Get the “authentic festival vibe” for this big occasion.
Splatoon 3‘s Grand Festival is on the horizon, and ahead of the big event, Nintendo is promoting it with all sorts of things. The latest is a new exclusive on the My Nintendo Store in the form of a Grand Festival Wristband.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Avowed was a surprising delight to play for the first time. After a lot of questions about the shift in art direction from the teaser trailer, questions about the length, and a combat demo on the Xbox stage that had many asking if the game was earlier in development than expected, I’m happy to report that Avowed is feeling great, looking great, and offering a compelling story based on the early slice I played at an event.
My journey began just after the opening main mission in Avowed, and we’ve been sent on a task to find an Aedyran Expedition team. It turns out, as it often does with RPGs, that fate had other plans for them. Kai, our green-skinned companion who just happens to be voiced by Mass Effect’s Garrus Vakarian actor Brandon Keener, keeps things light-hearted with quips and remarks about this new area we’re exploring. The banter is welcome and sparse, only chiming in occasionally to make a quip, like when I paused to admire the view.
And the view is very pretty. Avowed has done a great job leaning into the art style the larger Pillars of Eternity series is known for and had me stopping to admire waterfalls in the distance and moss-covered structures that set the aesthetic tone for this mysterious cavern we are diving deeper into. Avowed’s world design is shaping up nicely too, and as I dove deeper I would discover walls that could be blown up to traverse a new path, or puzzles that would open a secret new area with a large chest if I threw my shock explosives at a few tucked away circuits I found by exploring off the beaten path, only to find a hole in the wall. These puzzles have the added bonus of revealing coveted loot like a powerful ring that would offer some choice stat bonuses for my character.
When I wasn’t exploring the depths of the oceanic cave I had to swim through it only to find myself facing off against a Xaurip. These are Lizard-like creatures with your standard human weapons like swords, shields, and bows, and they make for good fodder as you learn your beginning attacks. Combat in Avowed is much better than I had anticipated. You quickly become accustomed to using flasks to regenerate not just your health, but more importantly your essence, which allows the execution of your most powerful attacks. As the barbarian, I found myself stalking spiders in the caverns and plotting my attack. To begin, I use Kai’s ability Fire and Ice via the radial wheel you access by holding down the left bumper (if you’re playing with a gamepad, obviously). Fire and Ice sees Kai Teleport to the target and then unload a powerful bullet into the spider’s Chelicerae, aka its face. Then I command him to use his area of effect attack, Leap of Daring, that has him slam into the ground and briefly stun everyone around him. During that time I’d been closing the gap, and using the two weapons I first charged up my right-handed axe which offers a powerful attack that inflicts frost damage accumulation to nearby enemies. After holding the right trigger to empower this attack I manage to freeze my opponents for just a moment. Then I unleash my more powerful essence abilities. First I shout to push back the smaller spiders who are also surrounding me, and while stunned, I then select charge and ram my body with force into the biggest guy in the room. Then, I follow it up with a flurry of blows with the left trigger, which holds my nimble sword for a small flurry of strikes that results in the dispatch of the last spider standing in the room.
Later, I would return as a mage, which was described as the most difficult of the three classes available to use. Abilities for this character included an ethereal staff that you could materialize with essence, orb projectiles that would track your target, and standard attacks that had you flicking your wand to and fro while smaller spells did damage to your target. Additional Essense abilities included a spear that was a bit faster than the staff (as you’d expect), and several different protection or buff spells to help your hits land with a bit harder thud. My personal favorite, however, was an ability that had you snap your book of magic shut to send a wave of damage-dealing aura at everything around you. It just looked cool seeing a book wreck everything in the immediate vicinity.
Make no mistake though, combat was also challenging. I was chugging potions with recklessness as I knew this was just a demo, but it was clear that you’ll need to master the balance between your spell casting, defense, and gear options for maximum efficiency. Digging into the menus, I found that you could spec out your character with a 2nd weapon set that would be accessed with the press of the Y button on the controller. The potential that something so simple offers had me excited because with one press you could access a significantly different playstyle. Combat felt clean, intuitive, and had a depth I didn’t expect. I can’t wait to dive into it more. And fortunately, the oomph of your attack animations that many felt were missing from a demo on the Xbox stage earlier this year have seemingly been implemented; enemies react how you’d expect them to when you slash them with a sword or blast them with a spell.
Eventually, on our journey, Kai and I would run into Caedmon, a young explorer who had managed to survive the Xaurip assault. His friends from the expedition team weren’t so lucky, however. After lamenting that he’s “never touched a girl” and his looming fate wasn’t fair, we were given several conversation options:
I, of course, picked the top one.
Kai responded: “Not with that… OH you mean with healing him.” He would then go on to make me offer my potion instead. Caedmon was back on his feet and offered us some advice that would help us continue our journey.
But because I also wanted to try out combat as a Mage, I got to see what happened if you always picked the bottom option. “Toughen up Kid!” my character shouted. Caedmon said something Kai called nonsense, and pleaded with me to help him. I however refused to offer him the life saving potion, resulting in his immediate death. Did I loot his corpse? You’re damn right I did.
It’s situations like this that will make Avowed really stand out if they are plentiful enough. Can you really be that evil? Apparently so, and I look forward to doing a sane-person playthrough where I don’t murder everyone if I can avoid it, and a playthrough where I’m the biggest jerk possible because… well, that’s where the fun lies now, isn’t it?
The demo ended with an encounter where we met Sargamis. Sargamis is a gold-skinned deity-like creature who sent us to find an item and return it. But like our explorer friends from earlier in the demo, there were other plans afoot and it wasn’t long until we came face-to-face with the Skeleton boss and a pesky Skeleton priest that would heal the large group of enemies we were facing off against. This was all triggered immediately after getting to the object Sargamis sent us to retrieve, to which Kai quipped, “It can’t be this easy… can it?” No, Kai, it apparently cannot be.
Once in battle and realizing I was greatly outnumbered, I ran out of the room to survey the battlefield. After taking out a few of the lower rank-and-file skeletons just outside of the priest’s healing aura, I identified the one thwarting my plans of murder (can you murder a skeleton?) and I turned his bones to ice and dust. Just as I had cleared the grunts, I was finally ready to take on the Skeleton boss with Kai, but just as I had him on the ropes…. The power in the building went out for everyone playing the demo.
It’s OK, though, because Avowed had made its impression. My doubts about it have faded away, and I’m left excited for its release in February. This small slice Obsidian gave us the opportunity to play was a treat, and while it’s a tiny glimpse, our 50-minute demo session flew by in the blink of an eye. And that’s always a good sign.
Strategy, RPGs, and penguins galore!
The Future Games Show returns once again for its third showcase of the year, which as always, takes place at Gamescom.
Hosted by Alex McKenna (Sadie Adler from Red Dead Redemption 2) and Ned Luke (Michael De Santa from Grand Theft Auto V), there were over 50 games on show. And while Switch offerings were on the slight side, there’s a better showing here than last night’s ONL.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Warhorse Studios has meticulously crafted the open world of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II to give its players a historically authentic, deeply immersive portrayal of medieval Europe.
One of the truly exciting features is the personal journey you’ll take through this world as Henry, the humble blacksmith’s son of the original game, whose tale of personal vengeance now evolves into an epic saga starring kings, noblemen and villagers alike.
The characters of Henry and Hans Capon are designed to be multifaceted, each with their own flaws and strengths; Henry is more upright and honourable, while Hans has a more carefree (and sometimes reckless) approach to life. Their behavior – including how they interact with others – is meant to reflect their personalities and the world they live in.
To achieve the game’s unique sense of player freedom, Kingdom Come: Deliverance II employs a complex web of systems that sit largely unseen beneath your experience of the world. Through these systems, the world tracks your behaviour in granular detail, working to ensure that every decision you make is reflected in the actions and behavior of the characters in the world, which can unlock (or hide) dialogue options and even quest lines.
For example, and without going too much into spoiler territory, you’ll meet two men who are very aggressive (and probably plan on murdering you). Your natural choice is to remove them from the equation, with the use of a handy axe. But, if you spare them – despite their ill intent – they will then come back and assist you later in the game.
Even Henry’s interactions with his partner in crime, Sir Hans Capon, can take you down different paths, depending on if you address him like a lord or like an equal (Sir Hans doesn’t take too kindly to the latter).
Performing your more nefarious deeds in the shadows offers only limited protection from the consequences of your actions too. Your secret misdemeanours may not be directly acknowledged by the local population, but the world will react to your malevolent influence regardless.
Choose to unleash a secret reign of terror and the locals will become more fearful, arming themselves in the process. Guards will watch you far more closely and you can forget about any discount from local merchants. Push it too far and you may even be (literally) branded a criminal and the burn marks will make clear, to everyone who sees you, that you’re not to be trusted.
However you choose to navigate this complex medieval world, the solutions to many of the moral quandaries you’ll face are rarely a simple choice of good or bad. Indeed, the greyer the morality, the more advantageous the reward may prove to be; however the world will remember how you crumbled in the face of temptation and will judge you for it accordingly.
Many of the more visible systems in Kingdom Come: Deliverance II are built around the concept of mastery, rather than simply allocating stat points to gain an instant advantage.
Combat is deliberate and tactical in this world and deepening your skills with any given weapon class provides an unrivalled sense of accomplishment. Focus your efforts on mastering the darker arts of stealth-focused combat instead and you’ll find it easier to slip between your objectives unseen. Additionally, you can choose to invest more time into your crafting expertise and enjoy more potent potions and more effective equipment as a result.
As all these systems ebb and flow in response to your actions and your decisions, your experience of Kingdom Come: Deliverance II – and how your own Henry emerges from the story’s conclusion – becomes one that’s uniquely your own.
The skills you master, the decisions you take, and the way you behave all weave together effortlessly to form a deeply immersive and unparalleled RPG experience.
Deep Silver
You are Henry of Skalitz – an ordinary man doing extraordinary things – caught in a gripping tale of revenge, betrayal, and discovery as he embarks on an epic journey, ‘from a humble blacksmith’s forge to the court of Kings’, searching for purpose in this beautiful but brutal medieval world.
From bustling city streets to lush forests, explore this open-world Medieval Europe through an unforgettable adventure filled with action, thrills, and wonder.
FEATURES
A Tale of Love and Revenge
Live life through the eyes and actions of Henry, a young man on a quest to avenge his murdered parents. His story – illustrated with over five hours of stunning cinematics – takes him from aspiring warrior to rebel, crossing paths with a charismatic cast of characters and an unforgettable set of adventures, as he faces off against the King of Hungary, Sigismund the Red Fox, and his fearsome allies.
A True RPG Experience
Your actions shape Henry’s destiny and how the world will react to him. Customize his appearance, skills, and equipment freely while taking a moral stance on the events around you. Travel around the land engaging in unique activities, such as blacksmithing and archery, to fully immerse yourself in this vibrant region of Europe that will remember your actions forever.
Live a Medieval Life
This stunningly authentic rendition of 15th Century Bohemia allows you to experience this fascinating setting like never before. Get lost in a sprawling city, interact with peasants, and converse with nobles while exploring a vast and rich countryside with taverns, bathhouses, castles, and more.
Authentic First-Person Combat
Feel the clash of steel and visceral combat as you engage in thrilling real-time battles. There’s a range of authentic weapons and combat styles to suit every player. Whether on foot, horseback, or through stealth, you can specialize in elegant sword mastery, brutal blunt weapons, or deadly ranged attacks.
Deep Silver
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a thrilling Action RPG, set amid the chaos of a civil war in 15th Century Bohemia.
You are Henry of Skalitz – an ordinary man doing extraordinary things – caught in a gripping tale of revenge, betrayal and discovery as he embarks on an epic journey, from a humble blacksmith’s forge to the court of Kings, as he searches for purpose in this beautiful but brutal medieval world.
From bustling city streets to lush forests, discover this open-world Medieval Europe through an unforgettable adventure filled with action, thrill and wonder.
A Tale of Love and Revenge
Live life through the eyes and actions of Henry, a young man on a quest to avenge his murdered parents. His story – illustrated with over five hours of stunning cinematics – takes him from aspiring warrior to rebel, crossing paths with a charismatic cast of characters and an unforgettable set of adventures, as he goes up against the King of Hungary, Sigismund the Red Fox and his fearsome allies.
A True RPG Experience
Your actions shape Henry’s destiny and how the world will react to him. Customize freely his appearance, skills and equipment while taking a moral stance on the events around you. Travel round the land engaging in unique activities, such as blacksmithing and archery, to truly immerse yourself in this vibrant region of Europe that will remember your actions, forever.
Live a Life Medieval
This stunningly authentic rendition of 15th Century Bohemia allows you to experience this fascinating setting like never before. Get lost in a sprawling city, engage with peasants and talk with nobles while exploring a vast and rich countryside with taverns, bath houses, castles and more.
Authentic First-Person Combat
Feel the clash of steel and visceral combat as you engage in thrilling real-time battles. There’s a range of authentic weapons and combat styles to suit every player. On foot, horse or by stealth, you can specialise in elegant sword mastery, brutal blunt weapons or deadly ranged attacks.
The post Kingdom Come: Deliverance II – How Your Character Becomes Unique to You appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Hello, PlayStation community! I’m Zane, the Lead Game Designer of Floatopia. Today, we’re thrilled to show you the World Premiere trailer for a new life simulation game where you travel in a superpowered world and meet new friends. We look forward to bringing Floatopia to the PlayStation community and joining you on your journey above the clouds.
Our story is set in a fantastical world filled with superpowers that can be acquired through just a phone call. Unfortunately as the protagonist, you find that all the best superpowers in the world have already been taken, leaving you with – well, frankly, the much less impressive ones. This situation has led you into a dead end job, and you feel marginalized and underappreciated. But, by chance, you come across a floating island and there, you join others with similarly “useless” superpowers. Together, you embark on a healing journey, exploring the new chapters of your lives.
This world is made up of unique miniature toys with an art style that is bright, fresh, and full of fantasy. It feels as if you handcrafted it piece by piece. Here, you will see residents that look like figurines, houses made from milk cartons, and stations seemingly crafted from clouds. We have put a great deal of effort into the details of this magical world, utilizing high-quality rendering techniques, exquisite material details, and delicate lighting… These elements work together to showcase the game’s unique miniature world, creating a believable and immersive experience.
In Floatopia, you can travel with your own island to explore various fantastical realms. We integrate fantasy elements based on different regional cultures and natural landscapes, and plan to regularly update the game with new realms for a rich and novel experience.
We hope that beyond traveling, you can truly “live” in Floatopia. Here, you can meet residents with unique superpowers and personalities, and share in the joy of becoming friends! The game also features whimsical fauna and flora, magical crops with superpowers, and much more. As long as you keep exploring, you’ll encounter countless wonders and adventures.
We want you to unleash your creativity. Our diverse themed decorations offer a high degree of freedom in gameplay, allowing you to build an island that’s uniquely yours.
We’ve designed numerous natural opportunities in Floatopia for you to connect with strangers and build friendships. Of course, you can also invite your friends to throw a party and fully enjoy your time together!
Our vision is to create a whimsical, heartwarming, and fantastical world through the continuous release of engaging, high-quality, and cross-platform content. We aim to provide you with a relaxing and joyful dream vacation in Floatopia. Let’s embark on this journey together!
Floatopia will be arriving on PS5 in 2025, and we can’t wait to share more exciting news with you! Thank you for your support. See you then.
It’s been a while since a known gamer resided in The White House. The first, and last, to do so was former President Barack Obama, who brought a Nintendo Wii with him when he took office and, according to someone who played against him, apparently mains Captain Falcon in Super Smash Bros. But depending on the outcome of the 2024 election, The White House may soon have a second gamer in residence: current Minnesota governor and vice presidential candidate Tim Walz.
But Gov. Walz isn’t bringing a Nintendo Wii with him (that we know of), nor has he attempted to settle his political disputes in Smash to our knowledge. His gaming habits are, surprisingly, a bit deeper a cut than that. It turns out that Gov. Walz is reportedly a fan of the Sega Dreamcast. And through some sleuthing, we’ve managed to not only track down Walz’s old Dreamcast console, but we may have also uncovered at least one game that the former teacher-turned-politician has historically enjoyed: Crazy Taxi.
We first learned that Gov. Walz was, at one point, a Dreamcast enjoyer due to an article in The New York Times. In the report, a former student of Walz’s recalls that he used to share “unusually relatable” stories with his classes, “like the time his wife had seized his Dreamcast, the Sega video game console, because he had been playing to excess.”
Obviously, this immediately sparked a flurry of community memes speculating what game had Walz so enraptured. Was it Sega Bass Fishing, a quintessential “dad” game that seemed in keeping with Gov. Walz’s overall demeanor? Was it Sega Sports NFL 2K, an apropos choice given he was a football coach and then-Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Randy Moss was on the cover? Was it something more left-field like Shenmue or Skies of Arcadia? Theories abounded. We, and probably a number of other journalists, reached out to Gov. Walz’s office weeks ago looking for the answer, but didn’t get any response.
That would have been the end of it, but for one member of gaming forum ResetEra. The user, Bryn Tanner (who goes by Aaron on the forum), had posted way back in 2018 that they were in possession of Gov. Walz’s old Dreamcast. “Oh I bought a Dreamcast for $25 back in 2012 from one of his former high school students who worked on his campaign. Walz was just like ‘hey we have this old video game thing, do you want it?’ And the guy took it.”
When I reached out to him, Tanner was taking a well-deserved and humorous victory lap as news about the Dreamcast surfaced. “lmao yes I still have that Dreamcast this fucking rules,” he wrote in a post following the NYT piece. Tanner went on to tell me that while the Dreamcast he purchased at the time came with a VMU, a third-party rumble pack, two controllers, and a controller extension cable. It did not come with any games, though Tanner bought a copy of Crazy Taxi for $4 at Pawn America the night he purchased the console.
“I get a little kick out of knowing our future VP might know who Big the Cat is if he ever played Sonic Adventure,” Tanner tells me.
Though Tanner didn’t know what games Walz played, he did know someone who might. He referred me to Alex Gaterud, one of Walz’s former Global Geography students at Mankato West. Though Gaterud doesn’t remember Walz ever speaking with him about video games, he was roommates in college with another Mankato graduate who brought along the Dreamcast in question and left it behind when he moved out. Gaterud then says he sold the Dreamcast to Tanner, though he points out to me that “advertising something ‘formerly owned by a U.S. Congressman’ doesn’t add any value on Craigslist.”
What games came with the Dreamcast? Gaterud doesn’t know – there weren’t any around when he handed it off to Tanner, and he can’t recall ever playing anything on it. Fortunately, Gaterud was able to connect me to one more person who might be able to sort this out once and for all. So I called up Tom Johnson, another Mankato West graduate and a former campaign intern for Gov. Walz.
Tom Johnson graduated Mankato West in 2007, and spent the summer before he went to college working for Walz’s congressional campaign. As an intern, he would send out mailers, coordinate volunteers, and drive around Minnesota, occasionally with Walz along for the ride.
Given that it wasn’t an election year, Johnson says the vibes were fairly relaxed and quiet, and the campaign office had a break area in the back with a mini putt set, a couch, and a TV. One day, he recalls, Walz brought in a box of stuff that he had planned to donate, saying he thought the staff might like to use it. Inside, of course, was the Dreamcast.
Johnson and the other staff didn’t play the Dreamcast much during its stint in the campaign office, so when he left for college, Johnson just took it with him, which is how it reached Gaterud and later Tanner. But while Johnson wasn’t doing much Dreamcast gaming, he tells me that in high school he was a part of a group of individuals known (“affectionately, I hope”) as the “Nerd Herd” at Mankato West. The group would have LAN parties together, and play World of Warcraft late into the night. Many Nerd Herd members, Johnson says, went on to work on Walz’s campaign for Congress in 2006. “I would say the Nerd Herd of Mankato contributed greatly to [Walz’s] election to Congress in 2006, which had the domino effect of him being nominated for vice president of the United States.”
“Walz really is just such a great, normal guy,” Johnson continues. “He’s one of those guys, it’s like, he’s your friendly neighbor, and then you find out that guy has the Guiness Book of World Records for free throw shooting. He’s just a normal guy, he just happens to be a governor too. Everything people say about him being this down to earth guy, really nice, really friendly, really earnest, it’s all true.”
But what video games does he play? Johnson thinks he remembers one disc sitting inside the Dreamcast when he took it from the office to go to college.
“I wanna say there was Crazy Taxi,” Johnson says.
Is Crazy Taxi the game Gov. and VP candidate Tim Walz played so much that his wife took his Dreamcast away? We still don’t know for sure. It is, as Gaterud put it to me, “basically law that all Dreamcasts need a copy of Crazy Taxi,” so at minimum, Gov. Walz almost certainly owned a copy. And in a TikTok video posted by Tanner about the Dreamcast, one commenter seems to imply they at one point knew Walz, and that he talked about Crazy Taxi a lot – we’ve reached out to them for more details. I’ve also reached out to his office again to see if he’ll confirm, but nothing so far. And I reached out to Sega for comment on the possibility that their goofy driving franchise played a tiny role in the current presidential election. No comment there either.
Whatever the case, Gov. Walz’s however-brief flirtation with the Dreamcast would make him the first known gamer vice president if he and current vice president Kamala Harris are elected. Given that Crazy Taxi is apparently getting an open-world reboot, maybe we’ll see it make an appearance in the White House one of these days.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
Bethesda and MachineGames are carving out a place in Disney history with Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, but the upcoming action-adventure spinoff will also include at least one reference to a more obscure (at least on the big-screen) story from the franchise’s world.
Bethesda revealed a new look at the Wolfenstein developer’s latest during a trailer shown at the gamescom Opening Night Live presentation yesterday. It’s a video that confirmed a release date of December 9, 2024, for PC and Xbox Series X | S, while also revealing that PlayStation 5 players will be able to join in on the adventure next spring. In between shots of Indiana punching nazis and solving ancient puzzles, X/Twitter user @tylerllewtaing noticed that the footage briefly namedrops the location featured in Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure, the Temple of the Forbidden Eye.
Indy has visited all sorts of distant lands… https://t.co/Dc3Zr8nX3m
— Bethesda (@bethesda) August 21, 2024
Disneyland’s Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Forbidden Eye opened in the ‘90s and sees park attendees immerse themselves in the world of Harrison Ford’s legendary adventurer. It involves exploring abandoned areas, uncovering long-forgotten treasures, and coming face to face with powerful, magical forces. It’s a Pirates of the Caribbean-style ride that has guests tag along on a classic Indy adventure, and it’ll be mentioned, at least in some form, in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
Bethesda did officially acknowledge the cute reference, though it’s unclear if players will actually be able to visit or interact with the temple in-game in any way. While MachineGames hasn’t gone as far as to outright confirm the extent to which the Temple of the Forbidden Eye is included, fans were quick to speculate and hope for a full-on tie-in.
Holy crap!!
Indiana Jones and The Temple of The Forbidden Eye is “technically” canon now from the popular attraction at #Disneyland in Adventureland, is reference in the upcoming #IndianaJonesAndTheGreatCircle game coming Dec. 9th!! 😱🤯‼️#DisneyParks#IndianaJones#Xbox pic.twitter.com/a2LiQRKxRC
— Brian Saeger (@SkywalkerBrian) August 21, 2024
If there’s an entire segment that’s the Temple of the Forbidden Eye, I will literally pass out. This has been one of my most anticipated games for YEARS
— Brett (@KeybladeBrett) August 21, 2024
i’m like one of the 5 people that cares about this game being good so they did this for me I fear
— tyler “llewyn” taing (@tylerllewtaing) August 20, 2024
We learned more about how MachineGames will explore a new corner of the Indiana Jones universe yesterday, but there’s still so much yet to be revealed. We took an even closer look at the Great Circle recently and shared our findings in a hands-off preview that you can read here. While we wait for more news ahead of its winter launch, you can read up on everything else announced at gamescom Opening Night Live 2024.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.
I’ve never really understood the charm of ultrawide monitors. I dare boldly to maintain that there is such a thing as Too Wide, a point beyond which the extra visual estate becomes a waste of electricity, unless you watch the screen in pairs. I can only assume people who use ultrawide monitors live in constant terror of flanking manoeuvres and demand the maximum amount of peripheral vision. Mind you, I tend to play games with my nose about 10 centimetres from the screen. Forget being flanked – it’s the prospect of snipers up ahead I’m worried about.
If you’re among the people who fret excessively about flankers, I’ve got great news from Uncle BioWare. Forthcoming RPG Dragon Age: The Veilguard will support 21:9 ultrawide monitors. The ultrawide functionality extends to cinematics – you can disable “cinematic aspect ratios” to switch off the black bars that otherwise hem in the view. It’s one of several PC-specific flourishes they’ve just blogged about. Have a look.
Money where your Meowth is.
We know that the ‘Switch 2’ is real. We know an announcement is coming this fiscal year. We know “Switch successor” is the most accurate description of it. All of the other big details — what form it will take, how big it will be, whether it will finally give us that flipping Wind Waker port — are all up to speculation and analysis for the time being.
Take, perhaps, one of the biggest questions of them all: How much will ‘Switch 2’ cost? In the absence of an official announcement, we still have no idea, but that hasn’t stopped certain analysts from throwing out predictions and it won’t stop us from looking to the past to try and determine the future.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Announced at Xbox Games Showcase earlier this year, Atomfall is the surprise new title from Rebellion (Sniper Elite, Zombie Army) that, on first glance, feels like a very British Fallout. A retro-future, post-apocalyptic setting, first-person RPG mechanics, and a world stuffed with weirdos all hearken back to Bethesda’s epochal series. But in my time with a first-ever hands-on build of Atomfall, it quickly became clear that there’s much more to this game than a location transplant.
Set in an alternate timeline following the real-life Windscale Nuclear Disaster of 1957, the first thing you’ll notice about Atomfall is that, for a game set after an atomic meltdown, this place is beautiful. Set in the rolling hills of the Lake District in Cumbria, this is a truly bucolic take on the end of the world – streams babble, nature grows unabated, and semblances of the old world still exist; never more so than in the picture-postcard village of Wyndham you’ll find early in your travels.
It’s a unique location for this kind of game, and sets the tone perfectly – this is less about a world destroyed than a world gone wrong. Outlaws roam the hills wearing cricket pads as armor, vicious rats with glowing blue eyes swarm around tumbledown farm buildings, and druids are said to be performing pagan rituals in the woods, towards ends unknown.
From the outset, how you choose to engage with all this is up to you. For the first portion of my time with the game, I simply hiked the backroads, taking down bandits to loot for their weapons, and scraps of material with which to craft bandages or throwables. Combat will be familiar to players of first-person RPGs, but comes with some distinct touches – you can only quickslot four weapons at any one time, and ammo is extremely scarce, making at least one melee item a must. You’ll also want to keep a stock of healing items, as death is quick here – it quickly becomes clear that avoiding a fight can be as helpful as starting one.
Once I felt suitably tooled up, I began to engage with what might be Atomfall’s most interesting design choice. In Rebellion’s take on the genre, you don’t get quests – you get leads.
From the beginning of the demo, it’s clear that my character is on a journey simply to find out what’s happened here – there’s no grand objective, no hero’s quest. You just have a simple question driving you: What’s going on? And to support that, your journal isn’t full of concrete explanations of what to do, but rather clues you’ve amassed. Early on, I met a trader, who’d throw in local gossip with every barter deal we made – that gave me a lead to a local bunker I might explore, and an approximate location on my map.
Later, I visited Wyndham, and decided to see what was inside the local church – and here’s where the promise of leads became very exciting. Inside, I found a vicar standing over a murder victim – he asked me not to investigate, for fear of inciting the wrath of the soldiers that have occupied the town. I could have left it here, but I searched the body and found a bloodied note that pointed me to a local hotel. Again, I could have followed that clue and gone to explore – but I chose to speak to the church caretaker, who revealed she’d seen the victim entering an out-of-the-way cellar the night before.
Now I had two leads about the same thing – the game didn’t tell me if one was the primary quest, or give me any indication as to the right path, it was down simply down to my own interest. I chose to look through the cellar and, on first glance, thought I’d hit a dead end – until I saw a chink of light from under a wall and realized I could crawl through. Here I found a note that pointed to the local shopkeeper as the murderer, and a clue that he was in-line with the local faction of druids. I went to confront him, and was presented with multiple options – I could report him to the soldiers, explain his part in the murder to the vicar… or even make a deal for his silence.
I chose the latter, and wasn’t just given a physical reward, but an entirely new lead that seems to be drawing me to meet those druids rather than confront them. What the domino effect might be here is unclear this early in my time with the game, but the sheer number of choices I made after effectively stumbling over a quest by accident leaves me very intrigued.
You’re being rewarded for curiosity more than anything else, and I think this speaks to Atomfall’s key interest – this isn’t a game about just exploring a world, but following your own intuition, rather than what the game might tell you is the correct path. Even in this small slice of the game, I could have walked in a different direction – nothing told me to look in that church in the first place.
The secret to Atomfall may be that it’s as much a mystery game as it is a traditional RPG – every quest I’ve completed so far has led me to more quests, more questions, more leads. The game’s form might be familiar, but there’s something unfamiliar bubbling under the surface – I very much want to see more.
Atomfall arrives for Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC in 2025, and will be available with Game Pass on day one. Available to wishlist now.
Rebellion
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