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If you’ve seen Final Fantasy XVI protagonist Clive Rosfield, you’ve likely noticed he has a black face tattoo on his left cheek. This tattoo connects more widely to the world of FFXVI, Valisthea, and magic’s place in it.  During my cover story trip to Tokyo, Japan, to speak to developer Creative Business Unit III, I learned a lot about magic in FFXVI and how it affects Clive’s life and everyone in this world. The special tattoo on Clive’s face is the mark of a Bearer, which indicates he can use magic. This might seem like a great ability, but the nations of Valisthea view Bearers as something other than human. These nations brand their Bearers to show they are enslaved, and nations trade Bearers across borders based on who needs their magical abilities. When Clive receives this branding, his life...

Some employees at Bethesda's Arkane Studios reportedly hoped that Microsoft, after acquiring Bethesda in 2020, might cancel Redfall or reboot it as a single-player game, according to a new report from Bloomberg.  That didn't happen, however, and Redfall launched on May 2 to poor reception from critics and players. Game Informer gave it a 5 out of 10 in our review. Xbox head Phil Spencer said on Kinda Funny Games' Xcast that he was disappointed with the Redfall launch. "I'm upset with myself," he told the Xcast. Despite hopes for a new approach to the game following that 2020 acquisition, Microsoft remained hands-off and allowed development on the title to continue as normal, save for canceling a PlayStation 5 version of Redfall.  Bloomberg reports that Arkane began development on Redfall in 2018, a time when ZeniMax, Bethesda's parent company, was still private and...

Meta has revealed the Meta Quest 3 and it's coming this fall. It will cost $499 for the 128GB headset, but an additional storage option will be available for purchase for those who want more space.  The Meta Quest 3 offers higher resolution, stronger performance, and a slimmer and apparently more comfortable form factor, according to Meta. It features no required wires for us.  "Quest 3 combines our highest resolution display and pancake optics to make content look better than ever," a press release reads. "To power those extra pixels, this will be the first headset to feature a next-generation Snapdragon chipset developed in collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies. That next-gen Snapdragon chipset delivers more than twice the graphical performance as the previous generation Snapdragon GPU in Quest 2 – meaning you'll get smoother performance and incredibly crisp details in immersive...

Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Yuji Naka could serve two and a half years in prison as part of his sentencing for insider trading charges.  Abema Times reports that prosecutors on the case asked that Naka go to prison for two years and six months in a Tokyo District Court today, as reported by Video Games Chronicle. Prosecutors also demanded that Naka pay a fine of 2.5 million yen (roughly $17,900) as well as a supplementary penalty of 170 million yen (roughly $1.2 million). Naka's defense asked that this fine and prison sentence be reduced, but a final decision on the matter isn't expected until July 7, VGC reports.  Naka, who also directed Balan Wonderworld, was arrested in November in connection to an insider trading investigation involving the reveal of a new Dragon Quest game. Naka was accused of purchasing 10,000 shares worth 2.8...

Final Fantasy XVI will be the first mainline-numbered Final Fantasy game with a Mature rating. The presumption might be that developer Creative Business Unit III wanted this game to have more violence to accompany its new action-heavy combat, but that’s not the case. The team put little thought into the rating – it just came naturally, according to various members of CBUIII I spoke to for our FFXVI cover story.  “We actually get this question kind of a lot – people ask us if the rating went up because [we] wanted to make a more violent game, and the answer to that is no,” producer Naoki Yoshida says. “On the outside, it doesn’t appear [the rating system] has changed. You still have your E, you still have your Teen, and you still have your Mature. The problem is that over...

Square Enix and Final Fantasy XVI developer Creative Business Unit III have been open about the game spanning decades of protagonist Clive Rosfield’s life for years. It’s an interesting aspect of this story because it speaks to how broad its horizons might be. What starts as a revenge story will grow into one of war, its effects on people, and ultimately, Valisthea’s place in a fight between Eikons, Dominants, and more over crystals.  It also means we’ll be seeing a lot of Clive’s life. During my cover story trip, I played a few of FFXVI’s opening hours, much of which took place in the past, when Clive is just 15 and his younger brother Joshua even younger. I learned a lot about their relationship with each other as well as with their parents, and more I won’t spoil here. But...

For a licensed racing game, 2021’s Hot Wheels Unleashed was a fun and respectable debut, and now we’ll get to see how developer Milestone builds on that foundation with an upcoming sequel.  Hot Wheels Unleashed 2: Turbocharged arrives on October 19 and retains the fun “little toy car in a big world” presentation with new additions under the hood. Players can now get behind the wheel of motorcycles and ATVs, and the game has over 130 vehicles total at launch. Players race across five diverse environments using new skills: double jumping and lateral dashing. The double jump can be performed at any time to leap over rivals and obstacles, while dashing is great for sideswiping nearby opponents or dodging hazards. Milestone touts increased interactivity between vehicles and objects on and off the track, and playstyles can be customized using perks...

A handful of former CD Projekt Red (The Witcher 3, Cyberpunk 2077) developers have created a new studio named Blank. to make a character-driven game set in an apocalypse, "with a twist or two."  Cyberpunk 2077 game director and The Witcher 3 co-game director Mateusz Kanik has co-founded Blank. with Jędrzej Mróz and Marcin Jefimow, both former executive producers on The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. Together, this new studio aims to apply "their years of experience to a clean slate" and bring "beautifully crafted games and unique experiences to players, favoring novel territory rather than well-trodden ground." A press release from Blank. says the studio has no plans to make "clones, or predictable entries."  Alongside the studio reveal, Blank. has released concept art for its unannounced project, which is the aforementioned game set in an apocalypse, which you can see...

2021's Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City blended together the stories of the first Resident Evil game and its sequel, Resident Evil 2 (which received a fantastic remake in 2019), and while it wasn't a complete knockout hit, some have been asking for a sequel. It seems one might be on the way.  According to a new report on Sudbury.com, a news organization that covers the Greater Sudbury area in Canada, which is where Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City was filmed, Sudbury is receiving an $11 million injection from the provincial government, as reported by PCGamesN. This government is funding 20 local projects through the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation and while a sequel to Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City hasn't officially been named as one of those 20 projects, there is one called "Umbrella Chronicles," and it's receiving $2 million.  If you're...

If you’ve heard Joshua Rosfield, the younger brother of Final Fantasy XVI protagonist Clive Rosfield, in trailers and gameplay, there’s a good chance you find that voice very familiar. That’s because it’s Logan Hannan, the voice of Hugo de Rune from Asobo Studio’s A Plague Tale series.  Logan Hannan – The Voice Of Joshua Rosfield Naturally, the voices Hannan uses between Joshua and Hugo are different but there’s a young familiarity to it and it turns out, it was actually his performance as the latter that landed him the role of the former, according to FFXVI localization director Michael-Christopher Koji Fox.  Koji says the auditions for Joshua’s voice were some of the first to happen. The team chose an actor that was very close to puberty, he says, but at the time, it seemed like it’d work out just...