Life Is Strange 2 Is An Impressive Big Brother Simulator
Yesterday, the world got its first look at the new setting and characters of Life is Strange 2. While that initial trailer doesn’t look like too much of departure from what we’ve come to expect from the series, I was able to gleam several new details about the game during a theater presentation for the sequel, which does make some interesting alterations to the formula.
The most significant change Life is Strange 2 makes over its predecessor is that rather than see the outcomes of your decisions manifest in the people in and around Arcadia Bay (the setting of the first Life is Strange), you’ll be taking a road trip. Life is Strange 2 follows Shawn and Daniel Diaz, two brothers who’ve had to run away from home after a mysterious event occurs in their hometown of Seattle, Washington. Taking place three years after the events of the original Life is Strange, the Diaz brothers’ journey has them traveling from Seattle to Mexico, which means we’ll be seeing quite a bit of the American West Coast in Life is Strange 2.
Since many characters may not stick around as you make your way to Mexico, a huge part of the sequel will be the relationship between Shawn and Daniel, which acts as the lightning rod for decision-making this time around. As his older brother, Shawn is shaping what kind of person Daniel will become.
We saw two short snippets of gameplay during the presentation, taking place in different parts of the game. The first has Shawn and Daniel walking along the side of the road in the middle of a forest in the Pacific Northwest. One change that immediately stands out; running on Unreal Engine 4, the sequel looks markedly better than the original at first glance. The facial animation is also greatly improved, though I did still spot a couple of stiff interactions during our demo.
As the two head down road, Daniel spots a car with its window partially rolled down, and with a Choco Crisp bar on the dashboard. They’re his favorite, and Shawn is left to choose to leave the bar alone or take it as a snack for later. In our demo, Shawn chooses the latter. While it doesn’t have any immediate consequences, we’re told our decision to casually nab candy from an unknown stranger could alter how Daniel behaves down the road.
Not every choice you make is major, however; when Shawn spots a trail blaze indicating a path to the campgrounds, he chooses to teach Daniel about trail blazers. And when Daniel later sees a sign telling the residents of the campgrounds to beware of animals, Shawn chooses to play into that fear rather than assuage his concerns. There’s also a bit of natural conversation along the way; as the two approach the campgrounds, the brothers indulge a Lord of the Rings metaphor for their journey, though they have a quick spat over whether Shawn is Aragorn or Sam in this case (Daniel, of course, is Frodo).
As the two approach a bench at the camp grounds, they begin the contemplate their current situation along with the view (Daniel, who is only nine years old, has never seen the bed of a lake at this angle). While it’s clear the two have left home due to an incident, I begin to suspect Daniel isn’t aware as to what’s going as Shawn is. Daniel knows the reason they left home involves an interaction with a police officer, but when he mentions the brothers’ father, Shawn cuts off the conversation. As the scene pans up and cuts to black to the tune of a melancholy guitar-centric melody, we’re told Jonathan Morali, the composer for the original game, is back for the sequel.
The second scene we see moves us back in time a bit (structurally, not literally), to what we’re told is a truncated version of the game’s opening. Shawn and his friend Lyla mull over how to best text Shawn’s crush, Jenn, as the two prepare for a party going on later that night. Here a few of the quirks from the series re-emerge; while I saw several instances of improved facial acting, a few scenes still felt a little stiff in terms of animation. The dialogue seems much better localized, however, even if the voice acting I heard felt a bit spotty at times. These are teenagers, though, so when Shawn begins to display his interest in Jenn and Lyla replies: “Oh my god, you thirsty b----!” it’s hard not to think it’s what what an actual teenager might say.
After Shawn gets home, we quick meet up with his dad in the garage. Creating diverse characters can be difficult, but Shawn's father stands out as a good representation of someone with a Latino background. He has a noticeable accent, but it isn't so thick as to be tropey, and with the exception of one affectionate use of "Papito" to describe himself when Shawn for a hug, he doesn't interject Spanish into every sentence he can, which is often a crutch for writers trying to make a character "sound" Latino. I don't see too much of myself in him, but as a Latino I grew up around people like him, and I was glad to see him represented in a positive light.
Kids not getting along with their parents has been a running theme in Life is Strange, but Shawn’s dad seems incredibly supportive from what I've seen. He encourages Shawn to find a way to apply himself in school, though Shawn isn’t sure about which field to apply himself to. Knowing he’ll have to ask sooner or later, Shawn asks his dad for some money so he can stock up on supplies for the party. When his dad inquires about whether or not the money will be used for beer, Shawn decides to be honest, which happens to pay off; happy his son isn’t keeping anything from him (and for doing a great job on the lawn earlier in the day), he decides to give him a whopping $40 after a quick warning telling him that he doesn’t want Shawn entering any cars that night.
After a quick visit to Daniel’s room during which he tells us he’s working on secret project, we head to our room to video chat with Lyla. As we prepare our approach on Jenn later this evening (during which, in another bit of quirk writing, Lyla refers to his mother as “The Momster”), Daniel barges in to reveal his secret project; he’s figured out how to make fake blood for corn syrup and food coloring, which goes great with his new zombie mask. After Shawn brushes him off, the two continue their chat, only to be interrupted again when Shawn notices something going on outside and bolts out of the room.
Daniel, pretending to be a zombie, has bumped into an overly-aggressive Brett, getting fake blood smeared on his shirt. When given the choice to back his brother up or begin to question him, Shawn chooses the latter, laying into him about his haphazard wandering. Brett, however, insists on goading Shawn as well, poking him about his absent mother. This prompts Shawn to turn heel and fight Brett. The fight is quick and doesn’t end well: Brett ends up falling on a sharp rock, and he begins to slowly writhe as Shawn and Daniel realize something has gone horribly wrong.
A nearby police officer arrives on the scene, and nervously begins to shout at Shawn and Daniel to lie on the ground. When the brothers’ dad appears to de-escalate the situation, things to continue to spiral out of control. A flurry of shouting, nervous voices, and one gunshot later, and Shawn’s dad is dead.
The scene quickly cuts out and flashes forward. Something else has happened, and now the officer is lying on the ground as well. His squad vehicle is overturned, too, hinting that Shawn might have some sort of supernatural ability similar to Max’s ability to rewind time in the first Life is Strange. As the police arrive on the scene, Shawn and and barely-conscious Daniel depart, revealing the reason why Shawn was so adamant about cutting off the conversation about their father in the initial scene.
These two scenes are only a small part of Life is Strange 2, and many of the most powerful questions about the game can only be answered once we have our hands on the full game come late September. How impactful will all these choices be? If Shawn does indeed have some sort of power, will it tie in gameplay at some point? But even with all these unanswered questions, the improved writing expertly explored bond between two brothers, and the increased nuances with which the two scenes handled most characters shows that the team at Dontnod isn’t just resting on the success of the first Life is Strange, but is actively looking to expand the series’ reach and further improve its reputation as team full of ideas about what kinds of stories video games can handle.
Asssassin’s Creed has always found itself at the nexus of science and historical fiction, trying to marry the idea of machines and genetics to what-if scenarios from recorded human history. Ubisoft's grip on historical accuracy has loosened game by game, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey seems to be seizing the fantastical with both hands.
This series has had brief flirtations and full-on entanglements with the First Civilization (also known as the Precursor Race or the Isu). This highly intelligent race created humans as a potential workforce and eventually lost control over them, leading to their own decline. With Assassin’s Creed Odyssey becoming the earliest game in the series, ahead of even the creation of the Assassin Brotherhood, it seems like the Isu still have some influence on the world before Origins.
Ubisoft provided us a new gameplay demo of Odyssey showing a fairly late-game mission on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea. Our assassin, who could be either Alexios or Kassandra (we chose Kassandra), comes across a group attempting to lynch a young woman. The person at the center of it all, Bryce, is accused of being a worshipper of a dangerous forest creature named the Writhing Dread and sacrificing her girlfriend Ligeia to the monster. Bryce emphatically denies this, but the mob will hear none of it, and Kassandra’s decision to aid her leads to killing the group in Bryce’s defense.
Bryce leads Kassandra to the dread ruins, where she was to meet her lover Ligeia earlier. Ligeia’s tribe is called the Daughters of Artemis, a community of female hunters that trained in the petrified temple long ago, and believed it held a sacred artifact. Bryce arrived later to their meeting in order to bring her girlfriend a rose, only to find Ligeia missing and presumably inside the temple. According to Bryce, the Daughters of Artemis held on to a key for the temple in their village, which she tasked Kassandra to bring back. She also mentioned that a mercenary had claimed to kill the creature before and could possibly provide tips.
After getting the key, and worrying about the lack of time, we warped to the temple and opened it up. Bryce ran ahead as Kassandra followed the path of human statues, foreshadowing a confrontation with the stone-eyed Mesuda herself. There was no mask, no Scooby Doo-like exposure of a ne'er-do-well in a costume, the mythological creature herself stood in front of Kassandra aiming her deadly gaze.
You can check out some of the quest below.
This is the interesting path that Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has taken. Unlike previous installments that lean into pseudo-scientific explanations for seemingly magical events, the fantastical and chimeric is old hat in Odyssey, perhaps even passé. No one questions whether the myths of the past are true or judges you for pursuing a lead that ends at the doorstep of a snake-haired Medusa. They judge you because those things are evil and anyone tinged by their association is beyond saving at best. They are known quantities in this world and that’s so absurd that it honestly feels fresh.
Jonathan Dumont explained that you can’t really do ancient Greece without embracing the mythology, and research was especially done into the adventures of Heracles, more commonly known in the west as the Roman Hercules, to pull monsters and misfits from the mythology.
“It is part of the fabric of Greece, what they believed in,” Dumont explained. “It’s their interpretations of their gods and their mythology. We felt if we didn’t include it, it would have been a little bit weird. If there’s a time period where it’s much more of a mix of myths and history, it is ancient Greece."
Assassin’s Creed Origins, the previous title starring the Brotherhood founder Bayek in ancient Egypt, featured some degree of fantasy from the otherwise grounded story – especially in the DLC. Odyssey is taking this a step further by integrating this level of fantasy into its main campaign, not just DLC and spin-offs that can be explained away as non-canon.
Ubisoft is not eager to explain how Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has actual myths and monsters when no further games make note of them, but did offer a few hints. While giving his presentation, Dumont commented that the First Civilization’s proximity to this time period might have some effects. Considering that they created humans for personal use, it is possible that the Isu were experimenting with the creation of other creatures, as well.
Later, Dumont even hinted it might just be a glitch in the Animus.
“With the first civilization side of things, we’re going to do a bit more of a dive into that and how it links to [the mythology],” Dumont told us. “Is it a simulation within a simulation? You’ll discover that when you play it. It is tied to artifacts, it is tied to the first civilization, and you do wield an artifact as a weapon. So we really wanted to embrace that for our game because it is a big part of our franchise.”
While the game fully incorporates the mythology, it is still at its heart a story about humans and their own willingness to kill each other. The introduction of giant wolves does not change that man’s greatest enemy is still man, and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey still keeps its grip on that subject matter. The game is still more Assassin’s Creed than The Witcher, even if the occasional boss turns you to stone with her gaze.
For more on Assassin's Creed Odyssey, click the banner below to visit our coverage hub.
By virtue of having Amazon Prime, a lot of Twitch members have Twitch Prime as well, a natural conclusion with Twitch's parent company being the massive online retailer and all. One of the benefits of Twitch Prime had, since its initial introduction, been the ability to avoid ads while still contributing monetarily to the service and streamers. In an announcement today, Twitch has revealed plans to remove that particular benefit of Twitch Prime.
"As we have continued to add value to Twitch Prime, we have also re-evaluated some of the existing Twitch Prime benefits," the Twitch blog post reads. "As a result, universal ad-free viewing will no longer be part of Twitch Prime for new members, starting on September 14."
The decision, Twitch says, came down to supporting streamers, which the blog post explains can now "strengthen and expand" their advertising opportunities without a large number of Twitch Prime subscribers choosing to opt out of advertisements. The reasoning is decidedly strange, as Twitch had previously made it clear to broadcasters that, even though Twitch Prime subscriptions were not seeing the ads, the streamers were still getting revenue for them. Twitch removed that wording and information from their FAQ today ahead of the announcement, but an archived version can be found here.
Twitch subscribers looking for ad-free experiences can still subscribe to Twitch Turbo, which is separate and distinct from Amazon Prime. Twitch Prime users can also still lose ads by subscribing to a channel that allows advertising-free viewing for subscribers.
During Nvidia's Gamescom talk today, the GPU company showed a trailer for Shadows of the Tomb Raider, the upcoming Lara Croft adventure being developed by Deus Ex developer Eidos Montreal. The trailer focused on all the technology Shadow of the Tomb Raider would leverage to make this Lara's best looking adventure yet.
Check out the PC technology trailer below.
As the trailer indicates, Shadow of the Tomb Raider on PC will support real-time ray traced shadows, HBAO+ ambient occlusion, tessellation, HDR, and more.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on September 14. You can read about the game's clever and modular difficulty system here and the process of evolving Lara Croft here.
If you own an Xbox One and have been looking for a competitive FPS to play around with for a week, Blizzard has you covered. From now until August 27, you can play Overwatch for free on the Xbox One.
Starting this Thursday, show off your heroic chops—Overwatch will be free to play through August 27: https://t.co/CpP7HG2MSX pic.twitter.com/tAuWwWAebD
— Xbox (@Xbox) August 20, 2018Microsoft refers to this as a free weekend, which is technically true as it does encompass the weekend, just also a lot more. You do still need an Xbox Gold subscription to play, but if you're trying to kill some time or haven't tried Overwatch, the newcomer Wrecking Ball has just been introduced. Might as well take him for a spin.
Additionally, Blizzard has announced that the next Overwatch animated short will arrive on Wednesday, August 22. The last short, Honor and Glory, gave us the backstory on Reindhart and also introduced Brigitte before she was was announced as a character in the game. Previous shorts have shown the research scientist days of Mei, the battle-weary days of Bastion, and more.
Overwatch is currently available on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
The wait for Valkyria Chronicles 4 is not too long now, but the larger wait for a new console Valkyria title has lasted a decade. It stands to reason that in those ten years, war might have changed a little, and this new trailer is eager to show you exactly how.
The New Features trailer shows how to command your army and request backup from offshore cannons to bombard your enemy with explosions or inspire dying soldiers to keep it together for just a bit longer.
As the trailer indicates, there's a few new commands and wrinkles to the game this entry to make battles a bit more varied and to bail you out when the unexpected happens. Valkyria Chronicles 4 releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC on September 25.
Gears for Breakfast has released a new video about their 3D platformer A Hat in Time, which is filled to the brim with news, including for new DLC, new modes, and a Nintendo Switch version.
The trailer, which you can see below, announces a brand new DLC expansion for the game titled Seal the Deal. There's also new time rifts introduced to the game, and a "Nostalgia Badge," which filters the game to look like a N64 platformer. If you're a fan of visual filters, you will enjoy the new ones added to the game's photo mode.
As mentioned before, the trailer also mentions a new split-screen co-op mode, as well, and finally announces the Switch version. A Switch port has been denied multiple times since the game's release last year by the developers, but it appears they have finally acquiesced to Switch fans hoping for a release. It is only listed as the "near future," however.
Seal the Deal and the co-op mode are coming to the PC version on September 13, with Seal the Deal being free to players who download it on launch day and $4.99 ever after. A Hat in Time is currently available for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
KOEI Tecmo and Team Ninja have released a new gameplay video of Dead or Alive 6, showing Hitomi and Leifang together on a pirate ship complete with a Kraken hiding beneath the surface.
The new trailer shows both characters, who were treasure hunters in the previous Dead or Alive game, likely continuing their newfound occupation in a gold-filled ship. One of the stage hazards appears to be a Kraken tentacle reaching out and slamming your opponent into the bowels of the ship.
Hitomi was introduced in Dead or Alive 3 in 2001, while Leifang has been a mainstay of the series since the very first game in 1996. The two returning characters follow up an already-introduced roster that includes Kasumi, Ryu, Jann Lee, and newcomer Diego.
Dead or Alive 6 releases on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in 2019.
While Life is Strange 2 has been long anticipated, developer Dontnod Entertainment and publisher Square Enix have been quiet about the game. At E3 this year, they released a prequel chapter about a little boy, his imagination, and an alcoholic father which we ended up really digging. Since the free chapter's release, Dontnod has been pretty cagey about Life is Strange 2, but we've finally gotten a reveal trailer.
From the reveal trailer, it seems like the first episode at least follows two bothers on their own in the pacific northwest. While the two wander the wilderness, they come across a police officer who has brandished his gun. Something followed that may or may not involve superpowers and the cop's car takes a tumble.
The first episode of Life is Strange 2 releases on September 27 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Naval combat is one of many ways you can flex your muscle as a mercenary in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. However, if you are a player who especially loves this facet of life in ancient Greece, you may want to test yourself beyond the typical high-seas encounters. The team at Ubisoft Quebec has a solution for that: Alpha Ships. These are vessels scattered throughout the world that will put your naval combat prowess to the ultimate test – and yield commensurate rewards.
“When an Alpha Ship is defeated, the player gains the Alpha Ships’ customization options for their own ship,” game director Scott Phillips says. “So, they can now have the same hull and sails pattern as the Alpha Ship they defeated. Players also gain a lot of regular resources as well as some rare resources and epic chests.” So, if you like the look of the Porphyrion (pictured above) or the Theia (pictured below), you can apply their visual style to your own ship if you defeat them. Of course, that is easier said than done.
Alpha Ships are triremes and heavy triremes that present unique challenges for players who have invested in naval combat. Odyssey has at least 12 of them, and they often demand specialized strategies. The Pophyrion and Theia, for example, lean heavily on a few powerful attacks. “They only use fire arrows and fire javelins and make use of their huge size to cause massive damage with ramming,” Phillips says. “Also, the heavy trireme Alpha Ships have a fire barrier attack where they create a wall of fire in the water making them a challenge to reach.”
In addition to those attacks, other factors can complicate these battles. Maybe nearby Athenian and Spartan ships prevent you from focusing on a one-on-one fight. Nearby land masses might make positioning difficult. Also, the dynamic weather system in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey means you might also have to contend with storms during these encounters.
Ultimately, your victory depends on a few factors. The upgrades on your ship are obviously crucial, but maneuverability also plays a key role. “Since the players’ ship is very agile, it can be easier to ram and escape, making ramming a more effective tactic than in the past,” Phillips says. “Drifting to avoid attacks and boosting to escape or adjust your tactics provides space during the conflict, so proper ship maneuvering is quite important in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.”
You can encounter Alpha Ships all over the world, from remote corners of the sea to hard-to-miss locations between islands. And while they are intended to be challenging, the expectation isn’t that you need to wait until post-game before engaging any of them. “There are Alpha Ships available starting at level 12 and going all the way to level 50 – the top level of the game,” Phillips says. “So, players can challenge themselves at any moment with one of these battles.”
For everything Alpha Ships offer, they aren’t the only high-end challenges players can undertake. If you don’t care for naval combat, the team still has tough foes to test yourself against. “On land, the most prominent one is the Legendary Animal Hunt,” says Phillips. “These are enraged beasts spread across the entire world at various levels with their own custom combat behaviors to create unique challenges. There are quests based around each of them and legendary rewards for completing the entire hunt.”
Whether you’re fighting on land or sea, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey aims to give players a variety of goals at every stage of the game. For more on the many systems and activities in the game, check out our coverage hub full of exclusive features by clicking on the banner below.
No game is perfect, but some games are more less-perfect than others. Madden 19 is out, and users are complaining of a variety of bugs – many of which are hilarious.
I recently reviewed the game, and while I'd see the random oddity here and there like a fumble of errors or a ball launch sky high, they weren't replicable or rampant. However, the community has found some doozies that should be in the running for our annual Glitchie Awards.
THEORETICAL PHYSICS
NHL series developer EA Vancouver is giving the franchise mode scouting system a much-needed overhaul, and we've got all the details. Check them out here.
Codemasters' F1 titles haven't always been great, but the developer has gone all out into this year's career mode, giving players lots of decisions to make regarding the direction of their organization, but still making those choices engaging and not overwhelming. Read about all what's going on on and off the track in my review.
According to a report from IGN, GungHo has announced that the first two Grandia games are getting HD remasters for the Nintendo Switch. In addition, the first Grandia title will be joining Grandia II on PC, where it has been since 2015.
The RPGs were developed by the studio Game Arts, which is known for games like Silpheed, Lunar, and even Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii. Grandia itself has been passed from multiple publishers like Square Enix, Hudson, Ubisoft, and more. It has most recently landed with GungHo, parent company of Grasshopper Manufacture.
Grandia II HD will have a demo playable at PAX West at the end of this month.
[Source: IGN]
Underworld Ascendant, a spiritual sequel to the pioneer of first-person games Ultima Underworld, has been anticipated since it was first announced. The developers Otherside Entertainment promised a totally freeform RPG letting players figure out their own ways of getting through puzzles and we definitely put that idea to the test when we played it earlier this year. Thankfully, everyone else can test it themselves when it releases on November 15 on PC.
Underworld Ascendant puts players back into the Stygian Abyss, an area first introduced in Ultima Underworld, to explore, exploit, and conquer. Players grow through their experience by climbing a multi-branched skill tree and completing quests within the dungeon's darkest corners.
You can check out the Gamescom trailer below.
You can read our interview with veteran developer Paul Neurath here where he discusses how the game builds on the immersive sim legacy.
Underworld Ascendant releases on PC on November 15. The game comes courtesy of Otherside Entertainment, which is also working on the System Shock Remake that recently got delayed.
When 4A Games announced the Metro series was leaving the underground for the wide-open spaces of post-apocalyptic Russia, many fans worried the game could lose some of its suffocating vibe and tense moments of horror. The Gamescom 2018 trailer indicates those worries could be unfounded.
The latest look at the game journeys further into the countryside than we had seen previously, showing off more diverse settings and seasons. The eerie lighting, freaky looking mutated animals, and startling number of corpses hanging from poles or pinned to walls shows that 4A Games hasn't turned its back on the vibe that got the series this far.
Metro Exodus is slated to come out February 22 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. To learn an absurd amount about the promising game, head over to our cover story hub from earlier in the year.
Activision has announced that the recently announced new game from prestige developer FROM Software will be arriving on March 22 next year.
The new game is the first completely directed by FROM president Hidetaka Miyazaki since Bloodborne on the PlayStation 4 released in early 2015, having only taken a co-directing role on 2016's Dark Souls III. The ninja-action game contains some DNA from the Souls genre that FROM pioneered, but is mostly its own new thing.
In addition to the normal retail edition, a Collector's Edition has also been announced for the game. The Collector's Edition contains:
• Full Game
• 7” Shinobi Statue
• SteelBook
• Collectible Artbook
• Map
• Digital Soundtrack
• Replica Game Coins
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice releases on March 22 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Battlefield is returning to the war that started it all for the series, and come early September you can get your boots on the ground.
Today EA announced the open beta starts September 4 for those who pre-ordered and EA Access, Origin Access, and Origin Access Premier subscribers. The wider public can join the fray on September 6 on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The beta features two maps – the Arctic Fjord and Rotterdam. Conquest is playable on both maps, and Arctic Fjord also features the same a limited taste of the new Grand Operations mode that we experienced in the alpha. You can pre-load the beta on September 3.
The Battlefield V Play First trial begins October 11 on Xbox One and PC. Players who buy the deluxe edition can join the fray on October 16, and the standard edition launches on October 19 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. To learn more about Battlefield V, check out our rundown of new features and our hands-on impressions from E3.
Bloodstained, a Kickstarted game from former Castlevania head Koji Igarashi, will not be releasing until 2019, Igarashi as announced. Additionally, the game will not be releasing on the PlayStation Vita as originally planned.
While the target date for the game was 2017, it slipped to 2018 after original developers Inti-Creates were taken off the project. Inti-Creates still continued work on the NES-styled prequel Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon, while Igarashi's employer ArtPlay continued developing the title. Today the game was officially delayed to 2019, confirming suspicions that it would not make it out this year.
When the Kickstarter campaign was launched, Igarashi included Wii U and Vita stretch goals, despite neither system supporting Bloodstained's use of Unreal Engine 4. ArtPlay contracted Armature studio, former Retro Studios developers that made games like Arkham Origins: Blackgate and Recore, to port Unreal Engine 4 to the two older systems and thus allow the game to work there. The Wii U version was cancelled in favor of the Switch last year, but the Vita port remained at the time.
Igarashi reasoned that development on the Vita version no longer made sense, especially since Sony was discontinuing the portable system. As such, Vita backers can receive a refund or switch their choice to another one of the game's versions.
The game was crowdfunded in May 2015 a little while after Igarashi left Konami. It is currently releasing on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC.
If you like grand strategy games, your platform of choice has always been limited to PCs. Outside of a few games like Civilization Revolution, the genre has been dramatically underrepresented on consoles. Paradox Interactive has plans to test these uncharted waters by migrating its space exploration strategy game Stellaris to PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Stellaris: Console Edition promises to bring the full PC experience to the new platforms courtesy of developer Tantalus Media. Both the standard and deluxe editions (the latter of which includes the Plantoids Species Pack, plus the upcoming Leviathans Story Pack and Utopia Expansion) are built off version 1.7, and Paradox promises to support the game with new DLC moving forward.
Stellaris: Console Edition currently has no release date. You can read our review of the PC game here.
THQ Nordic and developer Gunfire Games released a new trailer for Darksiders III this morning, and while it's mostly a series of impressive action sequences and monster showcases, you also learn a little bit about the game's story. Protagonist Fury is up against against difficult odds in the third game, and it also looks like she will be spending some time with War and Death, the protagonists from Darksiders and Darksiders II respectively.
Darksiders III is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 27.
For more on Darksiders III, head here for our hands-on impressions and here to listen to a piece of music from the game by composer Cris Velasco.
Just Cause hero Rico Rodriguez is no stranger to danger – we're talking about a guy who will throw himself from a plane at 10,000 feet and use his grappling hook to grab onto another vehicle in midair. In Just Cause 4, the maniac thrill seeker throws himself into the eye of a tornado.
Avalanche Studio's new Apex engine is on full display here, as the tornado rips through buildings and sends their remains flying in every direction. Meanwhile, Rico follows along in a vehicle built specifically for storm chasing. Why is he following the tornado, exactly? Who cares. It looks badass.
Just Cause 4 is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on December 4. To learn more about the game, you can read Javy's hands-on impressions from E3.
If you never got a chance to play through the episodic Hitman reboot, you may want to hold off on buying it. Today, IO Interactive announced plans to incorporate enhanced versions of these missions into the upcoming Hitman 2 as a part of its World of Assassination initiative.
Coming as a part of the Hitman Legacy Pack, this downloadable content drop includes all six locations from season one – Bangkok, Colorado, Hokkaido, Marrakesh, Paris, and Sapienza. But rather than just port them over as-is, IO is giving them the full Hitman 2 treatment, with enhanced visuals, improved stealth and combat, plus some new toys like a briefcase for smuggling in sniper rifles and flash grenades.
IO plans to have all the new Hitman games and missions fold into World of Assassination moving forward, making it your one-stop shop for hit jobs. If you already own Hitman season one, you don't need to re-purchase the content – you immediately gain access to the missions with all their new bells and whistles.
Hitman 2 comes out for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on November 13.
Cyberpunk 2077 was the talk of E3 2018, and it's updating for a new showing at the Gamescom conference.
A tweet by the game's official account says as much, and while we don't know exactly what developer CD Projekt Red is showing, perhaps it'll be at the Microsoft press conference (which we'll cover tomorrow), just like it was at E3.
New system update available: gamescom version 2.18
> System update available
> Update: Y/N
> Updating, please wait…
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Welcome to gamescom v. 2.18!
Next update scheduled for Tuesday, August 21st.#Cyberpunk2077 #Gamescom2018 pic.twitter.com/CLAfwYu24T
[Source: CD Projekt Red]
Ahead of Gamescom in Germany, Nintendo released an indie roundup focusing on some of the titles coming to the Switch.
The video includes a wide range of indie titles, some making their Switch debut like This War of Mine and Prison Architect, while others like Monster Bioy and the Cursed Kingdom (above) now have a release date (it's coming November 6).
You can read more about some of these games – like Children of Morta – in our Best Indie Games of GDC 2018.
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