A Plague Tale: Innocence's PS5, Xbox Series X/S Update Is Now Live

Last year we got to see the pleasant surprise of A Plague Tale: Innocence. The game was a mid-budget title that saw you take on the role of two siblings whose lives are taken down an unexpected and dangerous path at the height of the Black Death in France. The game was successful, and even has a sequel planned for 2022. But it's not quite done just yet, as a new next gen focused update has poked its head out a little early. 

It was announced that a native PS5, Xbox Series X/S update for the game was going live on July 6th that would take advantage of features of the new consoles, such as the PS5's DualSense controller and 4K/60 FPS support. It's a bit early, but the update is now reportedly live for both PlayStation and Xbox systems. Current gen owners of the game will get a free upgrade. Keep in mind, there can always be some slight regional hiccups, so if you're not seeing the update, it may be possible it won't be live for you until tomorrow in your region. 

A Plague Tale: Innocence is available now on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch via cloud streaming. For PlayStation Plus users, the PS5 version of the game will also be given out as part of the service starting on July 6th.

Fall Guys Season 5 Looks To Include PlayStation-Themed Costumes And Much More

It can be hard in today's fast-paced age for anything to last too long in the cultural zeitgeist. For a brief period last year, Fall Guys was the game to play. To its credit, while it did taper off as many party games do, it's managed to keep itself pretty relevant going on a full year later. A lot of that is because of the crossover appeal with costumes the game had with a variety of popular properties. Now, for the fifth season, it seems that will continue in a big way.

Fall Guys leaker KrxnkyFG, who has leaked previous season contents in the past, has given us an early look at the latest season collaborations. The big news for many will be a lot of Sony-themed costumes are here with Ratchet and Clank, Astro Bot as well as Sackboy from the Little Big Planet series. It also seems there will be costumes taken from Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Spelunky. While that's the biggest skins from the gaming world, there is more, including something from Disney's The Jungle Book. There's also plenty of non-property cosmetics, all sharing a summer theme. You can check them all out in the video below. As always with leaks and datamining, it goes under rumors until something official is announced, but there's little reason to believe this isn't legitimate.

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is available now on PlayStation 4 and PC. The game is set to eventually come to Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and Switch, but was delayed with no timeframe currently being targeted.

7 Things We Don't Want In Resident Evil 9

2017's Resident Evil 7 brought Capcom's legendary survival horror franchise roaring back to life after a tough few years, and since then, it's only gone from strength to strength. Earlier this year, Resident Evil Village delivered yet another excellent game, combining horror and action in one of the series' most well rounded experiences to date, and moving the larger plot forward in truly significant ways, to the extent that we're likely going to feel its impact for a long, long time to come. It's probably going to be a while yet before we see Resident Evil 9 (or whatever Capcom chooses to call it), but whenever it does come out, like all fans of the series, we're going to be hoping for several things that it will do, and some that it won't. Here, we're going to talk about the latter.

NOTE: There are major spoilers ahead for Resident Evil Village.

EXCESSIVE ACTION

resident evil village

Let's start with the obvious stuff. Resident Evil as a series has had some trouble with going a bit too action oriented at times. In fact, it was because of those excessive tendencies in Resident Evil 6 that the series had to go back to the drawing board and reinvent itself the way it did for Resident Evil 7. One would assume that Capcom learned their lesson with that and that they're not going to do similar things with future instalments- but you never know. Village, after all, is significantly more action oriented than RE7 was. Thankfully, it's still action horror (for the most part) rather than out and out action, but it does veer into that territory towards the climax. And with the series' story being in the place that it's in by the time Village is done, it's easy to see how Capcom could fall into the "everything must be bigger and more explosive" track once again. If they keep raising the stakes, the way they did with Resident Evil 5 and then 6, it follows that they're going to want to make things more action oriented as well… so here's hoping they can instead find a better balance, and stick to what the series is best at.

LACK OF SCARES

resident evil village

This sort of follows from what we just talked about, because as the action drives up, the scares go away- that's always been the Resident Evil way. But even when the action is at an acceptable level, the horror can still be a bit on the lower side. Take Resident Evil Village, for instance- other than the spectacularly creepy House, the game isn't exactly what you'd call "scary". Sure, horror can be very subjective, but RE Village was much more focused on tense heart-pounding action in vein of Resident Evil 4 than it was on actually scaring its players. Compare that to something like, say, the ridiculously scary Resident Evil 7 or the relentlessly tense Resident Evil 2, and it's easy to see what was missing. As great as Village was, we're hoping Resident Evil 9 will go back to being more horror focused.

IGNORING THE CONNECTIONS

This one is quite frustrating, and one that any series fan will mention. Resident Evil has been struggling to come up with compelling antagonists that stick around since it killed off Albert Wesker in RE5, but what's frustrating is that they have all the elements in place to properly introduce a new villainous group. Resident Evil 7 and its expansions set the stage for the criminal organization known as The Connections, and the way those stories went, it was abundantly clear that the group was going to step into the spotlight in the near future and become the next big threat facing the world. Well, obviously, that turned out to be wrong. The Connections are mentioned in passing in notes in Resident Evil Village, but that's pretty much it. They're still a secret, shadowy operation that we know very little about. We did get some major new details on the organization and its leadership, but that was relegated to the Baker Incident Report, which you get if you purchase the game's Deluxe Edition, or can buy separately as DLC. So, just as we said after Resident Evil 7 came out, we're saying it now that Village is out- we want more of The Connections in the next Resident Evil game.

KILLING INTERESTING NEW CHARACTERS

Resident Evil 8 Village

Which characters you should or should not kill can be a hard balance to strike, especially in a long running horror series like this one. When the stakes are high and the entire world is crawling with nightmarish monsters, you need some characters to die, otherwise everything's going to lose its impact. But if you kill too many, you're going to keep losing good characters. Resident Evil generally strikes this balance really well, but there have been a few instances where we've been sorry to see excellent characters go. In Resident Evil 7, for instance, both Jack and Lucas Baker had the potential to become permanent fixtures, but were quickly killed off. Meanwhile, in Resident Evil Village, the likes of Lady Dimitrescu and Karl Heisenberg were both excellent new villains, but did not survive the events of the game. What we're hoping for is for Resident Evil 9 to introduce similarly excellent characters- and then actually keep them around.

IGNORING THE TIME JUMP

Resident Evil Village ends with a pretty significant time jump, and really, it's very unlikely that it's going to be ignored in future games. Something like that isn't easily ignored, and it's clear at any rate that Capcom are setting up some future stories. But then again, Resident Evil has a history of setting up plot threads and introducing major narrative elements and then doing absolutely nothing with them. With a development as major as this though, we're expect Resident Evil 9's story to focus on Rose and the time jump quite a bit, and we're interested to see how the time jump has affected other fan-favourite characters as well (Chris most of all). Then again, maybe Rose just has accelerated aging, in which case there might not be too much of a time jump after all…

IGNORING MIA WINTERS

Resident Evil 7 - Mia

By the time Resident Evil Village comes to a close, Ethan Winters is dead (probably, you never know with Resident Evil), and his daughter Rose is getting ready to step into a leading role. In fact, the game isn't very subtle in suggesting that the story is going to focus on her going forward. But we're hoping she won't be the only Winters to get the spotlight. Mia has been a crucial part of the series' story since her introduction, and we're seriously hoping to see more of her. In fact, there's potential for some interesting drama with her- more specifically with the resentment she might have for Chris following Ethan's death. Additionally, if The Connections are an important part of the story in Resident Evil 9 (and we seriously hope they are), then Mia, as a former agent of The Connections, might prove to be an extremely interesting character.

THE BRIEFCASE INVENTORY

resident evil village

Let's end with something smaller in scale than the other things we've spoken about. The briefcase Tetris-style inventory was one of many things in Resident Evil Village inspired by RE4, and it was implemented well enough- but for Resident Evil 9, we're hoping Capcom will go back to the regular inventory and item box system. Inventory management is a crucial part of any Resident Evil game, but in Village, there wasn't ever really too much of that going on. There weren't too many times when you'd find yourself running out of space. With Resident Evil 9, we're hoping for stricter inventory management.

Tales of Arise Gameplay Video Showcases Combos, Burst Strikes and Counter Edge

Along with the official opening animation and theme for Tales of Arise, Bandai Namco also revealed new gameplay of the game's combat. The development team has already discussed some of the new additions like Burst and Boost Strike along with Counter Edge but we get to see them in action here. Check it out below.

Many of the Tales series tenets still hold true though – you can change Artes on the fly to attack specific weaknesses for enemies. But overall, there's more room for dodging and counter-attacking foes. Tandem attacks with other party members also feel a lot smoother, as seen when Alphen tags in Shionne for a strike before following up. We also see Alphen's Mystic Arte in action, which inflicts tons of damage.

Tales of Arise is set to release on September 10th for Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and PC. To see other characters' Mystic Artes, head here. For a closer look at other party members, check out this trailer from the Summer Game Fest.

God of War, Judgment and Nioh 2 Coming to PlayStation Now Tomorrow

As the rumors revealed, Sony's PlayStation Now has an extremely packed July with God of War, Judgment, Nioh 2 and Red Dead Redemption 2 coming to the streaming service. All of these titles will be available starting tomorrow. A few have limited time windows though – Judgment will only be playable on PS Now until October 4th 2021 (which provides plenty of time to catch up for the sequel, Lost Judgment).

Red Dead Redemption 2 is also playable on the service but as a downloadable title for PS4 and PS5 until November 1st. Other titles like Nioh 2, NASCAR Heat 5, Moving Out and God of War seem to be a permanent part of PlayStation Now, though this could change down the line. It's worth noting that Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 – The Official Video Game, which released only recently, has also been added.

Regarding the future, Sony is reportedly planning a new PlayStation event and is rumored to showcase the first trailer for the next God of War. The company also recently announced Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut which adds new content in the form of the Iki Island expansion. It also brings PS5-specific features like DualSense support, dynamic 4K/60 FPS gameplay and much more.

Sony Removes Japan Studio from its List of Studios

The PlayStation official website has recently removed Japan Studio from its list of Sony's Studios, which includes Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, and many others. As captured by Internet Archive, replacing the Japan Studio is now Team Asobi – previously a division within the Japan Studio, who recently shipped the PS5 pack-in game Astro's Playroom.

It comes as not much of a surprise, as Sony recently confirmed that SIE Japan Studio had been shut down, following the laying off of a number of staff within the studio and a change of organizational structure earlier this year. Team Asobi was recently instated as a new full-fledged studio. SIE Japan Studio has been an integral part of Sony since its humble beginnings with highly-rated games like Ape Escape, Gravity Rush, and Shadow of the Colossus, just to name a few.

Sources familiar with the matter have spoken to a bunch of outlets on the massive lay-offs, who believe that Japan Studio wasn't profitable as other studios within Sony had far more lucrative IPs. This directly echoes the sentiments of a previous report which stated that Sony's insistence on blockbuster exclusives is causing unrest within the studios.

Among Us Console Release Dates Possibly Revealed, Could Release In August – Rumor

Developer Innersloth's Among Us has been confirmed to be heading to PlayStation and Xbox consoles, but details remain paper-thin on the matter. A Twitter account by the name of PlayStation Game Size renowned for tracking the storefront suggests that the social deduction game could be releasing on August 31st.

While this is a PlayStation listing, Xbox consoles would most likely be receiving its release of the game at the same time as well. It's also important to note here that the Twitter account suggests that the date could be a placeholder, so fans shouldn't get hopes too high right now.

Innersloth recently detailed a bunch of new additions and modes coming to the game during the Summer Game Fest, including a brand-new Hide and Seek mode. The game was also recently made free-to-claim via the Epic Store for a week and remains a part of Xbox Game Pass on PC. Among Us is currently available on PC, Android, iOS, and Nintendo Switch.

Apex Legends Hacked By Frustrated Titanfall Players, Respawn Fixes Issues

Respawn Entertainment's massively successful battle royale Apex Legends was recently hacked by a seemingly frustrated group of Titanfall players who were, in turn, furious for rampant hacking within their game of choice. As confirmed by a multitude of players and outlets, a number of players were seeing messages littered over the game stating "Save Titanfall." A Twitter account by the name of Apex Legends News has tweeted about the matter, which has garnered a bunch of replies from fans.

While the hack was mostly limited to players playing on PC at first, reports of Xbox players facing the same issues started flooding in after some time. Respawn has recently updated its servers and now confirms that the issues have been fixed. Many fans were understandably furious at Respawn's lackluster security protocols that a hack of such a magnitude actually happened, more so by a bunch of disgruntled Titanfall players.

Others seem to be sympathetic towards the issues that Titanfall players seem to be facing right now. Respawn hasn't commented anything on the matter just yet. While its extremely disheartening to see players so frustrated with the game that they resort to such measures, its also worth noting that Titanfall is years old at this point, and hacking is quite prevalent in multiplayer-centric games of such age. Apex Legends is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series S, and Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo And Tencent Partner For Super Mario Party Promotions In China

Nintendo and Tencent have just launched a Super Mario Party promotional campaign in China, to help drive the sales of Nintendo Switch following its recent release in the country last year. As reported by Niko Partners' senior analyst Daniel Ahmad, a number of IKEA stores and Holiday Inn hotels in mainland China are holding promotional offers which will allow customers to try out Super Mario Party on the hybrid-handheld.

The promotions will last until August 31st, as per the original report. The choice of Super Mario Party seems to be an odd one, especially with Mario Party Superstars coming out soon, but it's not without its reasons. The Kyoto-based giant experienced huge launch success in China for the Switch even with the pandemic in full swing, and the system only skyrocketed further after the release of Ring Fit Adventure, which seem to indicate a peculiar liking for family-centric console experiences in the region.

Nintendo just recently unveiled the next entry in the Mario Party franchise, Mario Party Superstars set to release for the Nintendo Switch on October 29th this year. Super Mario Party is available now on Nintendo Switch.

Steelrising, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, WRC 10, and More Will be Featured in Tomorrow's Nacon Connect

Last month, publisher Nacon confirmed that it would be holding a new Nacon Connect event on July 6, and with the show right around the corner, the company has dropped new details on what to expect from it in a recent tweet- and apparently, it's going to be a pretty packed showcase.

Nacon says tomorrow's show is going to have thirteen new announcements for their upcoming games and accessories in total. Of those games, the ones that have been confirmed to be receiving new updates are GreedFall developer Spiders' upcoming RPG Steelrising, the open world racing game Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, WRC 10, The Lord of the Rings: Gollum, Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong, Blood Bowl 3, Session, and more.

On top of that, there are also going to be three new reveals, which should be interesting to see.

Nacon Connect is going live tomorrow, July 6, at 7 PM CEST. We'll be covering all updates and announcements, of course, so stay tuned.

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