Earlier this year, Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs announced it is moving the free-to-play Monster Hunter-like RPG from its own launcher to the Epic Games Store, joining a string of other high-profile games that are skipping Steam for Epic's new storefront. According to the studio, one of the primary reasons behind the move was Epic's player-focused philosophy and its experience in offering cross-play and cross-progression between different platforms.
"One of the things that we're passionate about at Phoenix Labs--and was a part of our vision even before we had chosen to build Dauntless--was finding a way to allow players to play together," Phoenix Labs co-founder and VP Robin Mayne told GameSpot at PAX East 2019. "And so a part of our strategy for Dauntless has been worldwide servers so you can play with anyone wherever they are.
"And then as we thought about our platform expansion, it was really important for us to fulfill our vision of one Dauntless, which is the ability to play with your friends no matter what platform they are on and no matter where they are. So working with Epic on the Unreal Engine and getting to chat with them about their vision for players as well, we realized it was a really big alignment with our vision for one Dauntless and being able to have people play together, and the ability to come to the Epic Games Store, plus Xbox and PlayStation, and be able to do cross-play so that everyone can play together."
Mayne also reiterated that Phoenix Labs plans to allow players to play with those on other platforms right from the game's console launch. "Our plan is full cross-play, full cross-progression, so you have your account that you play on, and you can play with anyone regardless of what platforms they are on. The launch this summer focuses on Epic Games Store, Xbox, and PlayStation. We have Switch in the works as well, and plans for mobile along the way."
While Phoenix Labs has ambitious cross-play plans for Dauntless, it will ultimately depend on Sony, which has only recently begun taking its first steps into cross-play. For years, the company was reluctant to allow PS4 players to play with those other platforms until it finally made the exception for Epic's phenomenally popular battle royale game, Fortnite. Since then, however, Sony has only allowed cross-play in one other PS4 game: Rocket League. Microsoft, meanwhile, has been much more welcoming of cross-play and has long pushed for Sony to reconsider its stance.
Dauntless is available now in open beta on PC, with a PS4 and Xbox One launch slated for this summer. We got a chance to play the game with Phoenix Labs at PAX East; in the video above, you can watch us team up with the developers to take down a new ice-themed Behemoth called Boreus. Unlike other monsters thus far, Boreus is able to summon minions, making for a chaotic fight.
Sega has announced the Genesis Mini--or Mega Drive Mini, if you're in Europe. The compact version of its classic 16-bit console will allow fans to indulge their nostalgia and play a range of old school games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Castlevania: Bloodlines, and Gunstar Heroes on modern displays.
The Genesis Mini was revealed as part of Sega's Fes event, which is taking place in Tokyo, Japan, and is scheduled to launch worldwide on September 19. It will cost $79.99 US/£69.99/€79.99/AUD$139.95 and have 40 games.
SEEEEGGGGAAAA!
The iconic SEGA Genesis returns September 19, 2019, with our lovingly crafted SEGA Genesis Mini for $79.99!
Simply plug-in and play 40 of the console's legendary titles, 10 of which we're announcing today.
The company has confirmed that this list of titles includes Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin, Castlevania: Bloodlines, Space Harrier 2, Shining Force, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, ToeJam & Earl, Comix Zone, Altered Beast, and Gunstar Heroes. Sega has said the remaining games will be "announced intermittently over the coming months."
The Sega Genesis Mini is based on the Model 1 Genesis, except is approximately 55 percent smaller than its original incarnation, according to Sega. In the box will be the Genesis Mini, two replica three-button USB controllers, one USB to Micro-B power cable, and one HDMI cable. In North America a power adapter will also be included.
The game ports that are on the Genesis Mini were handled by M2, a team that is well known for its work on emulation and re-releases. M2 previously worked on Sega Ages and Sega 3D Classics Collection.
Releasing Mini versions of classic consoles has become something of a trend recently. Nintendo led the way with the NES Classic and the SNES Classic, both of which were received well by critics and went on to be hot commercial items. Sony followed suite with the PlayStation Classic, which wasn't received as warmly.
For those looking for a more immediate option, and one that offers a few more options, there's Analogue's Mega Sg. "While roughly $200 is a lot to spend on a console to play Genesis games, right now, the Mega Sg is the easiest way to get them up and running on a modern TV without sacrificing audio or video quality--the support for Master System and Sega CD games is the icing on the cake," said Peter Brown in his Mega Sg review.
"Some people will always prefer to go the route of using emulators, and others may only want to play with original hardware and stick to aftermarket mods. But if you are open to the idea of a third-party Genesis console, and you want the peace of mind knowing that it looks and sounds better than the best original console from Sega, there's no better option on the market than the Mega Sg."
Sega has announced a range of video games for the Olympic Games being held in Tokyo next year. Among them is Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, a Switch title that will once again reunite the characters from Nintendo and Sega's most iconic franchises to compete in sporting events.
However, Sega also has Olympic Games: The Official Video Games in development for PS4, Xbox One, PC, and Switch. On top of that there's an arcade version of Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, and Sonic At The Olympic Games -- Tokyo 2020 for mobile devices. These games are showcased in a trailer, which you can watch below, albeit briefly.
Obviously, the main differences between the various titles is whether or not they have Mario or Sonic attached to them. Sega is making a standard Olympics video game available on all platforms, and this is currently listed as coming 2020 on the game's official website. Mario and Sonic will join in on the competition for Switch and Arcade, with the Switch version arriving in Winter 2019 while the arcade version follows in Summer 2020. Finally, on mobile, it's just Sonic and the game headed to the Olympics, and that game is set for Summer 2020.
In the trailer there are a range of events from the various games shown, including running, swimming, shot put, tennis, basketball, volleyball, motorsports, skateboarding, baseball, hurdles, and long jump, among others. It looks like there's going to be a nice variety of games for players to check out.
The original Mario and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games launched in November 2007 and proved to be very popular, becoming a sales success. Critically, however, the response was mixed. In GameSpot's review the Wii version received a 6/10. "The trouble lies in the often uninteresting and occasionally frustrating motion controls combined with some events that are too similar to one another, as well as shallow gameplay that brings the game down," it concluded.
FX's Legion panel at WonderCon 2019 kicked off with an exclusive look at the upcoming Season 3, which the network has stated will be the show's final season. The clip was from the new season's opening episode.
The lengthy footage starred a new addition to the cast in Season 3, Lauren Tsai, who plays a character named Switch. The clip didn't have a lot of dialogue or many clear connections to the story as we know it, although we can infer some things. We essentially followed a day in Switch's life: She eats breakfast with her father via teleconference on the screen of a 1960s style TV (the show remains era agnostic, as always), she goes to school, she listens all day to an audiobook called "Lessons In Time Travel."
In the footage, we only got one glimpse of her using that power--as she encounters increasingly strange coincidences throughout her day, including mysterious flyers posted around the city, she eventually tunes a radio to a specific station to catch a secret message. Having missed it by seconds, she draws a line in the air, and the scene apparently rewinds a few seconds to her plucking the radio from a closet again. A voice tells her without ambiguity: "Follow the yellow bus." And the voice sending the message? It sounded a whole lot like Dan Stevens' protagonist-ish hero-turned-villain, David Haller.
The bus led her to a back alley door leading into a bright white room filled with racks of clothing, shifting desks, and singing hippies. After a funky musical number, the desks all shifted together to form a tunnel. As Switch crawled on her hands and knees, she passed through skyscrapers, office buildings, a forest, a ship, the bottom of the ocean, and more, the scene shifting around her in a kaleidoscope of weirdness. Finally, on the other end, she was greeted by an unfamiliar woman, and the scene ended.
Tsai shared during the panel afterward that this is her first work in scripted entertainment. "It's crazy for me to watch it now," she said. "I'm really excited for you all to see and get to know Switch. It's going to be a very interesting season, and it's been a crazy time of learning for me."
The panel included Tsai and Stevens, as well as Amber Midthunder (Kerry), Jeremie Harris (Ptonomy), Navid Negahban (Amahl Farouk), Aubrey Plaza (Lenny), Rachel Keller (Syd Barrett), Dan Stevens (David Haller), Marvel Television's Jeph Loeb, executive producer Lauren Schuler Donner, and creator Noah Hawley. They spent the first part of the panel reminiscing about how they started on the show, and various moments from the previous two seasons.
For example, Plaza said she wasn't initially interested in the role of Lenny, a character who was originally written as a man. That was until Hawley told her that her character would eventually be killed, and her body taken over by a psychic mutant.
They did tease a few extremely tantalizing details, though: Legion Season 3 may be the show's last, but it might not be the final collaboration between Hawley (also known for FX's Fargo) and Marvel. Loeb himself raised the prospect of Hawley working on another Marvel show, or even something else within the Legion universe--eliciting cheers from the crowd.
"[Legion Season 3] is the end of this particular story," Loeb teased. There's a lot to potentially read from that statement, including the real possibility that Legion will somehow continue after the end of Season 3. Unfortunately, that was the extent of the tease.
Hawley also spoke at length about ending the story of Legion--or at least this chapter of it. "In looking at a story about a character who is mentally ill, there was a sense of kind of the path of the illness and recovery that [David] goes on," he said. "I feel like where we left him at the end of the second season, again at his lowest point, there's only two ways that he can go--he can either get back to a healthy place, or he can go off the bottom of the map. And once we decided which one of those he's gonna do, it felt like the end of the story, because otherwise you start the loop all over again. But it's not an easy decision to end a story."
"Obviously it's bittersweet, but a story has no meaning without its ending," he continued. "And the old paradigm of television was, major corporations don't usually do a mic drop after a success--you have to keep going, and there's something about being allowed to tell a story, where the length of the show is dictated by the length of the story, that makes television better."
Besides being Legion's alleged final season, Season 3 will also introduce a beloved X-men character: Professor Charles Xavier, who's being played by Game of Thrones' Harry Lloyd. When an audience member asked what other Marvel characters they'd like to fold into Legion's world, Stevens issued his own tease: "You might be pleasantly surprised by Season 3."
Lastly, a question for Aubrey Plaza at the end stole the show, as far as any Parks and Recreation fans in the audience were concerned: How would her character April Ludgate react to being possessed by Legion bad guy Amahl Farouk? "I think she'd like it," Plaza said. "I don't think she'd be very different. And she'd probably be better at her job. And she'd probably kill Jerry once and for all."
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2019 07:30 am In this Season 2 finale, we try to become one with Dirty Arty. That's right. We immerse ourselves further into the mind of a madman... by playing Red Dead Redemption 2 strictly in first-person.
At Wondercon in Aneheim, California, DC Universe held a panel showing off its upcoming additions for 2019 and early 2020 to its streaming service. Said panel was full of information including premiere dates of new and returning shows, a look at Stargirl, and the announcement of the Syfy series Krypton headed to the service.
First and foremost, panel-goers got the first look at Courtney Whitmore dressed in the Stargirl costume from the upcoming original series of the same name, set to air in early 2020. The show is based on the 1999 DC comic book character Stargirl, who is a legacy hero and member of the Justice Society of America, DC Comics' oldest superhero team. You can see the costume for yourself below.
However, that's not all DC Universe had in store. The next original series in the service's canon, the horror show Swamp Thing, will premiere on May 31. Like all other original programming, a new episode of the series will come to the DC Universe app every Friday.
Additionally, the second half to the animated series Young Justice: Outsiders will debut on July 2, but that's not all. Season 2 of Titans will arrive this fall. While Titans may have had a slow start, it ended up being incredible and vastly exceeded expectations. After Titans Season 2 airs, the Harley Quinn animated series will follow. DC Universe wants to have a new episode of an original series every Friday without any lapses.
On top of the original content, DC Universe is also bringing over the Syfy series Krypton, which follows Superman's grandfather on his home planet. It is much better than it sounds. Season 1 arrives on April 5. DC Universe will also be releasing the home video release of Justice League vs. The Fatal Five on April 16, the same day it comes to 4K, Bluray, and DVD.
DC Universe release dates:
Krypton Season 1: April 5
Justice League vs. The Fatal Five: April 16
Swamp Thing: May 31
Young Justice: Outsiders Season 1B: July 2
Titans Season 2: Fall 2019
Stargirl: Early 2020
Finally, the service is expanding its comic book section of the app, offering individual issues 12 months after their original publishing date. Subscribers can stay up relatively up to date on series they don't normally read or catch up on series they may have missed.
It's been a long time coming, considering the leaked images and rumors, but today Valve finally revealed its virtual reality headset, the Valve Index. A page dedicated to the Index went live on Steam, Valve's PC games distribution platform. The page includes the first official image of the VR headset.
As of now, there isn't much information since no details on price, technical specifications, or its functionality have been given. Index does have a release window, though: May 2019. Judging from the official teaser image, it'll have at least two built-in sensors (or cameras) on the headset itself, and what appears to be IPD and viewing distance adjustment notches. No indication has been made about whether or not the SteamVR Knuckle controllers will be a part of Index, although an updated prototype was shown last year.
The first look at the Valve Index VR headset.
Valve previously partnered with HTC for the development of Vive the headset and integrating it into the Steam ecosystem. Valve Index isn't the only new thing coming to VR gaming this year; Oculus announced two new headsets slated for Spring 2019 release. The Oculus Rift S will be an upgraded version of the Rift that'll feature built-in tracking sensors, a higher resolution, and a more ergonomic head strap. Those looking to go completely untethered will want to lookout for the Oculus Quest, a standalone VR headset powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor. Both Oculus headsets will launch at $400 USD.
Valve has announced it will slow down on pushing out updates for Artifact in order to start focusing on the digital card game's larger issues. The company published a blog post on Steam explaining its reasoning.
"Obviously, things didn't turn out how we hoped," Valve game programmer Jeep Barnett wrote. "Artifact represents the largest discrepancy between our expectations for how one of our games would be received and the actual outcome. But we don't think that players misunderstand our game, or that they're playing it wrong. Artifact now represents an opportunity for us to improve our craft and use that knowledge to build better games."
"It has become clear that there are deep-rooted issues with the game and that our original update strategy of releasing new features and cards would be insufficient to address them," Barnett continued. "Instead, we believe the correct course of action is to take larger steps, to re-examine the decisions we've made along the way regarding game design, the economy, the social experience of playing, and more."
Specifics are not listed for which "larger issues" will be addressed outside of the general descriptions supplied in the quote above. Barnett does warn, though, that the "process of experimentation and development" will most likely "take a significant amount of time." So you probably shouldn't expect new updates for Artifact anytime soon.
Artifact is Valve's first new game in years. Conceptually based on Dota 2, Artifact is designed by Richard Garfield, who previously created the Magic: The Gathering card game. Artifact is available on PC, with plans to bring the game to Android and iOS this year. Valve did not announce whether the mobile port will now be delayed on account of the shift in focus to address the game's larger issues.
Despite the game's issues, in our Artifact review, we gave the game an 8/10, describing the title as "a capable reimagining of modern trading card games."
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2019 05:32 am FromSoftware's latest adventure expertly balances difficult swordplay with an openness in combat and exploration that we absolutely adore.
The X-Men came to WonderCon and they brought some pretty massive treats with them. To promote the upcoming movie Dark Phoenix, the cast of X-Men shared some brand new footage at their WonderCon panel. Beware: The following contains spoilers for Dark Phoenix.
All told, there were two different--and lengthy--clips shown. The first, which clocked in at around 10 minutes, sent the X-Men to space. Pieces of this sequence have been seen in trailers, but there's quite a bit more context to be had. As it so happens, the X-Men are tasked with rescuing a NASA shuttle, which was struck by the Phoenix Force, essentially leaving it dead in the water.
Though she ultimately absorbs the Phoenix energy--and it looks very cool--it's not just Jean (Sophie Turner) getting in on the action in space. The clip shows just how great a team the X-Men has become, with everyone knowing their role and working together. The clip also shows Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) calling the shots in the field, giving the idea that she's second in command behind Charles Xavier (James McAvoy).
That's explored even further, when back on Earth she accuses Charles of sending the team into a dangerous situation, putting their lives at risk to save the lives of non-mutants. According to Charles, he's just trying to keep the peace.
Mystique also points out--after Jean essentially saved them all in space--that the women on the team are the ones doing the heavy-lifting. "The women are always saving the men around here," sher said. "You might want to think about changing the name to X-Women." This potential divide in their relationship is especially intriguing, given what we know about Mystique's fate in the film.
The second clip finds the X-Men at their lowest. Jean, who's done full-on Dark Phoenix by this point, has been tracked down in New York City. Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) are determined to kill her after the death of Mystique, which was previously revealed in a trailer.
Meanwhile, Charles, Cyclops (Tye Sheridan), Storm (Alexandra Shipp), and Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) plan on stopping them. What follows is a mutant fight on the streets of NYC. It's the kind of thing that, for comic book fans, is a sight to see. If you've been waiting to see Cyclops vs. Beast, this is going to be something you'll enjoy.
If the clips are any indication, the tone of an X-Men film has never been darker than in Dark Phoenix--and the scale has never been more epic. What remains to be seen is if this is the final chapter in the franchise, following Disney's acquisition of Fox. If this is the end of the road for the X-Men as we know it, at least it's finishing with a story as massive as the Dark Phoenix Saga.
By Anonymous on Mar 30, 2019 04:40 am Burnham has a long awaited reunion as Georgiou and Tyler sense something is off about Leland. Greg & Chastity break down the story and references from Star Trek: Discovery season 2 episode 11, "Perpetual Infinity". Disclosure: CBS is GameSpot's parent company.
The upcoming remaster for Crash Team Racing channels much of the same energy and cartoonish personality that made the classic PS1 title such a well-loved game. Developed by Beenox, Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Refueled also manages to go a bit further than updating the original, including more content than people had anticipated. During PAX East 2019, we spent some time racing on the different tracks in Nitro-Refueled, which included the return of some tracks found from the sequel Nitro Kart.
Speaking with GameSpot at PAX, Beenox co-studio head Thomas Wilson described the approach they took with the remaster, and what sort of content they wanted to include with the game.
"With the name Nitro-Fueled, we wanted to see how we could complement the original experience," said Wilson. "We did that by adding new tracks that originated from Crash Nitro Kart, and which we decided pretty early on we were going to do that. We felt it was the right decision, and it was all about creating a more well-rounded package for fans."
During our hands-on time, we got to play across four different tracks pulling from CTR and Nitro Kart. One thing that the original game was known for was its challenging difficulty, and that's certainly present here. I really found myself struggling to keep up with other opponents--both AI and other players. One sudden hit from an enemy's missile or driving straight into a vial of chemicals almost inevitably put us in a bad way. With that said, I still felt that Nitro-Fueled managed to recapture that same sense of fun from the original, which was present in the updated art style that looks more vibrant than ever.
This remaster also includes a number of changes and revisions to the core gameplay. For instance, all the anti-gravity sections from Nitro Kart's tracks have been removed in order to keep it consistent with the courses from the original game. Nitro-Fueled also offers an upgrade to the original's car combat mode. Featuring only the standard battle mode, the remaster will also incorporate the maps and modes from Nitro Kart as well, bringing it to a total of 12 different battle maps with multiple game types, including standard combat and capture the flag. From our recent hands-on, Crash Team Racing: Nitro-Fueled is shaping up to be a solid remaster that will rekindle the fast-pace and fun of the original.
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