Tales of Arise Trailer Showcases Kisara's Powerful Guard

Continuing its trend of character trailers for Tales of Arise, Bandai Namco has a new one for Kisara. As captain of the Elde Menancia Guard, Kisara is equipped with a hammer and shield for fighting in close range. Check out some of her backstory and abilities below.

Due to wielding a massive tower shield, Kisara guards instead of evading. She can still initiate powerful counter-attacks though and boasts a strong defense. What's especially interesting is that Kisara is Dahnan and "highly regarded" by all, even soldiers on the side of Rena. Her dream wasn't revealed though so it should be interesting to see how this fits into the quest of Alphen and Shionne.

Tales of Arise is out on September 10th for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. Bandai Namco recently released gameplay of various field activities, from farming and fishing to cooking dishes, locating owls and skits. Stay tuned for another character trailer in the coming days as Dohalim still remains.

Horizon Forbidden West Delayed to Q1 2022 – Rumor

Following up on the rumor that Sony would announce a delay to 2022 for Horizon Forbidden West, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports that this is indeed the case. Guerrilla Games' open world title will release in Q1 2022 as per a "person familiar with the matter." It will originally planned for a Holiday 2021 release.

Sony hasn't officially responded to Bloomberg for comment. However, Schreier noted on Twitter that while the original rumor said the publisher was undecided on a delay, "My understanding is that the game was delayed a little while ago." Once again, we'll need to wait for more details and an official announcement.

GamesBeat's Jeff Grubb noted that a new PlayStation State of Play would be held in September so it's likely that the delay was originally planned to be announced then. With reports gaining more traction, Sony may get ahead of the event and confirm the new release window.

Horizon Forbidden West is currently in development for PS4 and PS5. Though Guerrilla Games didn't provide a release date, it did note that development was on track and "in the final stages." Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's Response To Open Letter Is Unsatisfactory, Union Says

More than 1,000 of Ubisoft employees from all over the globe recently signed an open letter to the company's management asking for the removal of any and all offenders from the company. Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot's response to the matter has been deemed unsatisfactory by sources familar with the matter, as has been reported by Gamesindustry.biz.

Many of the employees who signed the letter have stated that Yves is harping on the same measures the company took in response to the reports and lawsuits last year, and the company continues to promote the alleged offenders. Yves has promised a number of changes within the company, and stated that employees are free to mail him personally about such issues.

"We want to see real, fundamental change within Ubisoft and across the industry, for the sake of our members. Again, we look forward to a response that addresses all the issues raised and properly acknowledges our demands."

"Even though change has been happening and there seems to be a major restructuring happening internally, it's hypocritical of management to say that they're working on it while still harboring, protecting, permitting, and shuffling around known toxic and abusive people to other positions of power. Morale and trust is low."

Of course, it remains to be seen how the French publisher reacts to the presented issues. An earlier Activison Blizzard lawsuit has sparked a lot of fire in the industry regarding such practices, and it's definitely high time that we start to see these issues resolved in a manner that is fair and just.

Switch Exclusive The Last Survey Gets Release Date for Next Month, Comes Out August 6th

Essay Games and RedDeerGames have announced a release date for The Last Survey, a minimalist and aesthetically rich visual novel set to release next month. The game will be a Nintendo Switch exclusive and pre-orders are live now, as mentioned in a blog post on RedDeerGames' official website. Check out the announcement trailer below for more information about the game.

The Last Survey tasks players with delivering a survey that will change the fate of the world, which is dominated by a number of large companies. The story is touted to be a rich experience about the Earth's future and deals with a number of subjects such as capitalism and corporate greed, among others.

It's certainly a unique concept, and the art-style adds a lot of personality all while making the game feel minimalist and deprived of hope. The Last Survey is exclusive to Nintendo Switch, and releases on August 6, 2021.

A New Hotfix For Microsoft Flight Simulator Addresses A Bunch of Issues

A new hotfix for Asobo Studios' latest Microsoft Flight Simulator arrives today, and will be addressing a number of issues – both minor and major. A recent blog post on Flight Simulator's official website details a list of changes coming to the game with this hotfix.

The patch notes state some performance and stability improvements, which seem to be caused by "minor memory leaks." There are other improvements as well, to navigation, UI, planes and a bunch of other facets.

The update comes shortly after the release of Microsoft Flight Simulator on consoles. A recent update also improved the performance on PC by freeing the CPU. Microsoft also recently unveiled a number of accessories for the game, including fight controllers and keyboard mouse for consoles, read more on that through here. Microsoft Flight Simulator is available now on PC, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S and is included as a part of Xbox Game Pass.

Patch notes: 

STABILITY/PERFORMANCE
  • Fixed various crashes in game and on the world map
  • Fixed crashes related to the offline AI traffic
  • Fixed minor memory leaks
INPUT
  • The title should no longer freeze for a very long time when connecting / disconnecting peripherals
NAVIGATION
  • Fixed broken flight plan for Garmin devices when adding an enroute waypoint that was inserted as a destination
  • Fixed flightplanner not resetting when going from one activity to another
  • Fixed flightplan from flight assistant not displaying on certain planes when VFR map is open after the destination is set
  • Fixed freezes happening when using the flight assistant when setting a new destination
UI
  • VR options should no longer be duplicated in the Option menu
  • Marketplace "Get and download" and "Download" buttons will now function as expected on the Content Page
  • User unable to interact with UI elements with the in game cursor for free flight in some cases
PLANES
  • Improvements of pitot static system to fix altimeter bugs, improve accuracy and correctly simulate temperature impact
  • Fixed AutoBrakes Button Behavior on the Airbus A320Neo
ACTIVITY / GAMEPLAY
  • The correct runway is now taken into account for the Landing challenge at Nice
  • Pilots are now displayed in external view at the Isafjordur Landing challenge
  • Title will no longer become unresponsive after using Fuel Supply and using a fuel or payload as a numerical value via ATC Ground Services
  • Some achievements will no longer be awarded in error for certain landing scenarios
WEATHER
  • Fixed big temperature spikes at high altitudes
SDK
  • Added new airspace to nearest facility JS API
  • Fixed crashes on WASM modules for older CPUs

Upcoming PS5 Beta Update Displays Trophies Vertically

A new PS5 beta update is on its way, which will activate the M.2 SSD slot on a software level among other things. Two manufacturers – Seagate and WD have already revealed supported SSDs for the console, but there are a number of additional features that are sure to elate PlayStation fans. Tom Warren, senior editor at The Verge took to Twitter to report a list of patch notes, which included a change to the trophy layout.

Replacing the PS5 horizontal Trophy layout will be a vertical one, which seems to be great for a number of reasons – the most important being readability. The PS5's UI is minimalist, but is filled with a number of annoying oversights that can prove to be quite irritating at times.

The date and time of the update isn't confirmed yet, but details are sure to follow suit. Of course, this is a beta update and would only be available to users who registered for the program.

King's Bounty 2 PC Requirements Revealed

1C Entertainment's turn-based tactical RPG King's Bounty 2 is less than a month away from its launch, at last, and it's going to be available on pretty much every available active platform out there. Of course, if you plan on playing the game on PC, its minimum and recommended system requirements have now been revealed by the developer (via PC Gamer).

They're not terrible demanding. On minimum settings, you'll need either an i5-4690 or an FX-9370, along with either a GTX 970 or a Radeon RX 480. Meanwhile, on recommended requirements, that's kicked up to either an i5-7400 or a Ryzen 7 1700X along with either a GTX 1060 or a Radeon RX 580. On both minimum and recommended requirements, you're going to need 8 GB of RAM.

You can check out the full minimum and recommended requirements below.

King's Bounty 2 launches on August 24 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

Minimum requirements:

  • OS: Windows 10 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-4690 or AMD FX-9370
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon RX 480 (4 GB)
  • Memory: 8 GB
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 20GB HDD

Recommended requirements:

  • OS: Windows 10 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel Core i5-7400 or AMD Ryzen 7 1700X
  • Graphics: GeForce GTX 1060 or Radeon RX 580 (6 GB)
  • RAM: 8 GB
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 20 GB SSD

State of Decay 3 is Using Unreal Engine 5, Job Ad Suggests

From BioShock 4 to Dragon Age 12: The Flames of Fate, several major upcoming third party games have confirmed that they're going to be using Unreal Engine 5 for development. At the same time, of course, several first party studios have also confirmed that they've switched to the new engine. At Microsoft alone, the likes of The Coalition, Ninja Theory, and inXile Entertainment have adopted the Unreal Engine 5, and it seems another studio has joined those ranks as well.

As spotted by @klobrille on Twitter, a contract job ad posted by Undead Labs for the position of Sound Designer suggests that they're using Unreal Engine 5 for the development of the upcoming State of Decay 3. One of the points under responsibilities reads: "Collaborate with our Technical Sound Designer to implement audio through Blueprints (UE5)."

State of Decay 3 was confirmed to be in early pre-production when it was announced for Xbox Series X/S and PC last year, so it's still probably at least a few years away from launch.

No More Heroes 3 Trailer Focuses on its Alien Supervillains

No More Heroes 3 is shaping up to be the series' weirdest outing to date, which is really saying something. Travis Touchdown is going to go up against super-powerful alien superheroes in the game, and its most recent trailer provides a brief primer on each of them, and some of their defining traits and powers.

The evil Prince FU will serve as the primary antagonist, but to get to him, Travis will have to fight his way through his nine superpowered alien assassins and climb the Galactic Superhero Rankings. These include the space ore dealer Gold Joe, the alien kidnapper Black Night Direction, the memory thief Vanishing Point, the Velvet Chair Girl, the dark world princess Midori Midorikawa, and more. Some gameplay snippets are also shown off in the trailer, showing combat and several other activities. Check it out below.

No More Heroes 3 launches exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on August 27.

Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut's PS5 Features Are "Fully Enveloped into the Iki Expansion"

Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut is releasing for both PS5 and PS4 soon, and the biggest attraction of the release, which is the new Iki Island expansion, is, of course, going to be available on both systems. PS5 users, however, are going to get certain exclusive upgrades, suck as 4K/60 FPS visuals and performance, faster load times, enhanced audio, DualSense implementation, and Japanese lip syncing. The game's pricing model has already attracted some criticism, but speaking recently in an interview with Press Start, the developers tried explaining why these features have been locked behind a paid upgrade even for those who get the Director's Cut on the PS4.

According to creative and art director Jason Connell, the PS5-specific features in Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut aren't just generic upgrades, but rather form an integral part of the Iki Island expansion, and Sucker Punch didn't want to separate the two components.

"The thing that I think is important for people to know is that, those features that make it so specific to the PS5, we didn't just work on those as a generic hardware upgrade, they are fully enveloped into the Iki expansion and Jin's experiences on Iki," Connell said. "They were really tightly connected to one another. So that's kind of the reason why we didn't look at them as kind of separate. We really wanted those two to sing together. And that's the base reason why."

Of course, given that the Iki Island expansion is also going to be available on PS4 without those upgrades, one has to wonder just how enveloped into the experience they really are.

Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut is coming to PS5 and PS4 on August 20.