Julius

The game's gone gold! And we've still yet to see any actual gameplay. Which is pretty nuts to think about, hopefully we get to see something sooner or later, lord knows some of the AI needs it Oh yeah, this comparison definitely works Sidebar: sometimes I do wonder if the universal love for Empire compared with A New Hope and Return of the Jedi is somewhat skewed today by it escaping the awful Special Edition seppuku George committed with those films, whereas Empire came away virtually unscathed. I kind of like to see it as one final display of gratitude to his teacher, Kershner, by gutting those other two films to make Empire shine just that bit brighter EDIT: also, this looks to be good news – apparently the first time in 13 years this dev (an environmental artist) hasn't had to crunch at Naughty Dog.

The ink has dried and PlayStation have now officially acquired Haven: Interesting piece from GamesIndustry.biz on Haven: And I give it all of four seconds before we see responses to the tweet about Xbox not yet getting Activision-Blizzard over the line

I started a Grounded playthrough on Saturday, with the caveat that, as somewhere along the way this became a Platinum run, I used a little workaround to just jump straight into Grounded+ (well, more like Grounded+++ at this stage); while Grounded isn't necessary for the Platinum, having two Grounded trophies (a Grounded and Grounded+ playthrough) be the only outstanding trophies in the way of getting 100% would have bugged me, and I think I've only got the energy for one last playthrough of Remastered with Part I just a month and a half away. Over the last few weeks I've put nearly 100 hours into the game, having played through the story twice (Normal+ and Easy++ for collectibles - we'll get into that another time, but good lord was that a bit of a pain and boy was I freaking out for a moment when I thought I'd missed a pendant before realising that NG+ means that the progress kind of carries over!), Left Behind twice (Easy - collectibles - and Survivor), and Factions essentially three times, so yeah, just this one last playthrough for me of Remastered I think; I'll be saving a pure Grounded run for Part I if I'm not fully TLOU'd out at that point What I will say though, is that it's tough as balls, which I've loved but definitely been left frustrated by once or twice, and I actually think being fully upgraded after playing Left Behind on Survivor has left me needing to readjust (the lack of sway using a bow, for example, is throwing me way off my headshot game). I'll dive into some specifics of my Grounded+ adventure in the spoiler tag - I've just finished up in the suburbs - but generally this run is both shining a light on brilliant things the dumbed down AI in lower difficulties simply make you take for granted about the game, I've noticed some awesome details which I didn't in earlier playthroughs; I actually made it up to Bill's Town without firing a single non-mandatory bullet, which felt great. But good lord, is the ally AI dumb as rocks. I mean, seriously: kick rocks Henry. Overall, despite a few frustrations, I'm really enjoying this run through of the game. Supplies are severely limited (I had 15 bullets in my starting pistol at one point...and have hovered between 0 and 2 for about 3 or 4 hours now), I'm finding a lot more gears and pills than I am bullets, but all praise the brick I guess, it's proving very useful. This game is absolutely worth playing at any difficulty for the story alone, but if you've already played through on Normal or Easy, I'd really recommend giving a higher difficulty a try if you ever replay Remastered or cough up some coin for Part I. Grounded is a little extreme, but it showcases the game's stealth mechanics far better and works better for me in terms of the world's narrative, where supplies aren't abundant - the AI and having to depend on sneaking through areas honestly feels like it was closer to the original vision of the game, and having played the game a few times these last few weeks, it feels like dumbing down the enemy AI a bit and adding Listening Mode as an ability was something which came about later in the development process. It reminds me a lot of Metal Gear Solid in a weird way, and actually feels like good training for it. Which is all to say: I'm having a blast

Tony Sirico, aka Paulie Walnuts in The Sopranos, has passed away: Another wise guy gone

Decided to go with the Hunter Journey in Factions after the little mishap I had with my first Firefly Journey, which I ended up completing on Monday night. After that, I got around to going back through the Firefly Journey, which I finished off this evening. Man, Factions is such good fun! Just the mechanics - crafting, listening mode, etc. - coming over from the main game and using a lot of areas from the main game (maybe tweaked or made wider with some returning assets) seems so simple, I know it's something which was much more common at the time (hamfisted multiplayer modes in single player games), but it went so far for me, I had an absolute blast. A lot of moments of chaos, glee, courage, and me in fits of laughter when things happen like myself and an opponent just fist fighting in the middle of a shootout. Can't believe I nearly missed out on it through thinking it had been closed down, and again, I was pleasantly surprised by just how active it still is today. Very much hoping the next Factions can recapture even half of the fun with such lean mechanics that this game managed. Anyways, I still found that I couldn't put The Last of Us down...so I booted up Left Behind again. I played through it a few weeks ago, but this time I wanted to focus less on revisiting the story and more focusing on the gameplay and setting myself a challenge: completing it on Survivor difficulty. It's rare that I play things outside of Normal/the default difficulty for a game, but I've found it happening increasingly over the last few years, so thought I'd give it a shot – it's not like I can find it in me to put the game down anyways! And, well, isn't it crazy what a change of difficulty can do for a game? Left Behind is a very lean bit of DLC which doesn't have too much available in the way of supplies compared to the base game, even at Normal difficulty, and Survivor just kind of hides it all away from you. It takes away Listening Mode, too, and the AI is much more robust and reactive (for example: enemies I didn't even notice could react to my flashlight being on before I very much noticed this time!), which means a lot more sneaking around is required. Well, that and keeping a trusty brick to hand...you know, just in case! And, as Ellie puts it: I AM BRICKMASTER Anyways, long story short: managed to beat it. That final section...took some trial and error, that's for sure! It's a drawn out fight with two phases, and considering just how much opposition you come up against in both, having so little ammunition to hand really meant I had to make every shot count, and so repeating the same section over and over again really forced me to key into a side of gaming I haven't really toyed with since I got addicted to speedrunning in Astro's Playroom, which is really getting to grips with a level, it's layout, any AI, and just playing around with the order you tackle things in, and which direction you tackle them from. This was the end result (kindly ignore me not finishing on a headshot ): Honestly, I loved The Last of Us before - it's story is fantastic and it's gameplay is very accessible and fun - but playing through Left Behind on Survivor showed me a whole level of depth to the game that I didn't even realise was there. As soon as I completed the first encounter, the reason for there being an absurd abundance of bricks and bottles lying around: it was for these higher difficulties. I'm sure there are some other changes in terms of supplies beyond there being less at higher difficulties (maybe different supply configurations?), but at least on a surface level, that seems like a really smart way to not have to completely rework every encounter for every difficulty when it comes to the level's environmental design, available supplies, etc. And, well, I still find that I don't want to put the game down (RIP my backlog). I'm kind of toying with the idea of playing through the main story again on Survivor - hell, maybe even Grounded - off the back of my experience with Left Behind, I really enjoyed that last section that much. Definitely one or two encounters I won't be looking forward to...but I doubt that'll be enough to put me off

Ooooo nice get @Dcubed, perfectly timed for the weekend – enjoy! Anything in particular you're looking forward to giving a whirl on it? Hoping this means I get an update on mine soon...

Just going to leave this here

James Caan has passed away at 82

The rest of this afternoon's indie announcements/updates: Haven't played it but I've heard and seen a lot of love for The Messenger, so yeah, fingers crossed – I'm certainly rooting they can pull it off, it seems like a lot of love and passion has gone into this! It's just one of those things where you see how the game looks, and that Yasunori Mitsuda is composing, and it's like making a space fantasy today and getting John Williams to score it. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely applaud them for going for it (Square Enix and Tokyo RPG Factory, if this is good, you better be taking notes!), but that definitely invites a lot of pressure and immediately starts the conversation around the game with a very direct and obvious comparison to one of the greats. Even if the game itself turns out great, with gaming media being what it is today, I think we could see a lot of incredibly reductive downplaying (i.e. "it's a fun time, but it's not Chrono Trigger"), I guess that's my concern (maybe "concern" is a bit strong) – that it won't be fairly judged on its own merit?

Light & Magic, the six-part docuseries about ILM, starts streaming 27th July!

E3 is returning in-person and in full force next year, and will be organised by PAX and Star Wars Celebration organisers ReedPop. From VGC: I don't think E3 will ever get back to where it was just 5 or 6 years ago, especially with so many companies now doing their own thing, but if this means Nintendo actually turns up with a proper Direct in mid-June, I'm all for it this means that both E3 and Summer Game Fest will be in-person next year (assuming plans don't change). Christopher Dring, Head of GamesIndustry.biz, will be involved in the Elsa's plans for E3, and has written a piece well worth reading, because he at least seems excited by the possibilities: We'll see how it develops, but hopefully the competition between E3 and SGF is good and leads to better events than we've had in the summers since COVID started.

Updates on SCHiM and Cult of the Lamb too: Yeah, Sea of Stars looks fantastic! Glad it's coming to PS I'm just hoping it doesn't fall into the usual pitfalls of games so heavily influenced by games recognised as masterpieces, where it puts itself into a position where it's hard not to compare it to its influences, as that's always one hell of an uphill battle.

Some new details from IGN and Eurogamer: Eurogamer's update seems especially important Performance on the Switch was not elaborated on in the same detail as other platforms; Sato has just said that there will be "differences" in resolution and FPS on the Switch.

They decided to make a massive kit based on Doug's namesake:

I still can't believe that Mother 3 is going to be added to NSO exclusively for the Switch Pro. Nintend'oh

The creator of Yu-Gi-Oh, Kazuki Takahashi, has passed away at age 60. He was found in snorkeling equipment floating off the coast of Nago, Okinawa, yesterday I haven't been into Yu-Gi-Oh for a long time at this point, but man, those early years of primary school enjoying Yu-Gi-Oh with my friends - trading, battling, getting way too into it - were such a blast, as was waking up early on weekends to tune into CITV and watch the latest episode of the anime. Despite it ending in a very bittersweet way for me, I still look back on my time spent enjoying Yu-Gi-Oh as a kid very fondly. Rest in Peace, Takahashi-san. You made us all hope for a better draw and believe in the Heart of the Cards.

It's so funny to me that few companies do this with their games/films/products, but I love it when they do I swear they knew that with COVID in mind they weren't ever going to make 2021, but aside from the PS5 hype cycle too, I'm sure 2021 was the actual plan pre-COVID, and they wanted to say it anyway because that would be three winters after God of War 2018. And you know what precedes Ragnarök? Fimbulwinter, which is three (successive) winters long! Would've been perfect

Haha wowwwww, if it's releasing on a Wednesday because Wednesday is Odin's Day that's some big brain stuff from SMS

I was going to say it'll probably still ship a few million, but this is Square Enix, so yeah, definitely a flop in their eyes at least I remember them saying that this was aiming to be a new pillar for them akin to Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, and well...yikes. I can't help but wonder what this means for Luminous Productions in the long run. New IP delayed twice in big ways (one down to needing more dev time and the other seemingly because they realised that they'd accidentally positioned the game in the busiest part of the gaming calendar?), likely never going to match S-E's absurd sales figure hopes, using a proprietary engine which they've avoided using in some of their other massive projects (like Final Fantasy VII Remake and Dragon Quest XI using Unreal Engine 4) – I don't want to be too down on it, because the game could still be great, but from the outside looking in, I think the writing has to be on the wall for them, surely?

Delayed again, a further three months this time to January 24th 2023...

Just realised it's releasing on a Wednesday. Huh. Weird. Ah well you see, the spoken word of developers from the studio publicly reaffirming a 2022 release means nothing the sad part is I'm sure we'll see some of those now saying "well, it could still get delayed to 2023!" To whom I say: I am a little surprised that this announcement wasn't attached to a proper trailer or the announcement of a State of Play to show off more, but honestly, they could go dark for all I care until September if there's going to be a Showcase and just show a bit more then. We at least vaguely know the direction the game is at least going to start off in already (from the previous game and the trailer we got last year), and I expect more God of War mechanically (a great thing, but something we already know about), so I can really appreciate their restraint so far with their marketing. Apart from saying that this wouldn't be a trilogy, that would've been a nice surprise at the end of this game

Splatoon 3 will be getting an OLED model releasing 26th August, as well as a Pro Controller and carrying case releasing on 9th September:

November 9th! And a look at the Collector's and Jötnar Editions:

One last Ben Moore review: written, edited and voiced by the Great himself Man, I think Ben leaving and the current state of EZA is going to hit me hard in the coming days. It's really, really weird to think he's been a permanent fixture through Easy Allies content for the entirety of my entire adult life so far. Had a lot of Ben clips pop up in my YouTube feed the last week, and I've been going back and watching highlights of garage streams/moments. Favourite was definitely just seeing him at GT and opening up about his game spending, think we can all somewhat relate And for anyone that missed it, last week was his farewell podcast appearance:

Skull and Bones Ubisoft Forward Spotlight (a Ubisoft Original™) is this Thursday (7th July) at 19:00 BST, and then Ubisoft Forward returns 10th September at 20:00 BST: Ubisoft announcing their Ubisoft Forward over two months out, earlier than anyone announced details of their plans for Not-E3, is hilarious to me