2023-05

Today’s PlayStation Showcase brought the reveal of Sword of the Sea, a new game from Giant Squid, the development team behind Abzu and The Pathless. The most striking visuals of the new game come from a vast desert that brings to mind thatgamecompany’s Journey. That’s not coincidence, since Giant Squid’s founder is Matt Nava, who was previously art director at thatgamecompany. But while this new game is destined to draw strong comparisons to that classic title, there were some notable differences on display. First, the desert itself looks much more like a flowing sea, and the character you control like a surfer moving through the water. In certain sequences, the desert seems to actually transform into water, suggesting a mystery at the core of the game. In the footage shown, we see a focus on flow movement for the protagonist...

Helldivers is making a comeback in the form of a sequel. Helldivers II is coming this year for PlayStation 5 and PC.  A humorous trailer showed off the game’s sci-fi action and sense of humor. The most notable aspect is the game’s switch to third-person shooting as opposed to the purely top-down perspective of 2015 original. By the looks of it, you'll still be teaming up with friends to blast apart scores of extraterrestrial threats using a variety of high-tech weaponry.  For more, you can read our review of the first Helldivers here. ...

The Talos Principle is a well-regarded puzzle game about androids discovering sentience and grappling with those ideas. During the 2023 PlayStation Showcase, Sony revealed The Talos Principle II with mysterious voiceover declaring a new world awaits you full of dangers and mysteries all while showing impressive vistas and structures. The Talos Principle II arrives this year. ...

Phantom Blade 0, a new entry in the Phantom Blade series, was announced today during the most recent PlayStation Showcase via a cinematic and gameplay trailer.  While it was hard to ascertain specifics from the trailer, we did get glimpses at the game's action RPG combat, which is fast, frenetic, and stylish. According to a YouTube description, Phantom Blade 0 is inspired by Chinese martial arts and steampunk. In it, you play as the Dark Raider, out for revenge against "The Order." Additionally, the voiceover twice asks a disembodied character what they will do with what little time they have left. Specifically, 66 days. Their response is to get their heart back. Check out the trailer below: No release information was given. Phantom Blade 0 is being developed by Cruel Man Studio, based in Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong. The...

Phantom Blade 0, a new entry in the Phantom Blade series, was announced today during the most recent PlayStation Showcase via a cinematic and gameplay trailer.  While it was hard to ascertain specifics from the trailer, we did get glimpses at the game's action RPG combat, which is fast, frenetic, and stylish. According to a YouTube description, Phantom Blade 0 is inspired by Chinese martial arts and steampunk. In it, you play as the Dark Raider, out for revenge against "The Order." Additionally, the voiceover twice asks a disembodied character what they will do with what little time they have left. Specifically, 66 days. Their response is to get their heart back. Check out the trailer below: No release information was given. Phantom Blade 0 is being developed by Cruel Man Studio, based in Kowloon Bay, Hong Kong. The...

Sony kicked off its 2023 PlayStation Showcase with a new game called Fairgames. The pre-rendered trailer began with complaints about needless wealth and transitioned to a team working together to pull of a heist in a skyscraper. The trailer ended with the tagline take it till you make it and QR code link to taketheir.money. Little else was offered about the game from the footage shown, but considering the showcase it appeared on, it;s safe to assume it will be releasing in a PlayStation console. The game is being developed by Haven....

After playing several hours of Final Fantasy XVI in Square Enix’s Tokyo, Japan, offices for this month’s cover story, I spend about 20 minutes in one of the game’s various open field areas. FFXVI isn’t an open world game, but it features several large areas where players, as Clive, are free to explore the location, fight monsters, pick up side quests, find treasure, and more.  I spend about 20 minutes checking out every nook and cranny of one of the earlier open field locations in the game. After that, I check my map to see how much I had covered in the area I was permitted to explore – it was about an eighth, which is to say these zones are massive. But much of the game occurs in focused, dungeon-esque missions where players make their way through more linear areas,...

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For a few years now, we’ve heard Final Fantasy XVI is inspired by HBO’s Game of Thrones, and during my cover story trip to Tokyo, Japan, to speak with Creative Business Unit III, I learned more about this. Specifically, and perhaps critically, I learned that the team was inspired by the first four seasons of Game of Thrones. Or at least, that’s where it started.  “Right around the start of the game’s development back when we’re in that early period is right about when [Season 4 of Game of Thrones on HBO] was airing,” FFXVI producer Naoki Yoshida tells me. “We had seen it grow into this television show that was loved around the world, not just by older generations but younger generations as well. So we bought the Blu-Ray box of Seasons 1, 2, 3, and 4, and made...

May 18 marked the 12th annual Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), a day to celebrate and raise awareness for accessibility across varying industries. Not only does it help to highlight new innovations, it also continuously reinforces the notion that disabled people need assistive tech to thrive. For games, studios regularly refine and create new options and design practices seeking to eliminate as many barriers as possible....