Julius

Reminder that the Developer_Direct is today, streaming from 18:00 GMT. Link to the presentation: These have kind of sucked to watch live in the past, so I might watch along with someone reacting to it or just catch the highlights after the fact

Director Hamaguchi and Producer Kitase were speaking to Famitsu, and it seems things are going very smoothly with the sequel to Rebirth – with the scenario now being complete! Per Eurogamer: Sounds to me like 2027 in time for the 30th anniversary of the original VII is well and truly on the cards – I think the big question, especially with recent rumours of Remake and Rebirth coming to Switch 2 and Xbox across 2025 and 2026, is the game's plans for launch: will it be a PS5 launch exclusive? Will S-E push like crazy for the game to launch simultaneously across all platforms in the wake of them needing to play catch-up and adapt to Rebirth's limited launch on PS5, which sounds like the potential makings of a development nightmare? And that's without even getting into speculating about what was agreed when the Remake Project clearly was signed off as being PlayStation exclusive at launch: did S-E think to include terms for what would happen if entries did not sell a certain number of units? It would make some sense to me with what we've heard recently and Rebirth coming to PC within 12 months of its PS5 launch, rather than taking as long as Remake did (albeit that did have DLC in the works, whereas Rebirth seemingly won't). Super interesting times. If they're aiming for 2027 then there's a real chance we see the game in some form this year, considering Rebirth was shown off some 20 months or so before launch.

Was hesitant about posting this as it only seems to be announced for a Japanese release so far, but there's an English translation and trailer so...it's inevitable, right? Coming to Switch, PS5 and PC: Fingers crossed, eh?

Cancelled. Holy smokes. (Source) Massive respect to them for communicating this as clearly as they have, unfortunately we've seen other successful indie studios have similar splits go down in a much messier and much more public way. Gutting to read, and a sudden reminder I still need to make time for Celeste, but damn, that wasn't at all the next update I was expecting for this game. Kudos to them for trusting their guts and stepping out when they have, because this could've easily gone on another 2 years before they stepped away; we've all seen it before. Like they said, could've just kept grinding it out but they've lost a sense of direction, and, I imagine, passion for the project, and so it sounds like the right move. Wishing them luck on their next project, in any case

Chapter 3 of NG+ completed, as well as the β and γ Analysis courses. Still no deaths to bosses on this run so far, the end of Chapter 3 boss was probably the closest purely because of some crazy bad luck, but man are some of the AC duels tougher this time out with some of the missions you get handed! Not had to make any further changes to Thebes so far (yet) besides one quick mandatory swap-out for a certain mission.

New trailer for Mickey 17:

Insomniac CEO Ted Price has announced his retirement after three decades since founding the company in 1994 (Ted's SIE post here; the link in the below tweet is to the PS Blog entry by the new Insomniac co-heads!). Chad Dezern, Ryan Schneider and Jen Huang will be taking over as co-studio heads.

This shouldn't be right... ...but Majima is inarguably pulling off the Kiryu look with aplomb!

So, update on this: apparently this isn't the case? Someone on Korean gaming forum Ruliweb apparently asked NCSoft reporter SEO Jeong-geun if Project H is related to the Horizon MMO -- which it apparently isn't? From reading around a bit more on this, my understanding is that it seems like NCSoft graduate their projects out of their initial project names once they begin production, so, in this instance, the Horizon MMO was labelled as Project H and then graduated to become Project Skyline. The confusion seems to stem from the fact that they then labelled another upcoming project as Project H following this, and it is this game which got cancelled. I can kind of see why they're having problems now... Anyways, see y'all in 3-6 months when it actually does almost inevitably get cancelled, I guess!

New gameplay trailer, as was promised: That music gets WILD

Completed Chapters 1 and 2 as well as the α Analysis course to get NG+ off to a good start tonight. Decided to go with a red AC in the story for the first time across my various playthroughs of this game, with this AC: Thebes. The reason I needed to go with the ending I did in my last post was to unlock this head piece! Which I think is by far the coolest in the game – not surprising because the AC it's from is my favourite in the game, too! No deaths to any of the bosses so far, forgot just how early things start to feel fresh in NG+, with a couple of different missions and some different showdowns to figure your way out of. Through taking on a different route I've also unlocked what remains one of the biggest pains in the ass in the game - an escort mission - which was probably the second most brutal thing to learn and S-rank the first time I played through the game. I'm getting flashbacks just thinking of the most brutal one... To take it back to my favourite AC design that I mentioned before, though, I saw this got announced last week for release in August: Yeah...I'll be keeping an eye out to pre-order this I think

I hate that I've seen just enough of 2 to know that that's the cringe one you're referring to It's times like this where I kind of hate that I feel like I can't skip a sequel, and if I ever do it's almost always down to how separate it feels from a narrative POV or simply because it's not easily accessible. I've heard enough good things about 3 to know I want to play it at some point, but 2...not so much. Love what I've heard of the music and obviously the crazy scale these games go for too. I guess feeling the way I do about 2 just drastically lessens the odds of me playing both I actually do have Torna! I picked it up a few years ago when there was a bit of a scare over whether or not it was going to get more physical prints. Maybe that'll be what I play next (from the series, not the next game I play, to be clear ) It's a prequel to 2, right? Damn, yeah I'd heard and read different accounts of poor performance for 2, so I'll probably just wait until the Switch 2 and see if that takes things up a notch before I decide to dive in. Maybe a Pledge Game for next year? It's not like I was planning on getting to it anytime soon anyways! I have other super long JRPG commitments to get to before then Thanks both

Sorry for the delay in getting this added Dcubed - have added to the wall of pledges now Probably not... But I bet Furukawa is rubbing his hands together thinking about how much he could screw your pledge with a November launch right now

A Horizon MMO which was in the works at NCSoft - not to be confused with Guerrilla's cartoony in-house Monster Hunter-type GAAS - has reportedly been cancelled. Per South Korean news outlet MTN: These project names tie into previous job listings and employee histories which suggested a Horizon MMO was in the works. NCSoft are also reportedly not having the best of years, with one of their chairmen saying that it's basically do-or-die for them in 2025, which is likely the reason for the Horizon MMO project being brought to a halt and cancelled.

Oof, well that sucks. My interest in picking this up at launch or anytime soon just completely dissipated. Not that I'm in any particular rush to get back to the series, even if I had a great time with Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition - when it came out...checks notes...nearly 5 years ago?! Holy what?! - but I'm guessing you would recommend that I play 2 next rather than X? I mean, I should probably also go back in and check out Future Connected in XC:DE...