Julius

4 minutes of gameplay from over on IGN: There are also some hands-off gameplay impressions going up: It's been nice to see change so much even just in the time I've been on here. The move to Unreal Engine has done them some massive favours with some of their other big projects which were stuck in development hell like Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III, and I really think the only reason Forspoken is on Luminous - with a dedicated team - is because Square Enix want to at least make good on the engine to some extent with how much they invested in it.

Covers and new controller colours inbound!!! From the PS Blog: TL;DR - black and red covers coming 21st January 2022 first through PlayStation Direct (next month!) before general release in February, and the same locations will get the purple, blue, and pink covers in the first half of 2022. New controller colours (purple, blue, pink) coming January 2022 also. The plates will cost £44.99. I'm too excited for my own good with this, goodbye wallet, it was nice knowing thee. The mix and match possibilities makes me want to pick a few up and grab more controllers I don't need. Definitely recreating the MGS V PS4 colourway (I know it's a slightly brighter red, but close enough!)... Also means they won't need to focus on selling limited edition consoles and controllers bundled, and can instead sell the plates and controllers separately. Which makes sense considering the ongoing issues with production capacity, but it's going to make me broke

The six episode look back at Xbox's history, Power On: The Story of Xbox, is now up on their YouTube channel.

It's been a long time since I've followed F1 closely, but I've heard a lot of controversy this season from friends who still follow it, and seen it front and centre on sports page a lot more than I feel was the case even just a few years ago. I tuned in today and I 100% agree with you @Will, my first instinct upon seeing that call today was "Ah, there's that Netflix money at play." Don't get me wrong, I think it's been good purely for the viewership numbers of the sport, and by manufacturing this rivalry and with so much controversy this season, I won't lie, I'm thinking about reading up and getting ready to follow along next season for the first time in a while. But the integrity of the entire sport and FIA needs calling into question for me, and this definitely reeks in a similar way to Lampard's disallowed goal against Germany at the World Cup in 2010. I think we'll see rule wording changes made off the back of this controversy so that the FIA et al can claim that they've done their part to ensure it doesn't happen again, but why one person is calling the shots like this - much less after stewards and Masi were said to be taking a backseat and not be making egregious and controversial calls after how so much of this season has gone? - blows my mind. I don't think there have been any shady backdoor deals in this scenario, but I wouldn't question people if they felt that way after today. It's utterly disgraceful. Kudos to Lewis for keeping his cool about it - I'm sure he'll be back next year - but it leaves such a sour taste for me as someone who hasn't been following it closely, and so I can only imagine how robbed of a fair and sportsmanlike duel you guys and other close followers of the sport feel right now.

Well, it's been a year since the last update, but today is the third and final day of Granblue Fantasy Fes 2021 -- meaning that the game has finally resurfaced! First off, here's the trailer that was shown today: It looks absolutely stunning, and Cygames have confirmed that this new trailer uses the final game's graphics. Yep, that's right, they're in the home stretch! And speaking of which, they reiterated that the game will release worldwide in 2022 on PS5, PS4, and PC (Steam). No exact date as of yet, but they are very confident in the game launching next year, as they feel that Relink has finally showcased the Granblue Fantasy style and is up to Cygames' lofty standards. They have also relaunched the game's official site, which is well worth checking out if you're interested in learning more. New characters not from the mobile game have also been confirmed for Relink, so I guess we won't be missing on all of the context without having played the mobile game. So far, these are the characters confirmed for the game (with plenty more to come): As showcased previously, the game will have two modes: Story Mode, which follows the main story thread and is a single-player adventure; and Quest Mode, the up to four player multiplayer co-op mode for side quests off the beaten path. It is worth noting for Quest Mode that quests can still be played solo, as demonstrated before, you'll just be joined by CPU allies. As they went on to say: to put it simply, it's an action RPG And no surprise here, but character customisation is a thing. Finally, the game's director, Tetsuya Fukuhara, says that the 8th anniversary stream (which is being held in March) might be a decent opportunity to unveil the game's release date, so I would have to imagine this is likely a game we shouldn't expect to release until August 2022 at the earliest. Below is the promo art which is front and centre on the official site and social media channels, so might end up being the cover artwork? Hype mode activated!

Thanks as always @Glen-i, been a legend being my trading partner the last few weeks!

Haha, really sorry about that! Internet started being weird and then we had two deliveries in a row Back now (or has my corpse been reanimated..?)

*shakes fist* Let me grab another, two secs! EDIT: It's 21345589

Yeah, that could be the case! Game is very snappy elsewhere. Grabbed a Link Code, it's 11235813 again

Cool, I'm just loading up (also how have I not mentioned it before? That black screen before the opening starts is loooooong!)

I have an Electivire from the last time we did trade and trade back evolutions, so do you already have it in the Dex? I'll need both for my Sinnoh Living Dex which I'm trying to do with my own OT's (sorry to be really awkward!). If you want an Electivire and you've evolved Elekid into Electabuzz I suppose we could trade your Electabuzz for my Magmar, each attach our respective game's -rizers, and then trade them back to evolve them? Or if you haven't I do have a spare Electabuzz I could send over with the Electirizer so you have its evolved form?

Sorry @Glen-i, I just got back! I'm now free for the rest of the day though, so if you're still available, ready whenever you are how do you want to go about it for the -rizer trade evolutions?

So Jones teased last week that they had plans to bring him in, but Kyle is back on the Easy Allies Podcast for the first time since leaving this week. I'm only 10 minutes in, but man, it's just underlined how much I miss having him around the other Allies, because I'm in stitches. A tease of the TGA's aftermath with him, which I'll have to check out this weekend: I don't think Jones does a particularly bad job as host of the Podcast, but I've been listening back to older podcast episodes the last couple of weeks, and I really think his rapport with Kyle as a co-moderator just suited him better. Kyle is the perfect weekly gaming podcast host for me because even if he wasn't making the podcast every week he would still be scouring through these news stories anyways, whereas I don't think Jones would be, if that makes sense. Obviously I hope Kyle is doing well, I still check out Delayed Input and support him there, but yeah, I do miss having him around a lot. I checked where the Easy Allies Patreon was at the other day, and while I know some of this might be offset by their deals with Rooster Teeth, seeing them at less than half of what they were at on Patreon when they got to the studio is really concerning (they were at ~$22k per month when I checked if I'm remembering right, when the studio goal was $50k per month over an extended period). It's rough, but yeah, back to enjoying seeing Kyle with the Allies again

I could be misremembering, but I think this is the first time the game has been officially confirmed as being in development. I think everyone thought when Epic Games announced they were publishing two Remedy titles - a smaller one and a larger one - that one might be a sequel to Alan Wake after they got the full rights in 2019, and it's possible it leaked like Alan Wake Remastered did, but I don't think they actually came out and officially confirmed Alan Wake II until last night. EDIT: not to say it wasn't very openly teased in another one of their games before this

Yes and no I guess? Being this far into a run and getting to a boss for the first time definitely brings a bit of panic with it, though I think jumping around, just dodging and focusing on not attacking for the first 30 seconds did me a lot of favours in staying my nerves. The panic in that instance I think was compounded from the waves of bullet hell style projectiles just before to not knowing if this thing was somehow going to suddenly be behind me and fly through a pillar, I was expecting a maddening shriek or something when it turned back up to scare the life out of me I haven't yet, don't worry! Only just woke up from my Game Awards-induced coma...

Think the Game Awards trailer was much stronger than recent ones we've got for this. Also, we've got a release date: 24th May 2022! So with this in May, Stranger of Paradise in March, and probably some kind of, oh I don't know, tapestry of classic Final Fantasy games coming to console for the 35th anniversary next year maybe in the summer...the back half of next year for Square Enix's Japanese side is looking real quiet. Just saying

Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade is coming to the Epic Games Store on 16th December (so, next Friday):

Sam Lake teased that they would have more to share next year, before stating we would potentially see it again next summer.

Well, don't think anyone saw this one coming.

The Blue Blur finally conceded to peer pressure I guess

Story trailer from The Game Awards: Two months and two weeks to go!

Yeah, get what you mean about the trailers. I think it's much more about the reactions and networking opportunities for those attending. As for Eclipse, I'm hyped as hell because Star Wars, but some of the massive open landscapes they showed seemed far beyond the scope of any of their previous games. So, I'm nervous! Also Alan Wake II published by Epic, so give us Ueda's game Geoff damn it!

Into my veins, oh my goodness! High Republic at last!

Didn't call out any of the companies in particular (Activision, Ubisoft, et al), but fair play to Keighley for his impassioned speech on how harassment, predatory actions, and other disgusting things we've heard about happening way too much and in an increasing manner has no place in gaming. He got a lot of flak recently for not speaking up, but this is as close as he can get I guess without cutting ties. Now here we go

Well, there it is: Hisuian Voltorb confirmed!