The clues are piling up that the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset will not launch in retail by the end of the year.
Speaking on Facebook's most recent quarterly earning call, the company's chief financial officer David Wehner said that it has not announced any specific plans for shipment volumes in 2015 related to Oculus. "Oculus is very much in the development stage, so it's very early to be talking about large shipment volumes," Wehner said.
Oculus founder and inventor of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset Palmer Luckey previously said that something would have to go "horribly wrong" to prevent the device from an official launch in 2015.
"I did say that before we made a lot of changes to our roadmap and we've expanded a lot of the ambition we had around the product and what we wanted to do," Luckey said. "Us partnering with Facebook allowed us a lot of things that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise, like hire 300 people to be working on getting the Rift out as quickly as possible at the level we want it. I can't comment on the date one way or another in either direction but I can say that nothing is going horribly wrong. Everything is going horribly right."
Oculus could still surprise us and announce a release date for 2015, but given these two statements, that seems less likely.
Other competitors in the VR space have more firm plans. Valve and HTC's VR headset, Vive, is set to launch this year, Sony's Project Morpheus is set to launch in the first half of next year, and you can already buy the Innovator Edition of Samsung's Gear VR (made in partnership with Oculus) at Best Buy.
The beta is now underway, and you can register for access at developer Psyonix's website. All you'll need to enter is your PlayStation Network ID, email address, and country (only North Americans can enter, unfortunately), though keep in mind that doing so doesn't guarantee you'll get in.
If you are accepted, you'll receive a code via email that allows you to download the beta and begin playing now. Servers are only online during the day--specifically, 9 AM to 9 PM PST--with the beta set to run until some point in early May, according to a PlayStation Blog post.
While offline play (including four-player split-screen) is included in the full version, the purpose of the beta is to test out matchmaking and servers, so you'll be limited to playing against other people online. There's also a limited amount of content--the extensive customization isn't in place, and there's only a single stadium.
Rocket League, despite having a much shorter name, plays a lot like its predecessor. Both games can be described simply as a game of soccer where you control a car that can jump and flip in the air. Based on what I've played so far, it's every bit as exhilarating as SARPBC, with the added benefit of being able to easily save replays of your best saves and goals, thanks to the PS4's Share button.
The full version of Rocket League is expected out this summer.
The ability to tweak graphics settings largely remains the domain of PC gamers. Project Cars is proving to be an exception to that, as it will offer players on Xbox One and PS4 some control over various visual effects.
As first discovered by Digital Foundry, these versions include a "Visual FX" settings menu, as pictured below. Tweakable options include post-processing filters, lens flare, rain drops, screen dirt, bloom, and a number of other things you'd ordinarily have to accept as-is when playing on console.
In a separate menu dedicated to camera settings, there are also field-of-view settings for each of the different camera angles in the game, as well as options dictating the amount of movement that happens with the driver's helmet.
Speaking with GameSpot, creative director Andy Tudor explained why the studio went out of its way to offer these options.
"Console owners should have just as much right to tailor their game to their particular preferences as PC players," Tudor says, "whether that's authenticity, visual options, how the camera reacts, accessibility etc.
"The racing genre is pretty mature at this point and many console racing fans are therefore eager to for this kind of additional depth, plus the racing genre is also very broad meaning this kind of personalization will allow fans of both traditional racing games on consoles and veteran PC sim racing titles to feel right at home."
Following a seemingly endless number of delays, Project Cars now has a "guaranteed" release date of May 7 on PC and May 12 on Xbox One/PS4. (In the UK, it's May 8 for all three). The Wii U version remains without a release date.
We're all used to skipping right through end-user license agreements (EULA) when we install new games, but you should take a moment to read Killing Floor 2's EULA, especially if you're planning on being a jerk in the game.
In part six, titled "Cheats, Cheating and Abusive Behaviors," developer Tripwire Interactive says it reserves the right to ban cheaters, and anyone who behaves in a way it finds detrimental to other players.
"This includes, but is not limited to, 'griefing', racist bigotry, sexism or any other forms of 'cyber bullying,'" the EULA reads. "We will also not tolerate anyone hosting servers for the game where such behaviors are continually or repeatedly allowed to take place.
"If we find you are a Cheater or Abusive, we will revoke your CD key and ban you from the KF2 servers and tell your mom! Your license will automatically terminate, without notice, and you will have no right to play KF2 or any KF2 Mods against other players or make any other use of KF2. End of story."
In short, Tripwire expects you to play nice, or else.
Some players complained that Tripwire shouldn't reserve the right to ban players for this type of behavior, but the developer explained that this decision will not effect "99.999%" of the population.
"It's there so that, if at some point in the future, some individual gets utterly out of control and is being abusive to enough thousands of people to come to our attention - we can actually take action," Tripwire said.
Although the PlayStation Portable software market in the West dried up years ago for most developers, not everyone has abandoned the pursuit of bringing niche RPGs to the US, Canada, and Europe. Gaijinworks and MonkeyPaw revealed their latest efforts this week, which will see two new games brought over from Japan.
The first of these is Class of Heroes 3. Originally released in 2010, this is a natural move for Gaijinworks' next game, given that it already brought the previous game in the dungeon crawler series, Class of Heroes 2, to western audiences in 2013.
Also coming to western PSPs is 2013 tactical RPG Summon Night 5 (gallery below). Considering that none of the previous games have been localized or released outside of Japan, it seems like a curious choice to jump right to the fifth game, but there is a reason for doing so.
Responding to a question on that subject, Gaijinworks founder Vic Ireland explained on the official forums that it's due to "[t]ime and code completeness. Because 5 was very recent, the code base and assets were pretty easy to collect and it's a great game that was a ground up effort. SN3 and 4 were ports, and though I would have liked to have started with 3, I'm not sure we'd have time to do 3, 4, 5 before the PSP window closes."
That may due in part to the sheer size of the game. "5, especially, is a HUGE game," Ireland said. "Like 45,000 lines of dialogue. Nuts."
In the case of both games, digital versions will be released on PSN. In addition, polls will be posted in the near future to determine interest in physical versions--something that Class of Heroes 2 received once Gaijinworks was able to ensure it had at least 2,500 people on board to order.
Physical copies--if they do end up being released--will include various physical goodies, as well as UMD and digital copies, allowing collectors to play while keeping the physical game untouched.
Pricing will be announced when the polls go up in "late May or early June." As with other PSP games, both titles will be playable on PSP, PlayStation Vita, and PlayStation TV. You can read more about the games on Gaijinworks' website.
22 Cans co-founder Peter Molyneux has made his first public appearance following a big controversy in February around the developer's game Godus, which failed to deliver on the rewards promised on its Kickstarter page, game features, and a life changing experience for one player.
According to a report in GameIndustry.biz, Molyneux didn't address the controversy directly at the Dubrovnik Reboot Festival, but he did talk about a problem he's had throughout his career: breaking promises.
"At that time I started making this terrible mistake," Molyneux said, speaking of the E3 he spent pitching Fable to the press. "Oh God. I feel like curling up into a ball and just withering away. The mistake I made, and I've made it again and again and again, and if I ever do this again I'll probably still make it, the mistake I made is to go and talk to the press about my current ideas. As you can see, from the iterative development side, the current idea seems like the most exciting thing ever. It seems like it will fit, but sometimes you have to throw it away."
Molyneux said his job was to get the press at E3 excited about the game, so he talked about the ideas that he would love to see in a role-playing game. For example, he said he would love it if the world was able to evolve to the point where if a player planted an acorn, it would grown into a tree over time.
"To my utter horror, that became the headline. Fable will have acorns growing trees. And of course it didn't. The result was that everybody leapt on it. People were so incensed. This is why you have to watch yourself with the press. I wasn't lying. People actually said, 'This is fraud, you should be arrested.' The same thing is happening in today's world."
22 Cans is still working on Godus, but the game's co-creator Jack Attridge, referred to as Peter Molyneux's "protege," has recently left the studio.
BuzzFeed has uploaded a video capturing the reaction of several feminists who are playing Grand Theft Auto V, which is also their first experience with a Grand Theft Auto game.
The result is pretty much what you'd expect. "If you were going through your formative years and this was your only experience with women, it would be really damaging and weird," one player said after a visit to a strip club within the game. Other players admitted they had fun despite the nature of the content, and the fact that the game lacked any strong female characters.
As a developer who got his start with a free mod which later released as a paid version, he has an interesting perspective.
"There's a lot of craziness about paid mods, a lot of people who don't know how they feel," Newman said. "It's probably no big surprise that I'm all for it. I sold a mod once and everyone was angry that it was happening, until it happened and they got a much better product than they'd have gotten when it was released for free, then they seemed to calm down a bit. It has given me a career for 10 years. It's bought me two houses, a bunch of cars. It's created a company that has hired 30+ people."
Newman agrees that the alleged revenu share, which gives modders only a 25 percent cut on sales, is unfair, but thinks it will get better with time, and players still have other options.
He says that no one is forcing players to pay for mods they don't want, that the market will probably balance itself in terms of how much different mods will cost, and that players can always resort to pirating if they don't have the money.
"So find a way to pirate them," he said. "That's what we all did when we were kids with no money. Valve's job is to make it more convenient for you to not pirate stuff."
Valve's new modding program launched on Thursday only with Skyrim (other supported titles will be announced in the coming weeks), but it's already caused a great deal of controversy. Many players are saying that Valve is greedy for allowing modders to sell work that was previously free, and one mod's been removed after claims that it contained the work of another modder.
Microsoft Apologizes for Confusion Over 1080p/60fps Witcher 3 Footage on Xbox Channel: On Wednesday, Microsoft posted a new Witcher 3 gameplay video to its YouTube Xbox channel that ran at 1080p/60fps. But fans quickly pointed out that the Xbox One version of the game only supports 900p/30fps, meaning the video posted to the channel was actually from the PC version. Whoops! Microsoft later apologized, saying it never meant to misrepresent the game or cause confusion.
Xbox Sales Fall in Latest Quarter, But Minecraft and Xbox Live are Bright Spots: Microsoft reported earnings for its latest quarter on Thursday--and the Xbox news was both bad and good. On the one hand, Xbox sales fell year-over-year, while on the other, Minecraft helped first-party revenue rise and Xbox Live added more users and generated more overall revenue. Read the full report here.
This Witcher cosplay is absolutely amazing. It really is. Well done, sir. Check out all the images on developer CD Projekt Red's Facebook page here.
A new Nancy Drew game, called Sea of Darkness, is currently in development. It's the 32nd game in the series. Yes, the 32nd! Sea of Darkness is set in Iceland when Nancy finds herself in a "brand new mystery" to solve the mystery of a mission ship captain. The game launches May 19 for PC, published by Her Interactive.
Another Evolve eSports tournament is coming. 2K, Turtle Rock, and the ESL this week announced the Proving Grounds Tournament fr Evolve. The best teams from around the world will compete over the course of three months for a prize pool of $100,000. Get all the details here.
Call of Duty fans awaiting Sunday's official Black Ops III reveal can enjoy double XP in Black Ops II all weekend long. Huzzah!
Crowdfunded documentary GameLoading: Rise of the Indies is now available on Steam or through the filmmakers'' website. The movie promises an "intimate and honest" portrayal of the indie development scene, featuring commentary from developers like John Romero (Doom, Quake), Davey Wreden (The Stanley Parable), Rami Ismail (studio Vlambeer), Zoe Quinn (Depression Quest), and others.
Looking for a new game to play on the go? This week, Major League Baseball released its arcade game, RBI Baseball 15, for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. You can buy the game today on iTunes for $5.
Big-time mobile game developer Kabam this week outlined a new business plan that will see the company re-focus its efforts on creating AAA mobile games, the likes of which can generated $1 billion per year. Read more about the "Fewer, Bigger, Bolder" plan here on Kabam's website.
Watch this new Guitar Hero Live behind-the-scenes video to hear directly from developers at FreeStyleGames about the title's new features like Guitar Hero TV and the new Guitar peripheral. Music game fans interested in the next evolution of Guitar Hero will probably want to watch this.
Not everyone is happy with the new Steam Workshop feature that lets people charge for mods. One person has now created a Change.org petition calling on Valve to remove the feature--and more than 50,000 people have signed the petition so far.
New DLC is now available for Ubisoft's racing game, The Crew. The "Raid Car Pack" and the Raid Live Update are now available on all platforms. The Raid Car Pack is the last of four themed add-ons and comes with three new cars, official liveries, and new cosmetic parts, among other things. Read more about the DLC here at Ubisoft's website.
Here's a totally bonkers story for you to think about this weekend.Kotaku UK has dug into a wild theory about the doctor from the Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain trailer. As you'll notice, the real world doctor Sergio Canavero looks just like the doctor from the game. There's lots more to the story. Read the Kotaku story to go deep into the rabbit hole.
Turtle Rock has announced the next special weekend event for monster-hunting game Evolve that pits Hyde against Wraith. If Hyde achieves a higher winning percentage until Monday, April 27, then everyone who played during the weekend will get free DLC in the form of the Hyde Predator Skin. If Wraith comes out on top, the community will take home the Wraith Voodoo Skin. Read more about it here.
Oh my word. Here's a video of Star Wars director JJ Abrams and Chewbacca doing the Twizzler challenge to raise money for Autism awareness.
Former CBS TV executive Nancy Tellem, who headed up Xbox Entertainment Studios before it closed down last year, has a new job. She's joined media company Interlude as its executive chairman and chief media officer. Read more about her new role in this New York Times story.
Geralt isn't the only playable character in CD Projekt Red's upcoming role-playing game The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. There's also a woman named Ciri--and now we know more about her role in the game by way of GameSpot's new video series. Watch it below. The Ciri part is near the end.
EA Sports this week announced--and released--a free version of its console fighting game EA Sports UFC for mobile devices. The game promises "HD-quality" visuals, and more. It soft-launched in Canada, South Korea, Singapore, and Russia, and has already seen more than 2 million downloads. But it's out now worldwide for iOS and Google Play.
EA's popular free-to-play racing game Real Racing 3 has been updated to support the Apple Watch by way of a new Team Driver feature. Get all the details and download the game here.
The Evil Within's second of three planned expansions, The Consequence, launched this week for console and PC. A new trailer is also available, which you can watch here.
Check out this new video from EA and GameStop that goes behind the scenes and dives into the development of Star Wars: Battlefront. Hear directly from developers about how they worked with LucasFilm on the game and lots more. Battlefront launches November 17.
What's former Microsoft boss Phil Harrison doing now that he's left the Xbox giant? We now know. He's launched a new start-up called Alloy Platform Industries. He even teases in a new interview with GamesIndustry International that he's working with Microsoft on its secret, unannounced technology. Read more about it here in this great interview with GamesIndustry International.
According to emails leaked out of Sony Pictures, the film production giant is working with Nintendo to obtain the film rights for a Super Smash Bros. movie. Wow! Get the full story over at Ars Technica.
The next Halo 5: Guardians teaser has been posted to the Hunt the Truth viral marketing website. This one is particularly interesting, but we won't spoil why that is. Listen to the podcast here and let us know what you think.
This week we brought you a full slate of exclusive The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt interviews, gameplay, and details. Now we're giving you a chance to look back on all the video features editors Danny O'Dwyer and Andrew Bauman put together.
But we're not done quite yet. If you want to go even more in-depth, we'll post links to the full developer interviews this weekend right here. So bookmark this page and check back on Saturday for the final piece of our Witcher coverage.
The Introduction
This video highlights the history of the action-RPG franchise and how Wild Hunt's prologue will attempt to welcome newcomers. Iff you want to jump right into combat gameplay, check out this breakout on what combat is like in pubs and on horseback.
Additional marketing materials for Call of Duty: Black Ops III posted on Reddit (via CharlieIntel) reveal tons of new gameplay details covering the game's campaign, multiplayer, and Zombies modes.
A first look at Black Ops III
One of the main highlights is that Black Ops III's campaign will reportedly support co-op for up to four players online, no doubt a nice addition for fans looking for a more social experience outside of multiplayer.
According to the leaked materials, the online co-op mode will use the same network infrastructure that supports Call of Duty's online and Zombies modes.
Black Ops III's campaign also aims to deliver "cinematic, arena-style play," the leaked materials state. This mode has reportedly been "designed for co-op and replayability." Another new campaign feature for Black Ops III is that all player characters are now fully customizable--this ranges from weapons and loadouts to abilities and outfits, according to the leak.
In terms of multiplayer, the leak references a "new momentum-based chain-movement system," which should allow players to "fluidly move through the environment with finesse, using controlled thrust jumps, slides, and mantling abilities in a multitude of combinations." At the same time, players will have "complete control" over their weapons at every step, the leak says.
The materials go on to state that Black Ops III's multiplayer maps have been designed "from the ground up" to support this new movement system. Another new feature for Black Ops III's multiplayer mode is the introduction of a new "Specialist" character system--though further details were not provided.
Finally, the leaked Black Ops III promotional materials reveal that the game will have a Zombies mode (Treyarch created Call of Duty Zombies, after all) that will offer an "all-new horror story." This is described as a "full-game experience with its own distinct storyline." Black Ops III's Zombies mode will also reportedly feature a full XP-based progression system and more that will make it the "most immersive and ambitious Call of Duty Zombies to date."
According to a separate leak earlier today, Black Ops III will launch on November 6. Anyone who preorders the game at GameStop--and possibly other retailers--will gain entry to a pre-release beta that will be held on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
Microsoft's latest Deals With Gold promotion is on, discounting a handful of Xbox One and Xbox 360 games--almost exclusively from the Call of Duty series. You can check out all the deals here.
Amazon prices are accurate as of publishing, but can fluctuate occasionally throughout the day.
GameSpot's gaming deals posts always highlight the best deals we can find regardless of retailer. We also occasionally use retailer affiliate links, which means that purchasing goods through those links helps support all the great content (including the deals posts) you find for free here on the site.
Epic Games' 2006 third-person shooter is being improved with enhanced visuals and cutscenes, the latter of which are in the works at visual effects studio Plastic Wax, which GameSpot profiled back in 2013. Similarly, Halo 2's reworked cutscenes in The Master Chief Collection were handled externally by Blur Studio.
Microsoft seemingly teased a remaster of the first three Gears of War games when Xbox boss Phil Spencer retweeted a message about something called "The Marcus Fenix Collection" last year. Spencer later said this was simply a mistake, and Black Tusk producer Rod Fergusson reiterated this last month when he said that "there's no Marcus Fenix Collection."
That still appears to technically be true, with just the first Gears game being remastered. This was potentially meant to be part of Microsoft's E3 showing; Fergusson teased that something would be coming in June, and we know the publisher plans on highlighting first-party games during its press conference.
GameSpot has contacted Microsoft for comment and will report back with anything we learn.
The infamous Left Shark from Katy Perry's Super Bowl halftime show is set to be immortalized in World of Warcraft, thanks to its latest patch.
Alongside exciting additions like a new zone, raid, and ship-building feature, Blizzard has also slipped a new item into WoW's 6.2.0 patch. Although it's unclear where it's located, tracking down the Left Shark item will allow you to summon it as a companion, according to a Wowhead listing.
Unfortunately, there aren't any images or further details on its in-game form, although those are bound to surface before long. Select content from the 6.2.0 update is currently available on WoW's Public Test Realms.
If you missed Perry's Super Bowl performance--or somehow avoided the ensuing Internet ruckus--Left Shark rose to prominence due to a less-than-first-rate dancing routine. This quickly became a meme that Perry has since capitalized on by selling Left Shark-themed merchandise and attempting to trademark the name and its design.
[UPDATE] Many more Black Ops III details have leaked, covering the game's campaign, multiplayer, and Zombies modes. Get all the details here.
The original story is below.
Call of Duty: Black Ops III will launch on November 6 and everyone who preorders--at least at retail giant GameStop--will receive access to a beta for Treyarch's new biohacking-themed shooter. That's according to leaked GameStop promotional material posted on NeoGAF Friday afternoon.
The fine print states that the Black Ops III beta will be held on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC; last-generation consoles were not mentioned.
The GameStop promotional material also points out, "Actual platform availability and launch date(s) to be determined." A November 6 release date for Black Ops III makes a lot of sense, considering it's early in November, which is when Activision has released new Call of Duty games for years now.
Separately, a source told Kotaku that the leaked material pictured in this post will be distributed at GameStop stores this coming Sunday, April 26. That's the same day that Activision plans to formally unveil Black Ops III by way of an official reveal trailer.
Xenoblade Chronicles X is unbelievably big. Like its predecessor, 2010's Xenoblade Chronicles, your ragtag band of heroes is plunked down into a lush world rich with jewel-toned foliage and glittering structures of rock and metal. But this time around, that lush world is just a little bit lusher and more massive; so massive, in fact, that it takes a significant amount of time to run between checkpoints.
During a recent hands-on session with X--which launches in Japan this month but won't be out in North America until later this year--a PR representative for Nintendo told me that I could walk literally anywhere within the game's five continents. You can run to and through all of them, she said, and can climb up and over pretty much any structure you see. My demo began in a series of valleys nestled among large craggy hills, with sides made up of steep rock faces at an unforgivingly sharp angle. I didn't think I could make it up most of these organic structures of stone and earth, but I was going to try.
To my delight, you absolutely can climb up anything you see. You can't scale a sheer rock face, but if you find a craggier area or a grassy slope to climb, you can get to the top. It's more like jumping upwards repeatedly than climbing, but it is what it is. Giant islands being held in the sky by sloping pillars of rock can be surmounting by carefully running up the center of one pillar. And on top of these islands you can stare out into the distance, picking out more shadowed valleys and enticing crags, with titanic buildings shrouded in mist sitting tantalizingly on the horizon.
Xenoblade Chronicles X's open world is a welcome experience for those tired of the rigid hallway formulas favored by many role-playing games in the past decade. You can move freely around the map, selecting side quests and battling roaming monsters at your leisure as you pursue the main plot in bits and pieces. There's never a dull moment, either; in the five or so minutes it will take you to run from one area to another, you'll have to tiptoe by resting monsters and go head-to-head with others that seek you out directly. Scattered among the grass and shrubs are items to collect, treasures to discover, and tiny new details that add to the masterful visual world-building on the part of developer Monolith Soft.
In Xenoblade Chronicles, navigation depended largely on your ability to follow a simple map with a directional arrow in the corner of the screen. X's navigation system is something else entirely. The Wii U GamePad displays a world map of sorts, with a few strange tweaks. Rather than your typical geographical layout, the map is laid out as a honeycomb of diamonds, with an icon in each diamond displaying important landmarks. Most of these icons indicate the presence of checkpoints, which are unlocked by "discovering" new areas and setting down a beacon. If you are killed in battle anytime after unlocking this checkpoint and before unlocking a new one, you'll be sent back to it.
The GamePad map displays a tiny arrow that shows where you are in the world and which direction you're facing, which is helpful. But the most useful tool in your explorer's arsenal is the Navigation Ball. Essentially it's a camera that you shoot straight into the air for a bird's eye view of a large swath of your surroundings. And by "large swath" I mean your characters are left as tiny specks in the center, barely visible. The range over which you can look is incredible. You can rotate and tilt the camera in any direction, which is extremely useful when trying to maneuver your party out of a maze of canyons. But the Navigation Ball is more than an important tool; it's an excellent way to see for yourself just how large the world of Xenoblade Chronicles X is. The Ball lets you see everything from huge monsters lurking around the next bend in the road to the shadows of cities in the distance. The prospect of exploring this beautiful, broken world left behind from Xenoblade Chronicles is both a sad and exciting one.
Back on the ground, combat in X is the same as it was in Xenoblade Chronicles. Arts--special physical and magical attacks that can be used to knock enemies to the ground and cast protective shields around party members--make a return. Characters have two weapons: a manual weapon like a sword or daggers, and a gun. Both weapon types have their own special Arts abilities, and being able to switch between spraying enemies with bullets at a distance and hacking and slashing up close is a nice touch. It makes you feel powerful, and maybe gives you a little more confidence in having the tools to take down larger enemies.
One thing about roaming enemies, however: their levels don't scale to your characters' levels. That one area under the overhang will always harbor a level 50 monstrosity, no matter if you're level 10 or level 60. Because of this, you have to be careful which monsters you engage as you explore areas. You can typically take down enemies two or three levels stronger than you, but any higher than that is a risk. Enemies' levels are displayed over their heads, and some of them have a tiny eye-shaped icon that indicates they will attack if you're in their line of site. Most enemies don't have this stipulation, and you can freely pass by them without incident; they won't attack you unless you attack first.
I spent most my time with X exploring the large area of the map left open for me, attacking monsters as I saw fit (and dying when I was overbold). I also pursued a side quest that led me to an alien stronghold--yes, aliens--and the story gave me the choice to leave them alone and scope for intel or run in guns blazing. I chose the latter, and ultimately paid for it with my life and a checkpoint setback.
On the surface level, Xenoblade Chronicles X is just more Xenoblade Chronicles: it has the same style of combat, the same quest structure, and the same central idea of humanity struggling to rebuild and survive. But X builds wonderfully on these ideas, granting access to a larger, more complex space in which to carry out its role-playing goodness. There's much more to the game than just exploring and fighting--we've yet to get hands-on time with dolls, the weaponized mechs used by humans--but from what I've already seen, Xenoblade Chronicles X will be a welcome addition to RPG fans' repertoires and the Wii U library itself.
It's been known for some time that Deus Ex designer Warren Spector and his former studio, Junction Point, worked with Valve on some kind of Half-Life project before shutting down. Now, he's revealed a few tantalizing details about what that game could have been.
Speaking with Game Informer, Spector was initially hesitant to share anything, wondering aloud whether he was allowed to discuss the project before deciding, "But what are they going to do, say, 'You'll never work in the game business again'?"
He then stated that Junction Point was "working on a Half-Life episode; they were really into episodic content at that point." Before getting too excited, keep in mind this was more than five years ago, and that this likely wasn't the elusive Episode Three we've all been waiting for. This episode would "fill in one of the gaps in the Half-Life story," though he didn't offer any specifics on which gap that was. "We were trying to flesh out a specific part of Half-Life, of the world of Half-Life."
In the process, Junction Point developed a brand-new tool for players to use. Where Half-Life 2 had the gravity gun and Portal had the portal gun, this episode would have had something referred to as the "magnet gun."
Half-Life 2's gravity gun
You can likely imagine how they might have functioned, and Spector remains enthusiastic about the concept, saying, "I still wish they would do something with [it]. We came up with so many cool ways to use a magnet gun that were completely different from anything they had done, and was really freeform in its use. I still think it would be cool." He later noted that he thinks it would have "complemented the gravity gun pretty nicely."
Junction Point wouldn't see development on the episode through, as things started to heat up with Disney--a place Spector says he "always wanted to work"--in a deal that would result in the studio developing Epic Mickey.
When jokingly asked if Mickey Mouse is to blame for a lack of Episode Three, Spector noted, "I think Valve was rethinking their episodic plan anyway."
You can watch Game Informer's full video interview with Spector, which goes on to discuss working with Disney, here.
The details of the Half-Life project from Junction Point--which shut its doors in 2013--had been unknown until now. Spector noted in 2012 that he worked on such a game, though that went largely unnoticed until it was brought to light Internet sleuth Superannuation in mid-2013.
Valve has yet to confirm plans for a new entry in the Half-Life series since Episode Two's release in 2007, though fans have done their best to encourage the company to break its silence.
Following its initial reveal last year, Australian indie developer Uppercut Games on Friday announced that its new action-adventure game Submerged will be released on PlayStation 4.
As you can see in the game's gorgeous announcement trailer below, Submerged is set in a city that--for reasons you'll uncover throughout the game--has become flooded and overgrown.
Submerged tells the story of siblings Miku and her wounded brother Taku. After they arrive at the city, Miku must find shelter for Taku and then set out into the world to gather supplies needed to help her brother get back on his feet.
Along the way, players will discover how the sunken city came to be, why Miku and Taku traveled there, and more about the world's inhabitants, which are described as "malformed copies of the native sea-life."
In terms of gameplay, players will navigate the city by boat and use Miku's telescope to find "forgotten caches" of resources. Once you locate them, you'll have to climb around the dilapidated buildings to grab these items and bring them back to Taku to help him recover from his injury.
One particularly interesting element of Submerged is that it's been designed with no "failure states," Uppercut Games says. That means players can "play at [their] own pace, safe in the knowledge that [they'll] never die."
Submerged--which was developed using the Unreal Engine 4--is also coming to Xbox One, PC, and mobile devices.
The game's music, including the haunting track in the trailer above, was composed by Jeff Van Dyck, a BAFTA-winning composer whose previous credits include Alien: Isolation and Total War: Shogun 2.
For a closer look at Submerged, check out some images in the gallery below.
No comments:
Post a Comment