The Last Of Us Part 2's Museum Section Took "Two Solid Years" To Make

the last of us part 2

After years of anticipation, The Last of Us Part 2 released last month. With it brought a lot of critical acclaim, but also a lot of polarizing discussion that often brought out tensions between fanbases, as well as critics and developers. But regardless of all that, the game was a blockbuster with a capital B with a staggering amount of work that went into it. It was detailed earlier that over 2,000 developers ultimately worked on the game, but now we get a little behind the scenes look at just how much work went into a single section.

The museum level in the game was one that many remember fondly, largely as it's the biggest callback to the original game. On a recent episode of  Game Maker's Toolkit, Level Designer Evan Hill revealed that it took about two full years of work to make that level. He breaks down how it was done, and some of Naughty Dogs process in refining how these things, revealing that some levels in the game were redone up to 25 different times.

"Pretty much two solid years," says Hill. "Pretty much the big secret for all Naughty Dog level design is just iteration and work. We have some fundamentals but there were some levels in this game that were redone about 25 times."

Hill also goes in the actual timeline of how the level was crafted, so it's worth the watch. The Last of Us Part 2 released on the PlayStation 4, and was a big success financially, so thankfully that level of time and craft was rewarded.

Borderlands 3 Will Be Free To Play This Weekend On PS4, Xbox One, Stadia, Until August 12 On Steam

Borderlands 3_03

People waited a long time for Borderlands 3, but the game finally released last year, and it seemed it was worth that wait for many. Take-Two announced that the looter shooter recently crossed 10.5 million in sales, making it the fastest selling game in the franchise. If you haven't been sold on it just yet, well, this weekend you'll get a chance to try it out free of charge.

As detailed on the game's official website, the game will receive a free to play weekend on consoles. You'll be able to play until August 9th on either the PS4 or Xbox One. If you happen to be playing on Stadia, you will get an extra day and get to play until the 10th. But if you're playing on Steam, you get an even longer period as it'll be free to play all the way up to the 12th of the month.

Borderlands 3 is available now on all of those stated platforms and the free to play period has begun on all of them. All of your progress will be carried over to the full game if you decide to purchase it, and it is on sale on all platforms. The game also just got its most recent DLC, Bounty of Blood: A Fistful of Redemption, which you can read about through here.

Temtem Also Coming To Xbox Series X And Switch, Drops PS4 And Xbox One Versions

temtem

Yesterday, we got a nice and understatement State of Play from Sony that covered several upcoming third party games coming to the PS4 and PS5. A few of those were a surprise, such as Temtem making it's way to Sony's next generation console. The game is a monster collecting game similar to Pokemon, but with MMO elements, and has gotten largely positive buzz on the PC. But it won't be just Sony fans who get to enjoy it on consoles.

As confirmed by Gematsu, while the game has dropped previously announced PS4 and Xbox One versions, the developer did confirm the game would still be coming to the Switch, as well as to the Xbox Series X. They even provided a trailer for the latter that matches the one announcing the PS5 version.

Temtem will release for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Switch at some point in 2021. The game is currently available now on PC.

Monster Hunter World: Iceborne – Frostfang Barioth is Now Live

Monster Hunter World Iceborne - Frostfang Barioth

Still have nightmares of Barioth from Monster Hunter World: Iceborne? Well, good news – its variant, Frostfang Barioth, is now available to fight. As a Tempered monster, it's part of a timed event quest called "The Last White Knight" which started today and ends on August 19th, 11:59 PM UTC.

You'll need to be Master Rank 24 or higher to take on Frostfang Barioth in Hoarfrost Reach. Among some of the newer moves that it brings to the table are firing ice breath when flinched and hindering movement with its Frostbind. Even if it shares many similarities with Barioth, don't let your guard down.

Frostfang Barioth is one of the more recent monsters to be added post-launch. The other is Alatreon which headlined Title Update 4 with its multi-elemental madness. Even more content is planned for this Fall with a "returning monster," Master Rank layered armor, the Seliana Fest and Astera Fest. Stay tuned for more details in the coming months.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake Crosses 5 Million in Digital Sales and Worldwide Shipments

final fantasy 7 remake

Square Enix's Final Fantasy 7 Remake has hit a new sales milestone. The publisher revealed on Twitter that it passed five million in worldwide shipments and digital sales. As a result, the remake is now the highest selling digital release on the PlayStation platform in the company's history with two million digital sales.

That's no small feat, especially considering that it passed 3.5 million in worldwide shipments and digital sales in April. It's not quite near the level of Final Fantasy 15, which had five million digital sales and worldwide shipments in the first 24 hours of launch. But that was available on Xbox One and PS4 while Final Fantasy 7 Remake remains exclusive to the latter (at least, until April 2021).

It's also good news for the future of the remake which will have several more parts with the team looking to clarify its sequel policy in the future. Given how things panned out in Final Fantasy 7 Remake, it should be interesting to see how the story develops in subsequent parts. Stay tuned for more details in the meantime.

Call of Duty 2020 – Activision Teases News on August 10th With Strange Crate

call of duty red door

Activision's next Call of Duty feels like it should have been announced by now, especially with the publisher's insisting it's on track for release this year. Thankfully, it seems that president Rob Kostich's assurance of a reveal coming "soon" is real. Charlie Intel recently revealed on Twitter that it received a mysterious crate from Activision with the message, "Do not open this crate until August 10 at 12PM ET."

It further revealed that a letter had been included, specifying that "we have to send a text to a number on Monday, August 10 to get the code to unlock the box." This puzzle-like approach to marketing isn't too dissimilar to how the publisher hyped up the announcement for Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time. The question is – how long before details leak, like what happened with Call of Duty: Warzone? What is The Red Door anyway?

Time will certainly tell. Not much is known about Call of Duty 2020, save for it being a reboot of the Black Ops franchise and titled Call of Duty: Black Ops – Cold War. Treyarch and Raven Software are working on it and Kostich said it would be "very different" and "more engaging" than anything the company has done till now. Naturally, it's expected to release for Xbox Series X and PS5 but will it still arrive on current-gen platforms? Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

Spelunky 2 Coming to Steam After PS4 Release

Spelunky 2_03

In yesterday's State of Play, Mossmouth's Spelunky 2 finally received a release date for next month. However, while the punishing platformer has been confirmed for PC, only the PS4 version got a release date. So what's going on?

Creator Derek Yu clarified this on Twitter, noting that the Steam release would arrive "shortly after" the PS4 version. The reason for this delay is extra time for online multiplayer and ironing it out for PC players. Yu also stated that once the Steam version is out, the developer will "look into" releasing on other platforms.

Spelunky 2 is out on September 15th for PS4. Along with a new cast of playable characters, it presents a range of new dangers and mechanics like revamped shops, mounts and much more. The story focuses on Ana, the daughter of the original game's protagonist, as she ventures through a variety of locations, including the Moon. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

Apex Legends – Next Legend is Rampart, Arrives on August 18th

Apex Legends - Boosted

It seems that Respawn Entertainment isn't wasting any time revealing its next character for Apex Legends. After tweeting a voice clip yesterday, it released the launch trailer for Season 6: Boosted with Rampart confirmed as the next Legend. She's joined by Sheila, which may or may not refer to her mounted turret. Check it out below.

A British Indian with her own private business, Rampart is a modder of sorts, using her turret to survive. She's well-versed in the Outlands so it should be interesting to see how she knows Bangalore. For that matter, what's her purpose in the Apex Games?

Season 6 will be available on August 18th and along with a new Battle Pass with over 100 items, it brings several other new features. The Volt is being added as a new weapon and changes to Ranked Play are coming along with a new crafting system. This crafting system will allow players to collect materials and create their own gear if needed.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout Review – Welcome to Takeshi's Castle

The battle royale space has been crying out for a little bit of innovation. This absurdly popular and, in turn, overcrowded genre has seen a deluge of wannabe titles in recent years that riff on the same formula with little to no variation to make a quick buck, and that's been surprising to see because battle royale as a concept that has so much inherent potential, so much room for excellent, unique ideas.

Indie development team Mediatonic's Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is the game we've been crying out for. It's a gleefully stupid, utterly chaotic, and ridiculously enjoyable game, and it delivers a multiplayer experience unlike any other. It has some issues that the developers need to work on, but all in all, Fall Guys is an absolutely delightful game that will surely appeal to a vast, vast number of people.

fall guys

"Fall Guys is a gleefully stupid, utterly chaotic, and ridiculously enjoyable game, and it delivers a multiplayer experience unlike any other."

It's quick, it's easy, and it's different. Every match in Fall Guys is divided into five rounds, and each round puts players through new and unique games. A number of players are knocked out at the end of each round, until there is one winner at the end of the final one. These games can range from races through zany obstacle courses to team games that invite chaos and cooperation in equal measure. It is basically a cartoony video game version of the popular Japanese game show Takeshi's Castle. It's a game that you can play to win, play to fool around, play to mess with others, or play to just witness the absolute chaos that so often accompanies it, and each is an equally enjoyable option.

Fall Guys is at its best when you're playing the free-for-all games- more specifically, its obstacle courses and races. These are excellently designed levels that task you with platforming challenges while also having to contend with the unpredictability that having to race against so many other players throws into the mix. The game's hilariously exaggerated ragdoll physics have a crucial role to play here. Moments where you're caught in a throng of players trying to make their way through a narrow gap, or when you headbutt another player with a dive and throw them off the course, or when a rotating bar whacks you in the back and flings you through the air- these are the moments that make Fall Guys shine the brightest.

It also helps that there's a nice variety of games on offer. There's obstacle course races, which I've mentioned, of course, but there's plenty of other games to enjoy as well, such as memory games, games that are focused more on platforming, games with a more directly competitive bent, and more. Even within the obstacle courses, there's decent variation within those as well. One might task you with making your way through a course full of rotating beams that you have to jump over while walking across similarly rotating discs, another might see you having to walk up a hill while dodge massive balls shot out of canons, while another still might be full of seesaws that have you to balance across to make it to the finish line (the seesaw course is a particular favourite of mine).

fall guys

"Fall Guys is at its best when you're playing the free-for-all games- more specifically, its obstacle courses and races."

Team games are much more inconsistent. Some of them are fun – one where you have to push a large ball to the finish line with your team before the other two teams and one that is essentially a football (or soccer, if that's what you want to call it) game are my personal favourites – but by and large, I don't find the team games nearly as enjoyable as the ones where it's every man for himself. Some of them – such as Hoarders, in which your team has to hoard more balls in its areas than the others – requires a lot of cooperation and teamwork, and a game as chaotic and silly as Fall Guys simply isn't built for that sort of thing, while others – such as Tail Tag, in which your team has to ensure it has more tails than the lowest placed team – are just no fun at all, and usually just involve a lot of running around more than anything else.

Something that Fall Guys could really benefit from is playlists that separate team games and individual games, so that team games are still there as an option for those who want to play them, but those who don't want to engage with them – as I didn't – can ignore them if they wish to do so. I also feel like Fall Guys would really benefit from having some level of randomization its obstacle courses. These, as I've mentioned, are the highlight of the game, but once you've played through them multiple times, they can start feeling a bit repetitive. Perhaps having some procedural generation in place for its obstacle courses could help alleviate that- another alternative, of course, would be to simply add more obstacle courses to the game.

Fall Guys also has an in-game store that is used to deck out your Fall Guy with cosmetics, which I mostly have positive feelings about. On the one hand, I wonder why a game that already costs $20 has to be saddled with microtransactions- but then again, they're of a cosmetic nature, so they don't bother me that much personally. It's also worth mentioning that progression in the game has a pretty good pace, and you don't have to grind too much to get enough in-game currency to purchase new items. As far as the cosmetic items themselves are concerned, there's a lot to like here. There's a nice variety of items on offer, and from funky caps to colourful lowers to bizarre skin patterns, there's plenty of customizable options available. I do think the store needs a little bit of tweaking – it doesn't make sense that I have to wait for it to refresh and cycle through its selection for me to buy the item that I want, rather than just being able to select it from a complete list – but again, I find it hard to be too bothered by purely cosmetic issues.

fall guys

"Something that Fall Guys could really benefit from is playlists that separate team games and individual games, so that team games are still there as an option for those who want to play them, but those who don't want to engage with them – as I didn't – can ignore them if they wish to do so."

I'm usually not big on multiplayer games, but Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout has me hooked. It's an instantly enjoyable and extremely accessible game, and the variety of games it has on offer has kept things fresh and interesting for me so far. Issues that I've mentioned here – the team games, needing more obstacle courses, the in-game store – are all things that the developers can fix, and I sincerely hope they do, because Fall Guys has so much potential. In its current state with the solid start it has gotten off to, it is already an extremely enjoyable and unique game. With a little bit of work, it might just become the best new multiplayer release of the year.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Resident Evil Village's Early Story, Prologue, And Enemy Details Leaked – Rumor

resident evil village

Very few franchises have had the kind of staying power that Resident Evil has had in video games (or any medium, for that matter). It's hard to believe that we'll now looking at the eighth mainline entry in the series, Resident Evil Village. A lot has potentially leaked about the game even before it was revealed, and well, it seems we've got even more possible leaks today. Beware as well, because these do include early story spoilers, so continue at your own risk.

At the end of last month, we got a very detailed breakdown of an alleged playtest of the game which had lots of details about enemies, weapons and characters in the game, and a wicked sounding boss fight. You can read all about that through here. In a follow up to that, Biohazard Declassified has offered more details.

They claim that pretty much the entire prologue of the game was here. In it Ethan, Mia and their daughter Rose are living in the titular village. As Ethan you can find various notes that show the characters have been cured of the mold enemies that plagued them through Resident Evil 7. Their peaceful life is shattered when Chris Redfield and two masked men break into their house, kill Mia, and kidnap Rose and Ethan. The vehicle transporting them then crashes, and has Ethan coming upon a cabin where he meets an old man who meets his demise to mysterious new creatures. All of this seems to line up pretty well with the game's reveal trailer, and the fact it's been confirmed this game will be a direct followup to the story of Resident Evil 7.

As far as enemies in the playtest, apparently you did meet up with the beastmen/werewolf like creatures that hunt you in a pack. The AI is designed to try and surround you. There is also a bigger enemy referred to as the "Gorilla Man" who wields a huge axe and seems to have control over the beastmen as they attack you. There was also a strange sequence where a man rode in on a horse and used a spear to gather bodies in its attack.

As always with these rumors, take them with a grain of salt, though so far they have turned out to be pretty accurate. Resident Evil Village is set to release on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and PC in 2021.

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