Author: Game Infliction

Batman Arkham Shadow Developer Cites Arkham Asylum as Its ‘North Star’ – Summer Game Fest 2024

Developer Camouflaj (Iron Man VR) and publisher Oculus Studios debuted the first cinematic story trailer for the Meta Quest 3-exclusive Batman: Arkham Shadow at Summer Game Fest today (watch it below), and I talked to Camouflaj studio head Ryan Payton to confirm a number of new gameplay details.

Arkham Shadow, due out in Fall of 2024, is an official part of the Arkham-verse, and it’s set between the events of Arkham Origins and Arkham Asylum. Roger Craig Smith will reprise his Arkham Origins role as Batman, and we’re promised a number of villain origin stories, including Scarecrow and Harley Quinn. Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent, among other public officials, have been abducted, and the mastermind behind it all is the Rat King. He’s pledged to execute them all in a week’s time for “crimes committed against the people of Gotham City,” so it’s up to you as Batman to decide how far you’re willing to go in order to stop these deaths.

[NEW TRAILER EMBED GOES HERE]

Payton promises a full Arkham experience in VR, including a combo-driven freeform combat system, the ability to glide down from above onto unsuspecting enemies below using Batman’s cape for sneak attacks, using Detective Mode from perches above to plan stealth attacks, throwing Batarangs to keep combos going, dropping smoke bombs to get out of trouble, and using Batman’s Grapnel gun to quickly get to the rooftops of Gotham City. The Unity-powered Arkham Shadow isn’t an open-world game like Arkham City or Arkham Knight, and instead draws inspiration for its structure from Rocksteady’s first Batman adventure.

“Batman: Arkham Shadow is very much inspired by Arkham Asylum in terms of scope and scale in terms of also the structure of the game.”

“Batman: Arkham Shadow is very much inspired by Arkham Asylum in terms of scope and scale in terms of also the structure of the game,” Payton told me. “It’s exploration, like you have in Asylum – which includes free-flow locomotion, so using the Grapnel gun to zip over onto things, and do the slide, go through vents. All those elements that you’d expect from an Arkham game; it’s gonna be driven in in large part by the moment-to-moment combat.

“[Our pitch to Warner Bros. was,] We’re gonna take all of that and then we’re gonna completely reimagine it for VR and make it work amazing for VR and actually have it feel like an evolution. So you still have that feeling of doing crowd control, but you’re also getting interrupted with counters and you’re making sure you’re flowing into the counter and doing that. All in first-person, all in VR and making it feel that kind of bone-crushing Arkham combat. It’s going to have boss battles just like all the other Arkham games have, [it’ll have] investigations with Detective Mode. And we’re also going to have big Arkham-like cinematics where you’re going face-to-face in first-person as Batman with these kinds of hard-hitting moments. With these classic DC characters. So that was the pitch and that was almost four years ago, and here we are with the biggest game that Camouflaj has ever made, [and] longest game we’ve ever made. And Arkham Asylum is our North Star.”

Batman: Arkham Shadow was announced last month following the Kevin Conroy’s final performance as Batman in the Arkham-verse in Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, in which many fans didn’t care for how the developer chose to send off the character.

Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.

Wuthering Waves Interactive Map is Now Available

IGN’s Wuthering Waves map is here! Our interactive map tracks every collectible across the world of Solaris-3, including Sonance Caskets, chests, and Resonance Beacons for those who want to farm Astrite. It also displays the locations of Ascension Materials and World Bosses so you know where to go to build your Resonators.

As Wuthering Waves receives updates – with 1.1 arriving on June 28, 2024 – we’ll be adding new content to our WuWa interactive map. Until then, though, make sure you use our map to get yourself caught up and ready for Wuthering Waves Resonators such as Jinhsi and Changli.

Wuthering Waves Interactive Map

The available interactive map filters include:

  • Locations, including Resonance Beacons (yes, that means the elusive Huanglong-Wuming Bay-Corroded Ruins Resonance Beacon!), Tacet Fields, Tactical Holograms, and Forgery Challenges.
  • Collectibles, including Sonance Caskets and Blobflies.
  • Loot, such as Advanced Chests, Premium Chests, and Mutterfly locations so you can farm Astrite quickly.
  • Enemies, such as World Bosses so you know where to farm those all-important Echoes.
  • Ascension Materials, so you can power up your Resonators (including Pecok Flowers).
  • Other notable map markers, such as NPCs and vendors.

Wuthering Waves Codes

While you’re using IGN’s Wuthering Waves interactive map to find loot and earn rewards, make sure you check out the latest Wuthering Waves codes to get even more loot for free.

Codes lead to rewards such as free Astrite and Shell Credit, and resources like Premium Resonance Potions and Medium Revival Inhalers to aid you in your adventure across Solaris-3. Combined with what you can earn by opening chests on the map alone, you can score a whole lotta loot!

Meg Koepp is a Guides Editor on the IGN Guides Team, with a focus on trends. When playing Wuthering Waves, she spends hours grinding out the perfect Echoes for her Jiyan team.

Super Mario RPG Drops to $38.95 at Amazon

Starting today, Amazon has the excellent Super Mario RPG remake for Nintendo Switch for only $38.95. That’s over 30% off the original $60 MSRP and the best price we’ve ever seen. Even better, this game is a physical copy that’s sold and shipped from Amazon direct, not a marketplace vendor.

Super Mario RPG for $38.95

Super Mario RPG is a remake of the 1996 SNES classic. It was one of the best games to grace the console back then amidst a sea of other incredible titles, and Nintendo did a great job of staying faithful to the game’s charm and fun factor. A whole slew of improvements have been implemented to bring this game up to modern day standards, including updated visuals, music, gameplay mechanics, and several small yet welcome quality-of-life UI improvements. Check out our Super Mario RPG review for a detailed rundown of all of the the changes and our official impressions of the game. Still, it’s understandably difficult to pay $60 for a remake no matter how good it is, so a deal like this is certainly welcome.

Looking for more Mario games? Here’s a list of every Mario game for the Nintendo Switch.

Half Sword’s demo is a chivalric edition of Gang Beasts in which people are disemboweled for hats

Stare into an abyss for long enough and, as Nietzsche wrote, a mostly naked man will wobble out of the abyss and try to murder you with a mattock. Inasmuch as can be told in the absence of dialogue or a text preamble, the naked man wants to murder you because you, and not he, are in possession of a hat. The hat makes you look like an eraser pencil from Forbidden Planet. It’s the kind of headgear worn by the kind of criminal Batman’s too grown-up to fight anymore. But it has, nonetheless, roused in this under-dressed stranger a sense of Dionysian frenzy. He will do anything for that hat – hewing your arms off, ripping your intestines out, tearing the skin from your ribcage. And you, in turn, will do anything to rob him of that mattock, because by the gods, it looks a lot more dangerous than the candlestick you’re trying to fend him off with.

There are many such lost souls in the bleak, midnight world of the Half Sword demo – all lurking near candle-lit piles of randomly spawned hammers, stools, barrels, axes and lengths of wood, all subject to unforgivably authentic physics and cursor-based attacks that conspire to transform every scuffle into a Monty Python blooper reel.

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Random: Here’s How Much It Costs To Showcase A Trailer At Summer Game Fest

Hint: it’s quite a bit.

Have you ever wondered how much it would actually cost publishers to showcase a trailer at Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest Opening Showcase? Well, probably not. But you’re here now, which means you’re likely just a little bit curious, right?

Thanks to Esquire (via Eurogamer), the costs for game trailers have been revealed, and it ain’t cheap, folks. Basically, publishers looking to showcase a one-minute trailer will need to fork up $250,000. Add 30 seconds and you’re looking at $350,000. Two minutes is $450,000, and two-and-a-half minutes is $550,000.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Hands On: Replaced is a Stylish Cyberpunk Platformer with an ’80s Cinematic Edge

Hands On: Replaced is a Stylish Cyberpunk Platformer with an ’80s Cinematic Edge

If like me, you’re a sucker for a gritty Cyberpunk setting, then you’re going to love Replaced. Set in alternate version of 1980s America, this action platformer takes us on a journey across Pheonix-City, a dystopian wasteland where greed and corruption rules, and outlaws are rife in the aftermath of an apocalyptic event. This week, I managed to get my hands on a demo of Replaced, and it’s looking incredibly promising.

The preview we played was split into three distinct sections, demonstrating Replaced’s strengths in different areas. In the prologue, I’m introduced to our protagonist, R.E.A.C.H, an artificial intelligence that becomes trapped in a human body during an explosion. Before you’ve had time to question what has happened, R.E.A.C.H and his fleshy prison are faced with the greatest ultimatum – run or die.

This initiates a high-octane chase scene, with R.E.A.C.H having to leap over obstacles and calculate pauses to the nanosecond, lest you be captured or coldly gunned down. This sequence set a tense, unforgiving tone for Replaced – the inputs are simple, but there’s a distinct rhythm to it, and your timing is paramount. However, what really makes this section feel exciting is its gorgeous cinematic transitions; the game flows seamlessly from playable segments to animated cutscenes that feel like an explosive ’80s action movie. Light particles cascade down through trees and seep through large, imposing steel fences as I sprint from my doom – I actually died a few times getting distracted by the scenery. The apex of this chase segment sees me leap from a ledge and into another epic cinematic moment, drenched in cold, Blade Runner-esque colors. True care has gone into making this resonate like a classic action movie, but with an extremely cool pixel art twist.

The meatiest part of the demo sees R.E.A.C.H. arrive at his new home in Phoenix-City, an abandoned train station that’ll also serve as a hub for the game. Here, I met a diverse cast of characters with their own mysterious goings-on, and this is where Replaced’s story begins to shine. Just like the home they share, everyone that R.E.A.C.H meets seems to come with moral complexities and each is doing what they must endure to survive – which is not always obvious to R.E.A.C.H. As an A.I., their comprehension for how characters behave doesn’t always align with their surroundings, which makes for interesting conversations as the story begins to unfold.

Again, I’m met with some incredible designs – as I meander through the station, I pass derelict, crumbling buildings illuminated by rainbow string lights, a neon-soaked ’80s-imbued arcade, and a bustling market with myriad stalls selling odds and ends. One particular street shows me an abundance of potted plants spilling over rusting, metal shelves, set just above a group of stragglers perched on mismatched sofas watching TV. Humans with missing limbs pass me on crutches, others on the shoulders of able-bodied allies, making Replaced’s hub feel truly alive and full of thought. This isn’t just a radical dystopian future where you get be the badass hero, it’s showcasing the misery and resilience of a society trying to get by in uncompromising circumstances.

The final section gives me a taste for the combat, which unsurprisingly also comes with a distinct sense of classic cool. With a series of deftly timed inputs, I disarm an enemy, steal his club and then begin wailing on the rest of the group. I need to use melee attacks in order to charge my gun attack, which allows me to fire off one devastating bullet before the bar is empty again. This is an interesting way to approach combat and again leans back into the aforementioned struggle – you have the skills to feel like a badass, but something like firing a weapon requires work at this stage, and every bullet is well earned.

By the end of the preview, I felt extremely ready to dip into the full release of Replaced and uncover the stories buried within Phoenix City. If Replaced sounds like your retro-futuristic jam, be sure to stay up to date with the game on X (formerly Twitter) at @ReplacedGame.

The post Hands On: Replaced is a Stylish Cyberpunk Platformer with an ’80s Cinematic Edge appeared first on Xbox Wire.

Share of the Week: Hidden

Last week we asked you to share sneaky hidden moments from your favorite games using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s hidden highlights:

TakaSanGames shares Ellie hidden in the bushes in The Last of Us Part II.

BarryPaust shares Wander crouching to hide from a Colossus in Shadow of the Colossus.

thwippip shares a face-painted Aloy hiding behind leaves in Horizon Forbidden West

marka_game shares Jin blending in with the scenery in a unique way in Ghost of Tsushima

Photoingame shares a Na’vi blending in with blue water in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora

Defnotanthonyfr shares the cat from Stray blending into the cluttered surroundings to take a nap

Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?

THEME:  Hogwarts Legacy – Photo Mode
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on June 12, 2024

Next week, a new photo mode feature casts a spell on Hogwarts Legacy. Share moments from your magical journey using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

Sonar Shock turns retro interface friction into a design strength

Sonar Shock is a reminder that some of the best game concepts or settings seem so obvious as soon as you play them.

System Shock on an unreasonably huge submarine on an equally ludicrous trip around the Northeast Passage via Cape Agulhas? With a satirical Soviet setting that isn’t just “lol russia” or “I think Stalker was about machismo and gun attachments”? And a third thing that I’ll get to in a minute because this intro is getting out of control? God yes.

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Limited Edition Hulk Xbox Worth Thousands Donated to UK Charity Shop

A limited edition original Xbox themed after Marvel’s 2003 Hulk film has been donated to a UK charity shop despite being worth thousands.

The British Heart Foundation is selling the console on eBay, where bids have so far risen to more than $2,300 despite the auction not ending until June 15, 2024. The BHF estimated it could bring upwards of $11,000 for the charity, which funds medical research of heart and circulatory diseases and aims to raise public awareness of these issues.

A collaboration between Xbox, the Hulk film, and Pepsi saw 50 of the consoles made to give away to winners of a competition. UK residents tasked with watching Hulk at the cinema, who purchased a Pepsi and popcorn meal deal, received a scratchcard which offered a chance of winning the bright green hardware.

Only 36 people actually won a console, and only around 20 of them are known to exist today, more than two decades later, according to the BHF. The Xbox bears resemblance to a limited edition Mountain Dew console released in the U.S., but as 5,000 of those were made, the Hulk version is much more rare.

The console was confirmed to be fully working by the BHF’s Paul Smith, who is thankfully an avid gamer and noticed the console was particularly unusual.

“We test all the electrical donations we receive, and this one really caught my eye,” he said. “I’m a games enthusiast myself but the rare green color combined with the Hulk and Pepsi logo really stood out. Whoever is lucky enough to snap this up will make their friends green with envy.”

“Whoever is lucky enough to snap this up will make their friends green with envy.

If this incredibly rare piece of bizarre Xbox history isn’t enough to entice a bid out of fans, it even comes with five games: Tony Hawk’s Underground, Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Peter Jackson’s King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie, and a French version of Bilbo the Hobbit.

Microsoft is still a fan of releasing ridiculous limited edition consoles via competitions 21 years later, as its current Xbox Series X and S consoles have received myriad wild and wacky colorways. These include designs based on Fallout, SpongeBob SquarePants, Bluey, and sticking to the Marvel theme, X-Men ’97.

On the weirder side comes a Final Fantasy 14 Xbox Series X that doesn’t actually work and a Dune: Part 2 special edition with a floating gamepad. Other Xbox Series X and S generation highlights include red and blue fluffy Sonic the Hedgehog gamepads, one made out of actual Jade, and even an edible controller.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

Slitterhead Gameplay Trailer Leaks, Reveals Release Date for Silent Hill Creator’s Next Game

A gameplay video for Slitterhead was briefly made available to watch on YouTube before it was pulled offline ahead of a reveal during Summer Game Fest.

This week, Summer Game Fest chief Geoff Keighley tweeted to tease the world premiere of Slitterhead, the next game from Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama and his studio, Bokeh.

Ahead of the livestream set for 2pm Pacific / 5pm Eastern / 10pm UK today, June 7, the gameplay trailer was viewable before being set to private. The internet noticed and took notes, of course. The gameplay trailer confirmed a release date of November 8, 2024 on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S. Xbox One was not listed.

Toyama, the director of Silent Hill who then formed Project Siren, also known as Team Gravity, under Sony’s umbrella, left the company in late 2020 with other Japan Studio developers and formed his own studio, Bokeh Game Studios.

He continued: “However, the game will include many new mechanics that have not been seen so far in other games, so I think it will result in a unique experience.”

If you missed the trailer, it won’t be long before it’s shown off officially at Summer Game Fest.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.