The Artful Escape developers Beethoven & Dinosaur are following up their musical platformer with another soundtrack-driven narrative game. Mixtape draws on the classic tropes of coming-of-age teen flicks, adds striking stop motion-style visuals and completes the package with a soundtrack that would feel right at home in a John Hughes movie.
]]>The rumours of a new Gears of War appearing at today’s Xbox Games Showcase were accurate - well, mostly. The next Gears of War won’t be a sequel like Gears of War 6, but instead looks to be a prequel to the entire series that returns to the very beginning of the bloody battle between humanity and the alien Locust.
]]>Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, Indy’s upcoming FPS adventure game, has a new ‘Official Showcase Reveal’ trailer, officially showcasing and revealing basically nothing about the game except that it features some pretty and decently acted cutscenes, which we already knew from the previous reveal. It does have snow nazis in however, possibly the rarest flavour of Nazi after Cookies n’ Cream and Original. You’ll find the trailer below. Be careful: it’s official. Also, it’s mainly just one very long cutscene, so if you want to save that stuff for when the game’s out, maybe don’t bother.
]]>Max Caulfield is back! The time-bending protagonist of the first Life is Strange is returning in a new entry in the series, Life is Strange: Double Exposure. It’s out this October.
]]>The Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater remake - aka Metal Gear Solid Delta - resurfaced during tonight’s Xbox Games Showcase. We still don’t have a release date, despite signs we might see the remake of the 2004 game this year, but we did get a pretty good look at a bunch of key moments from the original remade in the shiny Unreal Engine 5 do-over - including a look at The Boss and the familiar gravelly tones of Snake actor David Hayter.
]]>When Avowed was announced three years ago, the comparisons to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim were everywhere and inevitable. Skip forward three years to its latest gameplay trailer at this year's Xbox Games Showcase, and Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart has confirmed the game was initially supposed to be the studio's attempt at making their own version of Skyrim.
]]>Let me tell you, being at an Xbox Games Showcase in-person is quite the experience. I'd got my pass, got seated in the theatre and finally had a chance to take in my surroundings. There were lots of folks, obviously, either excitedly chatting or awkwardly swivelling their legs to let people pass. Many wore Xbox jerseys. One man had an Xbox logo shaved into his head. A photographer asked our section to smile, so I managed the pained grin of a British person who encounters a stranger on a walk, the bunching of my cheeks pulling my lips into a curl. Meanwhile, those dressed in their Microsoft jerseys crossed their forearms and hollered.
The countdown flashed up on screen and the crowd started chanting, "five, four, three!", and for a second it felt like I was the only one who hadn't supped from a bowl of green liquid or beat my chest to the rhythm of "Play it day one on Xbox Game Pass". The crowd was on another plane of existence and, for brief moments, I was there with them. At other times I felt the physical fatigue of the trailer train more acutely than ever.
]]>One big mystery in tonight's Xbox Games Showcase was the announcement of Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess, a new game from Capcom. It's some sort of action game seemingly steeped in Japanese mythology and it has monsters and an awful lot of masks and that's about all we can say for certain right now. But it is very pretty! It looks neat! See for yourself in the trailer below.
]]>I'd rather just saunter around space looking at pretty planets in Starfield, but I guess in a game as big as Bethesda's sci-fi behemoth they want fighty fighty spaceship battles. During the Starfield Direct that ran just after tonight's Xbox Game Showcase, the folks over at Bethesda explained just how ship combat works, and it's more than just holding down the trigger and aiming in the right direction.
]]>Of the many Starfield elements deep-dove into during the Xbox Games Showcase's Starfield Direct, the ship building was one that we’d previously seen a decent amount of. Yet it also cemented, in quite gleeful fashion, the design tool’s potential as a foundry for some truly wretched space boats. Just, awful. Consider my interest renewed as a result.
]]>Atlus have become a Persona factory in recent years, producing not only the mainline urban fantasy RPGs but spin-offs like Persona 5 Strikers and the recently announced Persona 5 Tactica. Thankfully they're working on something entirely new, too.
During tonight's Xbox Games Showcase, Atlus announced Metaphor: ReFantazio, a new "high fantasy" RPG from Persona 5's director and character designer.
]]>Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty got a new trailer and release date earlier this evening. Developers CD Projekt Red then followed up by sharing the expansion's system requirements, which includes a GeForce GTX1060 6GB or Radeon RX 580 8GB in order to hit 1080p at 30fps as minimum spec.
CDPR also say they're amending the system requirements to the base game and will no longer supporting hard disk drives.
]]>If you ever became Grand Champion in the combat arena in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, then you will recognise the little cone-headed gimp who made a surprise cameo in tonight's Starfield deep dive, streamed as part of the Xbox Games Showcase for not-E3. In the case of the upcoming space-themed mega-RPG, he'll attach to your character if you choose the trait Hero Worshipped. He still has stupid hair in Starfield, too.
]]>As promised, Bethesda gave us an extended look at Starfield this evening as part of a dedicated presentation attatched to Microsoft's larger not-E3 showcase. Alongside a fresh look at the game's 1000 planets, combat and skill trees, we were given a closer peek at arguably the most important part of the whole game: its character creator.
Described as the "simplest character creator" the team have ever made, Starfield will let you dig into the finer details of your space captain's face, right down to their teeth for reasons I can't quite work out yet. An improvement on the creators found in previous Bethesda games, there's nothing here that looks particularly innovative compared to other open-world games of this ilk. What's interesting is that this time around, the team have used the in-game tool to create every last one of Starfield's NPCs.
]]>A new Yakuza 8 trailer reveals its full official name, Like A Dragon: Infinite Wealth, as well as a surprising new location. Seems our boy Ichiban is off to the USA, without his pants. Even he didn't expect that. Watch the trailer below for careful object placement to hide his shame.
]]>"So why go this big with Starfield?" asks Bethesda Softworks' lead landscape artist Matt Carofano at the beginning of a segment in tonight's Starfield Direct. "Because we want to give you freedom on a galactic level," is the unsatisfying response.
Starfield features over 1000 planets to visit, each procedurally generated upon your approach but populated with handcrafted elements. Your "freedom" upon landing on these planets - many of which seem near-barren - is whether you spend your time doing some quests, 'surveying' the local flora and fauna, or shooting rocks with your space laser.
]]>What's a captain without a crew? At the combined Xbox Games Showcase slash Starfield Direct tonight, Bethesda did a deep dive on a few aspects of their upcoming space RPG Starfield - including the companion system. Although, given that you assign them to different tasks on your ship and various outposts, it might be more appropriate to call them "employees". Although again, you can romance some of them, which is definitely an HR issue.
]]>I do love me a game from The Chinese Room, and Still Wakes The Deep looks to be a right old trip. Announced during the Xbox Games Showcase at this year's not-E3, this first-person horror adventure casts you as a worker on an off-shore industrial oil rig and something seems to have slithered aboard from the depths. Check out the trailer below for some major chills.
]]>Don't Nod are really out here publishing games aren't they? They've already got their ghost-hunting RPG Banishers: Ghosts Of New Eden on the go, and there's also the recently released Harmony: The Fall Of Reverie, and now they've announced dizzying climbing adventure Jusant. You can watch the trailer below, but if you're scared of heights then maybe give this one a miss. Hey, I'm just looking out for you.
]]>I love magical realist Southern Gothics. Kentucky Route Zero, Norco, and Where The Water Tastes Like Wine are some of my favourite games, so Compulsion Games' South Of Midnight immediately has my attention. Announced during the Xbox Games Showcase 2023 as part of not-E3, this new action-adventure looks like it's got major bite and you can check out the trailer below.
]]>2017's Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice did well critically and commercially, and it wasn't a huge surprise when Senua's Saga: Hellblade II was revealed three years back. It's been a little while since we heard more from it, but a cinematic trailer cropped up at tonight's Xbox Games Showcase, and wouldn't you know it, but we got a release window for 2024.
]]>Avowed was announced back in 2020 when a brief teaser trailer made it look like Obsidian's take on Skyrim. A gameplay trailer shown during this evening's Xbox Games Showcase did little to contradict that notion, aside from the non-snowy setting, I suppose, making it seem like Obsidian's take on Oblivion instead.
]]>When Clockwork Revolution's announcement trailer started playing in the Xbox Games Showcase today, I almost thought was a follow-up to BioShock Infinite. An opulent oversaturated city with a hanging railway, heaps of gadgets, a taunting antagonist, a protagonist with reality-altering powers, and a giant baddy with a gunarm? Surely BioShock? Nope! It's a new first-person steampunk RPG from InXile Entertainment, the makers of Torment: Tides Of Numenera. And two of its lead developers worked at Troika on their steampunk RPG, Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura. Come have a watch.
]]>It's probably quite difficult, after you've mapped more or less the entire planet, to work out what to add to a Microsoft Flight Simulator sequel. The answer turns out to be: jobs.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 was revealed at tonight's Xbox Showcase and it'll include the ability to not only fly all sorts of aerial vehicles, but to fly them with purpose - whether an air ambulance, aerial firefighting, crop dusting, hot air ballooning, or about a dozen other roles.
]]>I'm a fan of Monkey Island, as many of you know, and so hearing the opening bars of the Monkey Island theme during the Xbox Games Showcase tonight was an instant little serotonin booster. Turns out Sea Of Thieves is finally doing the most obvious pirate crossover ever with a free three-part Tall Tale expansion called The Legend Of Monkey Island. Featuring many of your favourite Monkey Island characters (including Murray the demonic talking skull), the first part of The Legend Of Monkey Island will arrive on July 20th - and will be on Game Pass on day one.
]]>A new trailer for Cyberpunk 2077's Phantom Liberty announces a release date of September 26th. It also gives a glimpse of what's waiting for V as she ventures into the brand new district of Dogtown to rescue the president. I hope so much for a gang of wild skateboarders. The trailer also introduces us to the new character played by Idris Elba (Stringer Bell in The Wire, Luther in Luther, Knuckles in Sonic The Hedgehog 2).
]]>Cities: Skylines 2 was revealed a few months ago, but with only a CG trailer and not many details. Now there's a new in-game trailer and at least a vague sense of what the citybuilding sequel will do differently than its venerable, many DLC'd predecessor. Mainly: bigger cities, more simulated cities, prettier cities.
It also brought news of a release date: October 24th.
]]>MMO raids can be some of the most satisfying experiences in multiplayer gaming, so it's a shame that they're so often one of the last things you gain access to after a whole lot of time and grinding. That makes me very interested in 33 Immortals, the newly announced next game from Jotun and Spiritfarer studio Thunder Lotus. It's a 33-player cooperative action roguelikelike which they say offers "ultra-fast runs through a streamlined distillation of the MMO raid experience," with "pick-up and raid" matchmaking. Huh!
]]>At tonight's Xbox showcase, there was a first proper look at upcoming heist 'em up sequel Payday 3. To skip to the end: it looks a lot like past Paydays, inasmuch as it's a co-op first-person shooter that's less about clever breaking and entering and more about mowing down waves of cops.
The trailer also came with a release date: September 21st.
]]>It is still weird that Microsoft started making a new Fable only a few short years after closing the studio which created the fantasy RPG series, Lionhead. But they are, a new trailer from NotE3 reminds us. The trailer doesn't show much of the Fable reboot being made by Forza Horizon studio Playground Games, but it does star a digtal Richard Ayoade, so I'm not complaining. He's nice, that Richard Ayoade. Come meet his digidouble in the new trailer.
]]>Tonight yet another Star Wars game was revealed, this time coming from Lucasfilm (but they all come from them, technically) and Ubisoft. Star Wars Outlaws is, being an Ubi game, an open world adventure where you play as Kay Vess - the Han-Solo-but-a-girl I reference in my headline - and Kay's best alien pal Nix "as they attempt one of the greatest heists the Outer Rim has ever seen." Outlaws was revealed tonight at the Xbox Games Showcase with a trailer that had an extended opening metaphor bit about gambling that was trite enough for me to assume it was a trailer for the Quantic Dream Star Wars game. BUT. I do like the look of Outlaws (currently slated for 2024).
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