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Ubisoft allegedly cancelled plans for a new Assassin’s Creed game set in in the aftermath of the American Civil War last year, with online moaning about Assassin’s Creed Shadows co-protagonist Yasuke and concerns over the volatility of the modern day US political climate being cited as reasons.
Death Stranding and Metal Gear series creator Hideo Kojima recently revealed how repeated visits to the 1970 World Expo (Expo ‘70) as a child had a “life-changing” impact on him, profoundly shaping his outlook as a game developer. In a separate piece, the legendary video game auteur shared how he had a very different experience of the current Expo 2025.
As spotted by Automaton, the 62-year-old Kojima wrote an essay for An-An magazine detailing how Expo ’70 shaped his worldview: “Without that Expo, I wouldn’t have developed my future-oriented and globalized outlook. Metal Gear and Death Stranding would not have come into being.”
Osaka hosted the Expo ’70, with 76 countries and 32 organizations participating (source: Expo ’70 Commemorative Park official website). Kojima said that at the time he had just started elementary school and lived near the event site. This gave him the opportunity to visit the Expo many times.
“I could even go after school on weekdays,” he recalled, borrowing his dad’s brand new camera (the Ricoh Auto Half Expo ’70 Model) and snapping loads of photos. “Whenever you entered a pavilion, you received a badge,” he remembered, adding that children proudly showed off their collections to each other.
The main theme of Expo ’70 was ‘Progress and Harmony for Mankind.’ It even had its own theme song — Haruo Minami’s ‘Sekai no kuni kara konnichiwa’ (Hello from the countries of the world), which Kojima quoted in his essay — with lyrics that focus on saying “hello” and “holding hands” across countries and borders (the song is on YouTube with English subtitles).
“At the Expo, I experienced ‘Progress and Harmony for Mankind’ up close. I said ‘hello’ and ‘shook hands’ with (avant-garde artist) Taro Okamoto, (sci-fi novelist) Sakyo Komatsu, (architects) Kenzo Tange and Kisho Kurokawa, and (fashion designers) Junko Koshino and Hanae Mori. It was all a shocking ‘close encounter of the third kind,'” Kojima remembered. “Technology, science, design, fashion, history, the world, culture, society. You could say that that ‘hello’ back then shaped who I became. ‘Shaking hands’ with the Expo changed my life and my vision of the future.”
Kojima explained that “the Expo’s greatness wasn’t just in the glimpses it offered of cutting-edge technology and the daily life of the future. It showed me the global diversity of nations, ethnicities, races, religions, customs, and histories. It embodied the essence of ‘past and future’ and ‘the world and harmony.’ Without that Expo, I wouldn’t have developed my future-oriented and globalized outlook. Metal Gear and Death Stranding would not have come into being.”
One of the major attractions of Expo ’70 was the Moon Rock at the U.S. pavilion, which had been brought back from the Moon by Apollo 12 astronauts the previous year. Despite his many visits, Kojima said that “unfortunately, the U.S. pavilion, where I’d hoped to see the Moon Rock, was too crowded, so I never got to see it with my own eyes.” He also recalled waiting over two hours to get into the U.S.S.R pavilion.
But what does Kojima feel about the current Expo 2025 that is being held in Osaka, and how did his experience compare? In a follow-up essay published in An-An, Kojima wrote about visiting Expo 2025 on a very rainy day, camera in tow again: “I wanted to see for myself how ‘globalism’ and ‘visions of the future’ have changed over the past 55 years, and how the baton will be passed on (to future generations).” However, the experience gave Kojima a “strange feeling.”
The developer explained: “I didn’t get that sense of a tremendous future like I did as a child (at Expo ’70). It wasn’t thrilling or exciting. Just a ceaseless, predictable tomorrow stretching on and on. It wasn’t that there was no ‘future’ — rather that I couldn’t ascertain the next ‘tomorrow’ for myself. The ‘future’ I dreamed of at that (1970) Expo — I’ve already experienced most of it. Robots, videophones and moving walkways have become commonplace. The tomorrow that this (2025) Expo promotes is one that children will witness.
Kojima gave the opinion that World Expos are primarily for children, as they are the ones who will take mankind into the future. Whether the futuristic designs at the 2025 Expo will be representative of what the real future will be is “something old people can never know.” However, Kojima added that he enjoyed the Expo: “Although I will not be able to experience this future firsthand, I plan to go again.”
Any player of Metal Gear Solid or Death Stranding doesn’t have to look far to see how both series feature diverse casts of characters, with stories often set in the near future that grapple with both the tremendous possibilities and dangers of technology. MGS1 explored genetic engineering and the concept of gene-therapy enhanced soldiers, MGS2 delved into the dangers of internet censorship and human-sounding AI chatbots (making it an interesting revisit in 2025), while MGS4 showed a mech-filled future in which paramilitary conglomerates wage endless wars for profit.
With its Chiral Network, Death Stranding holds up a mirror to the benefits and dangers of the internet and digital society, and the struggle to reconnect a fragmented, post-apocalyptic world. Legacy and passing on the future to subsequent generations are also big Kojima themes, and it seems they were shaped by his childhood experiences of Expo ’70.
As a side note, the Expo ’70 site is still open to the public today, although all the pavilions that awed the young Kojima have since been demolished. Now called the Expo’70 Commemorative Park, it still features the event’s symbolic Tower of the Sun, a sculpture by Taro Okamoto.
Photo by Phillip Faraone/Getty Images for Kojima Productions.
Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance writer who previously served as editor, contributor and translator for the game news site Automaton West. She has also written about Japanese culture and movies for various publications.
A patch has also supposedly been released.
Pokémon Legends: Z-A for Switch and Switch 2 launches next week on 16th October 2025, and ahead of this highly anticipated release, there’s been a few developments…
Firstly, if you’ve purchased a digital copy of the title from the eShop, the preload should now (or at least soon) be showing up on your system’s HOME Menu. As a reminder, the Switch version of this game can also be redeemed with a game voucher in select regions. And Nintendo will be offering a paid Switch 2 upgrade for the original release as well.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Mario & Wario, Bubsy and Fatal Fury Special!
Nintendo has this week added three titles to its Switch Online SNES library. These games include Mario & Wario (requiring mouse controls), Bubsy in: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind and Fatal Fury Special.
Three classic Super NES titles will be release on Super Nintendo – Nintendo Classics!
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
You could not pay me to go to the moon, I think. I’m glad Mr. Armstrong and Buzz Lightyear had a good time up there, but that place is scary! It’s just a massive, dark rock! But in the case of Dark Moon, an upcoming survival strategy game that just got a release date, that darkness is your friend, because if you want to survive on the moon, you’ve got to protect yourself from that hot, hot orb in the sky called the sun.
Everybody makes mistakes! That’s life, really, a constant series of tiny mistakes that are sometimes good ones, sometimes bad ones, occasionally purposeful, often not. Here’s one that was very much not purposeful: Pico Park: Classic Edition, a delightful co-op puzzle platformery game you’ve almost definitely seen a bunch of Twitch streamers play during COVID lockdown, is now permanently free.
Are you able to picture things in your head? Try it, right now, we’ll go for the classic thing to picture, an apple. If you can’t see diddly squat, you’ve potentially got aphantasia, a condition which is essentially the inability to visualise an image within your head. It’s interesting to me because I feel I’m on the opposite end of it, I can picture that apple pretty darn clearly. With that in mind, it makes me all the more curious about Afantasia, spelled with an f not a ph, a “surreal exploration game about a boy searching for identity in his hometown.”
Let’s split.
A short while back, I looked at the Hautepad X, Cosmox Gaming’s premium arcade controller that boasts modular components for a highly customisable experience – with an equally high price to boot.
For those who might not be on board with such an ambitious product but still want to see why Cosmox has been garnering praise in the fighting game community, the C16 and C16-S might be more up your alley.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The anime MMORPG Blue Protocol: Star Resonance is out on October 9, and it’s arriving with plenty to do. Whether you’re interested in digging deep into the grind and challenges or just want to know how to get started, Maxroll’s comprehensive Blue Protocol: Star Resonance guide can help you every step of the way.
Maxroll has spent the last few months creating detailed yet beginner-friendly guides for every major BPSR system. A great place to start is the Beginner’s Guide, which introduces you to the core mechanics of the game with detailed explanations and tips. If you’d like a character progression roadmap for your first few weeks, the Game Plan for Weeks 1-4 is an ideal companion.
At launch, Blue Protocol: Star Resonance features eight classes, built around the traditional trio of Tank, DPS, and Healer. Each class branches into two specializations, offering unique playstyle variations. Maxroll’s BPSR Class Build Guides break down the ins and outs of each role and class:
You can also experiment with Maxroll’s Build Planner, then share your creations with the community in the Community Builds section!
Like any MMO, you’ll need to hone your skills and upgrade your gear to take on tougher challenges. To learn the basics of gear progression and upgrades, start with these two guides:
Few experiences in MMOs rival the thrill of conquering dungeons and defeating powerful bosses. For casual players, Normal and Hard difficulty dungeons and raids are designed to be accessible and rewarding, without hours-long grinds.
Those looking for a greater challenge can test themselves in Master difficulty, which demands preparation, communication, and mastery of boss mechanics.
Start your journey with Maxroll’s General Dungeon Guide, then dive into the dedicated Dungeon Guide section for each encounter.
Explore how to best approach BPSR daily and weekly tasks with Maxroll’s guide, and then when you’re ready to try something new, check out these other helpful guides to make sure you get the most out of the game’s side content:
These are only a few of the side activities you’ll find on your journey in Star Resonance. Make use of the guides on Maxroll before you embrace the true end content of this game: Fashion!
Written by IGN Staff with help from Maxroll.
Amazon’s Prime Big Deal Days finish today after a shorter run than in July, but the retailer isn’t the only one with deals to go around.
Target’s Circle Week, which offers deals for anyone who’s a Target Circle member (it’s $99 a year or $10.99 annually), has sales on Apple tech, LEGO, and even Magic: The Gathering cards and video games. Here are our picks.
Kicking off with a doozy, you can get this LEGO Star Wars Darth Vader Helmet for under $50 with Target’s deals. It’s an 834-piece build, so is ideal for intermediate builders, and shows off arguably the most iconic helmet in cinematic history (seriously, who comes close other than Stormtroopers?).
Target also has some Apple tech deals. The Apple Watch Series 10 is down to just over $300 now that the Series 11 is here, and considering the new model adds very little on top of what the Series 10 offers, it’s well worth that if you want a device that’s a seamless extension of your current iPhone.
Next up for Apple, there’s a $100 discount on the ridiculously powerful iPad Pro M4. I’ll be honest, there’s a good chance an M5 version arrives in a few weeks, but this is a phenomenally powerful tablet that can take advantage of iOS 26’s new features like multitasking and more Mac-like features.
The Apple deals continue, with half off the Beats Studio Pro over-ear headphones, and 32% off the AirPods Pro 2, although expect the latter to get cheaper for Black Friday since the third-generation ones are out.
Next up, you can get a compact Anker Power Bank for $14.99, saving around $10 – ideal for charging your phone while out and about.
Next up Target is running a Buy 2, Get One Free promotion across books, movies, music, and uh, Funko Pop figurines. If you’ve been lacking in any of those areas, now’s the time to splurge, with books like the recently released Alchemised, movies like Moana 2 and Thunderbolts, and more included.
PS5 gamers can pick up some first-party exclusives on the cheap, too. The Last of Us Part 1 and Gran Turismo 7 both see 56% discounts, dropping to $29.99 each.
Finally (ha!) the Final Fantasy Limit Break Commander Deck is now cheaper than MSRP. This is the one that’s tended to hold its value since launch in June, and it’s now reduced by 22% – and you don’t even have to be a Target Circle member for this one, either.
Lloyd Coombes is an experienced freelancer in tech, gaming and fitness seen at Polygon, Eurogamer, Macworld, TechRadar and many more. He’s a big fan of Magic: The Gathering and other collectible card games, much to his wife’s dismay.
