Although you won't be roaming around Mordor with friends in Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the game nonetheless has a new multiplayer component that sounds pretty cool: you'll be able to invade other players' captured fortresses and defend your own from similar assaults.
As reported by Eurogamer, the mode is called Social Conquest and seems similar to the Forward Operating Base missions in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. After defeating all the Orcs controlling a fortress, you can take control and customize it. You'll be able to install commanders and captains from your own Orc army, and you can buy upgrades to make it more difficult to capture.
After customizing it to your satisfaction, you can then share your fortress online. This allows other players to then attack it, attempting to kill your followers and capture the base. The mode has two variations: friendly conquests, which allow the attacker to retain all of their followers after combat, and ranked conquests, which let you rise a leaderboard with each successful conquest but at the risk of permanently losing followers.
If a player succeeds in Social Conquest, they'll get a loot chest and spoils of war, which can be redeemed for spoils of war chests. They'll contain followers and other items. It's unclear at the moment what the outcome is for a defender that loses a battle.
Shadow of War also features Vendettas, missions that originally appeared in Shadow of Mordor. These are essentially revenge missions: you can challenge an Orc that killed a friend to battle. The new Vendettas, however, are more complicated; players must complete objectives first to attract the Orc that killed their friend.
Following its reveal at E3 in June, Horizon: Zero Dawn's first expansion now has a release date. The Frozen Wilds is due out on November 7, developer Guerrilla Games announced today.
A story-based DLC expansion was announced not long after Horizon's release, but it wasn't until E3 that we learned it would be winter-themed and take Aloy to the north. It features a new area with new story content, side-quests, and more. You can check out a trailer for it above.
The Frozen Wilds will cost $20/£16/AU$30 upon its release, but PlayStation Plus members can currently pick it up on PSN at a discount, dropping its price to $15/£14.39/AU$27. Anyone who pre-orders it receives a special Banuk Aloy avatar for use on PSN.
While this will mark the first big DLC release for the game, there have been a number of post-launch updates. That included a substantial one in early July that introduced New Game+ and a higher difficulty setting.
You might remember Destiny 1's weird Red Bull promotion that offered double XP and an exclusive quest in The Taken King expansion. It turns out that Destiny 2 is getting a similar promotion, but this one involves Pop-Tarts and Rockstar energy drinks.
Rockstar and Pop-Tarts will sell Destiny 2-themed products, and they'll come with in-game items. For Rockstar, if you grab one of the Destiny-branded cans, you'll get some sort of gear for your character, although Activision hasn't yet specified what the gear will be. You'll also get a chance to win a prize in Rockstar's daily and weekly lotteries, with the grand prize being Destiny 2-themed motorcycles.
Pop-Tarts, meanwhile, will offer players an XP boost with every Destiny-themed box. There'll also be "custom-designed, collectible packs highlighting each Guardian Subclass," if you want to collect Pop-Tarts boxes.
Both of these promotions begin on September 1. As for Destiny 2, the game launches on September 6 for PS4 and Xbox One, and for PC on October 24. The PC version is getting a beta test later in August, and you can read about what it includes here.
In the gallery below, you'll find every Knights of the Frozen Throne card that's been shown off so far. These include cards with a new keyword, Lifesteal, which heals players based on the damage that it does. There are also Legendary Hero cards, which replace your character with a modified Death Knight version when played; these come with a new ability and look.
In addition to new cards, Knights of the Frozen Throne includes new single-player content--something the most recent expansion, Journey to Un'Goro, did not. Earlier this year, Blizzard made changes to how new expansions and single-player Adventures are rolled out. Knights of the Frozen Throne's single-player component is different than those in the past, as it comes with a set of free missions, including a prologue, two wings of three boss fights each, and a final battle against the Lich King. Completing the prologue will net you a random Legendary Hero card, while finishing each wing will also get you a card from the expansion. If you make your way through everything, you'll also obtain a card pack.
A special, one-time pre-order offer is available for Knights of the Frozen Throne, allowing you to buy 50 card packs for $50. Doing so also gets you a special card back, pictured above along with some new artwork.
Spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 7 episode 4, "The Spoils of War," below
It's another cliffhanger on Game of Thrones, as Season 7 episode 4, "The Spoils of War," concluded with Jaime Lannister sinking into watery depths, wearing full armor, and apparently unconscious. What chance does the Kingslayer have to escape this soggy fate? GameSpot spoke with a real master armorer with 20 years of experience, Jeffrey Hildebrandt of Royal Oak Armoury in Saskatchewan, Canada, to find out.
Firstly, we found out that although Jaime Lannister's armor is "based kind of aesthetically on some historical armor, it doesn't really have much of a historical precedent." The lion-faced spaulders covering his shoulders, for example, are inspired by parade armor worn by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, whose reign ended in 1556. Not exactly the type of armor a knight would realistically wear into battle, in other words.
More importantly, Jaime's gear in "The Spoils of War" appears to be made almost entirely of leather, a far cry from the Lannisters' armor of choice in the Song of Ice and Fire books, where Jaime often wears elaborate (and incredibly heavy) gilded metal plate. Will that save him from a watery grave?
Apparently not; the weight of all that leather adds up, according to Hildebrandt. "I would say it would be on the upper limit of how heavy armor ever would be," he said. "The great thing about leather armor is that it usually offers lots of flexibility. It's pretty good for mobility. But it's really heavy, and when you combine leather with metal reinforcement, it turns out to be pretty much the heaviest armor you can wear."
"He's pretty much wearing doubled-up armor below the waist, too," Hildebrandt continued. "He's got those long leather skirts right down to his knees, and he's wearing these high riding boots, and he's got leather tassets kind of hanging overtop of the longer leather skirts. So I would say that if it was real armor made out of real leather reinforced with metal, he would be super heavy."
The armor's weight won't be Jaime's only problem if he suddenly comes to his senses and tries to swim to the surface. "The actual shape of the armor would really bode badly for anyone who's trying to swim in it," Hildebrandt said. "Those long leather skirts that hang over his legs, I can't imagine trying to swim in something like that, and those long riding boots that he's got...they would act like a sea anchor."
Jaime's golden prosthetic hand, although flashy, won't help his breaststroke much, either.
So what about trying to slip out of all that gear? Historically, knights had squiers to help them in and out of their armor, as it was difficult to reach every strap, buckle, and clasp by oneself. Hildebrandt thinks Jaime would have a hard time trying to doff his armor in time to escape drowning. "Trying to get all your armor off with one hand while you're sinking and unconscious at the same time, that's almost like, he's doomed," the armorer said.
"According to physics, Lannister is going down," Hildebrandt said. "Maybe he'll come back kind of undead or something, like some of the other characters have."
There's one ray of hope penetrating the water's depths: Couldn't someone jump in and drag Jaime to the surface, despite all that weight?
"Yeah, I suppose so," Hildebrandt guessed, though he emphasized that his knowledge of swimming comes nowhere near his mastery of armor.
Someone--likely Bronn, though possibly one of the Tarlys--knocked Jaime off his horse and plummeted into the water with him at the end of "The Spoils of War." Whoever it was, let's hope they're a strong swimmer. Otherwise, Jaime and Tyrion will never get their reunion, Cersei won't learn that Olenna poisoned Joffrey, and Jaime won't get to knock his sister off the throne like he did the Mad King (fingers crossed). And that would just be sad.
The news was first rumored last week, when it was reported by Transformers World that the production studio owned by Hasbro (which owns the rights to Transformers) was opening an animated theatrical movie division. Hasbro has now confirmed that a Transformers animated film is indeed in the works. The company has also stated that the movie will be part of the cinematic universe; however, there is currently no release date for the film.
Of course, if the film happens, it will be the second animated Transformers film. Transformers: The Movie was released back in 1986, and although it was a financial failure at the time, it is now considered a cult classic. It celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, and was remastered for a new Blu-ray release.
Crash Bandicoot's N. Sane Trilogy is top of the UK charts for a third successive week and a fifth week in total, according to sales monitor Chart-Track. The company says the remaster trilogy has now achieved "the most weeks at No.1 for a PS4-exclusive title and the most weeks at No.1 for any title so far this year."
It's not just in the UK that Crash Bandicoot is performing well. Sony revealed last week that the remaster trilogy was the best-selling title on PSN in the US and Europe last month, and publisher Activision stated the game has "surpassed all … expectations by a pretty wide margin."
The company went on to say that Crash's success may pave the way for more classic games to make a comeback. "While there are no new announcements today, I think you can be confident there will be more activity like this in the future with more great IP," said Activision's CEO, Eric Hirshberg. "The other opportunity beyond remasters is to look at some of our classic IP and ask whether or not it can be reborn on a new platform, like what we're doing with Skylanders on mobile. Our IP library is an asset that, when done right, can be very powerful."
You can read the full top 10 sales chart below, courtesy of Chart-Track. Note this table does not include digital sales data, and so should not be considered representative of all UK game sales.
Following tonight's shortest-ever episode of Game of Thrones, HBO has now published a teaser trailer for next Sunday's episode--and it's pretty intense. You can watch the trailer below, but of course be aware that it contains pretty massive spoilers.
Tonight's episode, "The Spoils of War," was only 50 minutes long, making it the shortest-ever episode of the acclaimed HBO show. Things return to normal for the August 13 episode, which moves back to around the normal length, coming in at 59 minutes. And the Season 7 finale is the longest-ever episode.
The official description explains that Spotify's Xbox One app will offer basically everything the PlayStation 4's version does. You can listen to music while playing a game, and browse for songs, albums, and playlists. You can also use your phone or tablet to change the music without leaving your game, which is pretty good.
If you have Spotify Premium, you get higher-quality audio and no ads. You can see some images of the Spotify Xbox One app above, from the app's product page.
In order to participate in the next beta, you'll still need to meet the previous requirements: own a copy of the game and its season pass and be an Xbox Live Gold/PlayStation Plus subscriber. But you'll also need to ensure you have the Closed Online Test downloaded by tomorrow, August 8--it won't actually be available to download once this second test begins.
Prior to the start of this beta, Square Enix will release an update that's intended to resolve matchmaking issues. These have plagued the first test, which concludes tomorrow and was originally intended to be the only beta.
Comrades is a cooperative multiplayer expansion for Final Fantasy XV, which until now had been single-player-only. Players create a character of their own to take online and partner with other players to explore the world and complete quests. Only a select amount of content is included in the beta, but there will be a variety of new weapons, gear, and attack styles in the full DLC. Noctis and company will eventually be made available as playable characters.
Square Enix has not yet provided a release date for Comrades, and it's unclear if its time table will be affected by the outcome of the upcoming beta. Whenever it does launch, Comrades will be available both on its own and as part of the season pass.
August 3 update: The previously available Walmart pre-orders were ultimately canceled. Nintendo has since revealed that SNES Classic pre-orders should arrive in the US by the end of August. We don't yet know when they will go up for sale exactly, but you can check out the store listings at some major retailers through the links below.
Update: Those in the UK may have missed at least their first chance to pre-order from certain retailers, but Nintendo's online store has the SNES Classic available as of this writing.
Original Story: Nintendo announced the SNES Classic today. A miniature version of the classic Nintendo console, the $80 system that comes with 21 games and two controllers launches in the US in September. Given that last year's NES Classic sold out basically instantly everywhere it was sold, fans might be wondering how they can secure the SNES Classic right away.
US retailers are not yet widely accepting pre-orders, but in Australia, you can secure a pre-order right now through JB Hi Fi and EB Games. The console sells for $120 in Australia and it looks a little different than the North American edition.
In the US, Amazon has a page up for the SNES Classic, as does Best Buy, but you cannot actually pre-order the system there as of yet. We will update this post as more retailers open pre-orders for the SNES Classic. Keep checking back with GameSpot for the latest.
As with the NES Classic Edition, the SNES Classic features HDMI output and resembles the look of the system it's based on but in a smaller form factor. But unlike that system, it comes with two controllers in the box.
On the subject of supply, while Nintendo isn't sharing specific numbers, it did say it will deliver "significantly more" units than it did with the NES Classic Edition. That said, it only plans to ship the system between September and the end of 2017.
Following last week's first image of Domino in Deadpool 2, we have another picture of one of the upcoming sequel's new characters. This time it's Cable, the hulking cybernetic warrior played by Josh Brolin. Check it out below, via Brolin's Instagram account:
Cable's creators Rob Liefeld and Louise Simonson previously described the character as "the opposite of Deadpool: a man who is a leader and used to being obeyed, who is very controlled but with an aura of simmering violence." X-Men fans also know him as the son of Cyclops; he first appeared in a 1990 issue of The New Mutants.
In related news, it was announced in May that an adult animated Deadpool show is on the way. The currently untitled series will be overseen by Atlanta star and creator Donald Glover with his brother Stephen, who will both act as showrunners, producers, and writers. It is being developed for FXX, the sister channel to FX, and the 10-part first season will premiere next year.
Bandai Namco's arcade-style Gundam game, Gundam Versus, launches in North America and Europe on September 29. Ahead of its release, PlayStation 4 players will have a chance to sample the mech fighting game during its open beta, which is scheduled to begin early next month.
The online test kicks off at 12 AM PT/3 AM ET on September 2 and runs until the same time on September 4. All PS4 players will be able to participate in the beta, even those who don't have a PS Plus subscription; however, players will need to subscribe to the service in order to play the game online after its release. The beta will be available to pre-load beginning on August 29.
The Gundam Versus open beta will feature "94 Mobile Suits, all Striker units, and a variety of online and offline modes," according to a press release. While Bandai Namco didn't specify which of the game's modes will be available to try, the publisher released an extensive trailer last month that gave fans an overview of all the different options that await in the final game.
Gundam Versus is launching exclusively for PS4. The game is the first home console Gundam title to see a release outside of Japan in over a decade. It features over 90 Mobile Suits taken from 17 different Gundam series and allows up to six players to compete against each other online.
Developer Ninja Theory has given you a chance to win their newest game, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice on PC. Entry is open worldwide. Competition ends Sunday, August 13th at 12:00 PM PT and twenty-five (25) winners will be contacted via email.
About this game:
From the makers of Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and DmC: Devil May Cry, comes a warrior's brutal journey into myth and madness. Set in the Viking age, a broken Celtic warrior embarks on a haunting vision quest into Viking Hell to fight for the soul of her dead lover. Created in collaboration with neuroscientists and people who experience psychosis, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice will pull you deep into Senua's mind.
Enter below and gain additional entries:
To win Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice on PS4, too, enter here.
Developer Ninja Theory has given you a chance to win their newest game, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice on PS4. Entry is open to the United States and Europe. Competition ends Sunday, August 13th at 12:00 PM PT and twenty-five (25) winners will be contacted via email.
About this game:
From the makers of Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, and DmC: Devil May Cry, comes a warrior's brutal journey into myth and madness. Set in the Viking age, a broken Celtic warrior embarks on a haunting vision quest into Viking Hell to fight for the soul of her dead lover. Created in collaboration with neuroscientists and people who experience psychosis, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice will pull you deep into Senua's mind.
Enter below and gain additional entries:
To win Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice on PC, too, enter here.
Tonight's episode of Game of Thrones, "The Spoils of War," had a number of standout moments. There was a huge battle and two characters met for the first time since Season 1. It was a lot to take in and think about. You can read GameSpot's breakdown of the biggest moments in this spoiler-filled post.
And if you want to hear directly from creators D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, HBO has now posted a behind-the-scenes video in which they talk about the key sequences in the episode and what they mean to them. Of course, this video is overflowing with spoilers, so be aware of that before jumping in.
Warner Bros. and developer Monolith have revealed new details about Middle-earth: Shadow of War, namely that the game has a microtransaction store called the Market. As explained in a forum post, players will be able to purchase things like loot chests, war chest, XP boosts, and bundles. An internet connection is required to access the Market, which comes as part of Monolith's expansion of the Nemesis system.
"An important aspect of the Nemesis System now comes in forging, customizing, and leading your own army of unique Orc followers against the fortresses of Mordor," Monolith said. "There are different ways to do this, including dominating Orcs by exploring the vast open-world and encountering them as part of Orc society, or players can acquire Orcs and other items through the Market (in-game store)."
Here is a breakdown of the items you can buy from the Market, with descriptions written by Monolith:
Loot Chests contain Gear (weapons and armor) of varying rarity. Equipping and upgrading these weapons and armor enhance Talion's character abilities. Loot Chests can also contain XP Boosts that help level up Talion faster.
War Chests provide Orc followers of varying rarity to help forge a strong army. They can also contain Training Orders to level up and customize Orc followers.
XP Boosts are consumables that help level up Talion faster.
Bundles package up Loot Chests, War Chests and Boosts together at a great value.
These items are obtainable by spending in-game currency called Mirian, which you get in the game by defeating certain Orcs, destroying gear, destroying orc followers for gear (which can then be destroyed for Mirian), or finding Mirian stashes in the game.
You can also buy items in Shadow of War with Gold, which you can get by spending real money. Additionally, you will get a "small amount" of gold at "specific milestones in the game and you'll also get some for taking part in community challenges.
Gold is another form of in-game currency that can be used to get higher level Loot Chests, War Chests, Boosts and Bundles of the aforementioned content. Gold can be acquired by:
Monolith made clear that everything in Shadow of War can be obtained through normal gameplay. Spending money on Gold is only a means to speed up progress. "Everything a player can buy with Gold can also be earned in the game over time for free, but Gold gives players the option to acquire these items faster. No Gold purchases are necessary to enjoy the complete game experience," Monolith said.
Pricing for Shadow of War's microtransactions has not been announced.
Microtransaction stores in AAA games is nothing new or surprising, as many games let players spend more money on extra content.
The newest Stephen King movie, The Dark Tower, opened in US and Canadian theatres this weekend, but it wasn't the hit that Sony might have wanted. It made $19.5 million over the Friday-Sunday period, good enough for No. 1, but Entertainment Weekly says that represents and "underwhelming figure." As announced previously, The Dark Tower movie was billed as the start of a new movie and TV franchise.
The Hollywood news site says The Dark Tower was produced for a "relatively modest" $60 million. The film is based on King's novel series and stars Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Taylor. It was directed by A Royal Affair's Nikolaj Arcel.
In GameSpot's review, Michael Rougeau said, "The Dark Tower is probably not the adaptation hardcore fans were hoping for, but it's also not a terrible movie."
Rounding out the top five movies at the US box office this weekend were Dunkirk ($17.6 million), The Emoji Movie ($12.4 million), Girls Trip ($11.4 million), and Kidnap ($10.2 million). You can see the full top 10 list below, as compiled by Entertainment Weekly.
It's already August 1 in some parts of the world, which means Xbox Live Gold members can now download more free Xbox One and Xbox 360 titles. This month's free Games With Gold titles include Slime Rancher, Trials Fusion, Bayonetta, and Red Faction: Armageddon, and two of them are free starting today.
Xbox One owners with a Gold membership can pick up Slime Rancher for the low, low price of free, while Xbox 360 users can grab Bayonetta for $0.00. Additionally, one of July 2017's free Xbox One titles, Runbow, will continue to be free until August 15.
Slime Rancher is a first-person sim game where you manage a farm of adorable slime creatures. It's been in Early Access on PC for some time, but August 1 marks its official release, meaning Gold members will get it for free right out of the gate, which is cool.
Something else to note is that the Xbox 360 Games With Gold titles play on Xbox One through backwards compatibility. You can see the full rundown of August's free Games With Gold titles below.
Microsoft is also expected to roll out a fresh set of weekly Xbox Live deals in the next day, so check back soon with GameSpot for a rundown.
Nintendo Switch online services may go down for a few hours next week as Nintendo performs network maintenance.
Server maintenance is scheduled for Wednesday, August 9, from 5:50 PM PT/8:50 PM ET to 7:30 PM PT/10:30 PM ET. The company's website states that "some network services may become unavailable" during this time.
This isn't the first time Nintendo has done server maintenance for the Switch, and the descriptions are usually this vague about which services will go offline. Splatoon 2 players, don't worry; the Splatfest begins tonight and will be over by then, so the maintenance won't interrupt the battle between ketchup and mayo.
Season 2's first episode is called The Enigma, and it focuses on a couple of old foes. Both The Riddler and The Joker loom over Batman at the start of this story, and they'll test the caped crusader's wits and morals in equal measure.
The episode launches on August 8 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC, and so far we think it's much improved over Season 1: "The Enigma is a successful opening chapter to a Batman story that's shaping up to be more ambitious than anything Telltale attempted in the first season," wrote critic Tamoor Hussain. You can read more in our full Batman - The Enemy Within Episode 1 review.
Other reviews have started to emerge, and we've collated some of them below. For a wider look at the game's critical reception, head over to GameSpot's sister site Metacritic.
Game: Telltale's Batman: The Enemy Within Episode 1 - The Enigma
Developer / Publisher: Telltale Games
Platform: PS4, Xbox One, PC, mobile
Release: August 8 (PS4/Xbox One/PC), later in 2017 (mobile)
Price: US $25 / £25 / AU $45 (PS4/Xbox One), US $25 / £19 (PC). Prices apply to the season pass, incorporating five episodes in total.
GameSpot -- 8/10
"Without the need to retell the origin story and unburdened by that baggage, Season 2 of Telltale's Batman series has started strongly with a variety of well-realized new characters. There are a number of tough decision-making moments that will give the you pause and invite you to consider the impact your choices could have. While gameplay is not markedly different, combat is tweaked just enough to make it an improvement over its previous iteration. Overall, The Enigma is a successful opening chapter to a Batman story that's shaping up to be more ambitious than anything Telltale attempted in the first season." -- Tamoor Hussain [Full review]
IGN -- 8.2/10
"I wish I'd been given the chance to actually solve more of The Riddler's puzzles on my own--adventure games are traditionally all about that, after all--but the tension and drama that permeate The Enemy Within's first episode make it a winner. This strong start also leaves me very excited to see how John Doe's inevitable transformation into The Joker plays out, and morbidly fascinated to see what scars this version of Gotham City will leave behind on its inhabitants." -- Ryan McCaffrey [Full review]
VentureBeat -- 60/100
"The Enemy Within has some great action sequences, but it leans too much on the wider Batman universe as a crutch. It doesn't put in the effort to make you care about the characters or the situations, and because of that, none of the choices feel meaningful." -- Stephanie Chan [Full review]
God Is A Geek -- 9.0/10
"There's a great balance of puzzles, investigations, combat, and story progression. I wasn't bored for a second playing Episode 1 of The Enemy Within, and I'm really happy about the direction they've gone in. Telltale Games make fantastic adventures, but it's been a while since I've been blown away by them. This is just what the series needed if it's to be successful, and after an exciting reveal at the end, I can't wait to see what happens next." -- Chris White [Full review]
Ubisoft announced the exciting and ambitious-looking pirate ship combat game Skull & Bones at E3. We played a portion of the multiplayer and enjoyed it. Fans are wondering if there is any single-player content, however. Ubisoft clarified that there will be some form of "narrative campaign," but we don't know a lot about it yet. We caught up with creative director Justin Farren recently, and we asked for more specifics about the campaign. He told us that the campaign elements will be woven into the multiplayer, so there may not be a distinct campaign as some would have wanted.
Farren started off by telling us that he is a big fan of Naughty Dog's The Last of Us, which was praised in part for its incredible, memorable, and haunting story. But for Skull & Bones, Farren said his team is looking more to the "shared-narrative" approach.
"The narrative where people can broadcast or stream what they're doing and it's a unique experience to that player," he said. "So, we wanted to take that approach. Like, how do you create a systemic world where every single player's experience is different and also tie it to a world narrative where you meet historical pirates, historically inspired characters, and that you have a narrative where you develop a bond with your crew and interesting characters along the way, taking out kingpins, all those things are part of our narrative. But we didn't want it to be separate, that you just consumed and never looked back."
Instead, Skull & Bone's story will be told over the course of many months and years. Ubisoft is increasingly focusing on the games-as-a-service model, so it's no big surprise that Skull & Bones would take this approach as well.
"We wanted to create a system that let us tell our narrative month after month, year after year, and then throw in the story elements to it," Farren said. "So, if you're a PvP player, you should still feel like you beat the campaign. If you're a PvE player, or like me, I plan on sailing with my daughter a lot, I want us to be able to go through the story and become kingpins together, and be able to tell the same world narrative through the game worlds that we build."
He added: "It's different. There's not a lot of games that do this, but we really think that this is where people really want to experience narrative on a personal level, where they can effectively change the world. People always say, 'It's a living, breathing world.' Well, we really take that to heart. We want to create a world that actually reacts to the things that you do in it."
Pressed to clarify if Skull & Bones has a completely separate single-player mode, Farren said, "It's woven into it, so the story itself will be woven in to everything you do, from the time that you build your relationships with your crew until the time that you take down your first kingpin, building up your hideout, all of those things are woven into the modes that you play."
For players who don't want PvP, what will Skull & Bones offer for them? Farren said he hopes you try it, even if you don't think it's for you.
"For it to be a, you know, a one-off campaign that's consumed, would be a shame." -- Justin Farren
"I certainly hope that people will try to do our PvP, because we think it's pretty compelling and it's not a different ... like Call of Duty when you play campaign and you go online, [and you get something very different]," he said. "I worked on Gears for a while and the players who play Gears multiplayer, they are different some times than the players who really invest in campaign. We want to bring those experiences closer together. For it to be a, you know, a one-off campaign that's consumed, would be a shame."
Skull & Bones, which is coming out in 2018 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, is an intriguing-looking naval warfare battle game where players try to sink their enemies in the Indian Ocean. Developer Ubisoft Singapore made the naval battle sequences in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. The studio has contributed to many Assassin's Creed games over the years as a co-developer; and it also made the canceled Ghost Recon: Phantoms. Skull & Bones is the studio's first title as a lead developer since then.
With the release of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy coming up this month, Sony has released a cool new video in which developers at Naughty Dog share their perspective on developing the standalone PlayStation 4 game. Unlike every other entry in the series, The Lost Legacy does not feature Nathan Drake in the lead role, but instead you play as series character Chloe Frazer, with Nadine Ross from Uncharted 4 at her side.
According to creative director Shaun Escayg (via VideoGamer.com), Naughty Dog moved away from Drake for The Lost Legacy because "We felt we wrapped that story up on Uncharted 4." He added that Naughty Dog purposefully wanted to "find a new cast of characters that could actually carry on the Uncharted legacy."
Game director Kurt Margenau added that it's important fans understand that the Uncharted franchise is "most than just Nathan Drake."
Also in the video, the developers talk about how they originally conceived Uncharted: The Lost Legacy as something smaller and contained. But as development progressed, the team expanded the size and scope of the game. "It just blew up; before we knew it, a full game," they said.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy should be able to stand on its own as an entry in the Uncharted series, and that's the hope Naughty Dog has for it. We also learn in the video that Naughty Dog considered making Sam or Sully the focus of a new expansion or game before landing on Chloe and Nadine.
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy launches on August 22, priced at $40. For more, you can check out all of GameSpot's previous written and video content here.
Tonight's episode of Game of Thrones featured the fantasy show's latest celebrity cameo, but it wasn't as obvious as Ed Sheeran's small part in Episode 1.
Spoilers for Game of Thrones Episode 4 follow below the image:
In "Spoils of War" tonight, MLB pitcher Noah Syndergaard of the New York Mets suited up as a member of the Lannister army and threw a spear at the Dothraki. Judging from the scene, it looks like he killed his enemy. In real life, Syndergaard is one of the hardest-throwers in baseball, averaging 97.9 mph last season. And his nickname is Thor. So you wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that spear.
In addition to Sheeran and Syndergaard, the drummer of the band Mastodon, Brann Dailor, was in the Season 7 premiere. You can see an image of him here at Metalinjection.
Super Troopers 2, the upcoming crowdunfed sequel to the cult classic comedy, is nearly finished. Broken Lizard, the comedy troupe behind the franchise, wrote on its website (via IGN) recently that the sequel has finished the editing and post-production process.
Broken Lizard also clarified in the post that it's been screening an unfinished version of Super Troopers 2 to test which jokes work. Those in attendance at these screenings saw a film with unfinished sound and music and a lower-resolution picture overall.
"It's important to do those screenings before everything is locked in, so we can see what works and what doesn't, what jokes play and what jokes suck and then make adjustments accordingly," Broken Lizard said (via IGN). "But at some point you have to stop that process and lock everything in. The sound mix and the color correction mark the end of that process. Both are exciting, not just because they are the final steps, but because they vastly improve the film."
So with post-production finished, what's next? Now, the movie is turned over to distributor Fox Searchlight, which has reviewed the movie and will assign a release date soon, it seems. At that point, you can expect the first trailers, posters, and other promotional materials to go out.
"It's painful to wait for this process because we're dying to share this film with you, but each step takes us closer," Broken Lizard said. "Again, we could not have done this without you and we thank you for all of your help. All the best, Chickenf*&kers!"
Broken Lizard raised $4.6 million on Indiegogo to help bring Super Troopers 2 to fruition. You can watch the original crowdfunding campaign video above.
2001's Super Troopers starred the five members of Broken Lizard--Erik Stolhanske, Jay Chandrasekhar, Steve Lemme, Kevin Heffernan, and Paul Soter--as hapless Vermont troopers who get mixed up in something they couldn't have expected. The movie also featured Brian Cox, Daniel von Bargen, and Lynda Carter.
They all return for the sequel, while Rob Lowe joins as a new character, according to Deadline. In terms of the story, Soter told MovieWeb all the way back in 2009 that the film sees the officers sent to the Canadian border to a town that was thought to be Canadian soil but is actually part of the US. "We essentially have to impose US law on a bunch of Canadians that aren't at all happy about it," Soter said.
Valve's online service, Steam, is a juggernaut in the PC gaming space--and it's only continuing to grow. At the Casual Connect event recently, Valve shared new figures that speak to the enormity of the service and its expanding reach globally.
Another big number included in Valve's presentation was 27 million. That's the number of new paying members that Steam has added since January 2016. That works out to around 1.5 million per month over the past 18 months.
In terms of Steam sales by region, North America takes the biggest slice of the pie, at 34 percent, followed by western Europe at 29 percent. Asia is getting bigger and bigger for Steam, rising from just a few percentage points a few years ago to 17 percent today. The uptick in sales is attributed to users in Korea, China, and Japan.
Go to GeekWire to see a more detailed breakdown of Valve's presentation.
In other news about Steam, one game that is lighting up the platform is Playerunknown's Battlegrounds. It recently hit 500,000 concurrent users, surpassing CS:GO and only behind the free-to-play behemoth Dota 2 on the concurrent user charts.
Last week on Game of Thrones, Olenna Tyrell rocked Jaime's world during the closing moments of the episode, which we discuss in further detail here. This week, the closing moments stole the spotlight for the entire episode. "The Spoils of War" ended with a scene that hit the entire emotional spectrum, so let's break down what happened.
Warning: Spoilers are coming.
While this week's episode was the shortest of the season, thus far, it ended on a spectacular note featuring a battle that's nearly as memorable as "The Battle of the Bastards" from Season 6. The moment we've all been waiting for finally happened: Daenerys Targaryen rode a dragon into battle and had it take down an army.
More specifically, Daenerys left Dragonstone with the Dothraki to destroy the Lannister army. In addition, Jaime Lannister, Bronn, and Dickon Tarly were in attendance to witness the Queen's army decimated. The Dothraki riders charged into battle, and while Jaime's men readied themselves, Daenerys swoops above them atop of Drogon, breathing fire on the Lannister military. In addition, the beast blows up supplies and spoils, completely annihilating everything in its path.
However, we learn the true queen's dragons aren't impervious to all attacks. Bronn uses a giant, mounted crossbow to hit Drogon once before the weapon is set aflame. The gigantic bolt doesn't kill it though. It lands, and the Mother of Dragons gets off to try and help her child. From afar, Jaime Lannister sees this and thinks this is his opportunity to end Daenerys. He charges into battle, but before he can make it to her, Drogon spots her, turns and breathes fire at him. Luckily, before Jaime is burned alive, Bronn tackles him off the horse and into the water. The closing shots are of Jaime, wearing his more-than-likely heavy armor, floating to the bottom of the lake.
While the episode was incredibly short, it delivered one of the best battles in the television series. This shortened-season is very quickly delivering on multiple moments fans have been dying to see, like dragons laying waste to an army. All hope is not lost for the Lannisters, however. The crossbow proved to be effective against the dragons, when arrows just bounce off of it. The only problem is that we don't know if that information will get relayed to Cersei, since it is possible everyone but Jaime and Bronn were killed in battle. Which leads us to the final question for this week's episode, "Who is going to save Jaime?" The chances of him dying after this battle are slim-to-none. He's a survivor.
Here are some other big moments from "The Spoils of War:"
Arya is reunited with Sansa and Bran at Winterfell.
Littlefinger gives Bran the dagger made of valyrian steel that was used to try and kill him. Later, Bran gives the dagger to Arya.
Arya bests Brienne of Tarth in a sword fight at Winterfell.
Jon Snow shows Daenerys the dragon glass under Dragonstone. In addition, they also find drawings of the First Men and the Children of the Forest teaming up to battle the White Walkers, lending some credibility to Jon's story. Daenerys says she'll help Jon in the north, as long as he "bends the knee."
Theon Greyjoy shows up at Dragonstone, and Jon is not pleased to see him. However, Theon will live.
A new Pokemon will debut in the series' next 3DS installments, Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Today, the Pokemon Company revealed that players will be able to acquire a new form of the wolf Pokemon, Lycanroc, in the upcoming games.
Dusk Form Lycanroc, as this new form is dubbed, will only be obtainable in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. It's the third possible variation of the wolf Pokemon. Previously, the form you could obtain depended upon which version of the game you were playing. In Pokemon Sun, Rockruff would evolve into Midday Form Lycanroc; in Pokemon Moon, the puppy Pokemon would change into Lycanroc's Midnight Form (the latter of which was distributed at GameStop stores earlier this year).
Pokemon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are scheduled to release on November 17. Like Sun and Moon, the pair are set in the tropical Alola region but tell an "alternate story" and feature some Pokemon that didn't appear in the previous titles. Later this month, Pokemon Sun and Moon players will be able to receive a free Salazzle from select GameStop stores in the US.
that's Hearthstone's next expansion, Knights of the Frozen Throne, has a fast-approaching release date of August 10. But the regular massive updates to Blizzard's collectible card game are just a part of all the changes that Hearthstone is going through both as it finds its own place in the Warcraft universe and as it defines what kind of experience it wants to provide.
In the lead-up to KofFT's release I had separate interviews with Matt Place, senior game designer on Hearthstone, and Jason Chayes, Hearthstone's executive producer, about a wide-range of topics around the game. Rather than post up the full transcript of each, I broke their answers down by the topics we discussed. And for a full rundown of all the new cards revealed so far, check out this Knights of the Frozen Throne card feature here.
Hearthstone's Story and Lore
Hearthstone is a game, ostensibly set within the Warcraft universe, but it's also something that offers up its own spin on the stories of Azeroth. While the original cards and expansions from the game hewed more closely to the World of Warcraft source material, subsequent content has expanded Hearthstone's own lore in new directions. Goblins vs. Gnomes saw Hearthstone introduce unique characters that didn't previously exist in the Warcraft universe, but Mean Streets of Gadgetzan is where Hearthstone really started to create its own unique narrative.
"We had all these discussions internally about who is the Jade Lotus," Chayes says, "and who is Don Han'Cho and what does he do and how does he interact with Aya Blackpaw and what's the back and forth between the two of them? We had a little first pass at that with some of the quests that you had when we first launched it, but you couldn't go that far into the narrative storytelling. But now, with Knights of the Frozen Throne we have eight missions that help explain who is the Lich King, who are some of the bosses along the way, and how they treat the Lich King."
Hearthstone now even has its own Knights of the Frozen Throne comic book, which Chayes explains as, "All the Warcraft 'inception' layers." But of course, working at Blizzard the separate game teams collaborate on projects. "We have a good partnership. We definitely talk with the other folks in Blizzard working on the Warcraft universe. We want our own take on what feels right for Hearthstone, so we might treat the Lich King a little differently than what you'll see if you were playing the WoW raid back in the day. The way we frame that up is Hearthstone is very much a game about 'What if?' This isn't necessarily canonical. This isn't saying that the definitive story of how Karazhan came into being was because there was this crazy '70s disco party that Medivh hosted. That's a 'What-if?' scenario."
The storytelling will also feel familiar because, according to Place, "Dave Kosak, who's done a lot of writing for World of Warcraft, came over and he's now the mission lead, and the writing for the Lich King in the missions is amazing."
Chayes says that the best way to think of Hearthstone's story is as a type of "tall tale set in the Warcraft universe."
"We specifically are not trying to link them to be the exact same incarnation," Chayes says, "If you go check out Icecrown Citadel in Hearthstone, it's going to feel a little different. You'll have little things that you remember for sure, and even the boss fights will share some of those mechanics, but the idea is this is a fun, light-hearted, whimsical, charming game."
Earning Legendaries and Random Quest Rewards
For this expansion, completing the single-player missions will net players a random Legendary Hero card, but what drove the decision to make this a random rather than a fixed draw? Matt Place explains, "We talked about that, it's how we tend to distribute the cards in the game through boosters and whatnot. People trying out what they get is part of the fun. There's also logistical challenges like letting you pick from a set of nine; we'll look at feedback and see what people say. But we wanted to just give people a, 'Hey, you're going to get one of these, try them out, see what you think. If you have one you love well, hey, like any Legendary, you can craft it.' That's part of the reason why we went that path."
"How does it compete when it's only got one sets worth of cards? That's a big question that we would have to answer."
And while the team has talked about it in other instances, Place also discussed the increased chance of earning Legendaries through card packs. "In the theme of giving people great value, in the first 10 packs for Knights of the Frozen Throne, you are guaranteed to get a legendary now. We're upping the drop rate for those source packs, so that people who are using their free-to-play gold or whatnot, they are guaranteed, if they can open 10 packs, to get a legendary. So we're doing it a couple of ways.
"On top of that, we're also doing no duplicates. Until you have a full set of Legendaries you will not overlap on Legendaries you get. We're doing a bunch of things to give people a chance to explore more of the set and get some of the higher rarity cards, which is the focus of the set here with Death Knight. We want to give people a chance to participate and play with those cards without spending any money."
Death Knight Heroes
The biggest new addition with this expansion are the Legendary Hero cards. But the addition of those Hero cards means that there isn't a new, permanent Hero class. According to Place, the team did consider creating a standalone hero, but that type of addition presents its own formidable set of challenges. "How does it compete when it's only got one sets worth of cards?" Place asked. "That's a big question that we would have to answer. There's also, 'Do we support it in the future?' Because, if we don't, that doesn't feel right. So, it's a permanent commitment potentially."
That took the dev team down its current path: creating Death Knight-themed Hero cards for every class. "With that, we get to take our Heroes of Warcraft and blow them out in cool new ways that people haven't seen before, and they follow that same story that the Lich King follows where you're going down the dark path because you desire power, like you see in the cinematic."
And, although it seems obvious how the mechanic will work with alternate heroes, Place clarified that the Hero cards just replace your current Hero; the cards don't change depending on the hero you're playing as. "As Anduin, you could steal Rexxar from your opponent's deck and that would turn you into Deathstalker Rexxar. So mechanically you just become Deathstalker Rexxar."
RNG vs. Skill-based Play
Any card game is going to have some amount of RNG, but how does the dev team strike that balance in making random chance moments feel like you still have some control?
"It's something that our philosophy on evolves," Place explained. "Something we've applied to Knights of the Frozen Throne is where can we apply RNG so it doesn't feel like, 'Oh, my gosh. Are you kidding me? You've got the luckiest hand!' I think Deathstalker Rexxar is a great example of this. It's random in terms of what beasts you're presented with in his build-a-beast Hero power. Basically you get to combine two beasts together to make your own beast zombie creation.
"There's a lot of skill in that while also being random with what you're presented with. To me, that's the perfect marriage, where skill is a big piece of this, but it's super fun and it's a different experience each time. That's what random does for us; it gives us that, 'Okay, you haven't done this before. These three beasts are going to be presented,' so what do you do at that time is actually very skill testing. It's a great example of RNG adding to the skill.
"Then you have to pay for the beast so it's not an effect like Ram Wrangler, where something can happen along the lines of "Oh, wow you just got very lucky. You got King Crush!' With Rexxar's mechanic, whatever you're dealt, you then have to pay for. It's fair in that way too. So it's skill, RNG, and fairness all combined.
Accessibility for Newcomers
"We always felt like if we could make a collectible card game just a little bit more accessible and dial some more charm in it, we could turn people onto a genre that they have never really been connected to it in the past," say Chayas. "That remains a core part of our philosophy."
And Hearthstone is, for the most part, a beginner-friendly game. But the difficulty and complexity can ramp up quickly for someone that might not be as familiar with the mechanics of deck building. Providing an experience that works no matter when you start playing is something that the developers are constantly refining; deck-creating tools have gotten better, and the ceiling for not losing stars at set levels in ranked matches has helped open more deck variety in Standard play. But there are other behind-the-scenes forces at work as well.
According to Place, "We have the newbie pool, which we changed in pretty significant ways. That happened a while ago, I think it was six months ago. But it actually affected the win rate of new players in a dramatic way."
While Place doesn't get into the nuts and bolts of how that system works, he says, "Basically, we have some rules for what it means to be a new player, and when you're a new player you face people who are more appropriate for you."
And according to Chayes, the dev team works to ensure the game has all of the features and nuance of a deep deck-building experience, but without overwhelming newcomers. "The way we've approached that is that the starting experience," Chayes says, "the core experience going into the game is very simple and accessible and intuitive and then when you're ready for it, different features unlock or make themselves available down the road.
"A good example of that is Wild. Wild is not available to new players. There's no connection to Wild from right out of the gate and that was very conscious because there's a vast number of cards that are in Wild that are not part of the standard rotation. That's going to grow over time as more and more sets are produced. We don't want players to have to necessarily digest all that as their first experience."
Stats for Advanced Players
Like World of Warcraft, accessibility is a process of constant refinement for a game that's regularly expanding. But also like World of Warcraft, some players have had to take the nitty gritty of stat-tracking and mod-making into their own hands. Unlike a game like Overwatch, which gives players detailed stats for how much you play every hero character, there's not a lot of data available to you in Hearthstone for how you play or how successful you are with each Hero.
Chayes explains, "There's always a balance there of: how much information do we present the player with? Initially, our goal was to make sure we had a very clean user interface just because we know a lot of new players were coming in for the first time. So we've been a little hesitant to go too far with putting in a lot of those stats and metrics. But the reality is there's other ways to do that. You could do that on the web, for example, and actually have a lot of things there that you can click through that don't necessarily go to new players. But if you want it it's there.
"How we're thinking about it from the team perspective is: How can we build systems that unpack that extra information for the players who are ready for it and excited about it without changing the core of the Hearthstone beginning experience? Yes, I think there's a move for features like that, player profiles and stuff like that, down the road. We're not really yet at a point where we've talked about a timeframe, but it's definitely an active conversation. And there are a lot of community sites that are up there that provide that context as well, and we think that's awesome. It's the kind of thing where, down the road, we'll see if there's a way to get that in."
Events and Festivals
With the popularity, and increasing frequency of events like the Frost and Flame Festivals, Chayes, says they'll be a regular part of the Hearthstone experience, but that doesn't mean they're going to be on a fixed, predictable schedule. "We definitely want to do more of it," Chayes adds, "We had a little bit of a Winter Vale event that we did about a year and a half ago, and that was kind of the first time we did an event inside Hearthstone, where there was a custom card back you could get that week in the brawl and these presents that you could open up during the gameplay. The Frost Festival is a larger event we're doing that dovetails the Fire Festival into the Frost Festival. Now you have Ahune welcome you and he's messing with the Arena a little bit.
"We want to do more, so our hope is that between expansions and coinciding with expansions to do really cool stuff that mixes up the way you play Hearthstone a little bit and gives you some new things to see. It always feels like it's dynamic and changing and helps emphasize the themes of where we're going with the future of the game.
"We always want these events to also feel like delightful surprise..."
Chayes further explains, "There will probably be some events that are recurring. We haven't figured out which ones necessarily. We actually have these posters when you walk into the Team 5 area in Blizzard Headquarters that speak to what are some of the guiding principles that are shaping up how we came up with Hearthstone to begin with. One of them is this idea of delightful surprise. We talk a lot about delightful surprise on the team.
"The experience of opening a pack is a surprise. We always want these events to also feel like delightful surprise, so I don't think we'll get to a world where it's just the same, expected events year after year. We always want to have something new to see and something you weren't expecting. I think that's what's really the core of the game identity. But for sure you can expect to see more things like that and then maybe intermixed with some things that'll really tie into these events and traditions that players have come to love."
Esports
Chayes also shared some thoughts on esports, which he considers a "big part" of Hearthstone. "It's something that, initially when we first shipped, we were a little bit surprised by. We didn't necessarily design Hearthstone to be an esport from the very beginning. What we saw in the very early days of the beta was that players loved to stream their matches when they were playing against other players. We also saw a lot of very competitive players who looked to see how far they could take their particular deck. So in response to that, we fleshed out in more detail the esports features of the game, really put a big focus on, 'How can we build programs around that?'
"From the beginning we wanted Hearthstone to be a game with a lot of depth, so even though it wasn't necessarily designed as an esport from the beginning, we always knew that the competitive aspect was super important. We wanted to have the ability to be a very high-skill game and testing how people play it. As the game has evolved we've done things like introduce more features to support esports. We now have things like the Hearthstone Global Games, which is reaching its conclusion coming up with Gamescom.
"We have other programs in mind. We did our first Wild Open, where it's going to be using the older cards and a chance to revisit some old deck types that maybe you haven't seen in awhile. For us, that's still just the beginning. We have a lot of ideas where we can go from there."
To learn more about the development of the title, we talked with Zak Garriss (lead writer on Before the Storm) and David Hein (producer at Deck Nine) about living up to fan expectations and why having a shorter game fit the story they're trying to tell. Our final questions was about which game they think you should play first; you probably won't be surprised by the answer, but you can scroll to the end of the interview for their answer.
GameSpot: Did any of the team from Life is Strange come over to work with you on Before the Storm, or do you coordinate with them on this project?
Zak Garriss: From the first concept through production until now, before The Storm was entirely Deck Nine, working separately from Dontnod. We're working with a core team at Square [the publisher] that worked on the first game as well, the designers and producers there. And the same VO director worked with us as well.
A couple of months ago, I did go to Paris. I shared the first episode in its entirety at that stage with the directors and the writer of the first game. I just, kind of, put the controller in their hands, they played through for four hours. Watching them laugh at the jokes and freeze up at the surprising moments was a pretty huge moment for us at Deck Nine. I think we identify as fans of the game before anything else. So getting to share what we did with them was a huge milestone. But we've been developing Before The Storm separately from them.
Do you think players, because you don't have the same time mechanic as the first game, that people will play this multiple times, to see how different actions might play out? Or do you think people are more likely to treat this experience as a linear, one-time game?
ZG: We've designed the concept to be a very branching in its complexity, and the farther along you go in the story the more and more different sort of scenes you might see versus what I might see. Based on that, we always focus on the relationships that you've developed with the characters versus their relationships that I've developed. So I think there is a lot of replayability in this experience. I am curious about the ways in which Max, as a character, is prone to second-guess, is prone to kind of rewind and try something else. And I think that encourages trying different solutions; where Chloe just barrels through a problem, she's just going to deal with whatever the aftermath could be. That might inform the way players approach the content.
And the original Life is Strange has a very vocal, passionate community; does that frighten you guys as developers? Especially with reading comments and forums, some people have already decided how they feel about this game without playing it.
ZG: Well, yeah and I think people make decisions for sure. [laughs] I would say, and I hope I think this is true, it's never static. People have opinions of the content they've seen; they're going to see new content, and they'll form new opinions. Then they get the controller in their hands, play the game, and form new opinions then. At the end of the day, it is such an incredible privilege to work with a franchise that has such a fiercely invested community, that cares so much. They're going to be so critical. They're going to want the game to be wonderful in a lot of different ways. And we're very sensitive to that because we're fans before we're developers. We want to honor the bar that Deck Nine set with the first game and we want to really challenge and captivate and connect with the fans who love that world.
What made you guys want to take on a project like this? Because it is a challenge when you have something that people might see as a self-contained experience. Even though this is going to be a prequel, it's going to tell a story that doesn't overwrite the one that's there before. But you're a different team coming in--that automatically sets a pretty high challenge bar.
ZG: I don't want to speak for everyone, but for me, as the lead writer on the project, a big part of it was the chance to live in Chloe's world. To write a character who's so broken, so vulnerable, and so relatable. Because of that, and the kind of story that we can tell with her, and the kind of story that fits within the world of Arcadia Bay and the world of Life is Strange, it's the kind of story that I think celebrates difference and normalizes flaws.
It has a kind of inclusivity to it that I don't see in a lot of games, that I don't see in a lot of media period. This is a small story an intimate story about being sixteen, about being lost, about grieving the loss of someone you love, about meeting someone new. And these are sort of universal experiences that we all have. This isn't about fantastical monsters or crazy combat; and I love games that do all of those things, too. But this is something different.
I think the chance to work within the franchise and the IP--huge pressure. [laughs] Enormous pressure. But it's a joy, an absolute privilege. Because what they did was so different with the first game, and now what we're doing with the franchise as a whole, this is groundbreaking stuff. We all just feel so grateful to get a chance to be a part of it.
This is probably more technical, and I'm asking more because we've seen so much interest recently on bringing games over to Nintendo Switch, but is choosing what platforms you bring the project to, is that something that's decided on the Square side or on the development side?
David Hein: Yeah it's a conversation with a lot of different variables and a lot of different considerations. We talk through all of those things with Square Enix, internally talking about technological challenges there for supporting multiple platforms, as well as business concerns. All different manner of variables. At this time, it's just PS4, Xbox One, and PC that we're supporting.
It's obviously a more story-focused game, but is there anything that you're thinking about for the PS4 Pro or the Xbox One X that makes it a better game on those platforms?
DH: We will support the features set of Xbox One X and PS4 Pro--4K upscaling, those sorts of things. So that's a benefit there. A lot of what we look at is: How can we make the best game possible? How can we tell the richest story possible? And what's the best way to do that?
You've said before that the game will probably run six to nine hours, which is a little shorter than the first game. What drove the decision to tell this story in a more condensed three-episode format instead of five?
ZG: It actually wasn't quite that "shape" of a decision. When we were first talking to Square about what we would do with the IP and what kind of a story we would tell in Arcadia Bay, we weren't looking at a particular length over another. We were contemplating stories of all shapes and sizes. What really it came down to is: the story we found that, for Chloe in this chapter of her life, it genuinely felt like about a three-episode story. As opposed to taking what we were all really in love with and excited by and trying to try change it to fit a larger model, making it a three-episode story seemed like it. Ultimately, that's what we decided to do.
A lot of game development planning seems to start with features and gameplay, and then building a story around those mechanics. With such a narratively focused game, did you feel like you really had the skeleton of that story laid out before diving into development, or did that creation go hand-in-hand?
ZG: Very much hand-in-hand.
DH: When we first started to think about what kind of a story we were telling, we were simultaneously thinking about what kind of game mechanics we would want to use. What is this game? From a design standpoint from a narrative standpoint, what is the experience that we want to craft in going back to Arcadia Bay? And the two, in our studio, in our culture, are designed simultaneously. The story is the foundation of the franchise and the foundation of this game. But interaction and agency is the way by which you get that story. And you participate but become complicit in that story. So we cared a lot about, and we think very hard about, the different ways we're allowing the player to influence that world, interact with that world, solve problems in that world. And the ways in which those mechanics create agency and create ownership over Chloe's life, over who she is as a character, over the relationships that you're building in that world. So we see the two as working, by necessity, very closely together. As we answer questions on one front, we're answering questions on the other.
Were there any ideas or mechanics that surprised you when developing the game? Or were there any ideas, when you were playing through the original game, that you really wanted to do, and now you get the chance to make yourself?
ZG: Yeah, so we don't want to spoil the features we haven't announced yet, but I will say that at Deck Nine, culturally, we look at design in a very heuristic way. It's a process of discovery. We come up with some exciting ideas, but it's not until we create a prototype, then we can put it into a space and try it out, iterate upon it, and figure out what's good and what's not.
The act of discovery is so exciting and so dynamic that, often, really great ideas on paper may not translate to the space. A planned idea on paper might suddenly blossom, and when you're playing through it, you're like, "Oh! This is what it is. Definitely. This is so much fun; we didn't see this coming." I think that joy of exploration, of what's fun in the space is a big part of what drives the development. Sorry I don't want to spoil the specifics, but we've definitely had that experience with this title.
Last question, for people who didn't finish the first game, do you recommend that players go back and finish Life is Strange, and then come in and play Before the Storm? Or do you feel like it doesn't matter what order you play these two in?
DH: It's really intentional for us that no matter which title you come to first, you can play through it, enjoy it, and then go play the other title. Nothing in our game will spoil anything from the original game. And likewise if you've played the original game, you'll find all sorts of familiar faces and characters and locations. It will be a lot of fun and are kind of Easter Eggs, in a way.
ZG: The only recommendation I have is to play both. [laughs]
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