I have played many a creepy throwback game that takes inspiration from the ever inadequately named “Golden” (Grimy and Diseased? Cadaverous, perhaps) Age of survival horror on PS1, but it’s rare you play one that invokes the N64, and even less often that you stumble on something horror-adjacent that riffs on Star Fox 64. Ah, Star Fox! The natural companion piece for, say, Eternal Darkness or The Suffering. In fairness, I did always find those Pez dispenser dialogue animations pretty eerie.
To kick off with some extremely half-arsed mytho-geometry, the original Frostpunk was a testament to both the design utility and the inexhaustible political symbolism of circles. When people wish to found a community of equals they commonly form a circle, with each participant visible and audible to the rest. A circle is also the best shape for defending against an engulfing ambient threat such as a global ice age, because it has no weak points, and it makes a great centrepiece for a videogame interface, a symmetrical motif that can be tuned and adorned to either suck your attention into the screen or distribute it evenly in all directions.
Created by Polish developers 11 bit, Frostpunk takes place in the middle of a circle, an Arctic crater with a huge coal generator at its heart. Your city rises in rings around that generator, each additional layer of dwellings corresponding intuitively to decreasing temperature, and the result is one of the most focused and thematically consistent specimens of its genre – a building game that feels as intimate and urgent as tending a campfire. Frostpunk 2‘s new campaign mode breaks the circle open. It starts where you (hopefully) ended, with the crater now fully colonised and evolved into a glaring, blue-orange geode of high-density housing and clustered chimneys. But the view has been pulled back, and construction now unfolds along the plains and canyons beyond the crater, which consist not of circles but of hexagons – another UI designer’s favourite – on which you’ll plot out upgradeable districts rather than assembling individual buildings.
Hey, Look!
It’s official, Lego has revealed that The Legend of Zelda will be the next Nintendo franchise joining its gaming series, kicking things off with the Great Deku Tree 2-in-1 set on 1st September 2024.
Listed at £259.99 / $299.99 and consisting of 2,500 bricks, the 2-in-1 set lets you build Hyrule’s iconic Deku Tree in either its Ocarina of Time or Breath of the Wild appearances. There are four Minifigures included too (OOT Child Link, OOT Adult Link, BOTW Link and BOTW Zelda), and many, many details for fans of the series.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The post Microsoft Flight Simulator Releases Local Legend 16: The Short SC.7 Skyvan appeared first on Xbox Wire.
We’re just one week away from the launch of Destiny 2: The Final Shape on June 4. Bungie’s ambitious expansion marks a momentous crescendo in the 10-year journey players have been on. Guardians can finally enter the Traveler and face new threats conjured and cajoled by The Witness. Luckily, players wield powerful new Transcendence abilities and the ultra-customizable Prismatic subclass.
To help prepare for The Final Shape we have Bungie’s Combat Area Lead, Ben Wommack, to discuss new enemies, abilities, what awaits inside The Traveler, and more.
PlayStation Blog: The Final Shape marks a pivotal moment for Destiny players. What is the player’s primary goal in the campaign?
Ben Wommack: To enter the Traveler, journey through its Pale Heart, and confront the ultimate antagonist of the last 10 years of Destiny, The Witness, who is enacting its eons-old plan to create The Final Shape of the universe.
How are we seeing The Witness augment aligned enemies, and how does that translate into combat?
By tearing a hole in the Traveler and entering its Pale Heart, The Witness can manipulate the Traveler’s Light and its own Darkness to further its plans to enact The Final Shape. By mixing these paracausal energies, The Witness can bestow its forces with a crude Prismatic shield that can’t be broken by normal attacks. These are known as “Bound” enemies, as they are now invulnerable but also shackled to the powers the Witness is wielding.
Fortunately, players can shatter these shields with their new Transcendence ability, accessible either from Wellsprings found in the world or via equipping the new Prismatic subclass and charging your Light and Darkness bars. Encountering Bound enemies will force players to change up their battlefield plans and weave Transcendence into their flow, creating new opportunities for exciting combat moments.
New Dread enemies enter the fray. What makes them unique to other factions in Destiny 2?
The Dread combatants are built off years of lessons and experiences from the Destiny 2 team. They are the Witness’s personal army it has gathered (even created) to stop anyone from interfering with its plans to enact The Final Shape. We knew they had to feel different from other factions, so we tried a lot of new visual ideas and tried to break expectations with their mechanics.
One example is how the Weaver and Harbinger have Strand powers, which is a first for Destiny combatants. Another is the Husk, who will launch the Geist creature from its body if its weak spot isn’t targeted. My personal favorite is the Grim, our “bat with a gun” or “gun bat!”. Its wings and battlefield mobility are awesome to both see and fight!
Lethal lava rises during a Strike in Destiny 2: The Final Shape, forcing players to avoid touching the floor.
How will the new Transcendence abilities and Prismatic subclass impact competitive play?
We spent careful attention and lots of balancing time on how Prismatic and the Transcendence ability will play in PvP against Guardians of all kinds of builds. Our intention is not to usurp the other subclasses and ways players engage with PvP, but add new elements to the PvP meta space, shift the paradigm a bit, and break expectations in fun ways. Players running Prismatic will feel a bit like a wild card of an opponent sometimes, which brings its own brand of excitement to a match.
One important detail is how your Light and Darkness meters for activating Transcendence will keep their progress after you die in a match and between rounds. It’s totally possible to orient your build around building Transcendence in PvP, which is a fun way to approach using the subclass!
What are your personal favorite examples of Prismatic subclass builds?
I love what we’re calling the “Buddy Build” for Prismatic Warlocks. You equip Phoenix Dive, Hellion, Weaver’s Call, Song of Flame, Storm Grenade, and the Getaway Artist exotic armor. You Phoenix Dive into combat to create Threadlings and a Hellion buddy, then consume your Arc grenade to create an Arc Soul. Afterwards, you cast Song of Flame to bring out all your Solar bird friends!
Enter the Traveler and bring the fight to The Witness when Destiny 2: The Final Shape launches on June 4.
AAPI Month coverage continues with an interview with Polychroma Games about their Phillipines-set story game, Until Then, coming out on June 25.
Even in its demo, Until Then rang plenty of bells for me as a Filipino-American. It reminded me of summer breaks when I would visit Manila, but with a fondness that outdid any discomfort I would have from walking under the sweltering heat and dodging cockroaches on the sidewalk. From colored chicks to bits of Tagalog, Filipino culture deepened the immersiveness of the story between the playful characterization and mini games.
This is the setting that Mickole Klein Nulud, founder of Polychroma Games and game director of Until Then, and his team sought to capture. Mark Borja is seemingly just another Filipino high schooler going through shenanigans like cramming for class and keeping up with the local rumor mill. However, magical realism starts to seep into the slice of life setting, hinting at the emotionally compelling story to come.
The Philippines isn’t a glamorous city with robot toilets and vending machines at every corner. Until Then doesn’t tout fantasy gimmicks or child soldiers, yet Polychroma still decided to base its setting on Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Nulud tells IGN that the Philippines was integral to the story they wanted to tell, and it was a non-negotiable from the start. They initially had concerns on whether or not a global audience would find the Philippines relatable. However, the developers quickly abandoned their doubts.
“We wanted to write a story where we could apply the experiences of growing up here,” Nulud says. “Right from the start, the idea behind this game was to represent the Philippines and share the experiences we went through living here growing up here. It’s fundamental to the game, so there were no other settings on the table.”
The plan was to create a universally relatable story with the Philippines as a backdrop. That way, it could appeal to global audiences as well as fellow Filipinos. “If we wanted to write a story in a game where you could reach into people’s hearts, of course it has to be universal,” Nulud says. “But the setting, the context, the mannerisms that the story integrates–some of them are uniquely Filipino. So, we sprinkle in some references here and there, but not too much that will make the story confusing for other audiences.”
“We learned how to strike a balance between sprinkling in some references that players here would appreciate, but still [making it so] everyone would appreciate the main story itself.”
Most of the Philippine references appear in the settings, like the trash-littered streets and roaming stray dogs. However, Nulud and fellow developers found a way to gamify their experiences through mini-games and interactive parts of the game, even if it isn’t exactly how you would experience it in real life.
For example, in the demo, Mark and Sofia take turns stabbing fish balls with skewers. However, they don’t just take the fish balls from the vendor and leave. You have to skewer the fish balls yourself by timing exactly where the stick stops above the frying balls, and then again for when exactly to stab it so that it actually sticks. That’s not actually how you buy or even eat fish balls in the Philippines, but it was a fun way for Nulud and his fellow developers to gamify a cultural experience.
Until Then also serves as one of the most recent and significant examples of Filipino representation. My Filipino friends and I have a hard time recalling Filipino representation in recent games. Josie Rizal from Tekken 7 is one of the most popular examples that still pops up, but that game came out nearly a decade ago. Nulud also recalled Rizal, but noted her inclusion in Tekken is only a small part of the game. In that sense, Until Then is a more fully fleshed out example.
“It’s not just an element. It’s not just like 10% Filipino representation. It’s 100% Filipino representation,” says Nulud. “And I don’t think there are–if there ever is–a game that has 100% representation. Maybe there’s just one or two.”
“I think [in] that way, it is a strength. This is a game where you could really say that. That’s really representative, first of its kind.”
Cultural time capsules also exist, like the train station Mark uses early in the game to get to school where you need to buy the ticket from the machine. Nulud admits that it’s not that exciting because you’re just buying a train ticket. However, for him and others who used to commute using the Manila subway, it’s a fun reminder of their local transportation.
“It was really fun because I copied the interface almost 100% in the train station that we have here,” Nulud said. “That was just really fun for me because it’s going to be a time capsule.”
“There have been changes to the train station that we have in the game from real life. Like, some of the design, some of the architecture of the train station…When you visit it now, it’s slightly different from what it is in the game.”
Besides the train station that Nulud mentioned, it’s also a time capsule for technology and social media. Until Then takes place in 2014, even though the team started development in 2020. Facebook, which is still popular in the Philippines, is the main social media used in the story. You scroll through your timeline, liking and commenting on your friends’ posts, or even learn more about the world through the news stories and ads that pop up on your timeline.
“Back in something like 2010, we were only able to access it from a computer shop or internet cafe,” says Nulud. “But, starting in 2014, that’s when Filipinos became more active or online. So that makes a lot of sense for the smartphone mechanics that we have where there’s basically a Facebook clone in the game where you can like, share, and stuff.”
Even now, Facebook is the Philippines’ most popular social media platform. According to DataReportal, the Philippines ranks in Facebook’s top 10 most active countries with 91.9 million active Facebook users. For context, the last Philippine census counted 115.56 million people. The United States, second in the rankings, has 186.4 million active Facebook users, but about 333.29 million people. The ratios are skewed.
“Facebook is not dead here at all. It’s the main platform. I know it’s not big in the US right now, but here, it’s synonymous to social media,” says Nulud.
Besides Filipino culture, Polychroma Games prioritized innovative storytelling to strengthen Until Then’s narrative. Nulud described it as closer to a “cinematic experience,” but one where it was more like a visual novel with interactive elements. Instead of just clicking through options of dialogue, I mashed buttons to wake up our main character, bought a train ticket, plugged in a USB, scrolled through Facebook messages, and more. In that sense, it felt a lot more interactive than a traditional relationship-based visual novel where you might select options that cater towards specific love interests and eventually form a relationship with them.
Nulud’s main inspirations includes Night in the Woods, Infinite Fall’s narrative adventure game based on western Pennsylvania. I used to live in Pittsburgh, a setting that heavily inspired Night in the Woods. In that story, the mining town history, hilly suburban setting, and other environmentally unique pieces about it really made it feel like Pittsburgh and, as an extension, other western Pennsylvania towns. Until Then works similarly, painting a picture of Manila through its setting, even without exposition.
“When you look at Night in the Woods and this game, there’s a lot of similarity in how we present dialogue where you can see the world,” Nulud says. “When I played [NITW], I was really amazed that you can present a story like this. Like, you can present it in a way that you’re just exploring the world because, in very conventional visual novels, you only have backgrounds for settings and then characters just fade in and fade out. And, since so far in my career, I have always been interested in narrative in games. I take a lot of inspiration from how Night in the Woods presents its story. It’s just so immersive, having it presented this way.”
“I’m interested to push the boundaries and explore different ways we can tell stories in games. And one way of doing that, I thought, was presenting it in a cinematic experience.”
Nulud also highlighted a few other inspirations including The Last Night and, for Mark’s interest in piano, the anime Your Lie in April. When asked about The Last Night, Nulud said, “It’s pixel art, but it’s not fully two-dimensional. It’s 2D sprites, but set in a 3D space. And they take it even further by using modern graphics, the type that you would see in AAA games like reflection shaders and stuff like that. I got really inspired by that as well.”
Until Then taps into high school nostalgia with its high school setting. However, Nulud highlights that Until Then isn’t just about that. His favorite theme was “understanding communication,” something that’s emphasized throughout the game and something he enjoyed examining the nuances of. Other words for it include human understanding or human condition in general.
“The theme here is human condition,” says Nulud, “but that’s very general. We don’t talk about that. That is obvious, but if there’s anything specific about the human condition that we highlight here, it’s understanding [that] and its complexity. We really wanted to opt for a story that’s really emotional, something, as I said earlier, something that will reach into people’s hearts and strike a chord with them.”
“Maybe, yeah, sure, high school days can strike a chord with the audience. But I think we were really aiming for something bigger than that. Something that’s outside of school. Something that is truly universal in the human condition or experience. We were really just aiming for something bigger. But definitely, yeah, there are elements of high school days that would make you wanna relive it.”
Nulud recalls how he read a comment from one player about how the demo made them feel “nostalgic,” even though they didn’t come from the same background as he and his colleagues. Even though Until then is based in the Philippines, it seemed to succeed in relating to players overseas with its message.
“Even though they didn’t really live through any of this, they’re not from the Philippines, their schools do not look like that in the game…By aiming for something bigger than school life, something more general than that, we were able to achieve that. Like, just being universal, and even people getting nostalgia for things that they didn’t personally go through.”
Ultimately, Nulud hopes that players connect with the emotional story that his team worked to convey in Until Then. If you learn about the Philippines, cool, but the most important part is the story.
“We just really hope that, whoever plays this, for all the players that will go through the entire game–like, especially for me–I really hope that this game strikes a chord the same way all my inspirations did to me,” he says. “That’s what we’re really hoping for once this comes out.”
To Filipino players, he says, “As I said before, this is universal, but we sprinkled in some references here and there. So we really hope that you point these out when you talk about the game, and we’d really appreciate mentions of it because we put our heart into those references and just overall had fun, you know, putting references here that our fellow countrymen will get.”
Until Then is coming to PC and PlayStation 5. You can play the demo now on Steam.
Jess Reyes is a freelance writer for IGN.
Microsoft has released the Call of Duty Black Ops 6 live-action reveal trailer, and in it we hear from a few familiar faces.
Activision’s marketing so far has revolved around teasing fans with cryptic nods to the Gulf War of the early ‘90s, and this trailer continues the conspiracy theories with a few words of wisdom from world leaders central to the military action that took place in Iraq during the decade.
Former U.S. presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, as well as ex-UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Iraq leader Saddam Hussein, combine to utter words from the shadows that allude to some grand conspiracy the player will presumably unravel over the course of Black Ops 6’s campaign.
“The truth is, your whole life is a lie,” Clinton said, with a smirk. “Nothing is what it seems,” Saddam Hussein concluded. “But if it’s truth you seek… look in the dark.”
Activision’s messaging on Black Ops 6 calls it “the dark new chapter” of the Call of Duty franchise. But just how dark? Will players fight within Saddam Hussein’s palace, touching directly on the real-world events of the Gulf War? Will Black Ops 6 actually feature the likes of Bill Clinton and Saddam Hussein in-game, as Ronald Reagan featured in Black Ops Cold War?
One character we do know set to appear in Black Ops 6 is Russell Adler from Black Ops Cold War, as spotted by Call of Duty fan account CharlieIntel on X/Twitter.
Breaking: First look at Adler in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
The Call of Duty website has the “Reveal Trailer” thumbnail up (instead of the teaser trailer’s thumbnail) pic.twitter.com/Rca9ikM8ce
— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) May 28, 2024
Microsoft pointed fans to its Xbox Games Showcase event as well as its Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Direct set to take place on June 9, 2024, from 10am Pacific / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK. Then it will share a first in-depth look at Black Ops 6 gameplay.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has confirmed Black Ops 6 is set to launch day-one on Xbox Game Pass. It is the first Call of Duty game to do so, and follows Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
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.
Microsoft has confirmed the arrival of Call of Duty Black Ops 6 day-one on Xbox Game Pass.
In a post on Xbox Wire, Microsoft pointed fans to its Xbox Games Showcase event as well as its Call of Duty Black Ops 6 Direct on June 9, 2024, from 10am PT. There it will share more details on the game, with a first in-depth look at gameplay “in this dark new chapter” of the Black Ops series.
Microsoft made the announcement alongside the release of a live-action reveal trailer called ‘The Truth Lies’. In it we see world leaders including Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, George H. W. Bush, and Saddam Hussein, delivering cryptic speeches. Black Ops 6 is reported to be set during the events of the Gulf War during the early ’90s.
News of Black Ops 6’s release into Game Pass doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Xbox president Sarah Bond recently indicated all Microsoft games, including those developed by the recently acquired Activision, would launch straight into Game Pass.
Microsoft has faced tough questions around the potential cannibalization effect of Game Pass, particularly on games that launch on the service day-one. While Xbox executives have insisted sales can be boosted by a game’s presence on Game Pass, some publishers remain unconvinced. Former Activision boss Bobby Kotick, for example, was always against putting Call of Duty into subscription services. Unlike Microsoft, console rival Sony does not release its new exclusives straight into its subscription service.
In an interview with IGN last year, Xbox boss Phil Spencer was asked how he’d handle his and Kotick’s different ideologies after the deal to buy Activision Blizzard closed. “Well, there’s a different person making the decisions,” Spencer laughed.
New Call of Duty games sell for $70 and usually shift around 25 million copies, amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. By releasing this year’s Call of Duty straight into Game Pass, Microsoft potentially risks cannibalizing those sales. Of course, Activision will also launch Call of Duty across Xbox, PlayStation, and PC as a game that can be bought outright. But with Game Pass subscriber numbers failing to grow meaningfully Microsoft is under pressure to attract new customers. Adding a mainline Call of Duty game at launch will no doubt help with that. The Verge has reported Microsoft is considering raising the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate again.
Microsoft is in the process of cutting 1,900 staff from its gaming business. Earlier this month, the company shocked the video game world by announcing the closure of Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks and Redfall developer Arkane Austin. There are fears more cuts are to come.
Microsoft is yet to announce a release date, pricing, or platforms for Black Ops 6, but it will reportedly launch across PC, last-gen and current-gen consoles.
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.
The first scene in RPS Game Club pick Deathbulge: Battle Of The Bands – a genuinely funny and innovative riff on turn-based RPGs – sees candyfloss n’ superglue-haired guitarist Faye frantically search for her missing guitar as the crowd for the titular battle grow impatient. You’ll quickly realise this a school-with-no-trousers-esque dream sequence, but the matted mess of thick black cables that carpet this dingy side-stage is painfully accurate. Pissing around with gear is roughly 70% of the band experience, in my limited experience of being in bands. This probably changes when you’ve got roadies or dedicated tech people, but we did not, because we were skint. And also terrible. Several hours of Deathbulge has brought me more joy than several years of being in actual bands. I had some isolated good times in some of those bands, but I’m having a very good time with Deathbulge.
“Build the legend”.
The rumours were true! LEGO has today unveiled its first The Legend of Zelda set, ‘Great Deku Tree 2-in-1,’ and pre-orders are now open.
Listed at £259.99 / $299.99, the Deku Tree set contains 2,500 pieces for you to build the iconic Hylian landmark in two different ways – one modelled on its Ocarina of Time appearance and one on Breath of the Wild.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
