Category: Video Games

Star Wars Outlaws Arrives Late 2024

Star Wars Outlaws, the highly anticipated open world game from Ubisoft, will be released in late 2024.

Though Ubisoft and Star Wars owner Disney had previously remained tight lipped about the release date, a Disney Parks blog post quietly announced the release window, which was previously only confirmed to be sometime in 2024.

“Star Wars Outlaws, the open world Star Wars game, is set to release late this year,” the post said. “The game lets you explore distinct planets across the galaxy, both iconic and new. You can risk it all as Kay Vess, an emerging scoundrel seeking freedom and the means to start a new life, along with her companion Nix. If you’re willing to take the risk, the galaxy is full of opportunity.”

Star Wars Outlaws was revealed at the 2023 Xbox Games Showcase with a gameplay presentation coming soon after, and fans quickly grew obsessed with the cute axolotl-like Nix.

The game is set between Star Wars: Episode 5 – The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Episode 6 – Return of the Jedi, something developer Massive Entertainment said was due to the criminal underworld thriving at this time.

The developer also confirmed Star Wars Outlaws takes a more “handcrafted” and “manageable” approach to the open-world formula, with one planet being roughly the same size as two or three regions in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.

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

Plans Are Reportedly In Place To Celebrate Earthbound’s 30th Anniversary

We all know what we want, though.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of EarthBound (known in Japan as Mother 2) and, according to the official X (formerly Twitter) page, plans are in place to celebrate the hefty milestone (thanks, My Nintendo News).

What these plans are, exactly, is up in the air at the moment, but we’re not expecting anything earth-shattering. After all, Earthbound itself is already playable on Switch via the Nintendo Switch Online service, and we’re way beyond anticipating any official Western release of its sequel, Mother 3.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

PlayStation Stars Campaigns and Digital Collectibles for January 2024

Happy new year, PlayStation Stars members! We’ve got a fresh array of challenges, campaigns, and collectibles to kickstart your 2024 gaming journey. Let’s dive straight into what’s new this month.

PlayStation & You: Access controller
Available January 2

Available only to active Access controller owners. Create new ways to play with this highly customizable controller kit for PS5 consoles, designed to help those with disabilities play games more comfortably, for longer. To unlock your Access Controller Digital Collectible, play any game on your PS4 or PS5 console.

Campaign Name: Your PlayStation Monthly Games Await | Reward: 50 PlayStation Stars Points
Available January 2

New month, new PlayStation Plus monthly games. Try any one of this month’s games for 50 points.

Campaign Name: Vintage Lineage | Digital Collectible: Retro Lunch Box, First Edition
Available December January 4

Take it back to the days of pixel art gaming. Play any of one of the games listed below to unlock a retro lunch box Digital Collectible.

  • The Messenger [PS4]
  • Sea of Stars [PS5/PS4]
  • Enter the Gungeon [PS4]
  • Celeste [PS4]
  • Undertale [PS4]
  • Shovel Knight Treasure Trove [PS4]

Campaign Name: Wind Down with PlayStation | Digital Collectible: New Year, New Nest
Available January 17

Relax and unwind with some cozy game time. Start any of the games listed below to snag your snow globe Digital Collectible.

  • Mail Time [PS5]
  • Roki [PS5/PS4]
  • OMNO  [PS4]
  • Lake [PS5/PS4]

Campaign Name: Brain Games | Digital Collectible: Synaptic Feedback
Available December January 18

Sharpen your mind with these beautiful puzzle games. Each one offers a unique blend of brain-bending puzzles and eye-catching artwork to put your problem-solving skills to the test.

Play any one of these titles to unlock the Synaptic Feedback Digital Collectible.

  • Viewfinder [PS5]
  • Superliminal [PS5/PS4]
  • The Witness [PS4]
  • The Talos Principle 2 [PS5]
  • Puzzling Places [PS5/PS4]

Stay tuned to PlayStation App for all the latest updates throughout the month. Not a PlayStation Stars member yet? Learn more about PlayStation Stars and join for free here.

Makoto Wakaido’s Case Files Trilogy is the perfect warm-up for Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice

Listen, I know we’ve spent the better part of the holidays harping on about all our favourite games of 2023 (and many more besides as part of our bonus Selection Boxes), but here’s another one for you that I mainlined in a single day over Christmas and absolutely loved. It’s Makoto Wakaido’s Case Files Trilogy Deluxe – a collection of not three, but four detective stories in which you go about solving grizzly murders across different towns and villages in Japan. In short: if you like the investigation bits of Ace Attorney and need something to whet your appetite before the Apollo Justice Trilogy comes out on January 25th, this will be 100% up your street. It’s currently just over a fiver in the Steam Winter Sale, and there’s a free demo you can try as well for good measure.

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Screenshot Saturday Tuesday: Jumbo size New Year edition

Every weekend, indie devs show off current work on Twitter’s #screenshotsaturday tag. And every week, I bring you a selection of these snaps and clips. This week, let’s return kick off the new year with a jumbo-sized edition with even more games from across our Christmas holiday. Expect unexpectedly laid-back stressful horror, slow-motion stunting gunfights, a watercolour world, spaceships, mecha, and far too many legs. Check out these attractive and interesting indie games!

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The Maw – 2nd-6th January 2024

Happy new year all. What’s the weather like where you are? We’ve got Amber and Yellow warnings in London – I do not understand what these terms mean, but I’m going to add a Sapphire warning for escalating Maw activity. The creature was pretty lively over the Xmas weekend, but Graham managed to soothe it with posts about gaming-related new year resolutions and, of all things, the Spike Video Game Awards. We can expect the Maw’s petulance to mount during January, a lean month for announcements and revelations, but there are a few tasty morsels in the offing – a new Prince of Persia and Tekken 8, for instance. Fingers crossed we can build up some kind of momentum.

Some new game releases we are pointing our telescopes at this week: Skeleton Rebellion (4th Jan), a scrappy offbeat RPG with claymation elements in which you are a skeleton trying to overthrow some mages, and The Night Is Grey (5th Jan), a point-and-click adventure about a beardy bloke and a little girl stuck in the woods with some weirdo wolves. If you like, you can also play a free drinking game I’ve just invented in which you do a shot for every time I accidentally write 2023 instead of 2024.

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Koei Tecmo Locks In Fate/Samurai Remnant “DLC Vol. 1” Release

Season Pass roadmap also revealed.

The Koei Tecmo-published action role-playing game Fate/Samurai Remnant will be getting “DLC Vol. 1” next month in February 2024.

It’s officially titled ‘Records Fragment: Keian Command Championship‘ and will be followed by two more DLC episodes later on in 2024. You can check out a teaser trailer of the first DLC above.

Read the full article on nintendolife.com

Firewall Ultra Developer First Contact Entertainment to Shut Down After Nearly Eight Years

First Contact Entertainment, the developer behind such PlayStation VR titles as Firewall Ultra and Firewall Zero Hour, has announced it will be shutting down at the beginning of 2024.

First Contact took to Facebook to share the news, saying “the lack of support for VR within the industry” is one of the main reasons for this decision.

“After almost 8 years of working with the most amazing team I’ve ever have the pleasure of being part of, I’m sad to announce that we will be closing our company First Contact Entertainment by the end of the year,” First Contact Entertainment wrote. “The lack of support for VR within the industry has eventually taken its toll.

“As a AAA VR game developer, we are just not able to justify the expense needed gouging [sic] forward. We are a team of fearless innovators willing to push new technologies to its limits. I am extremely proud of the team and grateful to our investors, our partners and of course our community of dedicated and passionate players. It’s been a wild ride, Thank you!”

Firewall Ultra was released in September 2023 and we enjoyed parts of it, saying, “with two steps forward and two back, this VR sequel feels ultra ambivalent.”

“A competent sequel to the multiplayer VR shooter original in most ways, Firewall Ultra’s awkward use of eye tracking and lack of content are a shot in the foot rather than the arm,” we added in our Firewall Ultra review.

First Contact Entertainment was founded in 2016 by a group of ex-Starbreeze developers, and a now-deleted PlayStation Blog Germany post may have accidentally revealed back in February 2023 that it was working on Solaris: Offworld Combat II.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Meowscarada Wins Pokémon Scarlet And Violet Popularity Poll In Japan

Here are the top 20 picks.

Everyone has a favourite Pokémon and recently in Japan, the strategy guide website ‘GameWith’ ran a poll asking trainers to vote for their top Pokémon from the Scarlet and Violet generation.

“Close to 152,700 people” apparently put their vote in and in the end, the new-generation grass/dark-type evolution Meowscarada won! In second place was the fire-type starter Fuecoco, and the ghost/fire-type Chandelure was in third. You can see the top 20 below, courtesy of Silconera:

Read the full article on nintendolife.com