Animal Crossing: New Horizons Wins Game of the Year at Tokyo Game Show
In a year that has certainly sucked for many of us, there was a game that released earlier in the year that gave some of us some peace and enjoyment. That game is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The game has gone on to become one of the best selling Nintendo titles ever made and has now won game of the year at the Tokyo Game Show (via Eurogamer).
"Because we were forced to stay home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a slow-life experience in this game in which you can do everything freely became a comfort to people all over the world," a press statement said. "Communication with close friends through the game and interaction with other players in events went beyond the bounds of a single game, and the game showed the power of entertainment from Japan, acquiring overwhelming support from many users of all ages, from children to senior citizens, in general voting, and won both the Award for Excellence and the Grand Award with unanimity."
Some of the other more notable recipients were Baba is You, taking home The Game Designers Award. Pokemon Sword and Shield took home the Best Sales Award and Global Award: Japanese product. Call of Duty Modern Warfare received the Global Award: Foreign Product.
Lastly, Animal Crossing also secured the Minister of Economy's Trade and Industry Award. This is given to "an individual or organization that has made a great contribution to the growth and development of the Japanese computer entertainment software industry." While I don't believe that the game did anything absolutly groundbreaking for the industry, it was the perfect game for the time for all of the citizens on earth.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is currently available for the Nintendo Switch. The game just received a recent update to put players in the mood for the upcoming Halloween season. Make sure to check out DualShockers' review of the game right here.
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PS5 Demon's Souls Misses 4K 60FPS Next Gen Benchmark, Digital Foundry Reports
It's hard to imagine there is a more impressive-looking launch title than Bluepoint's Demon's Souls remake, slated for a launch day release on PS5. However, despite the impressive vertical slice of gameplay from the PlayStation showcase, one integral question remains: does it pass next gen standards? According to a recent analysis from Digital Foundry, the game will run at 1440p 60FPS — missing an integral 4K 60FPS benchmark.
As I mentioned, the breakdown comes directly from the experts over at Digital Foundry who did a full breakdown of the Demon's Souls remake footage. Seen below, the video takes you through the in's and out's — from ray tracing, to frame drops (there were none), to fidelity as compared to the original PS3 release:
Though overall impressions for the remake were resoundingly positive, they did make note of the fact that the game only hits 1440p 60FPS. Noting that this is likely a demonstration of the performance mode, Digital Foundry similarly believes that there is likely a 4K 30FPS "visual mode" that will allow for better fidelity at a hit to performance.
It's worth noting that everything should be taken with a grain of salt pre-release; while Digital Foundry's breakdowns are industry leading, they note that there may be last-minute changes to the PS5 firmware, software, or bugs in the final release that might impact the game in either direction. However, taking the 1440p 60FPS performance mode as fact, the obvious question is whether the hardware demonstrates enough of a step to be considered truly next gen.
Over the past year, PlayStation executives have been making statements re-affirming their desire to make clean cuts between generations in terms of software and hardware. While we now know that they are more likely to adopt the Xbox strategy of promoting cross-generational releases (likely thanks to the success of the PS4), missing 4K 60FPS in a performance mode opens up questions on whether the hardware will stay competitive over the course fo a hardware generation.
In any case, Demon's Souls will launch exclusively for PS5 on November 12, 2020. If you haven't pre-ordered the game, you can grab the title on Amazon to help support DualShockers.
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The Last of Us Part 2 Multiplayer Mode Confirmed in Vague Tweet
With The Last of Us Day come and gone, many were wondering if we've heard all we are going to hear about the infamous zombie game. Specifically, whether there would be an announcement about a new multiplayer mode (similar to the original TLoU). According to the series creator Neil Druckmann, fans of the series should be patient — notably The Last of Us 2's multiplayer mode will "be worth" the wait.
As mentioned above, news comes directly from Neil Druckmann who tweeted a final cap-off to the first-ever TLoU Day. Following a series of Tweets with fun content from developers and fans alike, Druckmann thanked "all the wonderful fans for" the love and support. Notably, he vaguely referenced "that other thing" noting that fans should "be patient. It'll be worth it."
Thank you to all the wonderful fans for an incredible #TheLastofUsDay ! Your positivity and love is incredibly inspiring. Oh… and about that other thing… be patient. It'll be worth it.
— Dr. Uckmann (@Neil_Druckmann) September 27, 2020
While the language is obviously vague, it is hard for anyone to not imagine he is directly talking about and upcoming multiplayer mode for TLoU Part 2. Despite the multiplayer being insanely popular on the original game, fans have been speculating an official reveal of the mode would be announced as part of the designated celebration. Druckmann seems to be speaking directly to those fans in the reply.
Naughty Dog has been unusually quiet since early development on what exactly this new mode would be, or if TLoU Part 2 would have multiplayer at all. Despite not launching with a designated mode, Naughty Dog had posted numerous job listings for character customization and in-game stores to bulk up a multiplayer component. As part of the spree of leaks, we also got some footage of an early build for The Last of Us Part 2's multiplayer — though little else has been heard of since then.
The Last of Us Part 2 is available now, exclusively on PS4. If you haven't picked up get game yet, you can get it on Amazon to help support DualShockers.
Editor's Note: The headline was changed from "The Last of Us Part 2 Multiplayer Mode Confirmed, Coming Soon" to "The Last of Us Part 2 Multiplayer Mode Confirmed in Vague Tweet" to better reflect the story.
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Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness CGI Movie Teaser Reveals Claire and Leon
During Capcom USA's livestream on Twitch, the CGI movie Resident Evil: Infinite Darkness was officially revealed with a teaser trailer. The trailer first introduces us to Claire Redfield as she investigates a dark and long abandoned house. The teaser ends with a man holding a gun, then a final shot of Leon Kennedy with one trained on that same man. You can watch it below:
This movie is the second of two Resident Evil projects heading to Netflix. Unfortunately no other information on Infinite Darkness has been revealed as of yet but hopefully more will be forthcoming soon.
There's also a live-action series coming to the streaming service, which will consist of eight, hour-long episodes and will be overseen by Andrew Dabb, best known for his work on Supernatural. The first two of the eight episodes will be directed by Bronwen Hughes whose credits include The Walking Dead. The series will be split across two timelines and will follow Wesker's kids.
In recent years there's been a huge push of media based on videogame properties making their debut on various streaming services. Late last year we got the hugely successful The Witcher series on Netflix and before that we had the likes of the Castlevania animated show. Early July we got the announcement of an Amazon exclusive Fallout series, in March there was the reveal of HBO's The Last of Us and we have the likes of Cuphead and more hitting our screens soon. And now of course we have two confirmed Resident Evil projects in the works.
Meanwhile on the videogame front we have Resident Evil: Village, which made its debut during the PlayStation 5 Showcase by Sony. Continuing from where REVII left off, Village seems to be aiming to bring players into an entirely different Resident Evil experience, this time around focused on European forests and mountains and the presence of werewolves, in lieu of the series' traditional zombies.
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The Xbox Series X Boot Up Noise Will Sound Familiar
For those of you who owned an Xbox One, the Xbox Series X boot up noise will sound very familiar. In fact, it is the exact same sound the Xbox One makes when you turn on the console.
Marques Brownlee uploaded a video to his instagram page with what is seemingly a functioning Xbox Series X unit. The video was only five seconds long and all he did was boot up the console. Not much can be taken from the video since we have all seen the console up close and personal now. However, this is the first time hearing the sound the system makes when you turn it on. Surprise surprise, its the same as the Xbox One. I guess don't fix what isn't broken. You can take a look for yourself in the video below.
The Xbox Series S was not in the video, but I would assume that the lower priced console would emit the same noise.
I did want to point out a great idea I saw down in the reddit comments. The Reddit under u/BlackxMamba thought that Microsoft should allow custom boot up noises for people to purchase on the store. I would definitely purchase a boot up sound if it could be something like the beeping noises that Halo players hear before they respawn. But I would definitely first want a "guy-huh" noise from Banjo-Kazooie.
The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are set to launch on November 10 for $499 and $299. The consoles went up for pre-order on September 22 and sold out pretty quick. However, the consoles have been going in and out of stock, so if you would like to snag one, I suggest setting a notification on Wario64's tweets. It always works for me.
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Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World: The Prophecy of the Throne received a brand new trailer showcasing more of the story as well as the objective of the game itself. Re:Zero is a tactical adventure and visual novel utilizing protagonist Subaru's "Return by Death" ability, a key element much like in the original works:
New information, character art, and screenshots have also been released and can be seen below:
Melty Pristis – A nun of the Transcendent Dragon Church, which worships the Holy Dragon, and the sixth royal candidate of the Kingdom of Lugunica. Polite, respectful, and humble, those who encounter her tend to be stricken with a desire to protect her. She takes on any challenge with her utmost effort, but she can be a bit of an airhead and often makes careless blunders:
Melty's Knight:
Melty's Civil Official Sent by the Transcendent Dragon Church:
Reticent Bodyguard:
Puck's Admirer:
Mysterious Assassin Targeting the Royal Candidates:
Some brand gameplay details and screenshots have also released, which can be viewed below. Progress through the story mainly through conversations. During the Movement Part you take control of Subaru to speak with characters, check out points on the map, and gather items and information. Obtaining useful items and intel is key to completing missions successfully.
In the Briefing, devise plans with allies to decide how to proceed through upcoming missions. Subaru can propose opinions based on any items and information that have been gathered to affect the actions of his allies.
And in the Mission, take action to resolve conflicts standing in the way of Subaru and his friends. Players can only control Subaru, and his allies move independently based on the decisions made during Briefings.
The Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World anime English dub cast will return to reprise their roles. English voices will be available as a Day One patch for the North American and European versions.
The Day One Edition includes four exclusive, limited run only original pins in a display box featuring Emilia, Subaru, Rem, and brand-new character Melty:
The Collector's Edition includes the Day One Edition, a full-color art book including concept art, sketches, and commentary with a special foreword from the creators, a steelbook collector's display case, the official soundtrack containing original music from the game, and the Collector's Edition outerbox:
More screenshots and the game's first story details have been previously shared by Spike Chunsoft. The game was announced in the west slightly after the Japanese reveal. Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World: The Prophecy of the Throne launches January 29th, 2021 for North America and February 5th, 2021 for Europe on PS4, Nintendo Switch, and PC. It's published by Spike Chunsoft and developed by Chime Corporation.
You can preorder Re:Zero – The Prophecy of the Throne on Amazon and support DualShockers: Day One Edition, Limited Edition.
The post Re:ZERO -Starting Life in Another World: The Prophecy of the Throne Gets New Trailer, Release Date, Artwork, and More by Allisa James appeared first on DualShockers.
Yakuza Movie Officially Announced by Sega At TGS 2020
Sega announced on September 27, the last day of TGS 2020, that the Yakuza series will receive an Hollywood movie adaptation. The announcement was made by Toshihiro Nagoshi, during the SegaNama TGS 2020 special stream. This is what the "latest information on the Yakuza series" turned out to be.
Variety previously revealed earlier this week that a Yakuza movie was coming.
Toshihiro Nagoshi said detailed information on the movie will be coming at a later date. However, Nagoshi stressed out "Since we're doing it, we might as well make it great. We wouldn't make it without ensuring we'll be satisfied with the result". This means that we should avoid a fiasco like the original design of Sonic in the Sonic The Hedgehog Hollywood movie.
SegaNama are monthly streams with MC Ayana Tsubaki and Sega Chief Creative Officer Toshihiro Nagoshi. He most notably always answers questions from fans sent in beforehand during an "Ask Nagoshi anything" segment. This is how for example he ended up recently praising Ghost of Tsushima.
Because of a misunderstanding on Ayana Tsubaki's part, it was initially believed, right before Sega started its first day at TGS 2020, that a new Yakuza game would be announced on SegaNama. However, on Sega's first day, Ayana Tsubaki announced it wouldn't be the case.
Yakuza Series Producer Masayoshi Yokoyama also confirmed no new game was to be announced now, though he stated there are multiple projects in motion for the 15th anniversary of the series. It looks like the Hollywood movie is one of them.
As for the games of the Yakuza series, the newest iteration is already available in Japan on PS4 since January, and is coming west as Yakuza: Like a Dragon on PS4, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X on November 10. A PS5 edition will also be arriving in the future, though no release date was shared for it for now. Masayoshi Yokoyama insinuated the next main game might keep the JRPG mechanics.
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TGS 2020: Naoki Yoshida Saw Y'all Saying Final Fantasy XVI Will Take Forever to Release, It Won't
At TGS 2020, final day, Square Enix held a live stream on Final Fantasy XIV YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse, with Yoko Taro, Yosuke Saito (NieR series Director), Toshio Muro (FFXIV Global Community Producer), and Final Fantasy XVI Producer Naoki Yoshida. Yoko Taro and Yosuke Saito joined the stream once the intro was over. Yoko Taro made a joke on how now that the two of them joined an FF14 stream, it became an FF16 stream.
This prompted Naoki Yoshida to quickly chat about the Final Fantasy XVI reveal trailer. Though that was obviously scripted like every Japanese show. First off, YoshiP mentioned a teaser site for Final Fantasy XVI will be launching in late October 2020, since they didn't start one yet. Square Enix previously mentioned additional information will be coming in 2021, meaning the teaser site shouldn't have anything. It'll be a teaser site after all. For now they're focusing on the game's development.
Next, Naoki Yoshida mentioned that for the Final Fantasy XVI reveal trailer, they wanted to avoid as much as possible only showing some pre-rendered cutscenes and a logo. Because people would then say "lol FF16 won't release before 2035″. Yoshida actually saw multiple English comments like that. They anticipated reactions like that, and that's why they tried to include as much ingame as possible in the reveal trailer. Even though that was pretty difficult because they're anything but done when it comes to optimization or tuning. I believe that would explain why the footage recorded was running on PC instead of PS5 too.
Overall, Yoshida said the trailer has pretty much no "selling points". Instead of trying to make the game look appealing at all costs, they just showed what FF16 actually looks like for now. Obviously the game will keep improving.
Final Fantasy XVI was announced on the PS5 showcase in September 2020 . While the reveal trailer from the showcase mentioned FFXVI is a timed exclusive to PS5 and will later come to PC, the Square Enix uploaded version of the trailer and the press release for the game only mention PS5 for the game's platforms. However, it's very likely Final Fantasy XVI is indeed a time-limited exclusive and will come to PC sometime after its launch one day.
Right before TGS 2020, a new report claimed Final Fantasy XVI is in development for at least 4 years and will launch sooner than most people think. "4 years" is in touch with what we knew: Square Enix announced an AAA game was in development in 2016, and that game entered full scale development in 2019. And we now know this game was Final Fantasy XVI.
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The Last of Us Part II Gets Stunning Artwork From Lead Metal Gear Artist
The official Naughty Dog Twittter account revealed an absolutely stunning piece of fanart for The Last of Us Part II. Said art was done by famed Japanese artist Yoji Shinkawa, who is best known as the lead character and mecha designer for the Metal Gear franchise:
We're so honored by and grateful to @KojiPro2015_EN and Yoji Shinkawa for creating this stunning The Last of Us Part II art for #TheLastofUsDay.
Want to make it your wallpaper? Download high-res desktop and mobile versions here: https://t.co/r1eW5mYAKn pic.twitter.com/AAKPb6F8kw
— Naughty Dog (@Naughty_Dog) September 26, 2020
The full version of the artwork is below so you can see it in full detail. And if you want it for personal use, you can download both a desktop and mobile version of it here:
If you're in the mood for more fanart, check out this artist's mashup of scenes from the game in Studio Ghibli's iconic artstyle. There's plenty of other lovely fan creations to look at as well such as Joel and Ellie recreated as an Ukiyo-e Style painting, this cosplay depicting a heartbroken and exhausted Ellie, fan art poster showcasing Ellie's evolution, or this amazing mural of Abby appropriately painted beside a gym.
Recently Keith Paciello, the studio animator for the game, went into great detail about the process behind its realistic facial animation. For even more insight into the developmental process behind The Last of Us Part II sound designer Beau Anthony Jimenez took to Twitter to detail the process behind voicing the various Infected enemy types, as well as crediting the talented voice actors who gave performances for them.
Some recently released numbers demonstrate the sheer amount of manpower needed to bring such an ambitious game to fruition. Naughty Dog's final tally was 2332 people total to develop the game, which includes 2169 developers credited and 163 extra "thanks" to help with The Last of Us Part II. 14 outsourced studios, two of them devoted to sound design and mixing with the other 12 dealing with art direction.
Of course Naughty Dog's development process hasn't been controversy free, as the studio has been in the hotseat for quite some time concerning its own issues with the unfortunately common industry "crunch." According to Neil Druckmann in an interview concerning the practice: "We don't try to babysit people. We draw people who want to tell these stories and who want to leave a mark on the industry. And they're gonna work very hard to do it. We need to put some guardrails [in] so they don't injure themselves, but I don't think we could prevent them from working hard and still make the kind of games we make."
For any newcomers to the franchise, or those who haven't played Part II yet, Features Editor put together a guide of everything you need to know about The Last of Us. And you can check out our review from Features Editor Ryan Meitzler, who absolutely adored the game.
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The World Ends With You — The Animation Reveals New Visual Featuring Full Characters
Square Enix updated the official site for the The World Ends With You — The Animation with a brand new visual. The key art depicts the main cast as they're surrounded by Noise, gearing up for an epic battle:
Recently a trailer was released for the anime, teasing the opening scene of the anime. We see Neku wake up in the middle of Shibuya's famous Scramble Crossing with no memories of how he arrived there. Even more worrisome is the fact that both pedestrians and vehicles phase right through him.
The World Ends With You — The Animation was revealed back in July during a panel at Anime Expo Lite. The panel included Producer Tomohiko Hirano, Director Tatsuya Kando, Character Designer Gen Kobayashi, and Composer Takeharu Ishimoto. Kando, Kobayashi, and Ishimoto are all returning to their original roles from the game for the anime. You can watch the full panel over on YouTube.
The official website for The World Ends With You — The Animation is live and features more information regarding the main cast of characters that the anime will focus on. The project is set to release worldwide in 2021. A portion of the original development team helped with the production team, namely Game Producer and Character Designer Tetsuya Nomura (primarily known as the creator of the Kingdom Hearts franchise) taking on the role of Creative Producer. The original Japanese voice cast will also be reprising their roles. The anime is being made in 3D by Domerica and Shin-Ei animation. It was confirmed that there will be changes to the story from the game, but there will also be new things to explore and more depth added to the characters.
For more information about The World Ends With You — The Animation, you can follow the official Twitter for updates. If you are interested in trying out The World Ends With You for the first time you can purchase the game for Nintendo DS or Nintendo Switch over on Amazon. You can also read our review of the Switch version here.
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