Skate 4 Won't be at EA Play Live, but Developers Will Share "a Little Something" Tomorrow

It's been over a year since EA announced Skate 4, the long-awaited revival of the beloved series, but in that time, we've had next to no updates on the game- other than the announcement of developer Full Circle being established to focus on the game. With EA Play Live coming up soon, many were hoping that we'd see at least a little bit of the new Skate soon- but it seems like that's not going to happen.

Taking to Twitter via the official Skate account, the developers confirmed that they're not going to be part of the EA Play Live show later this week. "It's still early and we are committed to going this thing right, which means it's gonna take some time," the message reads. "Our number one goal is not to blow it."

That said, the developers have said that they'll be sharing "a little something" tomorrow- which could be anything, really, but it's good to know that we're going to get at least some sort of update soon. It's probably not going to be anything too big though, so keep your expectations in check.

EA Play Live is scheduled for this Thursday, July 22. The show is said to be around 40 minutes long, and will features games such as Battlefield 2042, Apex Legends, and Lost in Random. Leaks have heavily suggested that a Dead Space revival developed by EA Motive is also going to be announced.

It's also been confirmed that the next Mass Effect, the next Dragon Age, and new Star Wars games are not going to be at the event.

New Tom Clancy Game Announcement Coming Tomorrow

With Rainbow Six Extraction and The Division Heartland currently in the works, and the likes of Ghost Recon Breakpoint and Rainbow Six Siege continuing to receive support, Ubisoft's certainly utilizing its Tom Clancy license to the fullest- but there's plenty more to come.

The company has announced on Twitter that a new Tom Clancy game is going to be announced tomorrow. The reveal will be streamed worldwide at 11 AM PT, with the title being described as "a brand-new game in the Tom Clancy's universe."

"Things are going to get wild," Ubisoft writes, following it up with a party popper emoji, while the short gif attached to the tweet also has that same vibe. Not very Tom Clancy, but then again, neither are aliens, and we're getting Rainbow Six Extraction soon.

Earlier this year, a game with the title BattleCat was leaked. It's allegedly a PvP multiplayer first person shooter that is apparently a Splinter Cell, The Division, and Ghost Recon Breakpoint crossover game. In all likeliness, that's what's going to be revealed tomorrow.

Stay tuned, and we'll keep you updated on any new info that comes our way.

Sony is Making "a Huge Strategic Error" Abandoning E3 – Industry Analyst Michael Pachter

Until not that long ago, Sony and PlayStation were essentially synonymous with E3. They'd been major fixtures at the event every year since its inception, which is why their announcement that they would be skipping the show in 2019 came as a huge surprise. Meanwhile, E3 2020 was cancelled due to COVID, but even before that, Sony had already confirmed that they wouldn't be in attendance once again, while E3 2021 was the third consecutive year that PlayStation wasn't at E3.

There are differing opinions on whether or not Sony has been prudent to leave E3 out of its strategy, but one person who is completely against is is industry analyst Michael Pachter. In a recent Pachter Factor episode on SIFTD Games, the analyst was outspoken about his thoughts on the matter, saying that Sony was making a "a huge strategic error abandoning E3" and that the money they were saving as a result wasn't worth what they were letting go.

"I think Sony is taking a wrong direction," Pachter said. "I think they are making a huge strategic error abandoning E3. I think that is just the wrong thing to do, and I'm hopeful that they figure it out and they come back next year."

"Somebody convinced them that they'll save 20 million bucks by skipping E3, and this year's E3 maybe that was a prudent decision," he continued. "They skipped the one prior as well. And I think it's just a bad move. Really dumb strategy. Because you can't buy that much press for 20 million bucks. Having an event and getting all your fans to focus on that single event is really, really powerful, and I think that whoever's advising their management that skipping E3 is a cost-conscious move and smart is just wrong. They're just dumb."

Pachter concluded: "My bias is Sony is and will continue to be the biggest loser at E3 by skipping the show, and I think they really should wake up and recognize that it's an opportunity for them to showcase their games – and they're very good – and their hardware – which is very good – to the world when the world is paying attention. I hope they're back in 2022. Let's keep our fingers crossed."

This isn't the first time that Pachter has been critical of Sony's decision to skip E3. Back in 2019, when Sony first dropped out of E3, Pachter said, "I think they're fools to bypass the show." Read more on that through here.

Metroid Prime Trilogy is Done, but Nintendo isn't Ready to Release it Just Yet – Rumour

We've been hearing about a Switch remaster of the Metroid Prime trilogy for years at this point, and yet it never seems to materialize. Rumours and leaks claim time and time again that the remastered trilogy is indeed on the way, and lo and behold, we've got another one of those.

This one comes from journalist Jeff Grubb, who claimed in a recent episode of his Giant Bomb show Grubbsnax (spotted and transcribed by VGC) that Metroid Prime Trilogy is in fact real. According to Grubb, development on the trilogy's remaster is done, but Nintendo is holding on to it nonetheless, and not quite ready to send it out into the world just yet.

And why exactly is that the case? According to Grubb, whether or not Nintendo releases Metroid Prime Trilogy in the next year or so depends on a number of factors. For starters, the quality assurance of development in particular that has been impacted quite a bit due to the COVID pandemic, while Grubb also says that Nintendo wants to hold on to the trilogy until Metroid Prime 4 is much closer to launch.

This is, of course, not the first time we've heard something along these lines. All the way back in early 2019, it was claimed that development on Metroid Prime Trilogy had already wrapped up.

In related news, former Metroid Prime designer Michael Wikan claimed earlier this year that porting the entire trilogy to the Switch would be a "herculean" effort, in particular due to the fact that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption is built entirely around motion controls. Read more on that through here.

Regardless of whether or not Metroid Prime Trilogy ever sees the light of day, series fans still have plenty else to look forward to, with Metroid Dread launching this October and Metroid Prime 4 also in the works.

Gears Developer The Coalition is Working on a New IP, as Per Job Ad

Gears of War developer The Coalition confirmed earlier this year that as it shifted development pipelines to Unreal Engine 5, it wouldn't be announcing any new projects for a while. Shortly afterward, reports claimed that before starting work on Gears 6, the developer would first make a new experimental, smaller IP to familiarize themselves with the new engine.

While the studio itself has yet to comment on the matter in an official capacity, it seems they may have let some details slip all the same. As spotted by Klobrille on Twitter, the LinkedIn profile of Pedro Camacho D'Andrea – multiplayer level designer at The Coalition – mentions a new IP, on which D'Andrea has apparently been working since February of this year. The LinkedIn profile has since been update to remove any mention of the new IP, but you can take a look at the screencap in the tweet below.

Meanwhile, The Coalition is also going to be debuting an Unreal Engine 5 tech demo at the Game Developers Conference in a couple of days, so we'll soon be getting a taste of what the studio is going to be able to do with the new engine.

Steam Deck Won't Have Analog Stick Drifting Issues, Valve Assures

Analog stick drifting issues have gone hand-in-hand with consoles for a long time, but in recent years, they've become particularly prevalent. The Nintendo Switch, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S have all faced the issue to varying degrees, while Sony and Nintendo have both also been hit with class action lawsuits as a result. Thankfully, it seems like we won't have to worry about that problem with Valve's upcoming Steam Deck.

Speaking with IGN, hardware engineer Yazan Aldehayyat gave assurances that Valve has taken several measures to ensure that their upcoming handheld gaming PC doesn't run into problems on this front. While no parts in the device are going to last forever, Valve seems confident that thumbstick drifting isn't going to be an issue.

"We've done a ton of testing on reliability, on all fronts really – and all inputs and different environmental factors and all that kind of stuff," said Aldehayyat. "I think we feel that this will perform really well. And I think people will be super happy with it. I think that it's going to be a great buy. I mean, obviously every part will fail at some point, but we think people will be very satisfied and happy with this."

Meanwhile, Steam Deck designer John Ikeda added: "We purposely picked something that we knew the performance of, right? We didn't want to take a risk on that, right? As I'm sure our customers don't want us to take a risk on that either."

The Steam Deck launches in select regions of the world this December, with more regions being added to Valve's plans soon. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

Steam Deck's SSD Will be User Upgradeable

When the Steam Deck launches this December, it's going to have three variants. While the 256 GB and 512 GB models will both have internal NVMe SSDs, the base model, which comes with 64 GB of internal storage, will use an eMMC drive. Now, more details have come to light about the storage options in all three models.

Valve boss Gabe Newell has been in the habit of replying to fans' questions in emails, and responding to a few more recent emails (via Reddit), Newell confirmed that the Steam Deck will use an M.2 2230 SSD slot. This slot will also be available in the base 64 GB model- though it will, of course, be unpopulated.

So what exactly does that mean? Well, it means that regardless of which SKU of the Steam Deck you buy, you'll always have the option of upgrading its internal storage yourself. Of course, it's worth mentioning that M.2 2230 drives are not cheap, nor are they easily found- but at least you'll always have the option. It's definitely in line with the Steam Deck being the kind of open platform that it is, which has attracted plenty of praise.

The Steam Deck launches this December. It will run on a custom SteamOS, have a fast suspend/resume feature, and also support variable rate shading and ray-tracing. Check out its full specs through here.

Microsoft Flight Simulator's Xbox Series X/S Download Size is Almost 100 GB

Microsoft Flight Simulator is an absolutely massive game, and it looks ridiculously gorgeous- and both of those are massive understatements. That the game has massive storage requirements on PC isn't surprising in the slightest, and seeing as Microsoft is promising an experience without any notable compromises on the Xbox Series X/S, it follows that its going to be pretty big on consoles as well. Now we know exactly as big.

As spotted by @IdleSloth84 on Twitter, Microsoft Slight Simulator is going to have a massive file size on Xbox Series X/S of nearly 100 GB- to be precise, 97.2 GB. So if you're planning on playing the game on your console, you're going to have to clear up a lot of storage space. That's going to be a major pain for Xbox Series S owners in particular, who don't have a ton of internal storage to work with as it is.

Microsoft Flight Simulator launches for Xbox Series X/S on July 27.

Final Fantasy 16 Ranks High in Famitsu Most Wanted Charts Again

Famitsu's weekly charts for the most highly anticipated upcoming games, as decided by their readers, have seen pretty static results in the top positions for a number of weeks running, and such is the case this week as well. Tales of Arise and Final Fantasy 16 topped proceedings last week, and a number of weeks running before that, and the two are once more the top two games in this week's charts.

A pair of upcoming ever-so-elusive Switch exclusives in Bayonetta 3 and the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild take the next two positions, and they're followed by fellow Switch exclusive Shin Megami Tensei 5, which is due out in just a few months. In sixth pace are Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, also due out this November, while 2022's Splatoon 3 follows in seventh place.

Ushiro has fallen down to eighth place, while Gran Turismo 7 is still at No. 9. Meanwhile, Elden Ring in tenth place is a new entry in the top 10 in this week's charts.

You can check out the full top 10 below. All votes were cast by Famitsu readers between June 24 and June 30.

1. [PS4] Tales of Arise – 583 votes
2. [PS5] Final Fantasy 16 – 528 votes
3. [NSW] Bayonetta 3 – 484 votes
4. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 – 482 votes
5. [NSW] Shin Megami Tensei 5 – 422 votes
6. [NSW] Pokemon Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl – 345 votes
7. [NSW] Splatoon 3 – 332 votes
8. [NSW] Ushiro – 297 votes
9. [PS5] Gran Turismo 7 – 262 votes
10. [PS4] Elden Ring – 254 votes

[Via Nintendo Everything]

Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut's PS5 File Size is 60 GB

Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut has attracted a fair bit of controversy thanks to its pricing and cross-gen upgrade paths, but given the fact that it's going to improve and expand upon an already-excellent game, it's hard not to be excited about it nonetheless. And with its launch just a little over a month away, new details have started emerging. 

For instance, we now know what its file size is going to be. As spotted by Twisted Voxel, the PlayStation Store page of Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut mentions that on the PS5, the game's size is 60 GB- which is more than the 50 GB size of the base game when it launched last year. That said, the base game's install size did come down to 35 GB, so it's possible that Director's Cut will end up taking less storage space as well. Of course, this doesn't account for any day one updates the game might get. 

Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut launches for the PS5 and PS4 on August 20.