Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is the next game from Assassin's Creed creator Patrice Desilets. The ambitious concept--playing as hominids through different periods of ancestral time--caught my attention right away, and after seeing it in action for the first time at The Game Awards, I'm even more intrigued. A single-player, third-person exploration survival game, your journey in Ancestors begins as a hominid in Neogene Africa some 10 million years ago.
Over time, you grow and literally evolve to the Australopithecus popularly known as Lucy. On your way to becoming Lucy, you'll learn new skills and abilities as you take the form of the next subspecies of hominid that would eventually become the human form of today. It is quite an ambitious concept to say the least.
Based on early footage, you'll be clambering through the jungle and swinging through trees, escaping predators, gathering resources, and essentially trying to survive and live another day. It looks like no other game I've played before, and the novelty and ambition of the concept has me eager to see and learn more.
It's too soon to say how it all works out in practice, but it's exciting to think about where the chapters after that will go in the future. I can imagine playing as other hominid species such as Homo Erectus and Homo Neanderthalensis, among others.
Another interesting element of Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is how it will be released. Like the Life Is Strange series, the title is episodic in nature. Volume 1: Before Us is due out in 2019, and it takes place in Africa 10 million years ago and spanning up until 1 million years ago. Future instalments will focus on different periods of human evolution.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is the first game from Desilets' studio, Panache Digital Games in Montreal, which was formed back in 2014 after Desilet's rocky breakup with Ubisoft.
The game's first chapter is set to launch sometime in 2019, though there is no word on when the subsequent releases will follow. Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey will be published by Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption parent company Take-Two Interactive's independent games label, Private Division. It is coming to PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, and right now is planned as a digital-only release.
With 2019 right around the corner, we've polled GameSpot's staff to find out what games they are looking forward to most in the new year. To be eligible, a game must simply have a release date currently planned for 2019. Of course, we all know nothing is set in stone; there's always a chance some games could slip into 2020. When you're done reading this entry, follow along with all of our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best of 2018 hub.
Obsidian Entertainment have proved time and time again that they craft excellent single player RPGs. Their next project is The Outer Worlds which is being created by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, known for their work on Fallout 1 and Fallout 2.
The first-person action RPG will arrive on PC, PS4, and Xbox One and is set in a future where megacorporations are colonizing and terraforming new planets. It kicks off with the player character exiting cryosleep on a colony ship only to find that the ships other inhabitants have yet to awaken. The Outer Worlds will include the management of NPC factions as well as a story that changes direction based on player choices. Right now it looks and sounds like a mish-mash of Fallout, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect, and I am very on board.
There appears to be a large focus on vibrant characters and environments, coupled with a great sense of humor. It's wonderful to see a hardcore RPG that's comfortable with not taking itself too seriously and I'm hopeful that this sense of humor is threaded through the entire game. While your player character is voiceless, you will meet and recruit companions who have their own missions and motivations. You'll be able to elect dialogue choices when you engage with NPCs in the open world and your companions will change their opinion of you based on your actions.
Combat appears to be fairly similar to what you'd find in the 3D Fallout games. It includes a kind of bullet time ability where you get extra time to aim your shot, but the feature doesn't replicate the targeting of specific body parts like VATS. The roleplaying elements will include a variety of social, technical, and combat skills, so it looks like there will be plenty of opportunity to shape your character in the way you want to. As is the case in other Obsidian RPGs, you'll be able to leverage the skills of your party to accommodate for or bolster your own.
The Outer Worlds will arrive sometime next year and is being published by Private Division, a subsidiary of Take Two Interactive. Despite Microsoft's acquisition of Obsidian last month, it appears that the Xbox publisher are not currently involved in the development of The Outer Worlds, but how that will affect the game down the line remains to be seen. There's plenty more details to be mined from the gameplay footage and various interviews released so far, but The Outer Worlds is particularly exciting for fans who felt let down by Fallout 76 this year. With a fleshed out party system, a focus on single-player, and plenty of NPCs to interact with and take quests from, The Outer Worlds could be the perfect antithesis to 76.
My introduction to anime was 1999's Digimon Adventure, so the franchise's story about humans and digital monsters working together and becoming stronger has always held a soft spot in my heart. Back in the day, one of my favorite aspects of the show was that the stories matured with subsequent seasons, allowing the anime to continuously appeal to its audience as they grew up.
This pattern finally peaked with Digimon Data Squad, where most characters are 18 or older, before the series refocused on a new generation of children with more kid-centric material in Fusion and App Monsters. This trend, however, has not translated over to the Digimon games, which have mostly been designed to appeal to the franchise's younger audience.
Digimon Survive could finally break that trend though, and that has me so excited. One of the few advantages the Digimon anime has over the Pokemon one is its willingness to embrace more adult material and age its characters; it's been frustrating to see that element mostly absent in the games. Survive is the first Digimon game to seemingly lean into that element by focusing on a group of teens and implementing a choice system with heavy consequences--even the death of major characters.
Admittedly, Survive doesn't need a more adult story to be good, but Tamers and Frontier are so well regarded for their willingness to approach that type of content. In both series, problems aren't resolved in one episode with someone learning to be brave or trust their friends, but instead slowly chipped away at through the continued growth of the entire group. Tamers' Jeri learning to cope with depression and Frontier's Zoe overcoming her crippling self-doubt as a result of cultural ostracization are satisfying to watch because both instances showcase the protagonists' grit. Sometimes life is just hard and you need more than the power of friendship to persevere through it. I want to see those types of stories in Digimon again, and I'm hopeful that Survive provides that.
So far, the only definitive details we have about Digimon Survive are that it tells the story of three teenagers accidentally stumbling into an unknown world. You control Takuma Momozuka, who's partnered with Agumon. Takuma's companions, Minoru Hinata and Aoi Shibuya, are partnered with Falcomon and Labramon respectfully. Aoi is older than the two boys, and is quiet and hardworking. Her partner is rather direct and outspoken in comparison. Minoru is the group's irresponsible jokester, and often tries to talk his way out of a fight. His partner balances him out by being level-headed. Together, the six work together to find a way for the humans to return to their world. Trailers and images seem to imply the group will encounter other humans on their adventure.
Some of Digimon Survive plays out as a visual novel, with the ending dependent on what dialogue options and actions you choose. The rest of the game is a turn-based strategy RPG. In combat, you'll move your team of Digimon across a battlefield and determine what type of action they take against enemies, with the ability to digivolve or warp digivolve dependent on the characters' bonds with one another.
Digimon Survive is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PS4, PC, and Switch in 2019.
Editor's note: Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth is out now in Japan, but hasn't been confirmed for the West yet.
There are few things I love more than the Persona franchise. Each of the separate stories from Persona 3, 4, 5, and the spin-offs in between have brought me boundless joy, lessons learned, and unbreakable bonds with their respective cast of characters. However, I often see each game as its own contained world, as they all portray their own captivating struggles and triumphs. And I just as often wonder what it would be like if these characters met somehow, which is why I hold Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth so dear. It retained the unique aspects that made 3 and 4 special and proved that it's far from a game simply thrown together for the sake of fan service.
Naturally, I wondered the possibilities with Persona 5's flamboyant Phantom Thieves, and how they could fit into the already-endearing crossover mix. Well, Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth makes that dream come true. Its premise revolves around each crew getting stuck in a supernatural movie theater, which lends itself so well to the idea of three separate worlds colliding in a light-hearted, yet consequential fight for liberation of friends, both new and old.
As with any entry in the Persona franchise, mainline or spin-off, music plays such an immense role in creating a specific vibe. It's the most important part of creating lasting memories of these games, and from what I've heard already, Q2 hits just as hard as everything else in this series.
Persona Q2 uses the familiar tried-and-true dungeon crawling mechanics from the Etrian Odyssey series, incorporating its non-traditional turn-based combat and challenging fights into the eccentric JRPG. You have to think differently about the sequence of turns and who's able to perform what in relation to enemy agility and movesets, since turns don't play out until all actions have been decided. And of course, the intricate system of persona fusion and party composition were factored in seamlessly in the first Persona Q game, emphasizing the strategic aspect of the original RPGs. With Q2, I'm hoping for another deft execution of that formula featuring tough fights that encourage devising clever sequences of actions each turn whether it be endurance-testing boss battles or normal encounters during exploration.
Persona Q2's biggest challenge is in how it balances this monstrous list of charming personalities and dedicating enough time and opportunity to let them have their moments. The Phantom Thieves are the focus in Q2, but if the first Q game is any indication, I'd trust Atlus to devise ways to let everyone shine and remind me of why I loved them in the first place. The fact that the cheery, yet sassy female protagonist from Persona 3 Portable is being brought into the same timeline tells me that they're pulling out all the stops to celebrate the past three games.
It's an ambitious crossover that unites my favorite games, characters, and soundtracks in one place. It's as if I had different groups of dearly beloved friends somehow meet each other, get along, and band together in a stylish fight for what's right.
As with any entry in the Persona franchise, mainline or spin-off, music plays such an immense role in creating a specific vibe. It's the most important part of creating lasting memories of these games, and from what I've heard already, Q2 hits just as hard as everything else in this series. It's evident in the groovy new opening track "Road Less Taken" and the Persona 3 Portable-themed battle song "Pull The Trigger" that already has me hooked. There are plenty of remixes of familiar tunes, but when they're paired with interactions between characters from other games, it brings a sense of cohesion that emphasizes the idea that they're all in it together. I'm always quick to attribute these wonderful soundtracks to series composer Shoji Meguro, but hearing the voices from the lead artists from each original game (Yumi Kawamura, Shihoko Hirata, Lyn Inaizumi, Lotus Juice, and Mayumi Fujita) belting out their unique styles in brand new swing-inspired jazz-rock tracks hits me right in my feelings.
Persona Q2 is already out in Japan and it's been tough not to peruse through the footage that's already out there. Everyone is here. It's an ambitious crossover that unites my favorite games, characters, and soundtracks in one place. It's as if I had different groups of dearly beloved friends somehow meet each other, get along, and band together in a stylish fight for what's right. This might be the 3DS's swan song, and it'd be a hell of way for the storied handheld to end its tenure.
The status of A Nightmare on Elm Street has been stuck somewhere in limbo over the past several years. After a 2010 reboot failed to reignite the franchise, fans have been waiting for yet another return for Freddy Krueger, in some form. It was first reported in 2015 that David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick (Orphan, The Conjuring 2) would write a new reboot, though there's been no news of the film in the time that followed.
However, Johnson-McGoldrick was able to give GameSpot a bit of an update. While promoting Aquaman--which he's one of the screenwriters of--the writer revealed, "It's still happening." Of course, that doesn't mean you'll see it just let. "Nothing is percolating just yet," he continued.
Instead, Johnson-McGoldrick is currently focused on The Conjuring 3. "The Conjuring universe is sort of first and foremost on [New Line Cinema's] horror burner," he admitted.
There is clearly still a desire for the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, though, and Johnson-McGoldrick recognizes that. "Everybody wants to see Freddy again I think, so I think it's inevitable at some point," he added.
Of course, when it finally comes to pass, there's plenty to learn from the last reboot of the franchise. The 2010 film wound up with a score of 35/100 on GameSpot sister site Metacritic, leaving most reviewers underwhelmed for a variety of reasons--many related to Freddy Krueger himself. While Jackie Earle Haley is a fine actor, his take on the monster of a bladed glove simply didn't hold a candle to Robert Englund's original version--in terms or terror or humor.
As it stands now, there's no set release date for a reimagining of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Still, hearing that the interest is still there is reassuring. The world needs more Freddy Krueger creeping us out in our nightmares.
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