Julius

Digital Foundry's analysis of last week's Showcase footage is up:

The Indiana Jones films have been added to Disney+ ahead of The Dial of Destiny's theatrical release next month:

Free monthly games at the Essential tier for June are NBA 2K23, Jurassic World Evolution 2, and Trek to Yomi: Was really excited for Trek to Yomi leading up to its release before hearing some middling things about it around launch, but hey, if it's a monthly game, guess I've got a good excuse to give it a go!

Yeah, definitely use it! It's pretty OP when you figure out just how crazy Recall is, just be careful with getting it caught on corners when moving platforms around and it's a godsend. Think the first time I used it was on one of the sluice puzzles on the Great Sky Island, put a huge smile on my face That's good to hear at least! I didn't have so much an issue with going the same way around, but more with having to uproot myself from my current path and go in a completely direction to get something, but I guess it's not essential so I'll just stick to my original plan Jumping in here to talk about the game definitely has me wanting to get back to it, which is good, because I was a little worried I might've drifted from it like I did at one point with BOTW

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts! I've not really been keeping tabs on this game as I don't have any real history with dungeon crawlers (and especially Western developed ones), but I know a lot of the discussion around the game has it being a GOTY contender on the fringes (seem to be getting a whole lot of those this year!), so like with Street Fighter, it's one I'm definitely giving the side-eye. You know me, I'm open to playing pretty much anything – which Diablo would you recommend I check out first if I wanted to try one out? Or would you maybe recommend holding fire and seeing how IV pans out?

The reviews for this came in yesterday and it's currently sitting at a 92 on Metacritic. Some reviews: Absolutely insane, Capcom now have two 90+ rated games on Metacritic for the year (the other being 93 for RE4 Remake). I know Metacritic certainly isn't the be all and end all on quality, but it's definitely a good way to gauge what the general feeling is about a game, and it seems like this is going to be coming hot out of the gates – just hope Capcom's plans for support keep it there, it's so important these days for a game like this to not rest on its laurels. Won't be there at launch but definitely going to be considering picking this up during the Black Friday sales later on in the year

Coming to PC on 26th July 2023 courtesy of an Insomniac and Nixxes collaboration: Great get for PC, had a lot of fun with this and still one of the few titles to really feel next-gen for me so far.

Haven't really chimed in on the game, because outside of the first weekend with it when I put in over 30 hours, I haven't really gone back to it consistently. I'll save cohesive thoughts for when it's done I think (uncovered about a third of the map from central to NW, but got plenty of pins down that I want to visit), but overall, I've been loving it. I'll give some quick thoughts. I much prefer the new powers to the ones in BOTW, I feel like there are less unknowns for something like Recall compared with the Remote Bombs (range, timing, etc.), and so it just feels tighter when it comes to using those powers for me, and much more direct and purposeful when I do use those power. I will say that Recall + Ultrahand is super OP in shrines and the like, super early on at the Great Sky Island I found myself smoothly moving things around with Ultrahand, then just jumping on and using Recall to skip completing some puzzles the "intended" way in favour of just using a platform as an elevator instead. Works for anywhere with a high ledge and multiple platforms to move. One of my favourite boss fights that I've encountered so far heavily depended on using the new powers, which I loved! Also, I don't know if it's just me and my consistently inconsistent commitment to the game, but I've forgotten on a few occasions that I have Ascend, such as one time in a cave where I started to backtrack and then 90% of the way back to the entrance went "oh...hold on a sec, I can just use Ascend" anyways, in short: puzzles have been great. What's been weird to me is noticing some of the QoL improvements made being inconsistently applied, maybe I'm misremembering, but things like getting the option to drop a sword or shield when picking one up from a chest I can't remember being it BOTW? Which is a cool addition in TOTK...until you realise it's not an option outside of those circumstances, so going around picking things up after an enemy and spamming 'A' means you're still met with a message saying you don't have enough space for it. Which I guess brings me onto how this game sort of half solves some of my problems with the first, but doesn't go all the way. For me this is seen with things like Fuse and storage, where both honestly just bring about the same issue that was around in BOTW when it comes to the game kind of turning into an item management bonanza. Also seen it rightly mentioned in here that there's no way to fuse items into weapons with what's already on your person, which just seems like an odd choice, think they could've done something similar with how you fuse items to arrows, but maybe DLC? Which reminds me to bring up the lack of the Hero's Path, it's not a massive complaint, but getting that in BOTW DLC was wonderful, so taking it away to - I would assume - bring it back in TOTK DLC is a bit frustrating, because it lowers the QoL compared to the completed form of BOTW. Small aside: I'm playing with the Pro HUD, so thankfully can't see it, but I can't believe the coordinates were kept on the small corner map as shown in the footage from Aonuma's powers showcase. That stuff looks hilariously amateur and tacked on. In terms of the story, enjoying it much more this time around, it feels like there's a lot more taking place and the game does a better job of leading you to those important quests and storylines I feel than BOTW did. The geoglyphs basically fix the problem with memories in the first game depending on images to find a certain location, so you can now spot them from a mile away, but I'm not sure if I wanted them to return in any form when it comes to TOTK. Also, before I get too far in the story, I feel like my early prediction based on the game's opening is coming to pass but I'll put it down here... Anyways, playing through it, I think it's superior to BOTW but doesn't necessarily fix it's perceived problems (many of which I would agree with). It's just more, a whole lot more, and I think justifies the price hike seen in some territories, to be honest. Like in BOTW, the level of exploration - the main draw for me being how experiential it all is - is just bananas (mighty bananas). There's so much to see and do that they didn't advertise, and really early I latched on to a certain item on the Great Sky Island and wondered if they were doing what I thought they were with its ability...and they did. And then some. It's really silly. Nintendo are silly geese. So for me it's one of the best games in its class, like BOTW, for exploration for me...but I think combat in general is sorely lacking. I thought the same in BOTW, but there just isn't enough to it. Does there need to be? Maybe not. But I think the only thing - besides minor nitpicks and returning issues from the last game - major that I'd take issue with TOTK is how stale the combat is compared to just how rich and refined other areas of the game feel. If someone wants to take Bloodborne style combat and fuse it with BOTW/TOTK's exploration I seriously think that would be the pinnacle of what can be achieved in a game like this.

News of the RGG Summer Summit (16/06/23 @ 04:00 BST) has landed, which means we also get to learn the winner of the hostess contest for Gaiden and 8...and it's Kson! Massive in the Vtuber/content creation space (English and Japanese bilingual, so she's got massive reach!) and she's a huge fan of the series, so it'll be awesome to see her in the games!

Ryu Ga Gotoku (Yakuza/Like A Dragon, Judgment) have announced they will be a hosting their very own RGG Summit - Summer 2023 on Friday 16th June 2023 @ 12:00 JST (that's 04:00 BST for us Brits): Gaiden is still scheduled for release this year, so surely we see some news on that, and with Like A Dragon 8 scheduled for next year, maybe we'll get a little something for that too?

Factions has seemingly been delayed internally, with Naughty Dog putting out a statement that the game needs more time in development. More on that below. They've also announced that they're working on a "brand-new single-player experience" (Naughty Dog? Never! But yeah, this was obviously expected, and Neil teased that something else was cooking over there a little while back). I would guess this isn't Part III but a new IP, purely based on the wording and that I feel the best way to shut down concerns for the franchise with this Factions news would have been to announce Part III in any capacity (if it was being worked on). Further to this news about Factions, though, Bloomberg and Schreier once again seem to have the scoop on what's been going on...and it doesn't sound good. Coming up on three years since the launch of The Last of Us Part II and in a few months that launch of the PS5, and we've yet to see the reveal of anything original from Naughty Dog for the console – particular wording used here because of course they put out Part I, the remake of the original game, last year, as well as the next-gen versions of Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy in the Legacy of Thieves Collection, but the former project didn't start at Naughty Dog, and it was widely believed that neither project was a studio-wide effort, what with Factions and their single-player project in development. It's crazy to think that we're coming up on three years of the PS5 and we still have no original announcement for the console from Naughty Dog, PlayStation's premier studio. I'm happy to wait and trust that whatever they turn out will be quality, but it's yet another feather in the cap of doubters about PlayStation's recently adopted GaaS-oriented strategy. Got to imagine there'll be something, even if just another piece of concept art, released for Factions or Part III - any TLOU news at all - for the game's 10th anniversary this year.

So, uh, yeah, I guess it's Dragon Quest Day, so for the 25th anniversary of the series this video was put out – ending with the reveal that a new entry in the series is in development for the Nintendo Switch! That music is charming as all heck, as is what I've seen and heard about the Monsters games. Definitely going to be keeping an ear to the ground on this one!

So this is releasing 28th September 2023! Seemed to drop pretty randomly, but I think the 35th anniversary was roughly this time last year, so I'm guessing this is an anniversary announcement? Still waiting on XII news but this visually looks fantastic

Might be more excited for Netflix's next quarterly report than Nintendo's at this rate, in sure their number of cancellations are about to skyrocket. Seen some suggest that if you are cancelling to just state you travel for work months at a time and so lose access to Netflix to mess with their figures a bit. But seriously, talk about shooting yourself in the foot, though, this is like watching a painfully slow train crash in realtime. I actually cancelled my Netflix subscription a couple of months ago because I realised I was using it more to re-watch things for the umpteenth time rather than watch new things, and to be honest, I then realised that there just wasn't enough new scheduled to keep me interested; and when I was occasionally interested in something, there's so much crap on there now that the quality stuff is easily buried also got to mention the silly amount of emails I've had from them since cancelling – Netflix are 100% the crazy ex-girlfriend! Wouldn't blame anyone for keeping it if they still use it a lot, though, there's so much on there that other than their dumb new policies it is still a decent enough deal, I just don't think it's programming is for me (and I'm getting to a point where I'm fine just picking up box sets of the few shows left on there I still want to check out). Can't help but wonder how far we put from cable-like deals which package a bunch of these streaming services together, I know Disney+ took a hit and so there's talk about them packaging ESPN and Disney+ together in more territories. I do find it funny that in a time when most industries are dominated by three, maybe four, big players, that there seems to be dozens of streaming services that all seem to think they can grab a decent enough mindshare and justify their existence. Certainly some that fill specific niches, like anime and classic movie services, but there's just way too much schlock out there on top of that. Kind of feels like we're on course for a content crash when some of these services realise that they can't afford to keep pumping millions in like Netflix did a few years ago, not to mention the writer's strike

This deal is getting better all the time! The game's page is now up on the PlayStation Store, and with it come some more details: including confirmation about the versions of the games included, as well as the news that Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake are also packed in! An awesome update, and there we have it: the complete and definitive HD Collection versions of the games (so, Subsistence and Substance confirmed) I'm guessing since it's how it worked in MGS3 HD that Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2 are going to be included from that menu and not separate installs? Think I'm going to need to get a shift on and play through Peace Walker, Ground Zeroes and V before this collection drops and then revisit it all from the beginning never did get around to Metal Gear or Metal Gear 2!

Played it a few years ago on my PS3 and I think it was pause the game, press the PS button to bring up the XMB, then switching to the second controller? Unless that would be a shortcut to do that? Not sure, and I do think it falls short of the desired effect, but then again, my first time going through some classics on the PS3, nothing was smooth sailing. Like having to create a virtual memory card Honestly wouldn't surprise me if it was an in-game option through the pause menu seeing as, system-wide, I think getting a standalone Player 2 on modern consoles is a bit of a hassle (if you can do it at all, that is, because I have no idea when it comes to the PS5, and the idea in my head seems like it wouldn't work because of how other sign-in home menus work). I'm curious to see if they do have Mantis reading your "memory card" this time, too, considering that Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and (hopefully) Suikoden will both be out on modern consoles by then, but given this is Konami, I could see them giving it a complete pass. I think I remember reading something about the PC version skipping that dialogue?

I mean, based on the wording on the official site, that's what I feel like they might be hinting at. Both MGS2 and MGS3 talk about Substance and Subsistence being later releases... Weird way to phrase things on a page about a collection of remasters that show no gameplay screenshots, that's for sure. MGS makes no mention of Integral or Twin Snakes, though I guess that's not too surprising, seeing as this isn't a Twin Snakes remaster and Integral is the version of the game synonymous with the name over here in the west (and I had no idea it existed before now) where I feel the series had a wider reaching impact. There's no way they're stupid enough to have these be the original unaltered versions...right? Then again, this is Konami... Yeah, considering that Bluepoint's HD Collection originally released on PS3/Xbox 360 brought things up to 720p/60fps, I'm going to be shocked and very disappointed if these aren't 1080p/60fps versions of the games. We definitely shouldn't be downgrading back to the original versions of the games over a decade from that collection's release, so there's no way they're stupid enough to have these be the original unaltered versions...right? Then again, this is Konami...

I didn't expect them to blow their complete proverbial load here, but I feel like I'm on the complete opposite end of this. To explain, the games we've got from PlayStation Studios since the launch of PS5, I think have been consistently high quality – but the quantity in terms of volume of first party releases has, for me, been a bit of a letdown. Part of that might be joining last gen two years in and using the five years that followed as a comparison point may not be entirely fair, especially with COVID as a factor, which I think is more than enough of a reason for major first party releases being quite sparse. So, if anything, I expected things to pick up here, not slow down - as I feel they should be nearly 3 years into the PS5's life, but maybe bolstered by projects that might be further along potentially being impacted by COVID (again, always willing to give benefit of the doubt when it comes to an unprecedented global pandemic). Again, I don't think my expectations were too wild going in - Spidey 2 was already slated for Fall 2023, we were told to expect Factions news sometime this year (so far we have, what, a piece or two of concept art? Hard to think anything but that the game's dev wasn't entirely rebooted following Part II's release at this point), Asobi and Bluepoint have been quiet since the launch of the PS5 so they seemed like fair game too. Maybe one additional surprise to really get us on top of that could've really brought this thing home. The thing is, we know those teams are working on things, as well as other studios under the PlayStation Studios roof, so at this point, the scary thing is that it seemed like a determined choice, not a lack of games being deep in dev, that meant more wasn't shown. I mean, they closed the show on a game we've known about for 1½ years already with no date (despite it being slated for release in the next 6 months...again), that's a huuuuuuuuuge letdown in terms of what these presentations aimed at fans are about (generating hype and grabbing mindshare). So getting a bunch of CGI trailers for GaaS games on top of that, besides Helldivers 2 (the only other first party game I think had a decent showing), for me it felt like a letdown. Obviously don't mean to take away from your enjoyment of it if you came away with plenty you're excited for, though, but I guess I'd agree with you saying it felt more like an Indie+ Showcase, which is fairly rough going after a year and a half without a Showcase! Yeah, it was...bizarre. Especially seeing that, in this take on Spider-Man, it's the first time we've seen a place in the world outside of NYC, I think? It feels less expansive and, to me at least, just made me imagine Kraven and his group being on a tropical island that's turned up off the coast of NY more than making the world feel bigger

Feel like I need to chime in...because that was a rough showing, and maybe one of the weakest PlayStation Showcases on the first party side of things. I tuned in with some friends in a party to share the hype and there was so little to get hyped about that one of my friends was saying he'll probably just pass on streaming the next Showcase after this and the last one were pretty poor (but at least the last one had more pertinent first party releases). Cool to start seeing stuff from PlayStation's acquired studios, but man, they weren't fantastic showings. I'm sorry Haven, but Fairgame$ (terrible name) looks destined to be dead within a year of its launch based on the CG trailer – it just looks so bland. Helldivers 2 looks like it could be dumb fun, nice to see some actual gameplay here, and fighting big Monster Hunter-style aliens with guns seems inherently like a good time, but that also just doesn't seem destined for long-term success. I'm already down and out on PlayStation's new objective of focusing on GaaS - as if I was ever onboard to begin with - but man, this is too much talent to waste on games seemingly destined to be buried in 12-18 months. To jump ahead, Concord, Firewalk's game, got a 45 second CG teaser which showed nothing but sci-fi and maybe inferred a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe...but is slated to be releasing next year? Seriously? Urgh. Immortals of Aveum was already announced, still looks pretty stupid. Ghostrunner II...eh. Phantom Blade Zero probably stole the show for me, I'm a bit nervous about having never heard of the devs before and the scale isn't so clear, but the combat looks fun as heck, as does the samurai steampunk vibe. Very, very into that. Sword of the Sea straight up stole the archway bridge from Shadow of the Colossus and one of the colossi designs and merged it with Abzu and Journey (same artist). Neat enough, piqued my interest. The Talos Principle II got a decent trailer, but honestly, I'm hard out on most first-person games unless they're shooters, because they seem to want to give me headaches, so...yeah, probably pass on this also first-person laser puzzles, nah I'm good Neva, by the creators of Gris, looks lovely...if a little on the depressing side, if this trailer is anything to go by. Also the wolf hilariously just takes all it can from Princess Mononoke, it's basically the designs of Moro and the Forest Spirit fused Cat Quest: Pirates of the Purribean piqued my interest as someone who knows of but hasn't played the earlier Cat Quest games, might need to look into doing so as I didn't realise they were so charming! Foamstars - Splatoon by Square Enix with the traditionally generic F2P character designs - looks like it'll be another GaaS dead within a year. Alright, The Plucky Squire still looks delightful. Teardown on PS5? Cool. Seen plenty of talk about it back when it release on PC. Not really for me. MGS Delta: Snake Eater was probably the most hyped I got the entire show, I joked that it was a first-person ant game but as soon as the bird picked up that dead frog and flew away, then landed on that mangrove-looking plant, I was going to my friends "oh there about to be a snake up in here and it's going to eat that bird, this is 1000% Snake Eater!", and surely enough, it was the much leaked and talked about Snake Eater remake. What a damn flat as hell trailer that was, especially for a remake of a game of this calibre, and made even worse by the fact that we all knew it was coming! Nice to hear the song again but I genuinely think a remake of the Snake Eater intro would have been better than this, it just didn't do anything to convince those of us who already love the original by now showing anything, and did absolutely nothing to sell new players on the game either...so who the heck was that for? I now face an uphill battle in convincing my friends to be excited for a game I genuinely think they'd enjoy, but how can I say that with confidence when I know nothing about the remake? The MGS: Master Collection Vol. 1 with MGS, MGS2 and MGS3 is awesome, coming in Autumn and I'll pick that up like the Suikoden collection to show my support. Should've shown some footage imo, but I felt that way about most of the games in the Showcase. Towers of Aghasba...eh. Final launch trailer for Final Fantasy XVI was cool. Super unnecessary because I feel like we've still somehow seen too much and too little of that game, but less than a month to go, so that was hype, and one of my friends told me he's downloaded Final Fantasy VII Remake after I recommended it for the insane anime BS and music while watching this and half-convinced my other friend to check it out, so that was cool. Alan Wake II getting Keanu Reeves was pretty funny, especially with how much they seemingly wanted to throw him into cyberpunk-looking shots. Assassin's Creed Mirage looks more like old AC than it does new AC, so that's good I guess. Revenant Hill looks charming, still need to check out Night in the Woods but this might be a prequel or something I'm guessing? Granblue Fantasy Relink finally got a release window (Winter) for this year! Been waiting a loooooooong time for this, so I'm excited, but also half expecting a delay to early 2024! Street Fighter 6 I checked out on a bit, always super curious about fighting games but they just never seem to keep me as interested as the first trailer manages to. Ultros has a neat art style, not really interested. Tower of Fantasy is clearly an answer to Genshin that I'm sure will be hot for a minute, find it's gacha crowd, and then go dead quiet. We finally got to see Dragon's Dogma II in action, which was pretty cool! I am actually half interested in this, so let's see how it turns out. Fully checked out for VR2 stuff, nothing super interesting there, but just want to acknowledge how cool RE4 looks in VR. Marathon looks like a GaaS that isn't destined to flop immediately but does have an absolutely atrocious name. Project Q could be cool if you could download games to it and transfer saves between console and handheld, but with it being streaming-only, eh, I can do that on my Steam Deck, so unless we hear that it's somehow flawless, I'll probably pass. Think this will be a flop if it comes in at any more than £200 with how the Switch and Series S are priced. The earbuds though? I'm fully in for those, the Pulse headset gets way too warm after a couple of hours and I love my XM4 earbuds, so give me that level of comfort in the foam tips, decent enough battery life for a long gaming session, and a half decent mic, and I'll be over the moon that my ears aren't burning - hoping this isn't crazy expensive and comes in at no more than £150, hopefully closer to £100 tbh. Lastly, Spider-Man 2 started off by trying to look like Wolverine (bad move imo) before having us worry that we were only getting a Kraven intro (another bad move imo) before then finally getting to some gameplay which, well...looked like more Spider-Man, but somehow a bit worse? Idk if it was the UI but it just didn't feel like a great showing, obviously there's a lot of compression with the stream but the symbiote suit didn't look great, and unlike the gameplay reveal we got for Miles which gave us a whole new vibe and showed us awesome new abilities...this just felt like more Spider-Man, and did a bad job for me of trying to justify being PS5 exclusive? I'm not quite seeing it. Do hope the symbiote suit adds extra attacks to your chain that you don't input as Peter loses sense of things, though, that'd be neat. Still expect to love the game, but yeah, just didn't feel like it sold me on anything new, and I was already in anyways. No release date though? That hurt. I know they've done it before where they've given a window and then just put out a date in the PS Blog, but not giving a date - not even a month? - when it's coming out sometime between the start of September and end of November this year is really odd, especially with it surely being attached to the SpiderVerse ads next week. So let's count this out. I'm in Day 1 for Snake Eater, MGS Collection, Final Fantasy XVI, Granblue Fantasy Relink, Spider-Man 2, and the earbuds. All of which I knew about to some extent - 3 of these were already announced and the other 3 were heavily rumoured in the last few months - going into this, so, I mean, no surprises there. I'm super interested in Phantom Blade Zero and it would be Day 1, but I just don't know enough a about the studio to have that level of confidence that it'll turn out great – but if it's even a 7/10, I'm there, because it's my vibe. I'm half interested in Helldivers 2 - that depends almost entirely on its model, is it F2P, premium, mid-priced? No idea - because it looks like it could be some fun with friends, but I otherwise have ZERO interest in PlayStation's games from their other acquired studios making their own big announcements. Also half interested in Neva, The Plucky Squire, Sword of the Sea, Cat Quest: Pirates of the Purribean and Dragon's Dogma II, but that just really depends on how busy I am with other games when they release, the state of their release, and how well they show off in future showings prior to release. Again: big letdown for me this showing, and I'm already seeing people talking about a Showcase in September. Yes, there are games I'm interested in, but I knew about most of them going in already, so Phantom Blade Zero was the big surprise for me here. Look, I'm seeing people disappointed by a lack of GTA VI and Bloodborne anything - to which I say, well, you did that to yourself - but I'm really disappointed by the first party showing here. I don't even think I was expecting anything too crazy. We got told to expect TLOU Factions news this year, so why not here, one last chance at striking while the metaphorical TLOU is dead hot? We haven't seen anything from Asobi or Bluepoint since the PS5 launched, and we're now over 2½ years removed from that and have no idea what they're up to. There are plenty of other studios with other things in the works, sure, but that first party was limited to Spider-Man 2, THREE GaaS announcements by acquired studios, and, I'm going to be honest, a complete waste of time 45 second CGI announcement trailer for Firewalk's new game? I'm interested in 1½ of the 5 games the showed (I'm going to do them a kindness and not quite count Destiny in this, otherwise it'd be 6). Urgh, I haven't even mentioned that they brought a trailer for the Gran Turismo trailer to this thing... I wasn't going to score this, because I'm watching fewer game events these days (there are too many and, outside of Nintendo, too varied in quality) so it feels a bit redundant, but I feel it needs to be done for how poor a showing it was: 3.5/10. PlayStation have clearly forgotten how to put on a show. Yeah, said it when it was announced, said it in this post already, but I'll say it again: hoo boy is PlayStation's GaaS-focused approach already looking to hurt so much of the goodwill built with the PS4's single player catalog. We're coming up on 3 years of the PS5 and it doesn't seem like anyone has really got going over there outside of what was originally announced with the console back in 2020, and I'm not saying that's the case, but that's what they make it seem like. They could come back in September or some other time and blow it out of the water - we already know that there's a bunch being worked on, so it's not crazy to think that there's stuff to show, even if it's a while out - but, for now, I'm scratching my head and asking myself why on earth they chose to go first? With no Nintendo Direct seemingly planned for this Not-E3 season, in terms of the big events (so not a smaller Square Enix thing like we had last year), it's looking like a battle of mediocrity between Xbox and Summer Game Fest for who "wins" (spoiler: with a bad PlayStation showing and seemingly no Nintendo showing coming up, we've already lost) this summer, and Xbox surely wins by default anyways purely because they aren't going to be filling their show with a stupid number of ads like SGF will. I guess the trade-off is that at least SGF has the potential to end on a banger of a reveal, whereas Xbox is pretty backed up in terms of announcements, so... Like I said: we've already lost, and the worst part is, I think we all know it. Now to start counting down to next year, I guess, because at least Nintendo might have a new console and a slew of new games to throw our way, and maybe PlayStation can do us all a favour and sack Jim Ryan? Please? I miss Shawn and the boys

Deserved a bit more attention than it got in the Showcase, but alas, another MGS Collection is on its way, starting with Metal Gear Solid, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater as part of Volume 1, releasing in Autumn 2023. No word on Volume 2 or what will come with it, but it sounds like it's very much in the works to release during the series' 35th anniversary celebrations: Well, MGS lives and breathes, and OG Snake Eater isn't getting buried below the remake either. Wonder how Kojima is going to be treated in the credits for this collection? Switch video:

Eh, I'm not, at all Been following news on this game for a good while now, and while it's kept getting pushed further and further back, I never got the sense that it would be outright cancelled after it was left in active development following Platinum's departure. I think if there was ever a time to shut up shop it would have been then, but instead, they doubled down and put the graft in. I'm curious where Cygames stands on AAA Granblue after this, got to imagine the sales will be a big tell. Do they want to make a sequel, or was this always planned to just be a standalone? It definitely felt at one point like they wanted to push this to be up there alongside Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest as one of the bigger console JRPGs in Japan, but since Platinum left, I definitely feel like they aren't quite as committed to that coming to fruition as they might have been for. Yeah, I'm curious to see how much of that Platinum flavour remains too, because while it's been said that the bulk of what Platinum made remains, it's definitely and looked less and less like a Platinum game - at least, most noticeably, in its combat - so I've got to imagine that might have been said mainly in reference to models and other assets?

Generic release window of Fall 2023 it is, then Before we had reason to believe it was coming in September with the VA leak, and now we have reason to believe it is coming between September and November. Woo. (looks like more Spidey so I'm in at least)