The King of Fighters 15 – Ash Crimson Revealed in New Trailer

Though revealed in the recent story trailer for The King of Fighters 15 at Gamescom, SNK has released a dedicated trailer for Ash Crimson. It highlights the "Sneering Blaze" and his fiery techniques along with the potential combos that one can pull off. Check it out below.

Ash is trained in a style similar to Savate, and as such has extraordinary agility. His main skill, Pyrokinesis, works well for zoning foes via projectiles and a fire aura, though he can also steal others' powers as well. Having debuted in The King of Fighters 2003, Ash has become one of the more synonymous characters in the series over the years.

The King of Fighters 15 releases on February 17th 2022 for Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. It will have 39 fighters at launch along with modes like Online Battle, Trials and Gallery Mode (with over 300 songs from the entire series. Those who pre-order on consoles can start playing from February 14th 2022.

Battlefield 2042 Beta Starts on September 22nd – Rumor

DICE's upcoming beta for Battlefield 2042 has had its share of discussion recently. Its reported appearance on the PlayStation and Microsoft Stores and listing from Italian retailer Media World reinforced its originally announced September 6th start. However, it seems the beta could be starting later than planned.

According to insider Tom Henderson, who has leaked plenty of details about the title before its initial announcement, it will take place on September 22nd. No further details were provided but if incorrect, he promised to give away 10 copies of the game to random individuals. Neither EA nor DICE have indicated a delay for the beta from its original date so take things with a grain of salt as usual.

As such, the beta's pre-load begins on September 3rd at 1 AM PT so we'll know sooner or later if it's on track. It will be open for all players on September 6th, 1 AM PT and end on September 11th at 7 AM PT. Battlefield 2042 releases on October 22nd for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC.

Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View Interview – Storytelling, Interrogations, and More

As the studio behind experimental games like Ether One and The Occupation, it's clear that the folks at White Paper Games like trying new things with each of their projects, and their next game, Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View, is shaping up to be very different from any of their previous stuff. Describes as a story-driven observational thriller, the game will see players taking on the role of titular protagonist Robert Conway, a retired detective who returns to the forefront to investigate a mysterious disappearance. The game is definitely making some interesting promises, and recently, to learn more about it and what to expect from it, we reached out to its developers at White Paper Games. Below, you can read our conversation with game designer Pete Bottomley and platform programmer David Smith.

conway disappearance at dahlia view

"Our games have the goal of respecting our players' time and input so we're always looking for ways to include meaningful interaction to help tell emotional beats."

Having made games such as Ether One and The Occupation, you have a reputation for crafting experiences with very unique premises. In light of that, can you talk us through the process of how you landed on what would drive your next game?

Pete Bottomley (Game Designer): As a team we tend to concept together to come up with what our new games will look and feel like. Each department comes at it from what interests them the most creatively. A goal for this game was to have a voice protagonist and for us to double down on puzzle design elements we learnt on Ether One along with the character driven dialogue interactions from The Occupation.

We also like to approach a different time period with each game. So in Conway, we're setting the game in a North East British town in the 1950s. It wasn't until these elements came together that we decided to change the game from a first-person perspective to a fixed camera perspective which opened up the opportunities for voice gameplay and cinematic "thrillery" tones to help set the pace.

Observing and profiling suspects is apparently going to be a big part of the experience in Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View. Can you talk to us about how this will be implemented in gameplay?

Bottomley: There are 3 core loops of gameplay to help observe and profile suspects: observations, search and evidence review. In the observational scenes, it's a very 'Rear Window' approach to gameplay. You're able to spy on your neighbours at key points throughout the game to find interesting threads to pull at which gives your objectives. The search "gameplay" then allows you to go into their personal spaces to pull at those threads to find key pieces of evidence through solving puzzles. In the "evidence review", you're then able to manually pin pieces of evidence together to get your suspect.

Detective stories have to find ways to always keep audiences on their toes, but it seems like you want the story in Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View to resonate with players on a much more emotional level as well. How does the game strike a balance between those two storytelling responsibilities, so to speak?

Bottomley: I think you can have a well-paced but emotional detective thriller when done right. Our games have the goal of respecting our players' time and input so we're always looking for ways to include meaningful interaction to help tell emotional beats. Two tools we've been able to utilise in Conway over Ether One or The Occupation are the use of a first-person narrative and the use of camera work to drive gameplay. Since our previous two titles have been first person, we made the conscious effort to try and deliver emotive gameplay through the use of dialogue and camera work. We think we've threaded this approach correctly so hopefully our players will resonate with the storytelling when they play Conway.

conway disappearance at dahlia view

"Puzzle games are always tough to gauge duration, but from average playtesting results, we're seeing around 8-9 hours."

What form do interrogations take in the game from a mechanical point of view? Should players expect these to be puzzles in and of itself, or does the game go about this in a different way?

Bottomley: Although there's a similar structure, we don't interrogate any of the neighbours in the game. Robert Conway is unofficially working on the case so he doesn't have the legal tools at his disposal. Instead, he has to root and pry out information from his neighbours to build his case. Mechanically, the conversations will play out in a similar way as the interviews in The Occupation which means that the player unlocks questions based on information they've uncovered in the level which then unlocks different dialogue responses.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of the game be?

Bottomley: Puzzle games are always tough to gauge duration, but from average playtesting results, we're seeing around 8-9 hours.

Since the reveal of the PS5 and Xbox Series' specs, a lot of comparisons have been made between the GPU speeds of the two consoles, with the PS5 at 10.28 TFLOPS and the Xbox Series X at 12 TFLOPS. How much of an impact on development do you think that difference will have?

David Smith (Platform Programmer): When it comes to the smaller teams working on cross-platform titles, it won't make that much difference. Ultimately the Unreal Engine is constantly being optimised for both sets of hardware and it's in Epic's interest to keep them in line with each other supporting features like ray tracing. We haven't noticed any significant performance differences between the two consoles during development of Conway.

The first-party studios and platform holder partners will be the ones with the time and resources to push and get the absolute most out of the hardware. We're really looking forward to seeing what companies like Naughty Dog and The Coalition manage to accomplish on PS5 and Xbox Series respectively.

The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s raw bandwidth. How can developers take advantage of this, and how does this compare to the Xbox Series X's 2.4GB/s raw bandwidth?

Bottomley: There's a dual approach we can take advantage of as developers not only with the faster SSD's but also in combination with Unreal Engine 5. When you're creating the larger 3D games that we tend to design at White Paper, streaming the content for the player and knowing how to approach the design of the levels to get them to the most optimal performance takes a lot of time. With quicker loading times, you have less need to design features into loading screens along with the streaming of the content at runtime. Unreal Engine 5 removes the need for this side of development and instead 'chunks' the content under the hood. I think you'll see some big changes to level design with these two upgrades in the development pipeline.

conway disappearance at dahlia view

"On PS5 and Xbox Series X, we will have an option to play in native 4K, but we will also be revealing much more detail on graphical options soon."

There is a difference in Zen 2 CPUs of both consoles. The Xbox Series X features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.8GHz, whereas the PS5 features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz. Your thoughts on this difference?

Bottomley: From a developer perspective, we don't have CPU intensive games. The most amount of processing we do is with AI/characters along with any physics simulations such as cloth. It's an obvious statement to make, but the more CPU power we have to raise the visual fidelity of gameplay elements the better. The micro difference, although a huge win for larger games making the most of each thread to squeeze out the best performance for players, I don't think you'd see too much difference in our titles between the two.

The Xbox Series S features lesser hardware compared to Xbox Series X and Microsoft is pushing it as a 1440p/60fps console. Do you think it will be able to hold up for the graphically intensive next-gen games?

Bottomley: I think the scaling options for players to access the hardware is great. With hardware there's always a trade between cost vs power. The more hardware options for players to get access to mean there are more titles available to experience which is only a good thing for the games industry.

Super Resolution is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. How do you think this will help game developers?

Bottomley: In a couple of ways. Firstly, very visually intense games created by small teams will have more tools at their disposal to help get their games running to a better visual quality with less graphics programming needed. Obviously you always want to optimise the GPU as much as you can, but sometimes small teams can struggle with this so having extra levers will help in that respect. It also helps older games run at their best possible visual bar without needing to go back and change too much of the content which maintains the long tail of accessing the games later in cycles.

What frame rate and resolution will the game target on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S?

Bottomley: On PS5 and Xbox Series X, we will have an option to play in native 4K, but we will also be revealing much more detail on graphical options soon.

Cyberpunk 2077 Dev Has 160 Staff Working On Game's First Expansion

The saga of Cyberpunk 2077 will, no doubt, be one for the history books. Despite being a massive financial success, the game received mixed reception largely due to its numerous technical issues (specifically surrounding last gen hardware, though problems were had in all versions to some degree). Since launch, developer CD Projekt RED has been working to fix as many issues as possible with some huge patches. Between that and a recent hack, it has delayed the full next gen version of the game, though they are still aiming to get that out by the end of this year. On top of that, the game is set to have expansions similar to the last game from the company, The Witcher 3. While we don't know much about it, there is a lot of bodies on that project.

As detailed by their H1 2021 earnings call, and transcribed by the folks at VGC, joint CEO Adam Kiciński gave details about the progress of the expansion. He stated that 160 people were working on the expansion, with 70 put on unannounced titles. That is roughly a quarter of the developer's staff, for reference. Unfortunately, they had nothing else to share about the expansion from either its potential content, release date or price.

"Right now, 160 people are working on the first expansion for Cyberpunk, while nearly 70 more are involved in unannounced projects.

"Regarding the expansion, It's in development but we're not providing any specifics about the date… we would like to keep up the rule that we're not commenting on the date until we're ready to deliver that. Regarding the price… historically expansions have been paid as with The Witcher [3]. However, it's definitely way too early to talk about price, since we're not even giving the date."

Cyberpunk 2077 is available now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Stadia with PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions planned for later this year.

Watch Dogs: Legion Will Be Free To Play September 3-5 On PS5, PS4, PC, And Stadia

Watch Dogs: Legion hit last year with an interesting premise and promise of allowing you to play basically any NPC as they battled a fascist regime in a near future Britain. Whether it lived up to those lofty goals is obviously up for debate, but either way it managed to deliver the open world we've come to know from Ubisoft. The game also got content from previous entries in the series as well as other Ubisoft franchises. If you haven't gotten a chance to try it, you'll be able to do so for free this weekend on most platforms.

Ubisoft announced that starting at the end of this week, on the PlayStation platforms, PC (via the Epic Games Store and the Ubisoft store) and Google Stadia you'll be able to try the base game out free of charge until the weekend is over. You'll be able to access the main game as well as all free updates. If you wish to continue, your progress will carry over if you buy the game, and it will be on sale on those platforms. It's unclear if a free weekend is in the cards for Xbox platforms later.

Watch Dogs: Legion is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC and Stadia. The free weekend will run from September 3rd to the 5th on the abovementioned platforms.

Marvel's Midnight Suns Has Cosmetic-Only Microtransactions

Firaxis recently revealed gameplay for Marvel's Midnight Suns, showcasing how the game's tactical RPG combat and exploration worked. However, it also revealed that character's abilities would be based on cards with a sequence akin to a random card pack opening being showcased. This set off some alarm bells with regards to said cards being monetized in some way.

The game's official Twitter has since clarified the same, confirming that there are no loot boxes or "related microtransactions to get more cards (i.e. Gamma Coils)". There will character skins available to purchase but these are "purely cosmetic" and "do not affect game balance in any way." As such, there seem to be a number of skins and outfits that can be unlocked by just playing the game.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is in development for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch for release in March 2022. Along with heading into combat, players can also explore and upgrade the Abbey while forging friendships with various heroes. Stay tuned for more gameplay and details in the coming days.

Diablo 2: Resurrected Trailer Showcases the Paladin

Blizzard Entertainment has released a new trailer for Diablo 2: Resurrected as it continues to shine the spotlight on various classes. This time, it's the Paladin who uses melee combat and a variety of spells, buffing nearby allies or debuffing enemies in variety. Check out their gameplay below.

The Paladin can unleash a variety of damaging skills like Smite and Blessed Hammer or they can buff their allies. Defiance boosts the defense of all nearby party members while Might increases the damage they deal. You can also heal surrounding allies and some spells, like Conviction, will weaken foes and reduce their overall defense and resistance.

Diablo 2: Resurrected releases on September 23rd for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch. You can check out previous trailers for the Barbarian and Sorceress in the meantime. Stay tuned for trailers for the other classes in the coming days.

Marvel's Midnight Suns Gameplay Showcases Combat, Cards and More

Marvel's Midnight Suns, the tactical RPG from Firaxis Games, finally has some gameplay footage, providing a look at the combat, character interactions and more. Captured on PC, it showcases how battles play out with squads of three heroes embarking on missions. Check it out below.

Each of the 12 heroes in the game has their own unique abilities but these aren't all immediately available in battles. Instead, they're available as cards which are randomly doled out before each battle (and can be upgraded back at the base). Some abilities have very cool effects – like using a knockback skill to send a foe hurtling into an explosive barrel or over ledges – while others can apply status effects. There are finishers and team-up attacks as well.

Outside of combat, players will cultivate friendships with different heroes. As one explores their base, the Abbey, they'll discover different things like Words of Power for unlocking new areas. Daily activities offer unique things like going on a stroll with Tony Stark or meditating with Magik. Each has their own preferences and strengthening those bonds can lead to benefits for both the Abbey and combat.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is out in March 2022 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Sonic Colors: Ultimate Review – Dr. Eggman's Wild Ride

Sonic hasn't had the best time since making the transition to 3D. I'm not saying anything new here, everyone knows this, and the franchise's struggles with transitioning its blistering quick 2D platforming gameplay into 3D while retaining the design principles that made the original games beloved and still being, you know, good, have been well documented. Sonic's misfires in the 3D space have been so spectacular, and delivered among the worst games ever made so consistently, that people often forget just how great the series could be when it was firing on all cylinders.

That has never happened with a 3D Sonic game, but some have come closer to achieving greatness than others. None have come closer than Sonic Colors did, when this unassuming title launched exclusively on the Wii over a decade ago. So it makes sense that, in celebration of Sega's mascot's 30th anniversary, this one Sonic game comes the closest to distilling the essence of Sonic at the peak of his powers, and realizing them in a 3D game would be the one that they turn to. And so, we get Sonic Colors Ultimate. 

Ten years later, it still mostly holds up – that's what happens when the core game design was actually good, rather than relying on gee whiz gimmickry that won't stand the test of time. While Sonic Colors always had issues, and those issues are exacerbated with the passage of time so they stick out in Ultimate more, it's still a fundamentally good time and an engaging game.

 

"While Sonic Colors always had issues, and those issues are exacerbated with the passage of time so they stick out in Ultimate more, it's still a fundamentally good time and an engaging game."

You know how it goes this time – another convoluted and contrived scheme by Dr. Eggman, and another attempt by Sonic to take Eggman down. In this specific instance, Eggman has set up an amusement park in low earth orbit, which appears to be a front for a sinister scheme in which he is leveraging the power of alien creatures known as wisps to further his plans for world domination. It's a silly premise, but unlike so many other Sonic games, Colors knows to largely keep it out of the way, rather than providing overwrought context to the player and making the game buckle under the weight of its own unnecessary story. Sonic Colors is pretty lightweight as far as storytelling goes, which works to its benefit. The few cutscenes we do get are pretty snappy and quick, with some cute humor that will endear the game and the character to younger players especially.

Unlike so many modern Sonic games, this adventure is a solo outing – in that you only play as Sonic. None of the menagerie of creatures that form up his ever expanding group of friends is along for the ride (though Tails is in the game too), and you're never controlling anyone other than Sonic – though of course, Sonic does end up imbibing the character of a lot of the wisps he is saving. All of this works greatly to the game's benefit – the controls, move set, and levels are all designed around one baseline set of abilities, meaning that rather than having to balance everything for a smattering of half-developed characters with their barely fleshed out distinct play styles, everything is designed around Sonic, how he is controlled, and the abilities he has, with or without wisps. This leads to an unusually strong showing in terms of level design, boss fights, and the like for a 3D Sonic game – remember, even the fan favorite Sonic Adventure games suffered from having to design around multiple characters. Colors is a look at how this series can benefit from having a leaner focus, and we get some of the strongest level design and mechanics we have seen in a 3D Sonic game as a result.

Of course, Sonic Colors did stand out at the time because it was among the first showings of what would go on to be referred to as the "boost formula", and as mentioned, it was a pretty strong showing at that. The novelty of getting an actual good Sonic game in 3D after so long, plus one that was distinctly differently structured from the "Adventure" template the 3D games had followed through to then, did help raise the profile of the discourse and reputation the game enjoyed.  More than ten years later, we've had several 3D Sonic games following this same formula – with the last one, Sonic Forces, being among the lowlights in a series with some incredible lowlights – so that shine has worn off, and people also find themselves itching for a return to the Adventure style. While this does remove one of the factors that made Colors so well received at the time, it nonetheless does not change that the game itself is fundamentally well designed – in fact, arguably at its core, it's better designed than any 3D Sonic game that followed, including Generations, because it is not juggling multiple play styles between Modern and Classic Sonic.

sonic colors ultimate

"We are looking at two fundamentally contradictory game design principles at play in Sonic – building speed and momentum, and precision platforming. Precision platforming obviously requires the player to slow down and consider things first, before then traversing the hazards they are presented with; building momentum and speed require you to run, run, run, without stopping."

This has helped Sonic Colors hold up pretty well, though I would argue that the fundamental problems that lie at the core of every Sonic game – this includes the 2D games too, mind you, though I do feel said problems are significantly worse in the 3D games than the 2D ones, which can work around them better – do manifest in Colors too, and do hold it back at times. Most notably, we are looking at two fundamentally contradictory game design principles at play in Sonic – building speed and momentum, and precision platforming. Precision platforming obviously requires the player to slow down and consider things first, before then traversing the hazards they are presented with; building momentum and speed require you to run, run, run, without stopping. Sonic does expect you to memorize levels and run them again and again, the better to be able to imbibe and reconcile both these principles, but during your first run through any course, it can often be a tug of war between the two.

Of course, like I said, Sonic Colors does manage to turn even this into a strength. Finishing a course and getting slapped with a C or a D grade often acts as all the incentive you need to go back and run that course again, and again, and again, until you've memorized it so well you're effortlessly getting the highest possible marks each time. Some expertly hidden collectibles add further replayability to each course. 

A lot of the attention of the "Ultimate" upgrade for Sonic Colors has focused on the visual side of it, which makes sense – the original was a Wii title, which means it's a standard definition game remastered for HD for the very first time. On the whole, I would argue the visual update is clean and reasonable (if not astounding or worth the whole re-release in and of itself), though there are certain complaints I can foresee coming in from some quarters. As an example, the updates have very definitely changed the look and aesthetic of a lot of areas due to the differences in lighting and color (heh) saturation, and I can easily see many preferring how the original game looked as a result; but on the whole, I think the new aesthetic in those areas isn't worse, just different.

sonic colors ultimate

"The game's Wii roots are especially clear and apparent in cutscenes. However, the art style is strong, and that, along with a bump up to 60fps for the frame rate, helps keep the game look pleasant to look at."

The remastering is very clearly nowhere close to the more thorough facelifts we have seen in other similar platform re-releases; for example, this is nowhere close to the overhaul that Crash or Spyro saw with the N.Sane or Reignited trilogy releases. The game's Wii roots are especially clear and apparent in cutscenes. However, the art style is strong, and that, along with a bump up to 60fps for the frame rate, helps keep the game look pleasant to look at. While it's undeniable it could have looked even better, it's still a pretty good looking game, that passes muster and scrutiny, if not as triumphantly as it otherwise could have.

That's really the case with Sonic Colors as a whole – while its reputation may lead you to expect an all time great platform, it's really not that. It is very good, mind you, and it's compelling and engaging and probably the most smartly designed 3D Sonic game we have ever received. All of that alone makes it worth playing, particularly since Colors is without question the best implementation of the so called "boost" formula as well. The stumbles and blemishes that come along the way, well, that's just part and parcel of being a Sonic fan at this point. Embrace them, and enjoy Dr. Eggman's Wild Ride.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Cyberpunk 2077 is Targeting 2021 Launch for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, but CDPR Can't Guarantee it

If things had gone to plan and Cyberpunk 2077 hadn't had the bumpy launch that it did, CD Projekt RED would be focused entirely on its expansions right now, and the game's native PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions would also probably be on track for a release later this year. There's no word yet on when the expansions will be coming, but CD Projekt RED has said that next-gen versions are still planned for late 2021. Even so, there's a chance that that might not happen.

Speaking during CD Projekt's latest H1 2021 fiscal results call (via VGC), SVP of business development Michał Nowakowski said that though the plan right now is to release the game for PS5 and Xbox Series X/S by the end of 2021, following the lessons the company has learned in recent months, it cannot guarantee that production schedules won't change.

"The target is to release the next-gen version of Cyberpunk 2077 late this year," Nowakowski said. "At the same time, keeping in mind the lessons we have learned during the past year and taking into account that this project still remains in development, we can't say with full certainty that the production schedule will not change."

By that same token, Nowakowski says that CD Projekt RED cannot guarantee a 2021 launch for The Witcher 3's PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions either (though that is being handled largely by Saber Interactive, who also brought the game to the Nintendo Switch).

"With The Witcher 3, the situation is slightly different in the way that this is being tackled by the external team mainly, which is Saber Interactive, the company that we have worked with before on Switch and also with updates in the past," Nowakowski said. "As with Cyberpunk 2077, our goal is to release that game still in late 2021. However, similarly, the development process is ongoing, and we cannot be absolutely dead certain that the release schedule will not change. But for the time being, we definitely are aiming with both titles for late 2021 and I don't want to be more specific at this moment in time."

Given how many delays we've seen for games over the last year and a half, it goes without saying that there's pretty much nothing out there that is absolutely guaranteed to hit its intended launch date or window. CDPR itself has plenty of balls in the air already, including Cyberpunk 2077's expansions and, of course, the ongoing effort of fixing the base game itself, so it wouldn't be surprising if the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S versions do get delayed.

A recent rumour has also suggested that Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer project, which was cancelled earlier this year, might still be in the works. You can read more on that through here.