Howdy, y’all! This week we got to sit down with Treyarch Associate Creative Director Miles Leslie to discuss Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Plus, the team continues the spooky game spiel by diving into Until Dawn, Silent Hill 2, and more.
Stuff We Talked About
Next week’s releases:
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 | PS5, PS4
Sonic x Shadow Generations | PS5, PS4
Fear the Spotlight | PS5, PS4
Astro Bot new speedrun level and Special Bots
PlayStation The Concert – World Tour 2025-2026 announcement
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered enhancements
Until Dawn behind-the-scenes of new soundtrack
Interview with Miles Leslie (begins at 15:19)
Until Dawn
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Neva
Silent Hill 2
The Cast
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Kristen Zitani – Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE
Download the image
Brett Elston – Content Communications Manager, SIE
Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.
[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]
Last week, we asked you to show your favorite gaming characters cowering in fear using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s scared highlights:
Javik_12 shares Astro shaking with fear in a spooky themed level of Astro Bot.
SithMorrison shares Joel’s daughter Sarah looking shaken in The Last of Us Part I.
JLunarTraveler shares Talion leaning back and yelping in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
silentgear1 shares Ashley hiding her face as she moves through a dark space in Resident Evil 4.
Defalt368 shares a orange and black cat reacting in horror in Gori: Cuddly Carnage.
lunar9pshares Amicia and Hugo fending off rats with fire in A Plague Tale: Innocence
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: Costumes SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on October 23, 2024
Halloween’s around the corner and we’re looking for inspiration. Next week, share characters that would make a perfect costume from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
Hey everyone, you may be familiar with Nixxes as the developer behind PC ports of PlayStation games, but behind the scenes we have also been hard at work on a project of a very different nature. Working closely with our friends at Guerrilla, we set out to create Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered for both PS5 and PC.
In our announcement last month, we shared details of improved features and technology, such as the completely revamped sound mix by Guerrilla’s audio team, support for DualSense controllers, and new motion capture for conversations. Today, I’d like to introduce you to some of the team members at Nixxes to give you more insight into some of the enhancements that have been made in the remaster.
Overhauling nature
Foliage plays a big role in portraying the lush, overgrown ruins of a long-lost civilization in the world of Horizon. Our team of Environment Artists considered the foliage in Horizon Zero Dawn to be an industry standard, and Horizon Forbidden West added to that with significant improvements in visual quality. For the remaster, the team wanted to give the foliage the same care and attention.
Patrick Blankenzee, Senior Environment Artist: “To bring the foliage in the remaster up to the same level of quality as in Horizon Forbidden West, we enhanced the shaders, textures, geometry and foliage interaction. We assessed all the foliage assets in Horizon Zero Dawn and upgraded them with all these new features. We did this for hundreds of plants, bushes, flowers and trees.”
“We looked at the biomes in the original game and compared them to the concept art. We found places that we could enhance and bring closer to the original intent, with the rainforest biome being a good example of this. With powerful procedural technology, we injected new foliage and raised the quality and density to new heights. The riverbanks have also been upgraded with more biodiversity to bring them closer to the original intention as seen in the concept art.”
Julian Hofman, Environment Artist: “Working with the original team over at Guerrilla, we were able to ask questions, and directly compare their latest work on Horizon Forbidden West to the work we were doing for the remaster. This gave us some very specific goals to work towards, like the fresh generation of moss that you can now see Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.”
“For me, the foliage changes make the game feel more alive and make it live up to the incredibly high standards of the Horizon games. The result is a coherent world to replay or experience for the first time.”
Enhancing the living world
The Design team at Nixxes made several key improvements to Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. One of the most significant changes is the enhancement of the living world.
Brian van Nunen, Senior Technical Game Designer: “To achieve this, we reviewed all villages, outposts and cities, identifying areas that felt empty or where we could improve realism and immersion.”
“Building the game for PS5 allowed us to leverage the increased amount of memory available, enabling us to significantly boost the number of non-player characters. We added many more places for NPCs to stand, sit, work and fulfil their needs. We gave them more varied schedules to increase movement and liveliness in different areas. We also tried to make creative use of existing animations. For example, there is now a woman feeding geese at the well in Meridian, reusing an existing sowing animation. Additionally, on the bridge to Meridian, we’ve made significant strides in improving the atmosphere and sense of activity.”
Improving terrain and building blocks
Our Tech Art team used the library of next-gen materials that were created for Horizon Forbidden West to enhance the quality of assets used for terrain, objects and buildings significantly in the remaster.
Sander Bronkhorst, Senior Technical Artist: “We began by replacing all the Horizon Zero Dawn terrain materials with their new Horizon Forbidden West counterparts. This was only the first step, as the sequel’s terrain materials didn’t always align with the original aesthetics. To address this, we carefully tweaked and polished each individual terrain material to closely match the look and feel of the original game, while maintaining the visual fidelity of the terrain materials in Horizon Forbidden West.”
“In addition to updating all the terrain textures and materials, we incorporated features like deformable snow and sand. Snow deformation was first introduced in the Frozen Wilds expansion, but in the remaster, you will find this feature outside that area as well.”
“In settlements like Meridian and Daytower, the ground required a more unique aesthetic. Previously, Guerrilla used custom meshes and materials for the floors in these settlements, exclusive to these locations. For the remaster, we initially followed this approach, exploring the possibility of increasing texture resolution and adding parallax mapping to areas such as brick floors. However, after initial tests we concluded that in these specific cases this wasn’t going to give us the visual quality that we were aiming to achieve. Therefore, we decided to completely remake the floors in Meridian and Daytower from scratch. This involved creating new high-resolution textures, setting up new materials, painting blend maps, and creating new high-resolution geometry supporting the shapes from the textures used in the material.”
“Another aspect of the upgrades to the game environment in the remaster are Building Blocks. To give a bit of context here: Building Blocks are the individual assets that are used for set dressing the world of Horizon Zero Dawn. Think of objects like rocks, plants, utensils and even buildings.”
“Building Blocks can be divided into two categories: natural and man-made. For both types, we increased the resolution of the textures and adjusted the level of detail (LOD) ranges to ensure higher mesh fidelity.”
“We performed a separate pass on all the man-made Building Blocks, creating new high-resolution geometry for assets that would benefit from this. We found that buildings greatly benefited from having more detailed geometry, as most were using brick-like textures on the walls without the shape of the bricks being reflected in the geometry.”
“To address this, we developed custom tools for generating more detailed geometry for these buildings. The artists used these tools to create new geometry, then manually tweaked and adjusted each individual building for the best visual result.”
Lively conversations
A big change in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is the addition of over 10 hours of additional motion-capture data for characters, directed and captured by Guerrilla at their motion Capture Stage in Amsterdam, making the game’s conversations much livelier and in line with those in Horizon Forbidden West. Implementing this additional data was handled by our technical artists and animators.
Mark Bazelmans, Senior Technical Artist: “Horizon Zero Dawn has almost 300 conversations and well over 3100 dialog options, so we needed to find a way to easily integrate this huge number of updated animations into the conversations. We created a tool with Python to process the almost 2500 mocap files that Guerrilla provided to replace the original animation in the conversations, removing deprecated events and replacing those with the mocap and setup.”“We then focused on creating a pipeline in Maya for our animators to easily load, edit and re-export the individual mocap files for any other edits that were needed, such as finger animation, art direction feedback and fixes. Animators could select the conversation and subsequent dialog option from a list which created the scene from scratch, or simply opened it if it already existed.Our tool referenced the characters and imported the dialogue audio, so the animators could time the movement better and create the camera cuts and layout. Later, we extended this pipeline to also include existing animations for both conversations and cinematics, as some of these also required edits. Our animators could then go into Guerrilla’s DECIMA engine and edit or change the updated conversation.”
Alexander Georgiev, Animator: Since all mocap footage comes from actors with different height or gender, there was a lot of data that needed to be covered and checked. For example, characters looking up or down too much, shoulders not matching the rest of the pose, arms clipping though clothing and fingers that are too static.”
“To solve this efficiently, we created tools to help us. With these tools we visualized helpers that brought a closer connection between working in Maya and the DECIMA engine. One example was that we could not see the eyes moving the same way as in the DECIMA engine, as that was a complex, automated system. With the toolset we created a head and eye aim helper that made it clearer where the characters were looking, and with that we knew how much we should adjust the head of a certain character.”
“We made small, automated scripts to fix shoulders and arms clipping. All these tools gave the animators a way to focus more on enhancing the acting of the characters to support what they want to say. By developing these tools, we created a strong workflow and were able to significantly speed up our iteration time per conversation.”
Mark Bazelmans, Senior Technical Artist: “Alongside the updated body animation, new facial animations were captured for the conversations. Initially this was deemed a straightforward ‘overwrite and replace’, but after seeing some of the results we decided to build a pipeline to be able to edit the updated facial animations.”
“We created tools in Maya that could process a facial animation file in proprietary format into a Maya scene with literally a talking head including audio. We also wrote our own exporter that could then export a Maya scene back to the same proprietary format.”
“Next to updating the animations in conversations, we did a pass on the camera and lighting setup for both conversations and cinematics. For the cameras, we batch updated the camera setup and values. In most conversations, the automated pass didn’t quite give the desired result because the contrast between the original movement and the new mocap was too big. The new body animations allow broader movements, often leading to characters stepping out of frame or being completely offscreen. Therefore, a manual pass was done by our Camera Layout Artists, aided by our custom DECIMA tools to easily edit cameras and settings.”
“We updated the lighting toolset to be closer to that in Horizon Forbidden West, which allows for editing settings of character and environment lighting across similar shots using a visual representation of shots. Lighting was controlled by a single setup for each character in a conversation that would apply to all dialog options in a conversation. Then our lighting artists could do their magic on a particular shot type and all similar shots of that character would be lit the same, with of course room to edit individual shots if needed. This way lighting had maximum control with as little tweaks as possible.”
Shining new light on Horizon Zero Dawn
The work for world lighting and cinematic lighting was divided between Guerrilla and Nixxes Lighting artists, with Guerrilla providing direction and technical support. The Atmospherics team at Guerrilla recreated the sweeping cloudscapes from Horizon Zero Dawn in the new Nubis cloud system from Horizon Forbidden West. The cherry on the cake was the creation of the set piece volcano cloud in the Frozen Wilds expansion, using a combination of the latest innovations in voxel cloud rendering, first pioneered in the Burning Shores expansion for Horizon Forbidden West, and traditional particle VFX.
It was important to retain the strong mood lighting in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, ensuring a seamless transition when playing both games back-to-back. Nixxes’ Senior Lighting Artists Myvanwy Broers, Niels Iburg, and Lighting Artist Thomas Schrama talk about their approach and workflow:
“A lot of the world lighting had to be rebalanced or re-lit from scratch to reach the same mood and to bring it in line with the slightly updated art direction. Horizon Forbidden West has some workflow improvements that we used for the remaster, making the process quite enjoyable!”
“To use the improved features to their fullest potential, we revised all the atmospherics settings that control the biomes within the game world. This included changing the light intensities to Physically Based Rendering values. This is true for the sun and the moon itself, but also detailed lighting in areas such as caves and ruins that players can explore. Think of fog, the color of the sun, glow intensities and so forth.”
“This meant that after rebalancing the light intensities into PBR, it was necessary to relight entire areas to create the best visual fidelity possible. It was a joy to revisit these iconic environments to do so!”
“To speed up our workflow, we used Guerrilla’s prefab system – an object which contains geometry, particles, sound, and lights that we can place anywhere. All these assets exist as referenced content within a prefab, which means that if the value of a torch light needs adjustment, this will simultaneously happen for every torch in the world. This enables large scale changes, and high iteration speed.”
“Light bakes are an important aspect of the lighting – a system that is versatile enough for each time of day, yet providing the detailed light bounce that Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered needs. The quality of such bakes is adjustable per volume that we set as lighters, which is great when we require the light bounce to be more detailed in an area without affecting the rest. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered uses the improved baking system from Horizon Forbidden West, resulting in at least twice as much detail in the light bounce compared to the original.”
“With lighting in cinematics and conversations, we wanted to match the art direction and visual quality of Horizon Forbidden West. This, combined with all updated animations, motion-capture and camera shots, meant we built all the cinematic lighting in the remaster from scratch. We used a lot of new technology and workflow that was created for the cinematic lighting in Horizon Forbidden West.”
“Horizon Zero Dawn used a lighting rig around each character with roughly two lights. For the remaster we used the upgraded lighting rig from the sequel, which uses five lights in total: one key-light, two profile-lights and two rim-lights. These lights are then tweaked on a per shot basis changing position, orientation, color and intensity.”
Detailed characters
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered features significant upgrades to character models and how they react to lighting. Many enhancements in areas such as detail, skin tones, hair quality, and outfits have been carried over from Horizon Forbidden West.
Patrick Blankenzee, Senior Environment Artist: “Working on the varied cast of characters in the remaster was a big undertaking. We enhanced various shaders to improve the visual quality and made changes to ensure the models react better to the new lighting in the remaster. We gave Aloy’s model – both adult and child – the full cinematic treatment, including peach fuzz, upgrades to hair, eyes and materials.”
“We looked at the original concept art of Aloy as a child and aimed to make changes to her outfit, hair and skin, to match the look envisioned in the concept art, as well as bring the model up to par with the quality of the improved model for adult Aloy.”
“In Horizon Zero Dawn, only the character model for Aloy reacts to environmental elements like weather. For the remaster we wanted to give all companion characters the same level of interaction to bring that cinematic feel to the whole world. For example, you will now see both Aloy and her companions react to warm and cold weather.”
On behalf of the teams at Nixxes and Guerrilla, we cannot wait for you to experience Aloy’s journey (again) with all the visual enhancements, upgraded features and tech improvements.
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is available for pre-order now and launches on October 31 on PS5 and PC (Steam, Epic Games Store). Account for PlayStation Network required on PC.
Existing owners of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition can upgrade to the digital version of Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered for $9.99. Check out the previous announcement PS Blog post for all the upgrade details.
Hi everyone, I’m Jenn, Lead Writer and Voice Producer on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Since revealing the game in June, we’ve been blown away by its reception (and impressed by the eagle-eared listeners who identified the voices in the trailers). It brings us great pleasure to finally reveal our English voice cast and share some more information about our characters and their world.
We’ve lived and breathed these characters for the past few years, so it was surreal and an honor to witness our incredible voice cast bring them to life.
The actors were phenomenal to work with (and just all-around great people). We had a lot of fun during the recording sessions. The cast beautifully conveyed the complexity of the characters, who have each been shaped by the harshness of their world. Every character has been affected by deep and constant loss and has dealt with this in their own way.
Previously, we introduced four of the characters.
Charlie Cox (Daredevil) is the voice of Gustave, the lead engineer of Expedition 33. Gustave grew up in Lumière under the Paintress’ shadow and has devoted his life to safeguarding the city. With his final year ticking away, Gustave is hell-bent on defeating the Paintress and reclaiming a future for Lumière’s children.
Jennifer English (Baldur’s Gate 3) plays Maelle, a shy loner eager to escape the constraints of Lumière. Orphaned as a child, Maelle has always felt like an outsider. Her only connection is with Gustave, her foster brother. She is the youngest member of the Expedition, at 16, and sees this as her chance to finally explore the world beyond.
Kirsty Rider (Sandman) voices Lune, the chief researcher of the Expedition. Lune is intensely driven in her quest to defeat the Paintress and complete the work of her parents. She feels keenly the weight of responsibility and the gravity of the stakes involved.
Shala Nyx (The Old Guard) voices Sciel, a calm and cheerful warrior unfazed by the obstacles ahead. Overcoming her past has allowed her to accept the odds against them. They will do all in their power, and it will either be enough or it won’t.
In our latest trailer, we introduce two new characters.
Many of you astutely identified the voice of our beloved Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI), who plays Verso, a dangerous stranger tracking the Expedition’s every move.
We asked Ben how he’d describe Verso, and he said, “lost, lonely, and dangerous,” and that he expects players to feel “every emotion imaginable” as they get to know his character.
Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings, Black Panther) plays the role of Renoir, a man relentlessly driven to save his family. He knows that victory demands sacrifice, and he’s ready to pay the price.
We also have the wonderful Rich Keeble and Maxence Cazorla playing two of our favorite characters. We’ll share more about them soon.
Developing the characters was a multi-part process, which included charting a detailed history of Lumière and each character’s family history and thinking through how prior generations responded to the Paintress. These factors all played a role in who each character is and what they are trying to overcome.
In many ways, the process of writing is the ultimate RPG. It’s an extended thought experiment where we place our characters, with their backstories, in these particular situations, and step into their shoes. What do they do? How do they feel? How have their past experiences shaped them, and how does that influence their choices today?
Cast and characters aren’t the only new elements in this trailer. Attentive fans may have recognized new locations, alongside new enemies. Golgra and The Tisseur are two fearsome adversaries who will test your reflexes in our reactive turn-based combat.
We’ve also highlighted more traversal elements within the game. The pictos-powered grapple allows members of the Expedition to summit heights and clear gaps, increasing the speed at which you can explore the world.
Developing the world, the story, and the characters has been deeply satisfying (and fun and engrossing and maddening). We are proud and excited to share the game with everyone when it releases in Spring 2025.
We hope you enjoyed today’s reveals! Stay tuned for more information about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. We have a great deal more to show you, including elements about the world, the gameplay, other characters, and sneak peek Behind the Scenes.
Wayfinders! I’m AJ, an Executive Producer at Airship Syndicate and I’m incredibly excited to talk about the upcoming release of our game, Wayfinder! Today we’re focusing on two big new additions coming alongside our October 21 launch!
For those that might not know, Wayfinder is an ARPG where players assume the roles of various Wayfinders to push back a hostile force called the Gloom. With a single player campaign that can be played solo or with up to two friends, as well as endless replayability through randomized dungeons and end game activities, Wayfinder is packed with content for you and your friends to enjoy; all for one price with no microtransactions.
Our 7 Wayfinders are distinct & different, each with their own backstory, gear, abilities and (pun intended) ways-to-find new experiences across the world. You start out with one hero and quickly rescue the full roster from the Gloom so you can level, customize, and swap between them at will. But you don’t need to fight alone! Two others can join you for 3-player online, drop-in cross play co-op as you fight through Evenor collecting over 3,000 weapons, armors, housing decorations and more!
We’ve been in Early Access for the past year, fine-tuning the game based on player feedback we’re seeing from our super engaged community. I want to give a huge thank you to Wayfinders old and new from all of us at Airship– you make the game better each update.
Leaving Early Access and moving into the game’s full release will bring a ton of new content to the game. A brand new playable character, new Lost Zones (our version of repeatable, and randomized dungeons), new armor styles and loot to collect and a whole lot more.
But today we’re here to talk about a huge brand new open world area– The Crucible! This lush, yet dangerous area has quests, mini bosses, and is packed with secrets (and monsters!) lurking around every corner.
The final battle begins in The Crucible. The Eldren have occupied a shattered region known as The Crucible—a city-sized machine built by The Architects, reclaimed by nature and lost to time. In search of a powerful secret at The Crucible’s center, the Eldren intend to finish the war their gods started, and pen the world a dark fate.
Players may have a mount already, but the Crucible is enormous and filled with verticality & multiple areas to explore. With that in mind, we developed an entirely new traversal tool: the Hookshot! We think you’ll love this thing. It’s super fun to use, and allows you to easily get around the massive new area, as well as avoid dangers in situations you may find yourself in when exploring the Crucible!
Alongside the game’s release, we’re also introducing The Critical Role Supporter Pack, which brings the world of Vox Machina into Wayfinder with over 50 unique items. This Supporter Pack directly supports Airship Syndicate and Critical Role, two indie companies bringing their worlds to life with the help of their passionate player base. This pack will go on sale October 21, but we’re thrilled to show off the first in-game teaser featuring Venomess as Vex! Can you spot all the Critical Role inspired items?
“We are huge fans of Critical Role, so we’re super excited for this collaboration, which we hope is the first of many.” said Joe Madureira, CEO of Airship Syndicate and Marvel Comics alum. “From the start, we wanted the Vox Machina personas to feel uniquely Wayfinder, while still capturing the magic that makes these beloved heroes of Exandria so special. Our team of artists and animators were very passionate about making it happen, and I think it shows.”
Wayfinder has changed for the better so much over the last year in Early Access! Our fans have told us that the experience today is more polished, more rewarding and most importantly, more fun. We can’t wait to welcome all the new PlayStation 5 Wayfinders on October 21!
Whether you realize it or not, music is connected to some of our strongest gaming memories. Whether it’s the rousing choir of the God of War games or the delicate flutes of Ghost of Tsushima, the PlayStation soundscape has created some of the most emotional moments I’ve experienced in entertainment.
I suspect I’m not alone in this. And so for the many live music lovers in our community, I’m pleased to share that the teams here at PlayStation have been working together with RoadCo Entertainment, and GEA Live to develop a groundbreaking live music event that brings our most iconic gaming soundtracks to life under the PlayStation banner for the first time. With a state-of-the-art production, this show will merge thrilling music, cutting-edge visuals, and legendary video game titles into an unforgettable experience.
PlayStation The Concert transports fans into the epic worlds of God of War, The Last of Us, Ghost of Tsushima, and Horizon franchises amongst many others that reflect our 30 years of making games that have not only captivated players but are celebrated for their breathtaking and immersive soundtracks too.
With innovative technology and world-class production, fans will experience a stunning fusion of multi-layered visuals, immersive surround sound, and an all-star ensemble blending classical and modern instruments. The legendary scores from composers like Gustavo Santaolalla (The Last of Us), Joris De Man (Horizon), Ilan Eshkeri (Ghost of Tsushima), and Bear McCreary (God of War) will reach new heights, offering fans a unique, deeply immersive live concert experience.
With video game music stepping into the global spotlight,PlayStation: The Concert is poised to redefine what a music experience can be. This is more than just a show; it’s the ultimate video game concert experience, embodying PlayStation’s innovative spirit and pushing the limits of what’s possible; from your console to stages around the world.
The global tour launches with a world premiere on April 15, 2025, in Dublin, Ireland, before heading to more than 200 cities across Europe, the United Kingdom, the United States, and beyond. Whilst we are only announcing European dates at this time, be assured we’ll be announcing other world locations very soon.
The 2025 tour schedule so far includes: Dublin, Ireland – Glasgow, Scotland, London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, UK – Amsterdam, Netherlands – Paris, Amnéville, France – Antwerp, Belgium – Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Berlin, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Leipzig, Munich, Oberhausen, Germany – Zurich, Switzerland – Bologna, Italy – Budapest, Hungary – Sofia, Bulgaria – Vienna, Austria – Bratislava, Slovakia – Prague, Czech Republic – Lodz, Poland – Copenhagen, Denmark – Gotenburg, Sweden – Oslo, Norway – Tampere, Finland.
We don’t want you to miss out on this extraordinary event so our partners are giving the PlayStation community first opportunity to score tickets through the early access code PLAYCONCERT24 which will be usable from 7am PT tomorrow Wednesday, October 16 2024. Tickets are expected to go fast!
For more information on tickets, show and future tour dates please visit www.playstation.com/theconcert. Join the conversation with #PlayStationTheConcert.
Get ready, Squirrel With a Gun will be available on PS5 on October 15! That’s right, your favorite armed mammal is almost ready to clean up the town by taking down those pesky suited-up Agents. And just when you thought Squirrel With a Gun couldn’t get any more packed with squirrely goodness, we have a whole set of free updates planned and incoming. Today we’ll give you a taste of two major updates, the new Photo Mode releasing October 15 and the Boss Battle update coming in the near future. Who knew that a single squirrel would have so much to do, ey?
Serve squirrely lewks with Photo Mode
Get ready to capture your most epic squirrel moments with the new Photo Mode! Whether you’re pulling off a daring escape, doing something wicked-cool mid-air, or making new friends in the neighborhood, you can now snap and save all those unforgettable moments. The best part is that there are plenty of modes to help you create the perfect shot.
First up is the classic Cam Adjust Mode, which helps you control the camera like a pro. Move the camera around, rotate it, and even give it a dramatic Dutch angle for some serious flair. Zoom in and out with the Field of View (FoV) slider to frame your perfect shot, whether you’re up close and personal or catching the action from afar.
Next up is the Focus Mode. Add a touch of photography magic by playing with the camera’s focus. Choose the Player setting to keep the focus on you (because let’s face it, you’re the star), or go full-on creative with Manual Mode, where you control the focal distance for that perfect screenshot.
And finally, the Filter Mode. Why settle for ordinary when you can add a touch of whimsy to your photos? With 15 unique filters to collect, such as the cute kawaii-esqe filter, or the timeless and still oh-so relevant awesome meme face filter, you can turn every snapshot into something truly memorable or hilarious.
Prepare to face a legendary boss
Coming in one of our later updates, a new boss and boss battle are slowly brewing behind the scenes. Your foe is the legendary Ratatoskr, the squirrel of Norse legends. Forcibly allied with the Agents, you must climb to the heavens and battle this mythical rodent so it won’t destroy the neighborhood.
This boss fight is unlike any of the other battles you will face. This squirrel moves fast, has a variety of ranged and melee attacks, and is a considerably smaller target! Fortunately, you will be granted a special SMG with a magazine of infinite bullets for this grandiose occasion.
Now that’s not all that’s coming to the neighborhood. You can expect new outfits, a whole new level, new furs, and perhaps even a game-changing gadget from the lab that can alter gravity itself! All of these updates are coming to Squirrel With a Gun free of charge. We want to keep the fun going as long as we can!
Squirrel With a Gun is coming to PS5 on October 15!
Hey folks! We’ve got a full house for this week’s pod, with the team talking news, next week’s releases, and all the spooktacular games we’ve been playing this month, including Until Dawn and Silent Hill 2.
Stuff We Talked About
Next week’s releases:
Neva | PS5
PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for October:
Dead Island 2
Two Point Campus
Gris
Return to Monkey Island
and more…
Neva devs detail design
Beat Saber: Britney Spears Music Pack launch
PlayStation Store: September 2024’s top downloads
Metaphor ReFantazio: hands-on details
Until Dawn
Silent Hill 2
Darkest Dungeon
The Cast
Download the image
Sid Shuman – Senior Director of Content Communications, SIE
Brett Elston – Manager, Content Communications, SIE
Download the image
Kristen Zitani – Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE
Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.
[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]
Last week, we asked you to venture into spooky gaming settings and share hair-raising locations using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:
call_me_xaviishares James wandering through the foggy streets of Silent Hill 2.
m_nt_13shares a wall of eyeballs peering out in Stray.
JLunarTravelershares skeletal figures rising in a graveyard from Hogwarts Legacy.
wingsforsmilesshares Alan rushing away from an evil force in the subway tunnels of Alan Wake 2.
DexM_dsshares body bags hanging in a waterlogged cellar in Resident Evil Village.
FranTGPshares an ominous chained up figure in A Plague Tale: Requiem.
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: Scared
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on October 16, 2024
Next week, we’re ready to be frightened. Share moments where characters looks scared from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
25 years ago, we were shocked with the image of Lara Croft hanging from a cliff inside an Egyptian tomb, as the credits rolled on Tomb Raider IV: The Last Revelation. It’s time for Tomb Raider players to re-experience the next remastered chapters of Lara Croft’s darkest adventures.
Continuing the legacy of Lara Croft’s iconic adventures and following the success of Tomb Raider I-III Remastered, Aspyr and Crystal Dynamics are thrilled to bring Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on February 14, 2025!
Her Legacy lives on: announcing Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered
Tomb Raider began with Core Design’s vision for Lara Croft’s adventures, culminating in the first six iconic games, taking fans on globe-trotting adventures with friends, foes, supernatural beings, and so much more…
Aspyr & Eidos partnered to bring all 6 of the Core Tomb Raider games to Mac computers back in the ‘90s, and we’re proud to partner again with Crystal Dynamics / Eidos to complete the hexalogy on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
Thank you to the entire Tomb Raider community
Aspyr & Crystal Dynamics thank the amazing Tomb Raider community for all of the love and support you have poured into this franchise. Your dedication has inspired us to bring these classic Core Design adventures back in the best possible way. We’re grateful to share this remastered collection with you, and we can’t wait to see how you’ll relive—or discover for the first time—Lara’s darkest adventures.
Thank you for being part of her legacy!
Lara Croft’s darkest adventures return
Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation
Lara travels to Egypt in pursuit of the Amulet of Horus…
By taking the amulet, she unleashes an ancient God, fulfilling the ancient prophecy of his return to plunge mankind into darkness!
For dedicated fans, the level design brings bigger challenges, more intricate puzzles, and for the first time, the ability to rope-swing.
Will Lara escape the Great Pyramid of Giza alive?
Tomb Raider: Chronicles
Presumed dead, Lara’s friends reminisce about her past adventures, each revealing untold secrets.
Chronicles centers around four separate stories told through flashbacks.
New gameplay mechanics like stealth and tightrope balancing are sure to keep newcomers and seasoned players on their toes!
Will Lara’s body be found?
Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness
Accused of the murder of her one-time mentor, Werner Von Croy, Lara becomes a fugitive on the run.
A series of grisly murders brings Lara into conflict with a sinister Alchemist from the past, and a secret alliance of powerful individuals shrouded in mystery.
Experience the final chapter of the Core hexalogy!
Key features expanded
Classic & Remastered Visuals: Experience Lara Croft’s adventures as you remember them, or toggle to modern, remastered graphics that bring new life to the environments, characters, and artifacts.
Global adventures: Journey with Lara across the globe, from the ancient tombs of Egypt in The Last Revelation to the shadowy streets of Paris in The Angel of Darkness.
Uncover dark secrets: Dive into the darkest chapters of Lara’s life as she uncovers long-buried secrets and confronts sinister forces. This remastered collection ensures that the story of Lara’s disappearance and subsequent return is more mysterious than ever.
Classic and Modern controls: Players can choose between the original tank-style controls, offering the authentic Tomb Raider experience, or opt for modern controls inspired by later entries in the series, providing smoother movement and camera control.
Boss Health Bars: This feature provides valuable feedback during tough encounters, helping players strategize more effectively without detracting from the game’s original challenge.
150+ Trophies: We’ve packed this remaster with over 150 trophies, including nods to iconic moments from the series. These trophies provide both seasoned veterans and new players with plenty of content to explore and achieve.
Photo Mode: A fan-favorite feature is back! This collection will contain all photo mode poses from Tomb Raider I-III Remastered as well as new ones! Share your favorite moments and the beauty of the remastered environments with the community.
Pre-order now and rediscover Lara’s darkest adventures
We can’t wait for you to experience Tomb Raider IV-VI Remastered.
Stay tuned for more updates and join us on February 14, 2025, to celebrate the legacy of Lara Croft.
