GamersHeroes Saturday, September 21, 2024 9:28 PM It's time to free your mind (in more ways than one) - Sometimes You's epic sci-fi action-adventure, MindSeize is now available for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Microsoft Store for $16.99. The post MetroidVania MindSeize Now Available for PlayStation and Xbox Consoles appeared first on GamersHeroes. |
GamersHeroes Saturday, September 21, 2024 8:35 PM A deeply influential title, publisher Serenity Forge and developer Freebird Games are over the moon (their pun, not ours) to announce that the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S ports of To the Moon will launch in just a few short weeks, on October 8. The post To the Moon Remaster Launching on Consoles October 8 appeared first on GamersHeroes. |
GamersHeroes Saturday, September 21, 2024 4:57 PM See what critics are saying about 11 bit studios' Frostpunk 2 with the accolades trailer for this smash hit. The post Frostpunk 2 Accolades Trailer Released appeared first on GamersHeroes. |
GamersHeroes Saturday, September 21, 2024 2:10 PM See what's in store for all those that log into Bandai Namco's Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream next month with the new system trailer for the title. The post Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream System Trailer Released appeared first on GamersHeroes. |
PCGamesN Saturday, September 21, 2024 5:27 PM  September 21: 2024: We've added two new Monopoly Go dice links for free dice rolls. How can I get Monopoly Go free dice links? The household favorite board game has been reimagined as a free-to-play app on smartphones, allowing everyone to experience the thrills of Monopoly on practically any device. Everything that makes the board game special is here in Monopoly Go, so you'll be collecting properties and building hotels as you go around the board, and there are a variety of multiplayer minigames to get through along the way. You're going to need to get your hands on Monopoly dice rolls, but they are difficult to come by no matter how far you are into the board game. There are ways to earn additional dice rolls, including logging into the game every day to collect daily bonuses, progressing further in the game, and inviting friends to try Monopoly Go. While you can also spend real money to unlock more dice rolls, you may want to give our list of Monopoly Go dice links a try instead, especially if you're waiting for the next Monopoly Go Golden Blitz event. Take a look at all the currently active Monopoly Go free dice links for today. Continue reading Free Monopoly Go dice links September 2024 MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best board games, Monopoly Go events, Monopoly Go dice |
PCGamesN Saturday, September 21, 2024 2:30 PM  While Civilization 7's 2025 launch is some way off, there's plenty of new 4X goodness right on our doorstep. Ara: History Untold, the historical strategy game from Oxide Games and Xbox Game Studios, is just around the corner, and it isn't afraid to step outside the now-familiar standards of the genre established by its rivals. As its launch nears, I sat down with historian and narrative designer Grace Rojas and executive producer Matt Turnbull from Xbox to talk about Ara's deep-rooted love for history and their favorite leaders to play. Continue reading Ara History Untold is a 4X game that's "optimistic about history" MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best 4X games, Best turn-based strategy games |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Saturday, September 21, 2024 5:51 PM  Homeworld 3 is condensing its release schedule for post-launch updates. Instead of free and paid content arriving into 2025, it will all - three free updates, and two paid DLCs - arrive together in a "one major update" in November. |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Saturday, September 21, 2024 5:03 PM  The Finals' fourth season approaches. It'll kick off on September 26th, with a new map, a new tutorial and the restoration of Cashout as the core ranked mode. There's a new trailer below, which is worth watching even if you don't play The Finals, says I. |
Rock Paper Shotgun Latest Articles Feed Saturday, September 21, 2024 4:36 PM  Grunn is a self-described "extremely normal gardening game", in which you tend to a garden, explore different realities, and try not to die. We've been excited to get our hands on its shears for a while, thanks in part to an excellent demo, and in part due to it being from Sokpop Collective member and Bernband developer Tom van den Boogaart. Now it has a release date: October 4th. |
Siliconera Saturday, September 21, 2024 6:15 PM
Blizzard Entertainment took a lot of swings and gambles with the release of Diablo IV. Some of these paid off, such as the massive, gorgeous, and interconnected world for players to explore seamlessly together. Others were a swing and a miss, especially with the launch of Season 1 and other content. So, I can understood if you are confused if Diablo IV is good or not now.
I had a pretty odd situation when it comes to playing Diablo IV. I was there right at launch, but I wasn't covering it or a knowledgeable fan like others, so I only played a little bit. As such, I walked away having a good several hours with it, but it wasn't quite enough to keep me around with other games on the horizon.
Fast forward to recently and I have dug much deeper into Diablo IV to see how it is now. In addition, I am getting ready to prepare some for the upcoming Vessel of Hatred expansion. What I have found is that Blizzard has listened to the fans and come up with solid improvements and changes in recent seasons to appeal to a wider swathe of players.
Take for instance how much easier it is try out different builds. As with any online game, there is a meta to this experience and it is ever-changing. One season, there might be a particular Rogue build everyone is using while it might be a Sorcerer one the next. Trying out different builds for the classes is much easier now than ever before.
What you can do now is salvage any augment you really like and it will be added to the Codex permanently for you to use anytime you want. You can then take it and use it in another build or leave it there for the future. This change, among others, respects the player's time and effort, and rewards them for it.
I am not sure why aspects were consumable in the first place, but that isn't a problem anymore. In addition, you can upgrade legendary ones now as you find better versions, which adds an extra layer. Then there are the other quality-of-life improvements like horses sprinting in towns, smoother crafting, better Helltides content, and so on. Heck, it is just nice to be able to pick up items with a larger radius now.
Perhaps most importantly, though, it is now time for Diablo IV's first expansion, Vessel of Hatred. Though I can't comment on how good the expansion will be prior to its launch, a new class and all of the other changes are plenty exciting enough. Without a doubt, this game is quite different from how it was pre-Season 1 and even with Season 1's launch.
In fact, I would go so far as to say this is the time to check out Diablo IV for the first time or, like me, once again. The gameplay is smoother and more welcoming to newcomers. And for veterans, many frustrations are no longer a problem. Not to mention, there is so much to look forward to with the new Spiritborn class and more new content. So, to answer the overall question, I do think Diablo IV is good now. In fact, I think it is significantly better than its release.
Diablo IV is available right now for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Vessel of Hatred will release on October 8, 2024.
The post Is Diablo IV Good Now? appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Saturday, September 21, 2024 3:00 PM
When Jim Ryan departed his role as CEO of Sony, he left behind him an intense commitment to Live-Service games. Most of them have not panned out. in production games from studios like Guerilla and Naughty Dog have been in development for some time. The purchase of Bungie signified a tilt by Sony towards leaning into the Live-service market. It has not, from what I can see, paid off.
Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Online was canceled in December of 2023, and many of Sony's other projects either have had no updates or were similarly shut down, namely the most recent release: Concord. Sony is not the only studio and publisher leaning into the Live-Service system, of course. Capcom has also made forays into it, testing the waters with things like Monster Hunter World's time-limited event quests, daily login bonuses, and seasonal events, a first in the series. Their biggest push, Exoprimal, ended its updates after 4 seasons, nowhere near the 10-year plan many of these types of games are pushing for. But Exoprimal and Monster Hunter World at least get to stay playable. The hype for Monster Hunter Wilds understandably has drawn many players back along the Return to World campaign. Many games are much less lucky.
Square Enix's bevy of live service offerings, including mobile games and the Splatoon-adjacent party shooter Foamstars have suffered their own closures and shut downs. On April 29, 2024 Nier Reincarnation closed its doors after ending its story. A story that no one will be able to experience outside of YouTube videos as there are no plans for an offline version of the game. Following that, Square Enix announced that the global version of Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius will be shutting down in October 2024, taking its collaborations with the likes of popstar Ariana Grande and Lara Croft of Tomb Raider with it, unless you can download and play the Japanese version. Foamstars also is no longer retailing for its $29.99 price tag starting October 4, 2024, shifting to a free to play model entirely.
There have been many incidents in the past year alone of Live-Service games failing to either find their audiences or not doing anywhere near the amount of success that they were intended for. Destiny 2 released a highly acclaimed expansion in The Final Shape, the culmination to a 10 year long story arc that had begun all the way back in Destiny when it first released. All that critical acclaim did nothing to shield the workers at Bungie from layoffs that occurred in October 2023, before the expansion launched, and in July 2024, just after the beginning of the first big story arc of the new year plan for Destiny's world going forward.
The thing this is bringing to mind for me is, how tenuous it all is. Entire games could, either for reasons of losing staff and being unable to meet the previous standards or complete shutdown of the game itself, disappear entirely, vanishing from people's consoles and phones and computers like dust in the wind. Years of people's lives suddenly vanishing into nothing. It feels like such a phenomenal waste; both of people's time and hard work, and money.
Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia shut down in February 2024. A mobile game centered around a celebration of Final Fantasy's history, a la the previous Dissidia games, featuring characters beloved and obscure. One story chapter could be about Judge Gabranth from Final Fantasy XII bonding with Gau, the wild child from Final Fantasy VI. Another would be Aerith talking in person to Kadaj, the Sephiroth clone from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, and trying to get him to be his own individual self. None of this excellent character interaction (in my opinion at least) or its turn-based turn manipulation JRPG gameplay saved it.
The Global version never even got to read all the story content released in the original Japanese version. The servers were separated by about a 6-8 month delay so global server players got a glimpse of what was coming, and in this case, what they would never see. I do not know the reason for the closure of Opera Omnia and I may never. It could have been anything from not quite being profitable enough for Square Enix or simply not having any where for the game to go. For all my praise, it is me mourning the death of a gacha game. I spent money on this game. And now, everything I spent it on is gone, lost to the digital abyss. Thankfully, they have stated that all of the conversations and cutscenes from the game will be preserved on the official Square Enix YouTube Channel, but who knows how long that will remain.
This is a fate that awaits any and all of these mobile games, or digital experiences with monetization. People can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get a single character or an outfit or a piece of gear (Apex Legends' extremely costly and grind-heavy heirlooms come to mind) and then as soon as you get it, you could get an announcement saying as much as "Sorry, all your effort and investment is gone. We're shutting down the servers in two days."
All this can happen to a game you like or a game you don't. Things you love can go belly up in different ways than just shutting down. In chasing the money of these kinds of Live-service endeavors, their identity can be compromised in favor of more cosmetic real-money transactions, battle passes where you have to pay money to get the full rewards, or even just by trying to make it so as many people as possible play it, trying to please everyone and ending up pleasing no one, or at least no longer pleasing me, in the case of Destiny 2.
I watched the game prioritize doing repetitive missions and extremely mind numbing collection activities. Progressing seasonal storylines and leveling up the season experience was simply centered around doing the same activity on higher or lower difficulties, hearing the same voice lines, over and over and over. And, to add salt on the wound, Bungie announced that they would be reviving their single player sci-fi first-person shooter series Marathon as, of all things, an extraction shooter.
It's enough to start driving away even the most die hard players when they feel that everything they're doing or looking forward to is not a priority in the industry at large. It's made even worse when any sort of challenge reward is nothing more than a funny little label to hang over your character, or an in-game weapon that will be outclassed in a couple months anyway. Power creep, feature creep, attention creep all factor in. After all, when you have one game that already takes daily job-like clocking in and clocking out, where are people who have other, real-life responsibilities going to fit in your new time sink ritual game? People stick with what works.
The success of something like Astro Bot Rescue Mission, Elden Ring and its DLC, and smaller projects that sweep the awards every year, like a Signalis or Dave the Diver shows that there is good money to be made in things that don't feel like they are trying to nickel and dime every person who interacts with them. It's on publishers to realize that.
The post The Live-Service Game Structure Cannot Keep Going Like This appeared first on Siliconera. |
Siliconera Saturday, September 21, 2024 2:30 PM
Koei Tecmo released an optimization update for the different games in the Atelier Ryza Secret series. All of the updates are available via the Koei Tecmo website if you want to check them out.
Here is a brief summary of each optimization update for the Atelier Ryza series. In the first game, Version 1.10 will have auto-save, as well as the option to fast forward events and Fatal Drives. You will also be able to alter the controls on the Steam version of the game. For some reason, the Atelier Ryza 2 website for Japan, Europe, and America only show updates from 2021.
As for the third game, the latest version will add Very Easy difficulty, as well as the option to fast forward Fatal Drives. Kala's Tent will also be a new landmark, but you need to visit it after the update goes live. The completion requirements for Klaudia's "Three Medicines" character quest will also be changed.
Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideous came out in 2019. It's the twenty-first mainline entry in the Atelier series, yet the first part of the Secret storyline. Like previous Atelier titles, alchemy is a major part of the game. It follows Ryza, who is a girl longing for adventure. She gets her wish after she sneaks onto a ship, fights a monster, and learns how to use alchemy.
The Atelier Ryza games are available on the PS4, PS5, Windows PC, and Nintendo Switch. The newest entry in the Atelier series will be Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land, which will come out on March 21, 2025 for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, and Windows PC via Steam.
The post Atelier Ryza Games Received Optimization Updates appeared first on Siliconera. |
TGN – Tabletop Gaming News Saturday, September 21, 2024 10:00 PM Little Dusha has launched MIR – Oath, a new dark fantasy roleplaying game, on Kickstarter. The game places players in the role of agents of the ancient organization known as MIR (МИP in Cyrillic), tasked with protecting reality from Echoes—manifestations of past trauma that distort the world. These agents must confront these Echoes, prevent their... |
TGN – Tabletop Gaming News Saturday, September 21, 2024 9:00 PM In anticipation of Mantic Games' upcoming Kings of War expansion, a series of detailed previews have been released for the new additions to the Forces of the Abyss. This week, the focus was on three key units: Abyssal Berserkers, Abyssal Nagarri, and the Lord of Lies. Abyssal Berserkers The Abyssal Berserkers are a new Large... |
TGN – Tabletop Gaming News Saturday, September 21, 2024 7:03 PM The makers of the party game Cards Against Humanity have filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk's SpaceX, accusing the company of trespassing on and damaging land owned by the game company in Texas. The suit, filed on Thursday, seeks $15 million in damages, which includes compensation for the destruction of natural vegetation on the property.... |
TGN – Tabletop Gaming News Saturday, September 21, 2024 6:25 PM Pungo Games has launched Imperial Stars II Legacy Edition, a reimagined version of the popular 4X board game designed by Chris Taylor, co-creator of the Fallout video game series. Set in the year 4096, the game places players in the roles of commanders from two human empires, once allies, now locked in conflict over dwindling... |
TGN – Tabletop Gaming News Saturday, September 21, 2024 6:11 PM The latest edition of Kill Team has officially launched, introducing the Kill Team: Hivestorm boxed set along with new kill teams, terrain, and accessories. Pre-orders for the new set are now available, with a two-week pre-order window and special incentives for early buyers. Kill Team: Hivestorm Boxed Set Kill Team: Hivestorm is the centerpiece of... |
TGN – Tabletop Gaming News Saturday, September 21, 2024 5:49 PM A new adventure for the Mothership RPG has arrived on Kickstarter. Titled Dead Weight, this 12-page module immerses players in a disaster unfolding aboard the research freighter Adamant Lapis. In Dead Weight, the deceased are drawn toward the sphere with immense force, wreaking havoc on the ship. As the freighter's hull groans under the pressure,... |
TGN – Tabletop Gaming News Saturday, September 21, 2024 5:00 PM Fantasy Flight Games has just released the Nightcrawler Hero Pack for Marvel Champions: The Card Game, now available in the United States. This new expansion adds the iconic mutant, Nightcrawler, to the game, bringing his teleportation abilities and a unique playstyle to the table. Kurt Wagner, also known as Nightcrawler, is known for his teleportation... |
TGN – Tabletop Gaming News Saturday, September 21, 2024 4:24 PM Necromancer Games has introduced their latest holiday-themed tabletop RPG project, the Double Holiday Feature, which is now crowdfunding on Indiegogo. This campaign offers two seasonal adventures designed to bring a mix of magic, mystery, and festive excitement to gaming tables during the holiday season. One of the adventures, written by Alasdair Cunningham, is set in... |
WGB Saturday, September 21, 2024 6:37 PM A lengthy, rambling review of a game that really left me confused about whether I liked it or not. Frostpunk 2 is a daring sequel that radically changes the gameplay we saw in the fantastic first game. For that alone, 11Bit Studios deserves some credit. But I ultimately struggled to connect with this bigger, more complex and intricately designed city-builder/survival/management game. |
Gaming Instincts – Next-Generation of Video Game Journalism Saturday, September 21, 2024 3:43 PM The game will launch on October 4. The post Sword Art Online: Fractured Daydream Gets New System Trailer appeared first on Gaming Instincts - Next-Generation of Video Game Journalism. |
Gaming Instincts – Next-Generation of Video Game Journalism Saturday, September 21, 2024 3:26 PM A full roster reveal trailer was also released. The post Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO New Characters and Full Roster Revealed appeared first on Gaming Instincts - Next-Generation of Video Game Journalism. |
Gaming Instincts – Next-Generation of Video Game Journalism Saturday, September 21, 2024 2:46 PM According to Last Stand Media founder Colin Moriarty. The post Concord Reportedly Had a Budget of About $400 Million appeared first on Gaming Instincts - Next-Generation of Video Game Journalism. |