Much like the first game, Destiny 2 will offer exclusive content to PlayStation players. That means everyone on systems other than PS4--which now includes not just Xbox One, but also PC--will have to wait to get their hands on an additional Strike and multiplayer map, among other things. While that remains unfortunate for players on those other platforms, we do now have a better idea of when to expect that content to debut.
Destiny 2 game director Luke Smith shared the news on Twitter, stating, "Destiny 2's PlayStation-exclusive content will arrive on Xbox One and PC in 2018." He unfortunately didn't get more specific than that, but it does still provide us with new information. When PS4-exclusive content was first announced, Activision said it would remain exclusive "until at least Fall 2018," which left the door open for it to remain unavailable on Xbox One and PC for even longer than a year. Combining that with what Smith said, you can expect the content to be out between September and December 2018.
We learned this week exactly what PS4 players will get their hands on first. The biggest piece of content is the Lake of Shadows Strike, but there's also a Crucible map called Retribution, an Exotic sniper rifle called Borealis, armor, and a ship. You can get a glimpse of all this in the trailer above.
At E3 2017, Nintendo finally showed off gameplay from the upcoming Super Mario Odyssey, and today it confirmed that the game will have two-player local co-op on the Nintendo Switch. Before today, it seemed likely that co-op would be coming to the game, but now Nintendo has officially revealed it. The most interesting part of it, though, is that the second player controls Cappy.
On Nintendo's Treehouse stream today, the company showed off cooperative gameplay for the first time. Each player holds a Joy-Con, and while one runs around as Mario, the other takes control of his magic hat. Cappy can fly around Mario, protecting him from enemies and helping him complete puzzles.
According to Nintendo, the co-op is meant as a way of introducing players to Super Mario Odyssey and video games in general. The controls are simpler for Cappy; the Mario player has full control over the camera. You can check out a bit of the gameplay in this GIF, from Wario64's Twitter.
We're just a few days away from the official launch of Final Fantasy XIV's next expansion Stormblood and with it comes a major patch that will update and add to many parts of the PlayStation 4 and PC game.
Stormblood is officially out on June 20, but anyone who pre-orders the game will get early access, scheduled to begin tomorrow, June 16, at 2 AM PT / 5 AM ET / 10 AM BST. Square Enix says that's why these patch notes are out now, and they show there are major updates coming to areas in the game, quests, jobs, and more. Check out just some of the patch notes below.
Final Fantasy XIV Patch 4.0
New Areas added:
Rhalgr's Reach
Kugane
New Field Areas added:
The Fringes
The Peaks
The Ruby Sea
Yanxia
The Azim Steppe
New City and Field Aetherytes have been added
A Mini-Aetheryte for Sapphire Avenue Exchange has been added in Ul'dah
The experience point reward for unlocking maps has been increased
New main scenario quests have been added
New side quests have been added
NPCs associated with the quests "Can't Do It Without You" and "True U" have been changed
New job quests have been added
Secondary class requirement for unlocking jobs has been removed
New class quests have been added
The rewards for main scenario and job quests have been adjusted, and the EXP awarded for completing these quests has been increased
EXP awarded upon completing Moogle beast tribe quests with a class or job at level 60 or higher has been significantly reduced
New tradecraft and fieldcraft leves have been added to the new areas
When playing as a class over level 60, rewards for tradecraft leves and fishing fieldcraft leves below level 60 will be greatly reduced.
The locations of gathering points for the botanist guildleve Maple Stories have been adjusted
EXP awarded upon completing botanist and miner fieldcraft leves has been increased
New FATEs have been added
FATE difficulty has been adjusted
Certain large scale FATEs will no longer require level sync to participate
The time limit for the FATEs Long Live The Coeurl and Coeurls Chase Boys has been increased from 15 to 30 minutes
There are many other updates in the new patch as well, and you can get a look on Final Fantasy XIV's website. There are even more patch details due out tonight at 7 PM PT / 10 PM ET / 3 AM BST.
When we began to learn the details of the PC version of Destiny 2, it sounded as if it might not arrive at the same time as the console versions. In addition to announcing that it had moved up the release date for the console versions earlier this week, Activision revealed a different--later--release date for the game on PC.
Destiny 2 launches for PC on October 24. That's just under two months after it's due out on PS4 and Xbox One; those versions are now scheduled for release on September 6. Additionally, details of the beta were confirmed for consoles. The PC version will be getting a beta, but a precise date was not shared--we only know it's due out in "late August." Bungie has since explained why the PC version will take longer.
With E3 taking place this week, today has still brought it with a fairly standard weekly update to the Nintendo Switch eShop. Two more games launch today, with two more to come over the next few days.
Today's other new Switch game is the latest ACA Neo Geo title, Sengoku. It's a classic side-scrolling beat-em-up originally released back in 1991. What sets it apart from other games is the ability to periodically transform into other beings, such as a samurai or a wolf wearing armor. It carries the standard Neo Geo eShop game pricing of $8/£6.29.
Tomorrow brings the latest big Switch release from Nintendo, Arms. The quirky fighting game launches on June 16 for $60. Next week, the "definitive" version of Cave Story, Cave Story+, arrives on June 20 for $30.
The latest weekly physical game sales charts for Australia and New Zealand have arrived, with Sony's Horizon: Zero Dawn coming out on top in Australia and Tekken 7 in New Zealand.
As usual, these are the all-platforms charts and they cover physical game sales only, this time for the week ended June 11. Another thing to note is that the group that puts together these lists, the IGEA, does not release specific sales numbers.
Australia/New Zealand Top 10 All-Platforms Sales Charts:
Fans of hit action movies John Wick and John Wick: Chapter Two will have plenty to enjoy in the next couple of years. Not only is a third movie set to start shooting soon, but a prequel TV show is on the way too. Now, director Chad Stahelski has revealed some details about the series, which is being developed under the title The Continental.
The title refers to the hotel which is used as neutral ground by the movies' community of assassins. Speaking to Indiewire, Stahelski explained that the show would go beyond the New York Continental featured most prominently the films.
"It's very tied to the film [in that] it's about the Continentals all over the world, how certain people come into that world, and what happens in relation to those people," he said. "I think the world is very vast. It's something that studio seems very, very intent on [making] and very, very behind."
Stahelski went on to explain that the show's focus wouldn't just be the assassins. "I like telling stories from one character's perspective," he said. "Once you put that aside with the TV show, [you can] expand to all the different characters and follow them throughout their journey. You can be with the consigliere, concierge, the sommelier. You can be with all these different characters and walk through the world in different aspects."
Nevertheless, Stahelski didn't rule out an appearance from Keanu Reeves, who stars in the movies. "I think he would make an appearance," he said. "I think that's part of his thing, [but the series] isn't centered around John Wick."
As for John Wick 3, it was reported last month that the movie will go into production soon. "We're currently in the middle of writing it right now," Stahelski said. "It's more [about] how fast can we get our s**t together. But I would assume that if not by the end of this year, the beginning of next year."
Destiny 2 introduces the Guided Games system, which serves as a matchmaking substitute of sorts for high-end group activities like Raids and Nightfall Strikes. But there are limitations on what Guided Games permit access to, as Bungie has revealed they are restricted to activities on Normal difficulty.
In a conversation on Kotaku's E3 2017 podcast, game director luke Smith confirmed that Heroic-level Raids and Nightfall Strikes will still require players to have their own groups to play with. "I don't know exactly how the Challenge Mode layers are going to work [with Guided Games], but the normal-tier activities will be Guided Games, and the Heroics will be find-your-own."
Raids and Nightfall Strikes, the two highest-level activities in Destiny, did not have any sort of matchmaking in the original game. In Destiny 2, Guided Games will provide a form of matchmaking for players who cannot find their own group. This system is undoubtedly a positive addition, but it's still disappointing that players still won't be able to access the most valuable activities without a large group of friends.
We've reached the last day of E3, and while the announcements have died down, there was plenty that happened earlier in the week. The six major press conferences brought with them a lot of news and game reveals, from Metroid to BioWare's Anthem to Beyond Good & Evil 2.
For the first time ever, E3 was open to the public this year, but the show otherwise seems to be largely the same as in the recent past. One notable difference was that things began earlier than usual--EA already held its EA Play press conference on Saturday, while Microsoft's Xbox press conference was a day earlier than usual. It might be too late to enjoy them live, but you can still re-experience them all with our liveblogs and various recaps. You can find all of this below.
Sony's E3 2017 press briefing this week had some big game reveals, including the Shadow of the Colossus remake. But the show wasn't completely stuffed with game announcements, and now we've learned that Sony held back game reveals to save them for a later date.
"There are things we have held; [things] we chose not to show during this E3," PlayStation Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida said in an interview with JagatPlay. "Of course, there will be some more news coming out from our teams later this year."
Yoshida's role as Worldwide Studios boss means he presumably knows what all of Sony's studios around the globe are working on. We'd also wager he has good insight into what third-party developers are working on, if the games are coming to PlayStation consoles.
Just like the Xbox One S, Microsoft's new, more powerful Xbox One X console can stand vertically. Xbox director Albert Penello confirmed on Twitter that you can orient the console vertically with an optional accessory that Microsoft will sell separately.
"Yes there is an optional stand for vertical!" Penello said.
The Xbox One S vertical stand is priced at $20. Given that the Xbox One X is smaller than the S, it might be that there is a new stand specific to that device, though there does not appear to be a product page available for it yet on Microsoft's website. We will report back with more information as it becomes available.
The Xbox One X launches on November 7, priced at $500 in the US. International pricing is £449, €499, CA$599, and AU$649.
We have a total of three (3) prize packs. One (1) winner will be announced each day from our live stage show on June 13, 14, and 15 at approximately 6pm PT. If you enter for a chance to win on Tuesday and don't win, you'll automatically be entered again on Wednesday and Thursday. This giveaway is open to United States residents only.
The Planet of the Apes series is one of the most successful movie reboots of recent years, and the third movie in the franchise arrives next month. War for the Planet of the Apes promises an epic showdown between apes and man, and a new clip has been released. It introduces 'Bad Ape', voiced by Steve Zahn (The Ridiculous 6). Check it out below:
The film stars Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, and Judy Greer. It follows Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014). It's directed by Matt Reeves, whose previous credits include Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Cloverfield, and he'll also helm the standalone Batman movie for DC.
The most recent trailer for the movie suggested that this would be "the end" for the series. However, Serkis has since clarified this, and reassured fans that there will be more movies to come. "We're saying this is the final chapter in the trilogy," he told Yahoo Movies. "It's by no means the end of the road in terms of Apes films."
War for the Planet of the Apes hits theaters on July 14, 2017.
Matterfall will be a true platformer, with a few core game mechanics to help players blast and survive their way through futuristic level after level, according to developer Housemarque's Jari Hokkanen. He stopped by GameSpot's E3 2017 Stage to talk gameplay and share tons of video from the studio's next game, due out this August. Check out the action in the video above.
Hokkanen says the arcade-style shooter is reminiscent of classic action platformers like Metroid and Gunstar Heroes. In Matterfall, you play a mercenary tasked with clearing the city of corrupted red matter and enemies, saving civilians in the meantime. Fortunately, you can use non-corrupted blue matter, all around you, to activate platforms and build up your shields.
At the game's core, you shoot your way through level after level in Matterfall, employing powerful secondary weapons like a matter gun, shotgun, or grenade launcher. You can also activate other passive augmentations, which grant you buffs like increased health or better reloads.
In the E3 gameplay video, Housemarque mostly shows off the game's first city level, complete with a scary boss fight with a robotic wasp at the end. There are different difficulty levels, and the whole game was built with speedrunners in mind. You can explosively dash your way through levels and try to kill everything in your way to get the best time. There's no multiplayer, but there is an online leaderboard if you're feeling competitive.
Speaking to TechRadar, Ybarra the Xbox ecosystem is all about giving people options. "We're all about choice," he said, pointing to the Xbox One S as a more than capable console that is available at a relatively affordable price point, starting at $250 right now.
The Xbox One X, meanwhile, is aimed at the "high-end gamer," and it has a price point that reflects that. "If you're a high-end gamer and you want the absolute best experience possible there's no place you'll find a better performance to price ratio than Xbox One X," he said. "True 4K, all the features you saw in the briefing at $499, that value proposition is great."
Further up the ladder in terms of performance--and price--is the PC market. "If you're on PC you're going to be about $1500 or so, so that's another area," Ybarra said. "We love Windows gaming. A lot of our games, almost 20 of them in the show, are going to be on Windows too."
"So that's the point that I love to say, 'What kind of gamer are you?' and let you decide what's best for you."
A popular Grand Theft Auto modding tool program has shut down after the group behind it claimed it received a cease and desist order from Take-Two Interactive.
The OpenIV group said in a message today (via PCGamer), "We feared that this day would come… And now it's here. The day, when GTA modding was declared illegal."
The organization said it complied with pertinent rules related to modding GTA content, including not "messing with online [play]" and only using "clean-room reverse engineering," among other things.
On June 5, OpenIV said it received a cease and desist order letter from Take-Two, the parent company of GTA V developer Rockstar Games. The letter reportedly that the modding tool "allow[s] third-parties to defeat security features of its software and modify that software in violation Take-Two's rights."
OpenIV said they could go to court to demonstrate that modding is within the coverage of fair use, but the organization decided not to.
"Going to court will take at least few months of our time and huge amount of efforts, and, at best, we'll get absolutely nothing," it said. "Spending time just to restore status quo is really unproductive, and all the money in the world can't compensate the loss of time."
With that in mind, OpenIV said it decided to comply with the letter and stop distributing the mod tools. "It was a hard decision, but when any modding activity has been declared illegal, we can't see any possibilities to continue this process," it said. "Unless top management of Take-Two company makes an official statement about modding, which can be used in court."
You can read the full statement here. We've contacted Take-Two in an attempt to get more details, and we'll update this post with anything we hear back.
For as much as I loved Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, I was never able to enjoy it as much as I could have because it was just too easy. The Nemesis system provided a somewhat different experience from player to player, but I found it was far too easy to isolate individual orcs and dispatch them before Nemesis could really have an impact. While you were meant to become overpowered by the end of the game, the bulk of the adventure--where you're alone in Mordor, the most hostile of territories in Middle-earth--still never caused me to feel like I was in any real danger.
Over the course of an E3 demo session with sequel Shadow of War, I think I died more times than in the entirety of the first game. Jumping into the game, I was given the choice of roaming the land and taking part in two different story missions or heading directly to assault a fortress. As the latter is meant to be the culmination of your efforts in a given area, I opted to complete the story missions first to reacquaint myself with its mechanics. It didn't take long to fall back in love with the smooth, Batman: Arkham-esque combat, and I was quickly converting enemies to my side, pulling off Shadow Strikes (where you teleport to an enemy using your bow and execute them), and generally laying waste to the orc masses.
My first mission involved following a path through some woods to track down a powerful being, who had ensnared a number of orcs along the way. Dominating each one I came across allowed me to view brief cutscenes hinting at the events that had occurred (and were capped off with each orc's head exploding, because why not). This led to a series of one-on-one fights against increasingly challenging foes (and several deaths), culminating in a deal being struck between Talion and this individual. For what might very well be a random story mission, it was one that I'll remember, both because of the enemies I was facing--it felt like a rapid series of boss fights-- and because it was legitimately difficult. The other mission I played felt less substantial, as you're simply invading a camp and interrogating orcs, but the subject matter--you're investigating the Nazgul's use of the Palantirs--did delight the Tolkien fan in me.
With those done, I set out to conquer the local fortress, which is the highlight of what's being demoed at E3. These assaults are massive battles between an enemy force and one of your own, almost like Helm's Deep where you're on the Uruk-hai side. Dozens of AI-controlled stage an attack on the fort, but before doing so, you're free to customize the way the assault plays out. Depending on the orcs you've recruited, you'll be able to purchase upgrades that give you an advantage heading into battle. A huge creature that launches mortars into the fort can be instructed to use different types of rounds (damage over time, slow enemies down, etc.). Another upgrade includes the possibility to have a drake creature take part in the battle, but this is a risky option as it won't discriminate between attacking your troops and the enemy. Naturally, I had to pick that, and it was spectacular to see in action.
When the assault starts, it can a bit overwhelming--you're surrounded by friendly troops rushing in, and it's difficult to know how to even begin approaching it. I opted to Shadow Strike up to an archer and take him out before moving on to the first of three victory points, which have to be captured one after the other in order to ultimately confront the fort's overlord. While the average foe can be dealt with easily enough, the sheer scale of everything that's going on makes this all an exciting challenge. The chaos resulted in some close calls, including two times where I entered the last-stand mode, where you're essentially given an extra life if you successfully time a button press just as an enemy is about to finish you off. While that allowed me to keep going, I was sure to die at the third victory point, only for the drake to show up out of nowhere, inadvertently saving me.
I wasn't so lucky once that victory point was captured and I moved inside to directly confront the overlord. Flanked by a number of tough enemies in a large throne room of sorts, I first teleported to the archers above and recruited them to my side, thinking they would provide me with cover fire as I fought the overlord. But without having done the legwork that I could have before taking on the fort, the overlord and his minions were simply too much for me to handle. He proved to be particularly challenging with his ability to adapt to my tactics--after leaping over his head a few times to get behind him, he would no longer allow me to do so. This forced me to find a new way of attacking him while still fending off his flunkies.
Disappointing as it was to fail repeatedly at taking the overlord out, I surprisingly was not frustrated. This was partially because I still felt like there was some sense of progression. I had taken out the fort's warchiefs, weakening its defenses, and orcs--particularly the overlord--were reacting to my failures by becoming increasingly cocky. While my goal on subsequent attempts remained the same, the fact that I wasn't playing precisely the same encounter made for a more fun experience than succeeding on my first go through. With the potential for a full playthrough of the game to be filled with these kinds of moments, I can't wait to get my hands on more than just this small slice of Shadow of War.
Speaking on Giant Bomb's live show tonight, Xbox boss Phil Spencer set expectations for the breadth of the library of OG Xbox games for Xbox One. He said the lineup will not be as large as the number of Xbox 360 games. Why? One part of it is the rights; it is more difficult to lock these down, Spencer said. And secondly, it is more technically difficult, Spencer explained.
"It won't be as big as Xbox 360, I'll tell people that," Spencer said.
The fact that the library of original Xbox games will be comparatively smaller than Xbox 360 is why Microsoft did not make as big a deal of OG Xbox backwards compatibility as it did when it announced Xbox 360 backwards compatibility at E3 2015.
There are only two OG Xbox games confirmed for the Xbox One's backwards compatibility library so far: Crimson Skies and Fuzion Frenzy. The program launches later this year. By comparison, there are more than 385 Xbox 360 games playable on Xbox One through backwards compatibility--you can see them all here.
Earlier this week, PlayStation executive Jim Ryan said one reason why Sony isn't allowing cross-play between PS4 and Xbox One for Minecraft is because the company is concerned about the safety of its users. If Sony allowed PSN to connect to an outside network like Xbox Live, Sony would not be able to fully control the experience. This could potentially put its users, in particular children, at risk, Ryan said.
Speaking tonight on GameSpot sister site Giant Bomb's E3 livestream, Xbox boss Phil Spencer responded to Ryan's comments, though he did not mention him by name. He said the dialogue that Ryan engaged in is unhealthy for the industry overall, and took issue with his suggestion that Microsoft doesn't do enough to keep users safe.
"I would love for players on all platforms to stay connected," Spencer said. "The fact that somebody would make an assertion that somehow we're not keeping Minecraft players safe ... I found, not only from a Microsoft perspective but an industry perspective, I don't know why that has to become the dialogue. That doesn't seem healthy for anyone. We can always do better with anything we do. I find the whole discussion around safety with our game and that somehow we wouldn't take that as a top priority … and frankly, through our parental controls on Xbox Live and everything else that we've done, shown that that's incredible important to us as a platform."
All of that being said, Spencer said "the door is open" to working with Sony on cross-play. He added that safety is "incredibly important" for Microsoft's team. "We would never put Minecraft in a place where we felt like we weren't keeping our players safe," he explained.
Minecraft is getting a big new update soon that unifies it across most platforms (except for PlayStation devices). As a result, Minecraft players on Nintendo Switch will be able to play with those on Xbox One or PC. One of the interesting consequences of this new, unified platform is that Nintendo Switch owners will have to log into Xbox Live to play the game online.
Head of Xbox confirmed the news today while speaking on the Giant Bomb E3 2017 live show. In a discussion about cross-platform play, Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann asked about logging in, and Spencer replied that it'll be the same system across all devices. "It's an Xbox Live account; that's our gaming social network," he said.
"We use Xbox Live as the way to make sure we know who our players are, controls around parental controls and other things that we put into our platform are there. And as you're buying things in Minecraft, you want to make sure you have them available on other platforms, so we have to know who you are. If you have a realm that you've created on the PC and you want to get to it on the Switch, we have to have an identity system and we just use Xbox Live."
Gerstmann also asked if players will be able to earn Achievements. "I don't know yet," he replied. "I'm guessing no. And this is a collaborative relationship between Nintendo and I; they don't have Achievements on their platform. If they want us to, I would love to be able to do it... The relationship with Nintendo is incredibly strong. We obviously did the Mario mash-up pack into Minecraft; that doesn't happen that often."
Metroid: Samus Returns will bring players back to the origins of the series, with some major updates, according to Nintendo. Daniel Orehuela from the Nintendo Treehouse stopped by GameSpot's E3 2017 Stage today to give viewers an in-depth look at the upcoming 3DS game. Check it out in the video above.
Samus Returns is a remake of the 1991 Gameboy game, Metroid II: Return of Samus, with plenty of 2017 upgrades. There's new audio, 3D elements, new abilities and game mechanics, and obviously redesigned graphics in full color.
For starters, developer MercurySteam has designed a new system for aiming. Samus can aim in 360 degrees, unlike the original game which only allowed you to shoot forward. When you target an enemy, your line of sight turns red, helping players to know exactly when to fire. Another new combat dynamic is melee counters. Samus can now counter enemies' attacks with a melee counter. Things get more epic if you shoot your enemy right after the counter, which gives you a critical attack.
Nintendo says the goal with Samus Returns is to add extra challenge to the game for anyone who played the original Metroid II. Orehuela told GameSpot that the new touches bring the game into the modern age, and will also help new players get into the game as well. Samus now has Aeion abilities, for example, which give her new sets of powers that give players a serious advantage. Scan Pulse, for example, shows players where to go next on the map, avoiding the traditional Metroid task of reexaming your route when you hit a dead end.
Metroid: Samus Returns is due out September 15. Check out our first impressions of the game here. Samus Returns is one of two new Metroid games coming for Nintendo. During its E3 announcement yesterday, the company announced another game Metroid Prime 4 is coming sometime in the future.
It's common knowledge that head of Xbox Phil Spencer is a big fan of Destiny, and today we learned just how much he likes the game. Speaking on the Giant Bomb E3 2017 live show, Spencer said that he's played 700 hours of Bungie's first-person shooter.
Spencer was conversing with Giant Bomb's Jeff Gerstmann about how the nature of games has changed over the past few years, shifting toward a greater focus on service-based products that last a long time rather than one-off games that are finished in a couple days. Gerstmann spoke about how players now have to make the decision between buying shorter, single-player games, and games like Destiny which they might "play for 400 hours or something." At that, Spencer chimed in, "I'm at 700."
We're unable to confirm the veracity of Spencer's claim. We've looked up his gamertag on Bungie's website, which provides stat-tracking for Destiny players, but it lists him as having played a paltry 323 hours in the game. Of course, he easily could be playing on another gamertag, and 323 hours is still a lot.
But we have to take him at his word on the 700 hours claim. If you're wondering, 700 works out to just over 29 days of playing Strikes, Raids, and the Crucible. Also, if his claims are to be be believed, this is up from 600 in April, so he's put 100 hours into the game in about two months.
Speaking to GameSpot today at E3, Rebellion Developments boss Tim Jones talked about how the Sniper Elite developer's new game Strange Brigade will run "beautifully" on Xbox One X. Asked about the improvements that Xbox One X owners can expect when playing Strange Brigade, Jones didn't list any specific things, but stressed that the graphics on the new box are on "another level."
"We can't go too much into specifics, but we can say it's going to be running beautifully smoothly in 4K with HDR and all those sort of bright, shiny new things you expect," he explained. "It looks the business. It is really exciting to see it at the crisp resolution. It does bring the visuals to another level."
Strange Brigade is on display on Microsoft's Xbox booth on the E3 show floor, running on Xbox One X. A co-op shooter set in the 1930s, Strange Brigade supports solo play or co-op for up to four players. The game is coming to PS4, Xbox One, and PC, but you should not expect a Nintendo Switch version of the game anytime soon, if it ever happens at all.
"We thought about it," Jones told GameSpot when we asked if Switch was considered for Strange Brigade. "It's not the right fit for us at the moment with Strange Brigade. I'm not going to say never. We love the platform. I personally love the platform. Certainly Strange Brigade [on Switch] would be cool but we have no plans for that."
GameSpot played Strange Brigade this week at E3. Check back later this week for more on the intriguing-looking shooter.
Roguelikes center around runs. Since your progress resets when you die, you're meant to build up a familiarity with the game's mechanics by throwing yourself at the game until you understand it better and can make it further each run. These runs are meant to be relatively short; you play for twenty to thirty minutes, sometimes an hour, before death and reset. That's the formula that most roguelikes follow.
In Minit, you've got one minute. Every single run is one minute long, never longer
It's a roguelike in a pure sense, with inventory, skills, and stats mostly stripped away in favor of simplicity and singularity of purpose. You must explore as much of Minit's world as possible during each minute-long run. You must make sure that your movements are deliberate, that you don't waste a second, so that you can complete each stage of the level.
I only got to spend a short time with Minit at E3 2017, but it left a huge impression. It's one of the cooler concepts for a game that I've seen in some time--and it's really fun, as well.
I like to think that the game's title is a pun on "minute" and "minimal," because minimalism defines this game. In addition to its much-restrained roguelike system, it also has a monochromatic, 8-bit art style that is simple but evocative nonetheless. It actually looks a lot like the aesthetic of Downwell.
When you first start the game, your nondescript, undefined character wakes up in a house. You walk out and down to a beach, where you stumble across a sword. Grabbing the sword, you are cursed--and a timer in the upper left immediately starts ticking down from 60. From then on, you must explore this island and find a way to unlock each new area. You'll encounter enemies, puzzles, and NPCs, and each time that clock hits zero, you'll die and wake up in your house again. The few items you get will stay with you, so you don't have to worry about retrieving them again. But other than that, it's more or less a clean slate every time you die.
Over the course of the game--which developers Jan Nijman and Kitty Calis say should take about three hours to finish the first time around--you encounter all sorts of different puzzles and traps.
I won't spoil these puzzles, because they compose the core of the game, but one encounter encapsulates Minit's gameplay loop and its tone: soon after I grabbed the sword, I wandered over to a lighthouse. By the lighthouse stood an old man, so I stopped to talk to him. He began to tell me the story about how he got there--extraordinarily slowly. His text bubble revealed only about one word a second, meaning that, by the time he finished talking, half of my run had been wasted.
Minit is full of red herrings and distractions like that, which can be both nefarious and playful. During my demo, Nijman and Calis stressed that their development philosophy centers around the small details. In other words, there are, of course, big events that happen in the game. But the smaller, momentary encounters matter a lot, as well. They want players to be able to take the watering can and try it on everything, even the dog (which I did, and I was quite amused at the result).
From my time with the game, it's clear that this design goal underlies every part of the game. In this way, it's much more like an old-school adventure game than a roguelike such as Rogue Legacy. Just like adventure games, Minit wants you to take items and bash them against each other, and to wander blindly in the dark (literally, in this case) until you figure out how to unlock a door, or where a specific item is.
I was particularly impressed with the fact that, in spite of its time limit, playing Minit actually felt relaxing. I fell into a sort of routine, dying and then restarting and continuing my exploration where I left off. The loop is so fast, and respawning so easy, that it doesn't feel frustrating to die. Nor does it feel like you've lost in any way or that you're losing progress. Instead, the time constraint forces you to be more deliberate, efficient, and innovative. You can't really solve the puzzles of Minit by brute force, because you're never given enough time. With its beautiful art style and soundtrack, Minit was laid-back enough to keep me from ever getting frustrated.
Minit was one of my biggest surprises of E3 2017, and I can't wait to explore it more when it comes out later this year. Keep it on your radar--it's shaping up to be a delight to play.
I'm not quite sure what Beyond Good & Evil 2 is. In the behind-closed-doors presentation I was given, series creator Michel Ancel showcased the sum total of three years of work: an engine that serves as the foundation of an ambitious open-world galaxy filled with unique characters and personal stories.
This engine allows players to move from enclosed, densely detailed environments such as a seedy bar, into streets packed with characters--both human and NPC--then up into the sky, and out into space. And it makes it possible for this to happen seamlessly, without jarring transitions or a break in gameplay.
"This was the first dream that motivated us to delay the game," Ancel explains. "It was impossible to do this with the previous tech, and maybe we were not able to do it. But now we feel we can do it."
While the impressive trailer shown during Ubisoft's press conference is not at all indicative of the state of Beyond Good & Evil 2 right now, it does speak to Ancel's vision--one where you can double-cross a sloppy-looking pig mobster, hijack a ship, and disappear into the depths of space, landing on another planet to meet brand-new characters and explore entirely new cultures.
"This feeling of freedom, travel, and vehicles are part of what we did with [the first] Beyond Good & Evil. They give a different approach and vision of the same world. [In Beyond Good & Evil] you start with Jade's house, very small, and then you realise the world is much bigger.
"I think everyone that loves science fiction loves that feeling of freedom and exploration, the unknown, and the things beyond. They can be frustrated if science fiction is limited to tiny places. Part of the idea of the game is that you have strong characters, you have tiny places like the restaurant, but … you realise that you're in a bigger city, a bigger place. We wanted to give this feeling of scale [city to planet]. Everything is seamless and everything is in the same world."
Despite the ambitious scale of the world, Ancel and his team emphasise that the sequel will still be about meeting and investing in characters. At multiple points in the presentation, Ancel repeated the phrase "the treasure is in meeting others," which no doubt is a more alluring phrase in his native French, but the sentiment still carries in English.
"We really believe that [strong] characters are key for our game," another developer said. "They represent a lot of emotions but also the history, the culture, and the origins. Just by looking at one character you can imagine other things.
"Our universe is very diverse: you can have hybrids, you've got normal people, you've got weird people, big mechs. We want to make that science-fiction stuff relatable. You'll want to meet these guys because they're weird and they look cool."
Beyond Good & Evil 2 will be about allowing players to live out that fantasy of getting lost in a science-fiction world, where each new person is weirder than the last, so much so that you simply cannot resist talking to them, learning about their past, and recruiting them to your cause--whatever it may be.
The room in which our presentation took place was adorned with concept art for the game and, I must admit, my eyes were drawn to the striking design of some the characters. There was a large muscular anthropomorphic tiger, a shaggy-haired man wearing body armour and wielding a rifle, a dour-looking lady holding a fat baby pig. With just a single glance, I wanted to know more about them, to learn their backstories, and figure out what makes them tick.
However, none of that is actually in Beyond Good & Evil 2 right now. According to Ancel, development is still very much at day zero, so all they have is a vast but barren world and a floating spaceship so large that it houses another ship in it, which you can fly if you're so inclined.
There's also that mischievous foul-mouthed cockney monkey that mounts a caper in the trailer. He popped out of the ship equipped with a jetpack and proceeded to fly around in the sky, hovering next to the ship to drive home the difference in scale between them, then heading down to street level to potter about.
As Ancel said, development on the game itself has barely started. With the tech in place, the team is just starting to think about writing characters and narratives. Which begs the question: why show a game that, in many ways, doesn't exist? The answer to this muddied my understanding of what Beyond Good & Evil 2 was and ultimately left me questioning whether it's the follow-up that passionate Beyond Good & Evil 2 fans have been clamouring for.
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"We could have presented this game with a completely playable demonstration, but we had this idea to show it now because we want to let people see how we are going to build the game. The steps before this are not very interesting, [they're] very technical, but now we can explain how we are building the world. We want to build prototypes and let people download and play them so they can test them.
"And you can play online, so for example we expect to make prototypes of different modules in the game, let people play, give feedback, and they can even build their own ship since we have this very flexible customisation system. You can even create your faction or gang with colours and these things and share them. We want people to participate, and our dream would be to come back in one year with all this absolutely playable and polished in a demonstration. We'd love to have people have that feeling that they're helping and participating in making this possible."
The Space Monkey Program, as it's officially known, is Ubisoft's "way of inviting passionate members of the community to be the first to play, to share ideas and inspirations, and to crash test all of the creative and gameplay elements that make up [Beyond Good & Evil 2's] game world: as early and as often as possible."
The early-access esque approach to development, the online aspects of the game, and the fact that players create a character instead of having one crafted by the developers has left me more concerned about Beyond Good & Evil 2 than excited. I will admit, much of this is also due to my expectations, but of all the things I expected it to be, an online multiplayer game designed and tested by the public at large was not one of them. It's early days for the game, and hopefully in time we'll have some more clarity on what Beyond Good & Evil 2 is and how Ancel and Ubisoft are approaching development.
After the Xbox One X was announced at Microsoft's E3 2017 press conference this week, the company has published video where an engineer puts the console together piece by piece. Watch the video below to see Major Nelson and Xbox Hardware GM Leo Del Castillo assemble the console, starting with the chip at the heart of it at all, before moving on to things like the motherboard, voltage regulators, the power supply, the hard drive, and more.
It is an incredibly fascinating and in-depth look at the guts of the Xbox One X, the likes of which we rarely get from big companies like Microsoft. The segment starts at around 2 hours and six minutes, and pressing play on the video should start it at the right moment.
The Xbox One X launches on November 7, priced at $500. The console plays all Xbox One games and work with controllers you already own. Regarding the price point, a number of analysts said this week that they believe $500 is too expensive.
After a week of big announcements, reveals, and trailers, E3 2017 is finally coming to an end. We covered all the big press conferences and now we're ready to weigh in on how all the big companies did in their press conferences, including the highlights, the things we'd wish they'd done better, and the biggest games.
Here are the highs, lows, and biggest games for:
Sony -- Shadow of the Colossus remake, God of War, and more.
Microsoft -- Xbox One X finally announced and detailed.
Update: Capcom has reached out to GameSpot to clarify that it has no plans to localize Monster Hunter XX for Switch "at this time." The original story has been updated to reflect that. Originally, when asked, "Are there any plans to bring Monster Hunter XX, the Switch version, over here?" to which a representative for the company clearly replied, "No."
Original story: Capcom has confirmed to GameSpot that it has no plans to localize the Nintendo Switch version of Monster Hunter XX "to announce at this time."
Originally released in Japan for 3DS earlier this year, Monster Hunter XX is an expanded version of Monster Hunter Generations, featuring additional quests, monsters, and other content. Capcom announced a Switch release for the game last month. In addition to high-resolution visuals, the Switch version also supports online cross-platform play with the 3DS game. Players can also transfer their save data over from the 3DS release to Switch.
Nintendo casually unveiled another new game during its E3 2017 Treehouse livestream. This one is titled Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido, and it's coming to 3DS in 2018.
The title is described as an "action-puzzle" game. Players stand behind a conveyor belt, matching up plates to eat the sushi and throwing the empty plates at their opponent. You can watch the debut trailer--and listen to its amazing music--above.
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