Julius

Of course, seeing as

Where's the question mark, Glen? Where's the question mark?!

The game will be centre stage at San Diego Comic Con this year, stepping up on Hall H on Thursday 20th July:

Huh, we don't have a thread for this. Well marketing is starting to ramp up with an overview and gameplay trailer dropping today, so here it is. (Re-)announcement trailer: Co-op and combat trailer: Still no date as things stand, just arriving this year, but hope this turns out well. Been waiting patiently for a worthwhile co-op game to convince my friends to try and love then for us to never return to it

Honestly surprised they haven't announced a tie-in PokéFlute that doubles as an alarm clock to wake you and your Snorlax up But sure, just release a Pokémon Go Plus+Plusle++ instead

Emile Morel, the creative director for Beyond Good & Evil 2, has passed away suddenly at the age of 40. Per IGN: Looking at his mobygames page, he also notably served as the lead game designer for 2013's Rayman Legends at Ubisoft, as well as being a lead designer for 2008's Alone in the Dark at Eden Games. RIP.

An EP, featuring five tracks from the game (including the previously released Find the Flame) has dropped on major streaming platforms ahead of the full OST release on 19th July: Soundtrack hype it's so good!

We got patches baby, and you know what that means? Finally? MOTION BLUR OPTIONS WOO LET'S GO Around the same area, hoping to finish the game by Friday before I fly out on Saturday...please pray for me (and my burning eyes lmao) The boss fights are honestly the most outrageously pure fun boss fights I've experienced in a good while. From Software bosses are the gold standard of what I would consider a fair, head-to-head boss fight, but this really takes the cake when it comes to pure anime-esque hype and spectacle. I've said it before, but it needs to be said again: I think the boss fights blow everything else out of the water when it comes to pure scale and spectacle, delivering in a way I think some were hoping Ragnarök would (and did at times! But maybe not quite this consistently) Anyways, got a fair bit of game to go...so back to it!

Nintendo, Xbox and Bethesda will all be turning up to next month's Gamescom. Nintendo (per VGC): Xbox and Bethesda: This and Tokyo Game Show are starting to look real promising as things stand. Fingers crossed for some cool updates and announcements!

Feels like a bit of a nothing story: it's just an internal doc of Microsoft/Xbox taking stock of the rumours for the hardware and release timing that have been floating around for both pieces of hardware over the last 6-12 months, and anticipating them accordingly. They do the same internally (or via third party review companies) with documents on Sony's and Nintendo's first-party games to assess the strengths/weaknesses/expectations/results of some major releases. It's simply a case of them trying to predict where things are going - apparently leaning on the rumour mill - and not a case of them actually knowing anything. Obviously it's going to gain a lot of traction because of the court case, and, well, IGN sprucing things up with statements like: Jim Ryan is way too busy trying to make a hash out of PlayStation's first party studios to have his feathers ruffled by this. And it doesn't "out" anything about the console's existence or price, it just repeats what has been rumoured and couples it with some sense (the price for Project Q or the modular Slim haven't leaked, far as I know, but Xbox will have the analytics to back their assumptions on price). Shame on you IGN, how far (some of) your reporting has fallen. Anyways, PlayStation 100% have similar documents anticipating Xbox's and Nintendo's next moves. Goodness knows about Nintendo, though, it could be either they're that deep into understanding Xbox and PlayStation that they can then recognise markets that their competitors don't seem to really be going for... ...or they play Jenga and have a fortune teller use the smell of the blocks they pull to guess where things are going. "This one smells fresh...hmm, well, after 5 comes 6, but what no-one will be anticipating is that they're going to skip ahead to the PlayStation 7"

List of exhibitors for this year's TGS has been released!

Gameplay featuring the first look (listen?) of the English VA has been released at Anime Expo, and sounds great! Seriously, please don't release too close to VII Rebirth...

Kind of? It's certainly not an open world in the same way that XV was, or how games like Zelda BotW/TotK, Ghost of Tsushima, Skyrim, etc., are, but it's also not linear in the way XIII was (from my understanding of the game from documentary-style videos and just general chit chat about it). There are certain linear sections earlier on to ease you into the game's flow or to lead into key story beats, but I think it's most comparable to something like Dragon Quest XI, and would describe both as having wider zones rather than an open world (XV)/zone (something like Xenoblade) structure. There is a world map to access locations from, with local maps clearly defined in their borders, with some key landmarks peppered into a zone, and oftentimes open stretches to challenge the local fauna in. For reference – Dragon Quest XI (world/local maps): Final Fantasy XVI (world/local maps): Hope that helps there's a demo available (with save transfer to the full game) which is roughly 2 hours long and I think gives a great taste of the game, would definitely recommend checking it out for yourself if you get the chance!

Teaser for Attack on Titan Final Season THE FINAL CHAPTERS Special 2: Still scheduled as Fall 2023...

A new trailer for Pluto, and I think it looks pretty incredible: I cancelled my Netflix subscription a few months back, and will absolutely be returning for this. They've announced that it will be released in 8 episodes at 60 minutes apiece – I've put off reading the manga to experience it this way first, but my understanding is that that'll mean we're getting one entire volume adapted per episode. That's freaking awesome. Key staff/involvement... Just want to highlight that Yugo Kanno is doing the OST. I've not watched JoJo's still - somehow, I honestly don't know how that's happened - but yeah, Giorno's Theme bangs, and that little burst of a choir we get at the end of this trailer has me super excited to hear what else he's got planned for the music. Really hope this lives up to the hype of its source material!

Poster collection dropping next year:

Physical or digital? Digital, I have no idea. Square Enix have started to improve somewhat when it comes to releasing their OSTs digitally, but I still think VII Remake and XIV expansions took a good while before seeing their OSTs made available. As for physical... ...I believe it releases next month (well, this month now! How is it already July?!) I've got myself down for the Ultimate Edition also considering picking up the Torgal plush (the pup, not the big boy, because...money? And also size. Probably. Yeah let's say that), no idea what I'd do with a plush buuuuuuuut idk, it's calling to me I've not made any progress since my last post (I will this weekend though, I swear!!) but, honestly, it feels like a really solid foundation for more. Whether that's in the form of some DLC or a sequel, I'm not sure, but I remember Yoshi-P in the past saying he'll judge the game's success after 18 months, not it's first weekend, so...fingers crossed? Look forward to reading your thoughts *goes back to Valisthea*

Another Dune: Part Two trailer: (also, agree with all the above Across the Spider-Verse love. Been to see it twice, loved it twice)

Game has been bumped up from Autumn/Fall...to July 27th! Overview trailer:

... Welp, there it is. My wallet! (jk I'm excited as all heck for this )

Comunicado oficial:

Yeah, I'm going to disagree, because I think there's a lot of context being missed here – I do think it's a very good result. Final Fantasy VII Remake sold 3.5 million copies on an install base of 110+ million consoles in 3 days, and that's with arguably the most hype and marketing going into an FF, just due to its nature as a remake of the best-selling game in the series. By contrast, XV had been around F O R E V E R. XVI did 3 million in (less than a week? Both are going to be heavily frontloaded so I don't think it matters if it's a week or over a weekend for either, VII Remake took another 4 months after release to work its way up 1.5 million units to 5 million units sold) on a console which had just over 38 million units sold per their last shareholder's meeting. That's roughly an install rate of 3.1% for VII Remake on PS4 at launch compared with 7.9% for XVI on PS5 at launch. That's more than double. That seems very good to me. I think the better comparison is XV as a unique new entry (I mean, besides all its baggage, which I'll come back to), which sold 5 million copies in November 2016 at opening on a console which was at 43.5 million units sold in June 2016 and 53.4 million units sold by January 2017 (can't find a figure in-between to split the difference, unfortunately). Now I appreciate holiday sales in a calendar Q4 typically dwarf Q3, so let's say that of the 10 million sold between June 2016 and January 2017, roughly 70% were sold at Christmas – so an additional 3 million units by the time of XV's launch. That's an install rate of 10.8% if we say roughly 46.5 million units were in the wild at that point - and from that perspective I think it could be said that XVI hasn't quite performed as well. BUT! That's also across Xbox. XVI is exclusive. Now I don't think it makes an insane difference (I'd guess Xbox were probably 500k to 1 million of those sales at launch, at best), but it is worth mentioning. As for its legs, XVI has reviewed much better than XV did, hasn't been set up with loosey goosey promises of DLC in mind from launch, and doesn't have all of the baggage that XV comes with in terms of supplementary material which could easily put off newcomers (it's one of the reasons I've been able to put if off for so long). I'm not saying XVI will surpass XV in sales as a fact, but XVI has the benefit of word of mouth, better reviews, and an absolutely excellent demo to hook people in. It's also launched in one of the busiest Junes in gaming in recent memory (we've had Jedi Survivor, Tears of the Kingdom, Diablo IV and Street Fighter 6 all release in a 2 month timeframe), and across those games, I'd wager there's an overlap in interest in XVI. Heck, I don't even think @drahkon has dug in yet because he's busy living Diablo IV (no rush by the way, of course!), and I know that's at least one more person who will play the game. It's just such a (surprisingly) busy period for games right now, we've had 4 games that'll shown up as genuine GOTY nominees at the end of the year release in an 8 week window. But, releasing in June gives them all time (well, besides Zelda) to reduce in price pretty noticeably by the holiday sales period - not to mention deals like on Black Friday - so I think it's well positioned as things stand. And it'll very likely get a decent-to-good PC port, given how CBU III function, which we at least know is on the way. I don't think these numbers are setting the world alight, but these aren't numbers to scoff at in the slightest, or cause for concern either. It has a higher attach rate than VII Remake did at its launch, which is insane. Really insane. I don't think it makes these numbers without the demo, honestly. Anyways, most other big third party companies would kill to have a 3+ million opening week, which S-E seem to have all but guaranteed for their AAA Final Fantasy launches as of late. I feel like judgement here is easily clouded by first party figures from Nintendo and PlayStation. I do genuinely wonder if part of this is a communication issue - they've tried in their marketing to say that this is a standalone adventure, but being the 16th entry, anecdotally, I've found it just hasn't worked. I've talked to my own friends about FF in the past (I'm the only one in my group who has a varied palette when it comes to games, and especially JRPGs) and made it crystal clear that the mainline games are standalone unless there's a reason to think otherwise in the title (like with X-2), and I still had to explain - after getting one of them to try (and fall in love with) the demo - to another friend that they should try the demo, and he thought it was the 16th game in a continuous series rather than a standalone. So I had to explain it again, having done so before. I seriously think the numbers and the name being around for so long might be putting some people off. Anyways, closing statement: if I remember right, XV is at over 10 million copies sold in total, or was at some point last year. I wouldn't be totally shocked if XVI gets close to that when all is said and done. At the very least, from what I've played so far, I think it would deserve it.

As we already know (no-one forgot, and totally not me ), Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is coming to Switch and Steam on 18th August. What we didn't know was that it's also destined to land on PlayStation and Xbox "shortly after":

Paging @drahkon for next month's supposed Essentials games! As always, per billbil-kun: a super light-hearted month as we head into the summer, then

The game has shipped and digitally sold 3 million copies! Excellent initial figures for a third party exclusive I feel, and I'm sure that demo and a likely decreasing price in the coming months is going to shore it up with more sales. It being a standalone title compared to VII Remake makes me also think it's in a good position to continue to onboard newcomers, as myself and others will surely be pointing at XVI when people ask how to get into the series (with a modern entry)!