in there and iPads and iPhones. TA: A few weeks ago, Dinosaur Polo Club announced that it was working on a game which has now been canceled called Magic School. This announcement was interesting for a few reasons. Obviously having a game canceled is never a good thing, but the phrasing of the announcement and the response has been very positive with how you all are trying to take the best from the situation and move forward. How was it working towards that announcement for you and the team? AW: I wasn’t actually involved in making the decision to cancel. I was there for the tail end of it, but that decision had already been made as I was onboarding. So I don’t want to speak closely to it. I think there are other team members who are much closer to that decision and that project then been, but I have been there to talk to the team as they sort of process the impact of canceling a project that had been worked on for years, and that is significant. It was a piece of work that many people care deeply about and had poured their creative hearts and souls into, so we’re always very conscious of that, and I think that’s a big part of why you want to share as well the efforts that have gone into a project that doesn’t necessarily make it to launch, but had a huge potential, a huge amount of talent, and effort that went into it, so it is a pleasure to be able to share those when you can. I’m really glad that we were able to do that for the team who worked on it and for the studio as a whole as well. TA: Getting back to Apple Arcade. Can you comment on whether anything has changed in the last few months for how your work with Apple or things still going smoothly and is everyone happy with the arrangement you have with them? Mini Motorways still gets updates so it is still ongoing. I also wanted to know if there are any plans to do any more projects with Apple? AW: Yeah, that’s probably not something that I can comment on right now, but I can say that we’ve got an incredible relationship with Apple and we really enjoy working with them. TA: You said you played Mini Metro when you were working on getting this role and stuff, but since joining, have you started playing them and giving any feedback to the team directly? AW: No. Even though I have been a game developer, and because I’ve not been a game developer of this style of games, or involved in developing the Mini games, I’m super tentative to have creative opinions unless they are looking for creative opinions from lay people who are under NDA. That is where I really try to power the team who are the creative masterminds behind the Mini series, and sometimes the weight that your opinion can carry as a CEO, certainly in my situation would far outweigh any actual practical relevance of my opinion. TA: You mentioned since taking over that Dinosaur Polo Club is a small studio. Is there any need to grow the studio? AW: We’re pretty good. We do have a small plan for bringing on new people as we start developing more products as well. We have an ambition to remain a small studio. So, in terms of studio size, we would love to not grow Beyond say 40 to 45 people. That is kind where we want to go in terms of the kinds of games that we make. We want to make sure that we stay small. We want to make sure that we can still know everybody’s names. We know everybody that we work with and focus on making games within that capacity and excelling at that rather than expanding and expanding. TA: Mini Metro is on iOS, Android, Apple Arcade, PC, Switch and PS4. Mini Motorways is on Apple Arcade, Switch, and Steam. Are there any plans to bring them to Xbox and also to bring Mini Motorways to PlayStation and have you noticed any demand to bring your games to more platforms? AW: It hasn’t featured highly in the conversations that I’ve had in the studio. That’s not to say that there isn’t demand or there hasn’t been conversations, but it’s just that they haven’t been conversations that have been a high enough priority in the last few months for it to be raised with me. TA: You said that you were happy with how the team has been handling Mini Metro and Mini Motorways. Has anything changed since you took over where the team now feels like it can do more with the games? Both games are pretty great as it is. AW: I think everybody can expect that Mini Motorways will continue to have some exciting updates. The team is working on an update plan and the strategy is fully behind supporting Motorways to continue to be supported and content updates. So I think people can expect to see cool things coming out of Motorways. TA: That leads into my next question well. Both games are successful critically and they’ve gotten a ton of post-launch support through free content updates. Has there been any consideration to doing a paid expansion for any of them? AW: No, we’re pretty set on the free content update strategy. TA: So basically have a premium game and support it for years and build your audience who wants to keep supporting you as a publisher? AW: That’s right. TA: How do you like your coffee? AW: I drink oat flat white. I’d like to thank Amie Wolken from Dinosaur Polo Club and also Noah Vaca and Yunah Smirnov from Stride PR for their time and help here. You can keep up with all our interviews here including our recent ones with FuturLab here, Shuhei Matsumoto from Capcom about Marvel Vs Capcom here, Santa Ragione here, Peter ‘Durante’ Thoman about PH3 and Falcom here, M2 discussing shmups and more here, Digital Extremes for Warframe mobile, Team NINJA, Sonic Dream Team, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and more. As usual, thanks for reading.

Earlier this year, Feral Interactive’s superb iOS version of Alien: Isolation (Free) was updated to change the game’s business model …

Continue reading "‘Alien: Isolation’ for Android Is Now a Free To Start Release Just Like iOS Letting Everyone Try Two Missions for Free"

Earlier this year, Feral Interactive’s superb iOS version of Alien: Isolation (Free) was updated to change the game’s business model to be free to try with a single in app purchase for the full game unlock. Today, Alien: Isolation on Android has been updated to be a free to try game just like the iOS version. With this, Android players can sample the first two missions. After that, a single in app purchase will be required to unlock the full game for $13.49. Those who own the game already should see no change. For new customers, the saves from the first two free missions will carry over to the full game once the full game unlock purchase is complete. Watch the new trailer for Alien: Isolation on iOS and Android below: I featured Alien: Isolation as one of the best games to play with keyboard and mouse on iPad, and I assume it plays well on Android tablets as well. If you’ve not gotten it yet on iOS, read my glowing review of the game here covering the game at launch. We featured it as our Game of the Week as well when it launched. The full version of Alien: Isolation on mobile includes all seven DLC packs in its unlock price of $14.99. You can grab Alien: Isolation for free on the App Store here and on Google Play here. Check out our forum thread here. Have you played Alien: Isolation on mobile yet or will you be trying it today for free?

I’ve been a big fan of SIGONO’s OPUS series of narrative adventure games for a long time. If you’ve not …

Continue reading "‘OPUS: Prism Peak’, the Newest Entry in the Amazing ‘OPUS’ Series, Gets New Gameplay Screenshots"

I’ve been a big fan of SIGONO’s OPUS series of narrative adventure games for a long time. If you’ve not checked it out yet, OPUS: The Day We Found Earth (Free) is a great place to start but OPUS: Echo of Starsong, the newest release, is brilliant as well if you want to try a newer game. Read my review of the mobile version of that release here. Following its reveal back in January last year, SIGONO’s latest project, OPUS: Prism Peak, is shaping up to be another excellent narrative adventure game. With Gamescom 2024 beginning today, SIGONO has shared new screenshots for OPUS: Prism Peak in addition to a gameplay trailer that I missed from a few weeks ago. Watch the newest OPUS: Prism Peak gameplay trailer below: Check out a new screenshot from OPUS: Prism Peak below: OPUS: Prism Peak will feature multiple endings and it has you playing as a photographer using your camera to find your way back home from an ethereal realm. The music in OPUS: Prism Peak will be from Triodust and Audio Textural with a story from Brian Lee who wrote OPUS: Echo of Starsong. While OPUS: Prism Peak hasn’t been announced for mobile yet, my interview with Scott Chen, co-founder of SIGONO and executive producer of the OPUS series, mentioning Echo of Starsong on iOS being like returning home gives me hope to see this one on mobile as well at some point. You can wishlist OPUS: Prism Peak here as of now. It hasn’t been officially announced for more platforms yet. Have you played the OPUS games and what do you think of OPUS: Prism Peak so far?

Back in May, Dysmantle ($9.99) from 10tons Ltd. got its final major content update on Steam. Dysmantle version 1.4.0 titled …

Continue reading "Dysmantle’s Final Major Update Is Now Live on iOS Bringing In Ark Level 4, Night Terrors, Link Towers, and Much More"

Back in May, Dysmantle ($9.99) from 10tons Ltd. got its final major content update on Steam. Dysmantle version 1.4.0 titled “The Final Patch" brought in Night Terrors, Link Towers, Ark level 4, and more on PC as the team started working on porting it to other platforms. Earlier today, Dysmantle 1.4.0 hit iOS and it isn’t live on Android as of this writing. After day 24 in-game Night Terrors are a new enemy type for the base map. The Frore and Hibernus regions have been expanded and DLC owners will be able to use Link Towers to travel between base and DLC maps thanks to today’s update. Dysmantle was one of our favorite games of 2022, and with all of its paid DLC and updates, it is even better. With it being content complete, now is a great time to jump in. Watch the Dysmantle Pets & Dungeons DLC trailer below: If you’ve not gotten it yet, we featured Dysmantle as our our Game of the Week when it hit iOS. Dysmantle has you trying to escape the island by breaking everything for materials, fight creatures, survive, build outputs, and more. You can grab the iOS version of Dysmantle for $9.99 (or regional equivalent) usually with it being discounted once in a while. If you’d like to play Dysmantle on iOS, you can grab it here on the App Store. It is available on Android here. Check out the official website for Dysmantle here. Make sure to head over to our forum thread for more discussion around it here. Have you played Dysmantle yet and will you be trying out the final content update this week?

One of the biggest advantages to PC gaming is having access to multiple generations of game releases. We’ve seen entire …

Continue reading "Musou Games on Steam Deck – Samurai Warriors, Dynasty Warriors, Warriors Orochi, Empires, and Much More Tested on Steam Deck OLED"

One of the biggest advantages to PC gaming is having access to multiple generations of game releases. We’ve seen entire franchises released over time, and in many cases, Steam has more entries in a single franchise than consoles where said franchises began. With Omega Force and Koei Tecmo’s Musou or Warriors games, I usually enjoy playing them on a portable, and have played tons on PS Vita, 3DS, and Nintendo Switch over the years. The Steam Deck changed things, but Koei Tecmo’s older ports are not the best. This got me thinking of an article and here we are. There is a very specific kind of person I’m aiming to help with this feature, and I’ve gotten every Koei Tecmo published Musou/Warriors game installed on my Steam Deck to see how they run (or don’t run) today. I also want to help those with multiple platforms decide if they should play a game on Steam Deck or another platform here. What is a Musou game or Warriors game? For a lot of newer fans of the genre including myself with Hyrule Warriors on 3DS, Koei Tecmo and Omega Force’s Musou or Warriors games basically are hack and slash action games where you play as a character plowing down hundreds of enemies on a battlefield, but also doing things like taking down captains (more powerful enemies), capturing forts, taking down bosses, and much more. Over the years, we’ve seen Omega Force bring this formula to many collaboration projects like Fire Emblem Warriors and Hyrule Warriors for Nintendo, One Piece Pirate Warriors for Bandai Namco, and even bring elements from the Warriors games to action RPGs like Dragon Quest Heroes for Square Enix and Persona 5 Strikers for SEGA/Atlus. Basically, the Warriors games are the best podcast games or mindless fun games as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve been playing every single one that was released after getting into the genre. My testing setup for Musou games on Steam Deck I played all of them on my Steam Deck OLED, used an external controller as well to see how the games handle those, and then tried different Proton versions to see if performance improves or issues are fixed. I’ve also specified Valve’s rating if applicable for every game featured here. Note that the Steam Deck Verification system is not even close to perfect, and hopefully this article helps you realize that and also find your next favorite Musou. Samurai Warriors 4 DX Samurai Warriors 4 DX is Steam Deck Verified. On my Steam Deck OLED, out of the box Samurai Warriors 4 DX runs with a 60fps target, but drops to the mid 40s often during busy combat when played at 720p. I turned everything low or off and had it running around the 50s in the test area. I then turned everything on and used the high preset. This is good for a 30fps target because the game hovered between 30 and 40fps. As of this writing, a locked 60fps is not possible at 720p as far as I can tell. I hope this can be improved in patches. The high and medium presets look very good on the handheld screen. Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate Definitive Edition Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate Definitive Edition is Steam Deck Playable for not setting the native res by default. On my Steam Deck OLED, Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate Definitive Edition defaulted to a very low resolution. After setting it to 720p, everything went smoothly at 60fps. I didn’t need to change anything, but I turned shadows down as usual since I always do in most games to ensure the performance doesn’t drop later on. Touken Ranbu Warriors Touken Ranbu Warriors is Steam Deck Verified. Touken Ranbu Warriors runs fine across the board including cut-scenes. I played at 720p and medium graphics quality on Steam Deck. It runs and looks a lot better than the Switch version, and this one also targets 60fps. I don’t really have much to say about this one aside from the Steam Deck is my favorite way to play it by far. If you like Touken Ranbu, this one is worth getting, but there are better Warriors games on this list to consider before getting this one as a newcomer. Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires is listed as Steam Deck Unsupported. Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires using Proton GE boots up and plays the videos on the title screen, but lacks controller glyphs. I expected this to run a bit better than Dynasty Warriors 9 given it is on Switch as well, but it isn’t an amazing experience. When playing at the low preset and 720p, I saw at most 40fps outside combat. I would not recommend playing Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires on Steam Deck if you have access to the home console versions, but if you want to play on a portable, this is better than Switch, but that’s a low bar given how it runs and looks there. I recommend this one on PS5 or Xbox Series X at this stage. Samurai Warriors 5 Samurai Warriors 5 is listed as Steam Deck Unsupported. Before Samurai Warriors 4 DX released on Steam, this was my favorite Warriors game on the platform. I still love it, but I hadn’t played it since launch year on PC. Revisiting it showed me that it can run ok and look very good, but the performance is a bit iffy. A friend of mine recommended using Proton GE, so I ran it with 9-9 and turned shadows to low. This helped a lot and it stayed almost locked at 60fps in the three maps from the campaign I revisited to test from my old save. This test definitely made me want to play more Samurai Warriors 5. It is superb. DYNASTY WARRIORS 7: Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition DYNASTY WARRIORS 7: Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition is Steam Deck Playable and not Verified because some text may be small, the resolution is not set correctly by default, and because it shows keyboard and mouse prompts on Steam Deck. After setting DYNASTY WARRIORS 7: Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition to 720p it seemed to run perfectly at 60fps, but it started dropping to the mid 50s in the opening stage. I didn’t have any other issues, but there is no Steam Cloud save support. My 30 hour save file from when I used to use a Windows laptop is sadly gone. I can forgive a lot of port issues, but the lack of Steam Cloud is beyond awful in games like this. Despite that, if you are ok with a manual backup, DYNASTY WARRIORS 7: Xtreme Legends Definitive Edition is superb value and it runs a lot better than expected on Steam Deck. Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate Warriors Orochi 4 (Ultimate with the DLC) is Steam Deck Playable for not setting the display resolution by default correctly. Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate can have an issue where it doesn’t display anything, and you can resolve this by forcing fullscreen off by playing the game in Desktop Mode first and then going back to Game Mode on Steam Deck. Aside from that, and it didn’t happen to me, but did happen to a friend, Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate out of the box runs at around 30fps, but if you set it to the low graphics settings from the title screen and run it at 720p, it holds a locked 60fps in the missions I tried. Thankfully, this one does have Steam Cloud support so my save carried over from when I played it before. Warriors Orochi 4 Ultimate runs and looks a lot better than the Switch version even at the lowest settings. Dynasty Warriors 9 Dynasty Warriors 9 is Steam Deck Unsupported. This is the big one. Not in terms of its importance, but because Dynasty Warriors 9 is one of the worst-performing games I’ve ever played on console back on PS4 and Xbox One. It is just about good on PS5 and Xbox Series X via backward compatibility. Playing on Steam Deck is not a great experience out of the box. Switching to Proton GE (9-9 in my case) helps, but it still was stretched up and down for some reason regardless of the display mode I chose. Not only are controller glyphs missing even with that, but the default medium preset has it running at about 20fps often with some video playback issues. Turning things to low or off resulted in it running at about 5 or 10fps more, but still not great with how much it was fluctuating. It also didn’t help that the game seems to think I’m playing the trial when I own all the season passes and the base game on Steam. I’ll need to revisit this one later, but I’d skip this on Deck right now. Warriors All-Stars Warriors All-Stars is listed as Steam Deck Playable for not setting the display resolution by default and having a launcher that requires the touchscreen. It does not have Steam Cloud support. After setting Warriors All-Stars’ launcher to 720p, the game refused to display anything but a small dot on Proton Experimental and whatever I used. I realized fullscreen was the issue. Turning fullscreen off in the launcher fixed this. On the default settings, Warriors All-Stars runs at between 40 and 60fps. Playing at low resulted in a smooth 60fps. Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada is listed as Steam Deck Unsupported. Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada cannot get to a locked 60 regardless of the setting. In fact, even when using Proton GE to get improved performance, it hovers in the mid 30s. Other than the subpar performance at even low settings, Samurai Warriors: Spirit of Sanada runs fine on Steam Deck. This is fine if you want to play at 30fps. Berserk and the Band of the Hawk Berserk and the Band of the Hawk is listed as Steam Deck Unsupported. Just like Spirit of Sanada, I set Berserk and the Band of the Hawk to low, and while that had issues, this one plays fine at 60fps on my Steam Deck OLED in the early parts. The later stages get more chaotic and see drops, but this runs better than the PS4 version by a lot. I used Proton Experimental and disabled fullscreen. That’s basically all I had to do to get Berserk and the Band of the Hawk to run on Steam Deck. Arslan: The Warriors of Legend Arslan: The Warriors of Legend hasn’t been tested by Valve yet. Arslan: The Warriors of Legend has a launcher you navigate with a touchscreen. Beyond that it works fine on Steam Deck and with an external controller outside cut-scenes that displayed a color bar pattern by default. Playing with GE Proton 7-20 resulted in cut-scenes working, but there was no audio in them. I then tried GE 9-9 and had no luck with audio in cut-scenes. Barring the opening cut-scenes, the game seems to hover around 40fps. Not great and without cloud saves, it is hard to recommend on Steam Deck right now. Samurai Warriors 4-II Samurai Warriors 4-II is listed as Steam Deck Unsupported. Without changing any compatibility, Samurai Warriors 4-II doesn’t boot up on Steam Deck. I swapped to GE Proton 9-9 and then Experimental and still had no luck. Going back to Proton 7 had it finally load for me. Samurai Warriors 4-II does not have Steam Cloud support and it also only displays keyboard and mouse button prompts on Steam Deck. When it comes to performance and visuals, it looks good, but performance is erratic. Particle effects during combat tank the frame rate from 60 to the 30s often, and it has shader-related issues as far as I can tell. It can run at 60fps for parts of a battle, but it varies too much. Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires is Steam Deck Unsupported. Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires surprisingly has Steam Cloud support. I say surprisingly because this game is nearly 10 years old, and older Koei Tecmo ports were not good. Either way, after launching the config and disabling fullscreen, I had no trouble playing Dynasty Warriors 8 Empires on Steam Deck with no change to any settings. Performance in the battles I tested was also solid. The only issue is it displays keyboard and mouse button prompts. I couldn’t figure out how to make it display controller prompts as of this writing. DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition is Steam Deck Unsupported. After disabling fullscreen through the config launcher, DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition loads correctly with cut-scenes and audio playing as they should. DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition also displays only keyboard and mouse prompts for some reason. This one sadly does not have Steam Cloud support. If you do own a Nintendo Switch, I’d recommend playing it there despite the fact that DYNASTY WARRIORS 8: Xtreme Legends Complete Edition runs better on Steam Deck only because all the DLC included on Switch makes that a massively better value proposition right now. I used to play DYNASTY WARRIORS 8 on console, but moved to PC and have gone back to playing it on Switch to treat it as my main platform for that game. Bonus Persona 5 Strikers Persona 5 Strikers is currently Steam Deck Unsupported. Persona 5 Strikers is not a Musou/Warriors game, but it has elements from those games. The reason I’ve included it as a bonus is because it isn’t a traditional Warriors game, but I’ve had a lot of folks ask me about this one when I talk about Warriors games in recent years. On trying to boot it up for the first time, I thought my Steam Deck froze. I waited a whole minute and it was stuck on a black screen. I switched to using Proton GE (9-9) and Persona 5 Strikers finally booted up with cut-scenes and audio playing correctly. I had no issues testing different points of my old save from when I reviewed the game years ago on Steam Deck after that. One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 is currently Steam Deck Playable by Valve for not showing the correct button prompts on Deck. If you’re wondering why I’ve featured One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 and not 4 here, well the latter is region locked and I tried buying a Steam key for it, but that didn’t activate. I do own One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 so I may as well test that as I enjoyed it a lot on Nintendo Switch a few years ago and on PS Vita before. One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 does not have Steam Cloud support. It seems capped to 58 fps regardless of the settings I used. I also couldn’t find a way to get this to show controller prompts on Steam Deck. Just like Dynasty Warriors 8: Xtreme Legends, at this point you’re getting a better experience in One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 by playing on Switch despite the frame rate being variable on Nintendo’s hybrid system. Which is the best Musuo game to buy on Steam Deck? As of now there isn’t a single answer. My top three for Steam Deck are Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate Definitive Edition, Samurai Warriors 4 DX, and Samurai Warriors 5. The first two are cheaper and offer more value with DLC included, but I love coming back to Samurai Warriors 5, and having a great version on Steam Deck makes me not want to touch my Switch save anymore. Is the Steam Deck the best portable for Musou games? Well, yes and no. Almost all the multi-platform ones are best on Steam Deck compared to Switch, but there are three particular Nintendo collaboration games that are on Switch (and N3DS for one). Hyrule Warriors Definitive, Fire Emblem Warriors, and Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes are excellent Warriors/Musuo games that you can’t play on PC. Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity is a technical mess that I do not recommend. Hopefully it runs better on the Nintendo Switch successor whenever that launches. A combination of older Koei Tecmo ports being lacking, some Proton issues, and some features missing mean the PC versions of some of these games in general are not the best way to experience them. Since I own all the Musou/Warriors games from the PS4 and later on all platforms, I usually have a different platform I use for some of them. As an example, Samurai Warriors 4 was best on PS4, but the DX version on Steam Deck is now my favorite. Warriors Orochi 4, I’d play on PS5 or Xbox Series X, but I’ll play Warriors Orochi 3 on Steam Deck. I play Dynasty Warriors 8 and One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 on Switch for the good ports and massive value with all DLC included. Dynasty Warriors 9 I don’t really play anymore outside of listening to the music. Hopefully this helped any Musou fans who own a Steam Deck or are considering getting one to play these games. I can’t wait for Dynasty Warriors: Origins in 2025. The big takeaway for Musou fans who own a Steam Deck, is that you need to spend some time fixing some of the older ports to run well on Steam Deck.

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 19th, 2024. It’s the beginning of a new week, …

Continue reading "SwitchArcade Round-Up: Reviews Featuring ‘SteamWorld Heist II’, Plus the Latest Releases and Sales"

Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 19th, 2024. It’s the beginning of a new week, and we’re doing our usual Monday thing with a couple of reviews for you to enjoy. I’ve got my thoughts on SteamWorld Heist II and… one second, I need to take a sip of water first… That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Isekai Chronicles. After that, there’s a new release to have a quick gander at, and then the lists of new and expiring sales for the day. Let’s get to today’s business! Reviews & Mini-Views SteamWorld Heist II ($29.99) I’m in a weird zone with the SteamWorld series, I think. I initially missed the DSi Tower Defense game and when I went back to it I found it a bit too intense to enjoy. I loved SteamWorld Dig, and the original SteamWorld Heist was right up my alley. SteamWorld Dig 2 was a big step up from the first game in many ways, but I somehow liked it a little less. SteamWorld Quest was interesting, but didn’t quite come together for me. And SteamWorld Build was a decent game, but the Switch just wasn’t up to running it the way it needed. I think all of these games are of good quality, with a lot of polish and plenty of care put into the designs. But I will admit that the shine has come off of SteamWorld for me to an extent. So here we are with SteamWorld Heist II, which is the second time the developers have revisited a concept within the series. SteamWorld Dig 2 took a relatively simple game and built something far bigger from it, but SteamWorld Heist was already plenty big. And so instead of reinventing the wheel, what Thunderful has done here is to give us a new adventure with slightly refined mechanics and a few new twists. The ocean exploration is the biggest new feature, and it’s fine. A nice break from the turn-based combat, if nothing else. You also get a very in-depth job system, which is very satisfying to tinker with. With that said, all of this is no revolution by any means. I don’t see much space for someone to be blown away moving from the first game to the second as we saw with Dig. On the other hand, that means those who enjoyed what the first game offered can safely dive into this one. One of the big differences with this game comes via its theme, which sees you sailing the high seas battling Dieselbots instead of rocketing through space. Part of the fun of the SteamWorld series has been seeing how the setting gets fleshed out with each installment, and you’ll certainly get some of that here. The humor and writing is as good as ever, giving these ‘bots plenty of charm whether they’re on your team or an enemy you’re going to blast away and never see again. Hats? Yes, you can still shoot off hats and collect them. The side-view turn-based tactical RPG gameplay remains engaging, with the desire to find that perfect shot driving every turn. SteamWorld Heist II isn’t as novel as the first game, and it more or less keeps to what worked before. It can be a little difficult at times, and you’ll always have to be vigilant for gimmicks because some battles are fond of them. The job system is a treat for people who enjoy searching for broken combos, and the overworld exploration breaks up the action while helping to better establish the setting. If you enjoyed SteamWorld Heist and are ready for more of that gameplay, plus some more of that enjoyable SteamWorld lore, you’ll get what you’re looking for with this one. SwitchArcade Score: 4/5 That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Isekai Chronicles ($49.99) I really am not sure what to do with this one. I’m somewhat familiar with That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, at least in its manga form. I dropped off after a while because it was getting a little boring for me, but I stuck around long enough to know the premise and most of the main cast. So, familiar but perhaps not a fan. I don’t dislike it, mind you. I suppose the one thing I can say without doubt about this game is that it doesn’t run as well on the Switch as I’d like. There are some framerate shenanigans going on at times, and with how relatively simple this game looks that really shouldn’t be happening. Alright, let me lay out what you’ve got here. This game retells the story of the series from the start up to the battle against Falmuth, though it speeds through the early stuff. A couple of new game-specific stories have been added, and thankfully they are from the hand of the original author. The gameplay is broken into three styles. There are visual novel-style scenes, sometimes with some animation mixed in. Then, side-scrolling action. You get some basic combos and dodge/counter mechanics here. Nothing fancy, but it’s fun enough. Finally, a very basic city builder. You have to build up the Jura Tempest Federation, after all. It gives you an excuse to grind for materials, basically. And that grind is the key. The gameplay mechanics are a bit too thin to carry things here, and the battles get repetitive in a hurry. Nevertheless, you’ll have to engage in a lot of them. There are sub-quests to complete that can add a little extra spice, but you’ll fall into a loop very early on that never changes much. The fuel that keeps you going is the story, but if you’re familiar with this property you’ll already know most of it. You never really get the sense that you’re playing these stories, thanks to how limited the gameplay is. If you’re not a fan of the series, this is one way to get caught up to a certain point. I think it might be the worst way to digest this story for a first-timer, mind you. Well, this is a common problem with this kind of thing. I think in general, fans will enjoy it. Maybe that’s good enough. That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Isekai Chronicles is probably best enjoyed by those who love the property, but even they’ll find it a somewhat meager meal. The two new stories are interesting, and for a while it’s fun to see these characters in action and build up the Federation. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself never really expands out the way it needs to, so unless you’re in the mood for a whole lot of repetition you might find yourself getting bored fast. SwitchArcade Score: 3/5 Select New Releases Rack and Slay ($5.99) A roguelite dungeon crawler? Boring! Wait a minute… wait a dog-gone minute! Is that hero a… billiard ball?! Well that’s a horse of a completely different color! So yes, this is a game where you’re launching your ball hero at ball enemies to knock them into ball pockets. There are plenty of items to find, and a surprising number of modes to enjoy. A cute idea that works out fairly well in practice. Sales (North American eShop, US Prices) That outbox is very tiny. I like Super Lucky’s Tale a lot even now, though admittedly having an indie 3D platformer isn’t the novelty it once was. As for the new sales, nothing in the list is really speaking to me much. Not that there aren’t good games in there. Gynoug is a good shooter, Superhot is really fun, and Door Kickers has its charms. But all of these are on sale often, so it’s hard to drum up much excitement. Check the lists, do what you must. Select New Sales CounterAttack: Uprising ($4.49 from $14.99 until 8/23) Gunman Tales ($2.09 from $6.99 until 8/29) Within the Blade ($3.29 from $10.99 until 8/29) Gynoug ($3.49 from $6.99 until 8/29) Remote Life ($9.49 from $18.99 until 8/29) Vera Blanc: Supernatural Mysteries ($5.59 from $7.99 until 8/29) Cyber Citizen Shockman ($4.19 from $5.99 until 8/29) Gematombe ($4.49 from $14.99 until 8/29) Another Crab’s Treasure ($23.99 from $29.99 until 8/31) Neodori Forever ($1.99 from $4.99 until 9/3) Blade of Darkness ($2.75 from $14.99 until 9/3) Door Kickers ($1.99 from $11.99 until 9/3) What the Fork ($4.49 from $17.99 until 9/6) Superhot ($9.99 from $24.99 until 9/7) Dead in Vinland: True Viking ($2.79 from $27.99 until 9/7) Tchia: Oleti Edition ($23.44 from $34.99 until 9/8) Dormitory Love ($24.49 from $34.99 until 9/8) Dying Light: Definitive Edition ($9.99 from $49.99 until 9/8) Sales Ending Tomorrow, August 20th New Super Lucky’s Tale ($7.49 from $29.99 until 8/20) Road to Valhalla ($3.99 from $7.99 until 8/20) That’s all for today, friends. We’ll be back tomorrow with more new games, more sales, perhaps some reviews, and maybe even some news. I have to visit the doctor again and prepare for a family event in the evening, but we’ll get something together. I hope you all have a marvelous Monday, and as always, thanks for reading!

Back when I reviewed Ouros ($2.99) from Michael Kamm on Steam Deck, I enjoyed it a lot, but thought it …

Continue reading "‘Ouros’ Mobile Review – Relaxing Puzzle Brilliance"

Back when I reviewed Ouros ($2.99) from Michael Kamm on Steam Deck, I enjoyed it a lot, but thought it was better suited to playing on iOS since it was best with touch controls on Valve’s handheld. Fast forward to today, the spline-based puzzler about forming curves has hit mobile, and I’ve been enjoying replaying it on my iPhone and iPad. Even though this isn’t close to the same style of puzzler, it reminded me of the classic Osmos and its elegance when I started playing, and Ouros is one of the best mobile puzzlers of the year despite a few issues. Ouros has a very smart way of onboarding and introducing new mechanics. You begin with just the most-basic level of the first chapter where you are taught to drag an orb to move a curve on top of numbered objects. Your aim is to have the rotating orb on said curve follow a path in a specific order, and that’s where the puzzle aspect comes into the picture. How you interact with the orbs, the level changes, obstacles, and even the direction of movement change how you tackle the puzzles. Ouros isn’t a difficult game, but it does have some levels that had me wanting hints. Right now, Ouros ships with more than 120 puzzles, and I love that you don’t have to solve every single one to move forward. Some levels introduce mechanics that completely change up the game as well, but I love how it never loses sight of being an elegant and relaxing puzzle game even when the levels get a lot more complex later on with different path requirements and obstacles. There’s always the hint system, but it isn’t a direct answer for later levels with you still having to think about forming the curve correctly. The accessibility of Ouros isn’t just related to it being on the easier side when it comes to puzzle solutions or the hint system, but also in its controls. Ouros is a simple game about dragging orbs with responsive controls to correctly align different curves. You aren’t forced into any pixel perfection or to worry about timers. Think of this as a nice game to chill with when you have a few minutes to kill time and want to do something to keep your brain working. Visually, Ouros is very pleasing. I love the animation work, sped-up movement when you’ve solved a puzzle, and also the transitions between levels. Even situations where you make an error are accompanied by a delightful little animation. All of this is accompanied by very good performance on every iOS device I tested it on: iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 12, and iPad Pro (2020). I have almost no complaints with the iOS version, but the lack of iCloud save support is disappointing. If you plan on playing Ouros on iOS, stick to one device right now. Since I was testing it on both devices, I ended up liking it more on iPad than iPhone. It looks and runs great on both, but I enjoy these kinds of games more on the larger screen. I had the same feeling with World of Goo though that requires faster inputs. If you do have the option to play on both, I recommend doing the first three levels and seeing how you feel before settling on a specific device. I would also recommend it on iOS over Steam because these games are better off with full touch controls, and an iPad is more comfortable for a touchscreen game than Steam Deck. Aside from the lack of iCloud save sync, a few of the later puzzles hold Ouros back a bit, but there’s little wrong with this otherwise creative, elegant, and relaxing puzzle game. Given how it controls perfectly with touch controls, I didn’t bother using a controller. Ouros was already well worth the asking price on Steam earlier this year, and the lower price on mobile makes it an even easier recommendation. If you enjoy relaxing puzzle games, Ouros is an essential. I hope we see more from developer Michael Kamm in the puzzle space in the near future.

Backbone’s holiday lineup for 2023 included updated controllers for the iPhone 15 series and also the first Backbone One Carrying …

Continue reading "Backbone One Carrying Case Review – A Fancy and Excellent Case With One Flaw"

Backbone’s holiday lineup for 2023 included updated controllers for the iPhone 15 series and also the first Backbone One Carrying Case. Jared and myself have been using Backbone One controllers for a while now. I usually use both the Razer Kishi and Backbone One when testing any game, but have recently been mostly using the Backbone One for PlayStation Remote Play in and out of the house. I was curious about the Backbone One Carrying Case, so ordered one for myself a little while ago. Jared’s praise for it got me curious, and it is interesting enough to get me to do a short review of it to help any Backbone One controller owners decide if it is worth grabbing. While this review is based on the Backbone One Carrying Case PlayStation Edition, it will also apply to the regular version. The Backbone One Carrying Case looks premium and fancy, in fact it might be pushing it on those fronts, and that’s what got me to order the PlayStation version. I was curious to see how the outer material would feel, whether it would last in my backpack, and how it would handle being dropped or just being squished in my bag. So far, everything has been fine aside from one flaw that I touch on below. The white felt-style finish feels good in the hand, and it has somehow not gotten dirty despite being dropped a few times and being in my bag for over a month when I go out. The inner lining is also soft, and reminds me of the good quality iPhone cases. there isn’t much room for anything else aside from maybe earphones or a small charging cable inside the Backbone One Carrying Case. You could put the adapters that ship with the Backbone One controller inside the case if you’d like, but there isn’t any dedicated storage for them. Having some sort of pouch on the top would’ve been good to have. Now the main issue I have with the Backbone One Carrying Case is the zipper. Backbone calls this a low profile zipper that’s water resistant and easy to open and close. I actually worry that the zipper might get stuck almost every time I use it. It hasn’t happened so far, but it does not feel good to use. The materials are nice and the zipper itself is good to hold, but this aspect needs to be improved for a new model. I ended up checking with a few friends who also have the case and they all have the same issue with it. None of us have had issues with the zipper getting stuck, but it doesn’t feel good or easy to use as a zipper. Is the Backbone One Carrying Case overkill for a controller most people would just throw into their backpacks when going out? Likely. Is it worth $24.99? So far, yes. The Backbone One controller is usually $99.99 so this might seem like a lot at a fourth of the price, but I’m satisfied with it aside from the zipper not feeling great. I also love how the Backbone One Carrying Case PlayStation Edition looks and feels in-hand compared to other controller cases. It remains to be seen how this holds up after more months of use though. Backbone One Carrying Case review score: 4/5 You can buy the Backbone One Carrying Case here and the Backbone One Carrying Case PlayStation Edition here on Amazon for $24.99. If you buy the controllers or items listed and linked above through our links on Amazon, it helps TouchArcade in a small way.

Following its announcement a few weeks ago, the final major update for Dead Cells titled The End is Near, version …

Continue reading "Dead Cells’ Final Major Update 35 ‘The End Is Near’ Is Now Available on PC and Consoles, No Word on Mobile Yet"

Following its announcement a few weeks ago, the final major update for Dead Cells titled The End is Near, version 35, has launched on PC and consoles worldwide. The mobile version of this update will be arriving through Playdigious, but no release date has been announced yet. If you’ve not kept up with the game on iOS or Android, Dead Cells is one of the best games of the last decade across platforms, and it is available on mobile through a standalone release, Apple Arcade, and Netflix. The Dead Cells Clean Cut Update that hit PC and consoles back in April 2023 is still due to hit mobile later this year. Today’s big Update 35 patch notes for Dead Cells The End Is Near can be viewed here. The update focuses on the Curse mechanic with 3 new mobs, 3 new weapons, 3 new mutations, a new biome effect, 40+ new heads for customization, improvements for the Return to Castlevania DLC, and new accessibility options. Check out the key art for the update below: If you’ve not gotten Dead Cells yet somehow, read my 2023 review update here covering the Dead Cells Return to Castlevania DLC, patches, state of the game, and more. Dead Cells was our Game of the Year in 2019 when it hit iOS as a premium release done by Playdigious. With update 35, the game on PC and consoles has 4 DLC packs, 18 updates, and more across 5 years by Evil Empire and Motion Twin. You can play Dead Cells on iOS, Android, Netflix for mobile, Apple Arcade, Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, PS4, and PS5 worldwide. My current favorite versions are still the Steam and iOS releases when played on a Steam Deck OLED or iPhone 15 Pro with a controller. What do you think of Dead Cells if you play it regularly?

Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of …

Continue reading "Best iPhone Game Updates: ‘Disney Speedstom’, ‘Wuthering Waves’, ‘Gardenscapes’, ‘Squad Busters’, and More"

Hello everyone, and welcome to the week! It’s time once again for our look back at the noteworthy updates of the last seven days. I think this is the first article like this in a while where I don’t have at least one full-up paid game in the list. Sign of the times, or sign of Shaun not looking as hard as he could? Why not both? Of course, you can keep an eye out for updates yourself by participating in the TouchArcade forums. This weekly summary is just here to fill you in on the things you might have missed. Let’s go for it! Disney Speedstorm, Free Much like other Disney apps, Disney Speedstorm is slowly seeing its roster grow to include more of the many characters the company owns. This time it’s a Pirates of the Caribbean update, adding Captain Hector Barbossa, Davy Jones, Tia Dalma, and Will Turner to the game as playable racers. There’s also one new track: Arbee’s Short Circuit. Okay, look. I know who Arbee is in this game. But when I saw that name, all I could think of was a dreary roast beef sandwich that I always regretted after eating but still ordered again the next time anyway. At least the curly fries were good. Jetpack Joyride, Free It is Jetpack Joyride‘s anniversary again. Did you forget to buy flowers? I don’t want to know what Barry Steakfries’ dog house looks like. Anyway, a game that never misses an excuse to have an event isn’t going to let this pass without some to-do. Fly through the lab and make like JYD: grab them cakes! Collect enough of them and you’ll unlock some nifty anniversary-themed awards. Remember, kids: Jetpack Joyride is forever. Jetpack Joyride 2, But will Jetpack Joyride 2 be as eternal? Only time will tell. It’s certainly still kicking now, at least. There’s a new set of challenges available in the Challenge Mode, just where you would expect to find them. An anniversary celebration is afoot here as well, so that’s fun. Let’s see, what else. A new Wrestler skin, the Paint Bucket jetpack, and a new Robo Barry avatar. Since we’ve all been good children recently, there are also some bug fixes and performance improvements here as well. World of Tanks Blitzâ„¢, Free My gears are burning! No, that’s the name of the event: Burning Gears. It’s the wrap-up of Season 4: Anniversary, and it’s offering up plenty of cool rewards including vehicles and resources. Tanks aren’t usually good for covert ops, but you’ll be embarking on one somehow in the You Only Shoot Twice event that is incoming. If you’re lucky, you’ll get your hands on some Aerial Legendary camouflage for the AMX 13 90. There’s plenty more on tap, so check out the game itself for more details should you seek them. Gardenscapes, Free Ah, Gardenscapes is having an anniversary too. We’ve had a lot of fun over the years. Joking about Austin joining Smash, watching the game’s emotionally manipulative and frequently deceptive advertisements, and reviewing some ludicrous update notes. Let’s celebrate here by doing that last one again. In this update: buy a Golden Ticket to see Austin’s dancing, solve a kidnapping case, and defend a town from a gang of bandits because apparently this is Yojimbo now. Oh, and apparently there are now some ruins of an ancient city with a manuscript hidden inside. It grants wishes! What will all the characters wish for? Maybe enough coins to save that poor lady and her kid from freezing to death again? Solitaire Stories, MINERAL MAAAAYYYYYYHEMMMMMM! That doesn’t sound like the title of a story associated with solitaire, but here we are. We’re going bonkers for minerals. Which one is your favorite? I’m a soapstone guy, myself. How is the game going to pull drama out of this? You’ll have to play to find out. Also in this update: Go to Mars, play Rock-Paper-Scissors, and enjoy some geometry! This is a very weird update in terms of theme. I guess because school is starting up again? Well, get on it if you want it. Squad Busters, Free I’m afraid of no squad! Nevertheless, I am forced to call the Squad Busters for their turn at being featured in this article. Lava World is here, and if you guessed it would result in some spicy hot maps and mods, you guessed right. Three new characters are also joining: Archer, Miner, and Leon. Archer does archery, Miner mines, and Leon just Leons. You know, Leon things. There are a few new features here, mostly in the form of reward chicanery, plus some gameplay tweaks. I’ll let you dig in yourself if you want the finer details, though. Temple Run+, Temple Run+! The Apple Arcade one, not the normal one. No update for the normal one this time. We’re burning out the last weeks of summer here, but that won’t stop Temple Run+ from bringing back some Summer Challenges for you to take on. For a limited time only, Tamatoa is unlockable via completing challenges, so you’d best take this chance to add him to your team. That’s about it, but I suppose that’s enough for now. Good luck storming the castl… er, challenges! Wuthering Waves, Free Buddy, I hope you are ready to resonate, because Wuthering Waves certainly is. Two new five-star Resonators join the game: Zhezhi (Glacio, Rectifier), and Xiangli Yao (Electro, Gauntlets. There are two new five-star weapons that just happen to line up with these new characters, and some spiffy new events and stories to play. There are even some returning events lined up, which is odd because this game doesn’t feel quite old enough to be doing that kind of thing yet. Zenless Zone Zero, Free We’ll finish things off here. I’m aware no coveted prize has been award this week, but sometimes that happens. This update includes three new characters, two S-Rank and one A-Rank. You also get four new W-Engines, two each of S-Rank and A-Rank. A new Bangboo? A new Bangboo. Plenty of new stories and events to dig into as well, which I’m sure is the real meat many players are waiting for. That includes a new area, new enemies, and more. Lots of other little fixes, but I’ll do the usual and tell you to fire the game up if you want the full details. That about wraps it up for last week’s significant updates. I’m sure I’ve missed some, though, so please feel free to comment below and let everyone know if you think something should be mentioned. As usual, major updates will likely get their own news stories throughout this week, and I’ll be back next Monday to summarize and fill in the blanks. Have a great week!

Reviewing all the coolest, newest games for Xbox, Playstation, Switch & PC!

The first review for the upcoming Dragon Age: The Veilguard has appeared, and then hastily taken down since the embargo hasn't lifted.

A new Rayman game is coming, according to the Ubisoft.

A fantastic puzzle-solving adventure game featuring time-travel, swearing Angels and the destruction of Heaven at 6pm unless Cassiel and Death can find an artefact some powerful they named a game after it.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is officially coming to PC in a few months.

Charming, zany, funny and satisfying. 3 Minutes to Midnight is an excellent adventure game whether you want to play on PC or console.

We almost had a Halo Infinite battle royale mode, as confirmed by a developer who worked on it.

18 games are set to leave PlayStation's subscription service next month, so if you want to play them make sure you set aside some time.

Hogwarts Legacy might be getting some DLC in the near future.

It turns out Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number has been on sale illegally for a year in Australia. Oops.

Red Dead Redemption has finally been confirmed for PC.

Free Video Game Alpha & Beta Tests. The Worlds Biggest Beta Testing Site

Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is a 2.5D zombie survival game where you scavenge, craft and upgrade your bases as you attempt to escape a zombie-filled city.

The gameplay in Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days is a little like a 2.5D version of State of Decay. You have your survivors who you can give separate tasks (craft, repair defenses, sleep, etc), you … Read More

The post Into the Dead: Our Darkest Days – Pre-Alpha Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Rain Shadow is a surreal point and click horror adventure where a fisherman travels to a mysterious land with a hope of seeing his lost son again.

Drawing inspiration from Disco Elysium, the Rusty Lake games and the works of David Lynch, Rain Shadow is a point and click adventure that follows the story of a grieving father who wants to see his son … Read More

The post Rain Shadow – Alpha Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

White Knuckle is a very intense first person speed-climbing horror game where you attempt to climb a massive brutalist megatower while being pursued by a gloopy sea of bodies.

In White Knuckle you are trapped in the depths of Sub-Structure 17 – a massive randomly generated concrete facility that’s filled with deadly creatures and is filled up with a gloopy sea of bodies called “The … Read More

The post White Knuckle – Beta Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Beta sign ups are now live for Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap, the latest instalment of the popular third person trap defense series.

Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap is a third-person shooter and trap defense game that blends action-packed combat with strategic defense. In the game you will play as a powerful War Mage, defending the rift from hordes of grotesque orcs, either solo or with … Read More

The post Orcs Must Die! Deathtrap – Beta Sign Up first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Mistfall is a PvPvE third person extraction RPG where heroes with immortal bodies attempt to rekindle a world where the gods are dead.

The story of Mistfall takes place in the aftermath of an epic war between the gods that left the world in ruins and the deities deceased. The living turned to madness and their bodies warped into monstrous abominations. But now a mysterious … Read More

The post Mistfall – Beta Sign Up first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Satanic is a tense first person survival horror adventure where you attempt to reach the surface from the bottom of an ex-Soviet missile silo that’s home to a satanic cult.

In Satanic you find yourself trapped at the bottom of an old missile silo after investigating a missing person report. You now need to find a way out, but to do so you’ll need to … Read More

The post Satanic – Beta Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Sunken Veins is a resource management horror game where you find yourself stranded at the bottom of the ocean in a mining facility that’s being flooded.

In Sunken Veins disaster has struck the underwater mining facility you were working in and it’s been evacuated. However, your escape pod failed to launch so you’re going to have to find some other means of escape as you … Read More

The post Sunken Veins – Beta Sign Up first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Don’t! Fret is a first person psychological mascot horror game where you’re essentially one of the mascots – a talented young guitar whose tutors are trying to steal his talent.

In Don’t! Fret you are a guitar who is a student at Harmonic Heights – a musical school for musical instruments. However, it seems the professors have locked you up in there and are trying … Read More

The post Don’t! Fret – Beta Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Room2Room is a clever pseudo-augmented reality horror game where you playtest a handheld gaming console that creates games within your house.

In Room2Room you have been contracted to playtest a new handheld console that’s had a few teething problems – children have been going missing. You can travel between the various rooms in the house and if you activate the console it will create a … Read More

The post Room2Room – Beta Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Tales of Seikyu is a wholesome fantasy farming sim that takes place in a mystical realm filled with legendary yokai.

In Tales of Seikyu you are a newcomer to an island haven hidden from the human world called Seikyu. You and your sister Kon embark on a journey to restore a dilapidated farmhouse to its former glory, cultivating crops, raising livestock, and crafting unique recipes.… Read More

The post Tales of Seikyu – Beta Sign Up first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Emissary Zero is a weird co-op building management co-op horror game where you attempt to fix the equipment in a building in a city overrun with freaky anomalies.

Playable with 1 to 4 players (split-screen or online), in Emissary Zero you are part of a task force that’s sent to fix up a building in a monster-filled city. You need to explore, turn on the … Read More

The post Emissary Zero – Beta Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Legacy: Steel & Sorcery is a third-person action RPG where you’ll race against time to find lost treasures while fending off players and monsters in intense PvPvE battles.

In Legacy: Steel & Sorcery you’ll be able to go solo or team up with friends and venture out into a beautiful fantasy world in search of treasure. There are plenty of monsters to slay, but you’ll … Read More

The post Legacy: Steel & Sorcery – Beta Sign Up first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Turbo Dismount is back, with Turbo Dismount 2 a ridiculous physics-based racing sandbox that aims to elevate vehicular chaos and comedy to new heights (and pains).

A follow-up to the hugely successful 2014 original, Turbo Dismount 2 looks set to be a big step-up in all areas. It features multiple characters and vehicles, fully upgraded visuals, customizable levels, first person mode and an advanced replay … Read More

The post Turbo Dismount 2 – Beta Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.

Incantation is a linear narrative-driven first person horror adventure where you stumble across a cult while searching for your missing daughter in rural China.

An adaptation of the movie of the same name, in Incantation you are out searching for your missing daughter one day when you’re involved in a serious car crash. After coming to you discover a strange place called Chen Village – … Read More

The post Incantation – Beta Demo first appeared on Alpha Beta Gamer.