Psychonauts 2 Has Gone Gold

Very few games embody the "cult hit" spirit as well as Psychonauts does, so it follows that fans of Double Fine Productions' beloved and trippy platformer have been waiting for its sequel for a long, long time. And now, after several years in development, the wait is almost over.

Double Fine recently took to Twitter to confirm that ahead of Psychonauts 2's launch later this month, the game has wrapped up development. This means principle development is complete, with the game ready to be shipped out, and any and all improvements and polishing done now will come in the form of updates on the day of launch (or afterwards). It can be pre-ordered and pre-installed across all platforms.

Psychonauts 2 launches on August 25 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS4, and PC. It will be available on Xbox Game Pass on PC and Xbox on the day of its release. You can get more details on what frame rates and resolutions it will target on the platforms it's releasing for through here.

Xbox Confirms ID@Xbox Twitch Showcase For August 10

In a recent Xbox Wire blog post, the Redmond-based giant has confirmed that it would be holding its second ID@Xbox Twitch showcase later this month. The showcase starts on Tuesday, August 10th at 9:00 AM PT and will showcase a number of Indie games slated to release in the future for Xbox.

The blog post mentions a few developers such as Rebellion and Chump Squad. It will also feature updates on games such as The Artful Escape, OlliOlli World and a few others. The last ID@Xbox showcase showed off over 100 different indie games, so it's reasonable to think that the showcase will be packed with announcements and reveals.

Microsoft's encouragement of indie developers for its platform is in stark contrast with Sony, who recently got under fire for charging extraneous amounts of money from developers for putting games on the platform's storefront. Anyways, it's great to see indies getting the love they deserve.

Epic Doesn't Expect EGS To Make A Profit From Until At Least 2027

A number of documents pertaining to the Epic-Apple lawsuit have been recently unearthed, and it has now come to light that Epic has spent over $500 million on it's storefront. Epic's lawyers mentioned during the proceedings of the court that it's not yet profitable, and the company doesn't expect to make any profit until at least 2027 – as reported by PC Gamer.

Of course, it's not that big of a surprise either – the Epic Games Store is known for spending extraneous amounts of money for exclusives, promising Sony millions of dollars for PC ports. Furthermore, it gives out 2 free games every week – which also costs money. Add in a number of exclusivity deals, and the number seems understandable.

"Epic lost around $181 million on EGS in 2019. Epic projected to lose around $273 million on EGS in 2020. Indeed, Epic committed $444 million in minimum guarantees for 2020 alone, while projecting, even with 'significant' growth, only $401 million in revenue for that year. Epic acknowledges that trend will continue in the immediate future: Epic projects to lose around $139 million in 2021."

"If we take the lower figures, that adds up to an investment on Epic's part of $493 million since 2019, and Epic itself has acknowledged that "unrecouped costs" will amount to at least $330 million. "At best, Epic does not expect EGS to have a cumulative gross profit before 2027."

However, Epic's biggest ace is Fortnite  – which has transcended from a battle royale to a pop-culture icon. That does cover Epic's back to some extent of course, and these continued investements will probably bear a lot of fruit in the future.

Cyberpunk 2077's Latest Update Still Giving Performance Issues On Xbox Series X – Report

CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077 has been a disaster on consoles, with the launch version plagued with unoptimized code causing a plethora of glitches and bugs. Seven months later down the line, it still seems that there's still a lot to be desired and even next-gen consoles are struggling to remain locked to their performance targets. This is according to a recent Digital Foundry analysis, and you can check out the video below.

The Xbox Series X version when running in performance mode struggles to stay locked at a steady 60 fps, dropping below by quite a lot in demanding sequences. PS5 seems to fare better in this regard, staying locked at 60 fps for the particular scene. A point worth mentioning is that both are upgraded versions of last-gen consoles, and dedicated next-gen versions are yet to drop sometime later.

Cyberpunk 2077 is available now on PC, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PS4, PS5, and Stadia.

The Ascent Players Raising Concerns Over Accessibility Issues With The Game

Neon Giant's latest The Ascent has been met with mostly positive critical reception, but some fans seem to be disappointed with the lack of accessibility options within the game. Many recently took to Twitter to report this problem, but Neon Giant is yet to respond to any of the comments.

Fans seem to be quite irritated with the game's text size, citing that it's just to small to read. In addition to this, reports surrounding excessive screen clutter and UI issues have also been raised by fans.

Accessibility is an important part of any modern game, as it promotes inclusivity for gamers with physical or cognitive disabilities. Many developers have started taking this element of game design very seriously – with most of Ubisoft's recent catalogue being great examples of this. Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part 2 also had a load of accessibility options, and the game won a number of awards for this very thing.

Godfall: Fire and Darkness Enemies Revealed, Lightbringer Mode Detailed

Counterplay Games has shared some new details for its action RPG Godfall which will receive its first paid expansion Fire and Darkness next week. Players will essentially venture to the Fire Realm and contend with the Flameblood Tribe who are "some of the most formidable enemies in all of Aperion" (including winged foes). There's also the free Lightbringer Update that adds Cursed Loot, over 50 new Valorplate skins and a new mode called Lightbringer.

Available to players who have reached level 50, it sees you and up to two other players venturing into a realm shrouded in darkness. In order to bring the Light of the Seventh Sanctum back, one needs to seal Dark Tears before the clock runs out. Matchmaking will be available when the update goes live so you won't have to go it alone.

Cursed Items are the newest loot tier and can provide powerful benefits if one can lift the Curse on them. To do this, you must venture into the Dreamstones and clear the Ascended Tower of Trials. Fire and Darkness goes live on August 10th along with the Lightbringer update for PS5 and PS4. Stay tuned for dedicated patch notes and details in the coming days.

Samurai Warriors Series Has Sold Over 8 Million Units

Koei Tecmo and Omega Force recently launched Samurai Warriors 5, and prior to its Western release just a little over a week ago, the game had already sold over 280,000 units in Asia, where it had already been available for some time. Now, the publisher has announced that the series as a whole has also hit a notable sales milestone.

Koei Tecmo recently took to Twitter to announce that the Samurai Warriors series has sold over 8 million copies. The recent launch and sales of Samurai Warriors 5 will have obviously helped the series' overall sales, and it's a pretty impressive figure, all things considered.

Samurai Warriors 5 is available on PS5, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. A demo of the game is also available on all platforms. You can read our review of the musou action title through here– we quite liked it, in spite of a few issues.

Back 4 Blood's Game Pass Launch Will Enable a "Mind Blowing" Pool of Day 1 Players, Dev Says

Xbox Game Pass has been nabbing some pretty big third party multiplatform day one launches of late, from Outriders to MLB The Show 21, and that's bound to continue in the months ahead. At E3, it was confirmed that Turtle Rock Studios' Left 4 Dead-inspired co-op zombie shooter Back 4 Blood would also launch for the service on day one, and in a recent interview with GamesRadar, the game's executive producer Matt O'Driscoll talked about how that's going to benefit the game.

Being a multiplayer-centric game, it goes without saying that the thing that Back 4 Blood is going to need the most right from the get go is a wide pool of players, and as O'Driscoll puts it, thanks to the game's Xbox Game Pass launch, it is assured of a massive pool of players pretty much the day it launches- which, according to him, is "mind blowing."

"Yeah… day one, launching on Game Pass. That's going to be kind of crazy, right?" O'Driscoll said. "We need a player pool, so that we've got matches going all the time. I think we've got that player pool from day one. I forget what the numbers are for Game Pass, but I think it's 20 million-plus users, right? They will have access to our game from day one, which is kind of mind blowing. I've never launched a game that's had that kind of accessibility from day one."

O'Driscoll also added that the development team didn't really have to make any changes to the game with its Xbox Game Pass launch in mind. According to him, signing the deal was a pretty straightforward process.

"We didn't really," he said. "So it was kind of super cool for us, that we didn't have to pivot too much at all. There was no, 'oh hey, we're going on Game Pass but we've got to support this or we've got to do this'. It was like, the deal was struck, they [Microsoft] wanted the game on Game Pass – but they wanted the game we were making."

Back 4 Blood is out on October 12 for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC. An open beta of the game is live right now.

The Medium PS5 Trailer Details DualSense Implementation

Bloober Team's psychological horror title The Medium launched for Xbox Series X/S and PC earlier this year, and in less than a month, it will also be making its way to the PS5. While by and large you can expect the same experience as other platforms, the game will be making use of the PS5's DualSense trigger in some interesting ways, which have been detailed in a recent trailer.

The Medium will use the adaptive triggers for the in-game Spirit Blast mechanic, with the triggers offering less resistance the longer you charge up the move. Where haptic feedback is concerned, when you're walking through moth swarms while using the Spirit Shield, you'll feel moths attacking your shield from all directions through vibrations in the controller. Meanwhile, in sections where you're hiding from the Maw and holding your breath to stealth your way past him, the strength and intensity of the haptic feedback will increase the longer you hold your breath.

On the PS5, The Medium will also use the controller's touchpad and gyroscope. While picking up and investigation objects, for instance, you can use the touchpad to move them around (though you can also do it normally using the analog stick. Meanwhile, while investigating your surroundings in first person perspective, you can use the motion controls to look around.

Finally, the controller's light bar and speaker will also have a role to play. When using tools such as the bolt cutter to get past obstacles, the sound they make will come through the controller's speaker. The lightbar, meanwhile, will imitate Marianne's flashlight, so if the flashlight is flickering, so, too, will the light bar.

The Medium launches for PS5 on September 5.

The Ascent Update Adds Ray-Tracing in Windows 10 Version, Fixes Crashes and Progression Bugs, and More

The Ascent has a lot going for it, from its excellent, dense world to its thrilling combat to its engaging role playing mechanics, but Neon Giant's cyberpunk action RPG launched with quite a few technical issues that have been bogging down the experience for some players. The developer promised upcoming fixes for the game last week, and its first major patch has arrived with various issues being addressed.

There are several patches specific to PC, and quite a few others that apply to all platforms, with everything from Ray-Tracing performance being fixed, to those playing via Game Pass also getting Ray-Tracing at last (which was previously only available with Steam). There are also several stability fixes, several bugs and glitches being ironed out, loading being better optimized, progression bugs being squashed, and more. You can check out the full patch notes below.

The update is live now for Steam users, and Neon Giant has said on Twitter that it will soon be live for Windows 10 and Xbox players as well, as soon as certification is done. Meanwhile, The Ascent recently also added difficulty options on Xbox versions.

The Ascent is available now for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. The game raked in over $5 million in revenue during its launch weekend. Read more on that through here.

UPDATE NOTES:

Performance (PC Steam & Win10 only)
  • Fixes to improve performance in DX12, also with Ray Tracing.
  • Note to Players: on first running of the update, there will be a 20-25 second 'stall' on loading to Main Menu to allow some caching to happen before you play. This is a one time event.
  • Ray Tracing is now available to Players on the Windows Store.
  • Improved loading in of NPCs
  • CPU performance mode for lower-end PCs
Stability (all platforms)
  • Numerous instances of 'one time' crashes have been fixed in both Single Player & Coop on ALL Platforms. (some other instances remain, we are working hard to resolve these for the next update).
  • Local Coop fixes where Player 1 and Player 2 have controller focus issues on certain menus.
  • Numerous other crash-fixes have been made to improve the stability of both local and online Coop, including fixes when disconnecting controllers, issues when 3 Players start a new game, and fixes when the internet connection becomes unstable.
  • Fixed an issue where in certain circumstances a black screen would appear at the end of Mission 12.
  • Fixed an issue where sometimes it takes too long to return to the Main Menu after gameplay.
  • Fixed issues where Area loading is slower for the Client joining the game after the Host is using the Taxi.
  • Fixed some Weapon replication issues in Online Coop.
  • Fixed some issues around cross Platform hotjoining where Clients had trouble connecting to the Host.
Save Progress (all platforms)
  • Introduced a new system to circumvent situations where save files could become corrupted.
  • Fixes to situations in Coop where the Host leaving the game could cause the Client to lose progress.
  • Fixes to situations in Coop where Players may experience progression blockers in certain situations.
  • Fixed the issue where a Client's items would unequip after a Host disconnects.
  • Fixed an issue where a Client may lose connection when hotjoining a game in progress.
Gameplay (all platforms)
  • Fixed an Achievement issue where you could unlock Main Mission and Side Mission under incorrect conditions.
  • Fixed an issue where the mission objective during 'Go To Grinder' in Mission 2 would not update.
  • The issue where multiple bosses could spawn has been fixed. e.g. Papa Feral, Megarachnoid (Spider Boss), Gun-Dolph.
  • Fixed the Casino Courier Side Missions 1 – 5 where you could sometimes be unable to proceed due to missing NPCs.
  • Fixed the custom camera for 'Dark Horse' Side Mission.
  • Fixed the custom camera for Bartender in Stimtown.
  • Fixed the situation where sometimes 'Dark Horse' could not be completed due to the NPC remaining in a frightened state.
  • Fixed an issue where the Volatile Augmentation when used on neutrals had no effect.
  • Fixed an issue where the Siege Mech in the Prison could despawn after a Player died.
  • Fixed the issue where the Snooze Dealer's Journal map icon was a white square.
  • Fixed damage scaling on the Pocket Mech minigun to make it more powerful as you level up.
  • Allows the use of certain augmentations while rolling.
  • Balanced cost/cooldown/efficiency of Life Transfer, Neutron Beam and Overclock
  • Fixed issues with PLUG Cyberdeck not cracking ICE 1.
Translation (all platforms)
  • Lots of fixes have been made to address instances where English would appear instead of the correct language.
  • Further work is continuing to improve the quality of the translations as well as further general bug fixes.
  • Fixed an issue in Japanese where text overlapped in the intro cut-scene.
Assorted other fixes (all platforms)
  • Fixed an issue where sometimes in Dreamworld, shooting SFX without enemies being present could be heard.
  • Fixed an issue where the death-screen replaced the SFX & VO after defeating the Megarachnoid.
  • Cyberdeck visible in Journal
  • News now plays in the Taxi
  • Film Grain toggle added to the Graphics menu
  • Fixed the Dismemberer shooting SFX that could be missing for Clients.
  • Fixed previews for Auto Turret and Pocket Mech in Vendors.
  • Fixed Cluster 13's Metrolink entrances collision box.
  • Various UI fixes.
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