Commander Fury

Hello! I’m Sebastian Krośkiewicz, one of the guys behind Carrion, which we’re thrilled to be releasing on PlayStation 4 today! I know, “finally,” right? I’m mostly responsible for the programming, art, design, and general direction of the game, so I’m here to elaborate a little on what went into the game and what you might expect when it wraps its tentacles around you. Verify your age to view this content. Verify your age to view this content. The development of the game was a fun – albeit bumpy – ride. In spite of the “reverse horror experience” catchphrase we’ve been using (which, admittedly, works reasonably well), I believe that the idea alone is not what makes our game truly unique. Coming up with the concept was, in fact, the easy part, given our twisted hearts had already been consumed by the Alien and Predator campaigns in Aliens vs. Predator 1 & 2. Being also somewhat obsessively inspired by the concept of John Carpenter’s The Thing, I couldn’t help but wonder why an amorphous antagonist could never get its own video game adaptation. As a programmer eager to explore the idea, I set to work writing the first lines of movement code and soon found that making the concept “work” was actually quite simple. Making it feel rock-solid and fun to play, however, was the real challenge – it turns out arcade-inspired, monstrous fluidity is not an easy thing to capture! Of course, Carrion isn’t the only game to feature an amorphous physical blob as its main character, but I feel that the movement problem has understandably put many developers off exploring the gameplay opportunities further. In our case, being an omnipotent shapeshifter with non-clunky controls also posed some game- and level-design challenges. First off, we were unable to use gravity as an obstacle. Secondly, nothing prevented the player from stretching across the entire room, so – depending on the monster’s location – closing off some parts of the level was tricky at times. Game-breaking physics bugs were also more likely to occur due to the number of co-interacting bodies (i.e., parts of the monster) that responded to the same input. Our rule of thumb was to solve these issues without deteriorating the fun factor and to keep the workarounds sensible and explainable mechanically and lore-wise. Having been on the brink of dropping the project several times during the development, I could easily see how other developers might prefer to take a safer path, but we’re called Phobia for a reason – we’re not afraid to take the scarier route to get to where we’re going! We proceeded to plow through all the challenges head-on and, remarkably, the game not only turned out to be fun and intuitive to play, but it also became very successful, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. The monsters finally won! Game and level design aside, I feel that attention to detail might have played a huge role in our success. Even a great slice of meat needs some seasoning in order to become a juicy steak! Would Carrion be the same without its writhing tentacles? I’d argue it would lack one of the components critical to the overall experience. The tentacles, as soon as they get detached from the surface, are physically simulated and accompanied by a wide assortment of “gory” sound effects (fun fact – the trademark “whipping” sound was achieved by cutting the air with a USB cable), making the main character feel more organic and alive. On top of that, the blood and gore stains, the music, the tropes, and the screams all add up to the 80’s blockbuster horror vibe oozing from your screen. That’s why we’re so thrilled to finally release Carrion on PS4. It took us a while to get there, but we believe it was well worth it. Make sure to grab it today at PlayStation Store, with a 20% off sale! Carrion has already changed our lives for the better, and we hope it will positively influence yours (if only a little bit). Have fun, eat humans, and stay safe. Verify your age to view this content. Verify your age to view this content. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/KiPm_nTSx04View the full article

Hello again! Just a quick note to tell you that State of Play returns next Wednesday, October 27 at 2:00pm PT / 10:00pm BST. As usual, you can watch our broadcast live on Twitch and YouTube. Hooray! This time out, we’ll be focusing on announcements and updates for upcoming third-party releases headed to PS5 and PS4. The show is looking to be ~20 minutes or so, and will share new looks at previously announced games, plus a few reveals from our partners around the world. See you Wednesday! Regarding Co-streaming and Video-On-Demand (VOD) Please note that this broadcast may include copyrighted content (e.g. licensed music) that PlayStation does not control. We welcome and celebrate our amazing co-streamers and creators, but licensing agreements outside our control could interfere with co-streams or VOD archives of this broadcast. If you’re planning to save this broadcast as a VOD to create recap videos, or to repost clips or segments from the show, we advise omitting any copyrighted music. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/bFQBvw9bQ8wView the full article

Welcome to the crew, PlayStation! At long last, we have a release date. On December 14, Among Us will be launching on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. Traverse through space and attempt to hold your spaceship together alongside your other crewmates, but beware – there could be Impostors on board. Or maybe… you’re the Impostor?! There’s only one way to find out. The PlayStation release of Among Us comes with all of the previous content, a slew of new updates, and an exclusive Ratchet & Clank cosmetic in the future. Let’s talk about it! Find the liars – or be one Your crew’s success depends on your social deduction abilities. Think you know who the Impostors are? Can you find them before they murder you? Or maybe you’ll be wrongly ejected. Out in space no one can save you – good luck finding out the truth. Crossplay Have friends on other devices? No worries. The PlayStation version of Among Us allows for crossplay so everyone can play together. 4-15 player lobbies are supported with online multiplayer. Anyways, that’s all the info I have to give you for now. If you’ve read all the way through, thanks. More seriously the entire team at Innersloth want to thank everyone for all of the support – whether you picked up the game ages ago or are just thinking of playing it now, we’re happy to have you! It’s already been a year since we were just a team of three and our game randomly got big, but we couldn’t be more grateful. See you on December 14. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/TCd_KvJIvbgView the full article

Welcome to this new blog about our forthcoming game—House of Ashes! I’m Barney Pratt, audio director here at Supermassive Games. Today I am going to explain our cinematic approach to the music for this game and the series more widely – the scares, the shocks, and how we developed a signature motif that can span space and time. Each of the Dark Pictures Anthology games has a completely different narrative, and as such has a completely different soundtrack. Whether it is character themes, location themes, subconscious clue giving or deliberate misdirection, the music is the strongest audio element to follow and drive the wider narrative arcs as the story develops. We use a hybrid system of film and game music techniques to fully immerse the player in the cinematic experience of the Dark Pictures. Each moment of each level has bespoke music cues to precisely frame-match the action, suspense, intrigue, fear or dread not only for that precise event, but also for each related event over the wider story arc. We need to deliver a seamless cinematic musical journey through all of the choices, paths, dilemmas and key turning points of the story. The style of music originates from the story. For Man of Medan we looked at “youth”, the swaying waves of the sea which dictated the time signature and the fierce, violent brutality of events to come. For Little Hope we took a historical approach, researching the instruments of 1692 New England. These lonely solo instruments played as a lament to the dark times of the Salem witch trials and it was a huge challenge to deliver the cinematic mechanics of a horror game with such a thin and constrained score. The theme for the main character in Little Hope was no exception. Jason Graves, the composer for the series, composed a simple six note motif on an aged piano which in itself offered such a deep explanation of the lead character’s part in the story and clues to the outcome (no spoilers!). Witchcraft by Jason Graves Working closely with Jason as early as possible was vital to the strength of the scores. We have a hugely collaborative relationship and when it came to House of Ashes we knew we wanted a signature sound which represented the repeated occurrence of a key narrative element, across time zones, cultures, and locations broader than we had ever experienced. We wanted a simple phrase, pitching, diving, lurching, warning, something that could be played on multiple instruments, in different keys and at different tempos, layered, morphed and repeated, but never identical, yet still representative of that signature sound. Assault – modern orchestral The signature sound started off very organically, a pitched down ‘coo’ from a dove, and over time it developed into an element played on instruments synonymous with Sumerian culture, through orchestral horror and right through to a synthesized arrangement which is a suggestion of technological advancement. The game opens in a historical setting some 2,000 years ago and as the horror starts to develop we move into timeless orchestral instrumentation. Later, as the narrative exposes an additional twist, we move into the synths to emphasise the realisation for the player. Eclipse – Sumerian version Bloodbath – modern orchestral with synth layers Into The Light – synth version – futuristic As with each music cue, each and every jump scare is crafted individually to fit the moment and the feeling we wish to evoke – the lead in, the dread, the level and impact of the sting. For House of Ashes, taking inspiration from the new haptic feedback features available on the PS5’s DualSense wireless controller, we took the step of bringing those scares closer to the player. We worked hard to deliver the direct, cinematic focus of on-screen action, and didn’t want to break the player’s engagement. However with the strength and versatility of the new haptic feedback on the DualSense controller, we had the opportunity to literally shock the player, with an additional sense – touch! Just for the short time that the jump scare peaked, the high intensity sting moment combined with haptic feedback results in heightening the scares. It was a huge advance for us and the player feedback was incredible, adding another sense and dimension to this key horror mechanic. We also use haptics to enhance drama, explosions, gunshots and timeout reminders. It’s a language that follows the action, whether it’s in game or to improve gameplay feedback, and adds to the performance anxiety. Where we have drama the haptic feedback responds. I hope you enjoyed this peek into the audio world of the Dark Pictures and how sound and audio is used to bring the horror to players. House of Ashes is out October 22 and we can’t wait for you all to play it! If you want a taster of the game’s soundscape, the soundtrack is available from today on Spotify. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/FEbA9vI3TQEView the full article

Hi everyone, this is Keisuke Kikuchi, the producer of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. Alongside the series director, Mr. Shibata, I have been involved in every title in the Fatal Frame series, and thanks to all of our fans and their support, we are now celebrating the 20th anniversary of the franchise. While the series condenses the essence of Japanese horror in each title, we decided on a different type of fear as the overarching theme for each game. For the upcoming Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, we use the motif of Japanese “haunted places,” and the ability of the player to take their camera and walk around these stages. The main theme for this particular entry in the series is “fear related to water.” To accomplish this, we made sure many of the locations were very damp to give them the feel that a ghost could appear at any time, a theme that is very common in Japanese horror. One of the main features I would like to discuss with all of our fans today is the new photo mode, a first for the series. You can now make your own “ghost photography” and post them on social media so that others can see how interesting and scary the series really is. While other games have implemented a photo mode, the Fatal Frame series puts an emphasis on cameras and pictures as the most important items in the game (even using the camera, called the camera obscura, as a weapon to defeat the ghosts!), so the things you can do in this mode are a bit different when compared to other series. And since the main concept behind this new mode is to allow players to make their own original “ghost photography,” we made sure to include filters and other features to provide a number of different options to customize their work. Players can utilize photo mode with the press of a button at almost any part of the game, with the exception of a few particular events. After entering photo mode, you can place any ghosts or characters you have met or encountered up until that point into the picture, and change their position and the way they are facing. After that, you can adjust the poses of the characters and decide on the composition of your picture. You can then use different lenses in order to add in ghost-like effects and turn up the contrast and other options, in order to alter the qualities of your ghost photography. Furthermore, by obtaining the “psychic lens,” you can look forward to ghosts appearing in your photo when you least expect it. At a certain time and by going to a certain place, special ghosts may also appear in your photos! Once your photo appears how you like it, you can choose a frame for your picture, decorate it, adjust the depth of field, focal length and the aperture in order to increase the quality of your picture and then simply utilize the photo features in the platform you are utilizing in order to save the photo. After testing out photo mode, I recommend two methods on how to create your own ghost photography: One is to create a convincing picture that feels like it could actually be real, and the other is to create a really funny photo to make you and your friends laugh. There is a lot of value in creating a situation that you yourself find to be incredibly frightening, and then taking it to its utmost limit. Creating a picture of the characters being surrounded by ghosts as if they are being blessed by them, or changing out the character that is being spoken to with a ghost during a really serious scene can make for unexpected situations that can make you crack up laughing. This is what I really love about photo mode. The storylines throughout the Fatal Frame series always progress with such a very serious tone, but photo mode allows you to create really fun scenes, which has made this one of my favorite parts of the game. So while I’m looking forward to all of your videos playing through the game, I feel like the true charm of this series is to experience the fear for yourself by taking in the world and creating your own ghost photography. I really can’t wait to see what people create and seeing all of the photos everyone puts together after Maiden of Black Water releases October 28. The fear is real, but don’t forget to take a moment or two to soak in the scene and take a few pictures. You never know where the next ghost will turn up! http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/Q1O0l8K8mPIView the full article

This is a pretty epic day for us at Naughty Dog. It’s been almost fourteen years since our team first brought you the bombastic, jaw dropping, globe-trotting adventures with Nathan Drake, Chloe Frazer, and all the lovable characters that have come to make up the franchise – Sully, Sam, Elena, Nadine and beyond! Uncharted has had huge impact, not only on the people that created it, but to millions of worldwide fans, becoming one of PlayStation’s most enjoyed franchises – spanning four stand-alone titles as well as a spinoff starring Chloe Frazer with The Lost Legacy as well. Today, we’re humbled and incredibly excited to show you the world premiere of the first official trailer for the much-anticipated Uncharted movie – starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, and Antonio Banderas. In a collaboration between Sony Pictures Entertainment, PlayStation Productions, and Naughty Dog, we captured the spirit, spectacle, and heart that Uncharted is known for (some of you will recognize some of the humor, landmarks, music, and relics). In discussions with the film’s director, Ruben Fleischer, he shared that he “made the movie for both hardcore fans of the game and those who are not yet familiar with the franchise and believe that both will be equally entertained by this incredibly fun and action-packed film.” It’s going to be an epic, emotional ride for new and old fans as we watch Nathan Drake make his big screen debut. Sic Parvis Magna indeed! Without any further delay, presenting the Uncharted movie trailer. Play Video Uncharted will be available exclusively in theaters on February 18, 2022. On behalf of everyone at Naughty Dog, thank you! Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection will be available on PS5 and PC in early 2022. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/OaDFjaJzn5cView the full article

We’re thrilled to announce that God of War (2018) will be coming to PC on January 14, 2022! All of us at Santa Monica Studio have been humbled by the immense amount of support and passions fans of the God of War series have shown in the latest chapter of Kratos’ story since its release. As of August 2021, 19.5MM copies for God of War on PlayStation 4 have been sold through and we can’t wait to share that experience with a whole new group of players on PC. Play Video Our primary goal when bringing God of War to PC was to highlight the exceptional content the team created and leverage the powerful hardware that the platform offers to create a uniquely breathtaking and high-performance version of the game. You’ll be able to enjoy the full potential of our cinematic, no-cut camera as it follows Kratos and Atreus across the realms with the option of true 4k resolution, on supported devices, and unlocked framerates. Our PC version includes a wide range of graphical presets and options so you can fine-tune your visual experience based on your setup. From higher resolution shadows and improved screen space reflections to enhancements to the ambient occlusion pipeline with GTAO and SSDO – God of War on the PC can create striking visual quality unique to the platform. We’re also happy to announce that we will have full integration with NVIDIA Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS) available on RTX. You won’t have to sacrifice high graphical settings and output resolutions for high performance in God of War. In addition to DLSS we will also have NVIDIA Reflex low latency technology available. Reflex delivers a more responsive experience allowing you to react quicker and hit harder combos. Alongside the graphic and performance improvements, we are also offering 21:9 ultra-widescreen support. From the heart-pumping clashes in combat to the quiet moments where you can take in the otherworldly beauty of the Norse wilds across the Nine Realms, our panoramic widescreen support will make every moment feel more like a truly theatrical experience. Our plans for God of War on PC include robust controller support and keyboard mapping customization. For those of you who would prefer a controller, we will support DualShock 4 and DualSense wireless controllers in addition to a wide range of other gamepads. For our keyboard and mouse players, you will be able to fully customize the bindings to create a control setup that works best for you. Finally, the purchase of God of War on PC will also contain the following digital content: Death’s Vow Armor Sets for Kratos and Atreus Exile’s Guardian Shield Skin Buckler of the Forge Shield Skin Shining Elven Soul Shield Skin Dökkenshieldr Shield Skin That’s all we’ve got for now. We’ll have more details to share over the next few months as we get closer to release on January 14, 2022. We appreciate your continued support of God of War and hope that this version of the game will create a one-of-a-kind cinematic experience for returning and new God of War fans alike. If you would like to pre-purchase God of War for PC, it is now available on both Steam and Epic Game Store. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/9PlZFD-mIMsView the full article

Our team at Arkane has always loved a good kick. In fact, we’ve been looking for ways to get it back into our games for a while. We liked the Dark Messiah kick very much, but there was no real need for it in Dishonored as other systems were serving the same purpose. Finally, in Deathloop, we had our chance to resurrect it. We decided with this game we were going to expand on the melee combat by adding new tools and moves. Thus, we revived the kick. Play Video The kick has gone through a lot of testing and evolution. I remember our earliest discussions were all about which kind of kick is the best kick. Dinga [Bakaba, game director] and I both practice different martial arts, so our coworkers would often see us talking about and performing front, back and rotating kicks. (No one was harmed in the process.) The first code implementation was done by Gameplay Programmer Pierre-Adrien Branche. When we finally got it into the game, we did a lot of testing with animators to have the kick look good in both first- and third-person. We tried different legs, size, leg orientation… You name it, we probably tried it. We experimented with different kicks, like a low kick when aiming below the horizon and a (very cool) flying kick, but that one became useless when we decided that the regular kick would just shove an NPC. First early development Deathloop kick implementation Here to help explore Colt’s calamitous kick with me is Jérôme Braune, game systems designer. Braune: In these comparison images, you can see that in an early version of the kick the foot orientation was different and the leg was displayed more in the center of the screen. To free some space and prevent visual noise around the crosshair, the leg position and foot orientation was later moved further to the right. Foudral: When we were finally happy with the visuals of the kick, a lot of work was put into making it responsive and easy to use in all situations. We had a lot of rules in place: it should never block the player controls; It should be powerful without being overpowered; etc. There was a lot of back-and-forth between the programmers and animators to make it work. (A lot of NPCs were harmed in the process.) Braune: There was a whole balancing act when we were working on making sure the kick wasn’t too powerful. We didn’t want the player to get rid of enemies too easily in combat, so we established a new rule. On unaware enemies, one kick will make them fly away, but on aware enemies a single kick will simply knock them off their balance. Then a second kick performed within a short timeframe would make the enemy go flying. We love that the kick also gives a bit of an incentive for stealth as a cool “you didn’t see this coming” bonus attack. If you played Dishonored and Dishonored 2, you know we love playing with ragdoll physics. The kick feature really emphasizes this love. Animation Director Damien Pougheon made some great ragdoll kick poses and animations that could be driven nicely by physics. Gameplay Programmer Emile Jonas provided a way to edit data easily for the impact on NPCs. To achieve the perfect results, we applied some linear velocity (for the strength of the impact) and angular velocity (to make the body spin a bit). With animations and impulses tweaked, it all came together to make the kick super dramatic. Foudral: There was also a lot of testing done with inputs to see what felt the most intuitive. We treated the kick like a weapon; the “trigger” is on the camera side of the gamepad, like we would do for a gun. We ended up mapping the kick to the right stick so it could be triggered quickly in the context of a moment of panic. Braune: Just for fun, we even developed a system that detects when an NPC is near a ledge or breakable item, so they’re automatically pulled toward it. We knew this game system would have some comedic potential, but actually seeing it in the hands of the players… it’s just a totally new level of awesomeness for us. Foudral: In the end it was a good design lesson, and one that showcases something we hold true for all Arkane games. Things need to be cool, but above all they need to have a purpose. And what better purpose is there than giving players the chance to kick someone off a cliff? Wield Colt’s devastating kick for yourself in Deathloop, alongside an arsenal of powerful weapons and reality-warping powers. Dive into the action-packed timeloop FPS, available now on PS5. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/99NzuTCUXy4View the full article

Hello! Alex here, I’m a designer and the technical lead at 2pt Interactive. As many of you may know, we’re the little indie studio making the challenging, physics-based game Heavenly Bodies. Ahead of our fast-approaching 2021 release (put it in your diaries, folks), I wanted to take some time to share why we’re so excited to be working with the PS5 to make our passion project. A quick refresher For those who aren’t as familiar with it, Heavenly Bodies is a game about cosmonauts, the body, and the absence of gravity. You move the limbs of a weightless, physically simulated space engineer (or two, in local co-op) to assemble and maintain structures and systems aboard a rickety space station. Your assigned tasks will often appear straightforward, but without gravity to keep you grounded, even the most mundane requests will require wit and willful coordination to perform. Make sense? Okay, Welcome aboard. Why we love using the DualSense wireless controller At its heart, Heavenly Bodies has been created with the love for rich detail, physicality, and tactility. We’ve engineered a uniquely challenging movement scheme which lets you manipulate each limb of your weightless body. While (very) tricky at first, these flexible controls paired with physically simulated environments make for a world that begs to be tinkered with. With a game that quite literally requires you to feel your way through the environments, you can only imagine our excitement with the opportunity to use the features of the DualSense controller. With the triggers used to grasp your cosmonaut’s hands and a chaotic, zero-g environment where bumps and thumps are inevitable, it made so much sense for us to use the adaptive triggers and haptic functions to transport you into the floppy suit you see on screen. Feel the palms of your hands… at your fingertips The best way to play Heavenly Bodies is by using your cosmonaut’s hands. You’ll need to grip with the triggers to grab onto objects and to push yourself off walls. The DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers are remarkable at communicating what objects and surfaces are within your cosmonaut’s grasp. For example, when doing some weeding in the oxygen garden, you’ll feel the delicate stalkiness of dry plants compared to the thick, hard metal framework of the station. And this scrunchy piece of paper? You can bet it feels scrunchy. What’s really cool, and somewhat terrifying, is sensing objects and surfaces ripped from your grasp when your hands can’t quite hang on. Sensing the bumps and thumps of the job through your suit A whole new sensory dimension is added from the DualSense controller haptics. To support the physicality of movement, it’s important to us that you can feel all the bumps and thumps of your body up against surfaces and objects. You can only imagine what being trapped in a soil centrifuge would feel like, but soon you won’t have to: We’ve also designed a system which allows vibrations from around the station to transmit across surfaces and into your arms. You’ll be able to feel equipment buzzing through the walls, or pressurised fizzy drink cans blasting like small rockets: The sounds of space, in 3D While space aficionados will rightly tell you that there’s no sound in space, we’ve taken some guilty pleasure in filling our environments (air-pressurised, or otherwise) with the rich sounds of space station equipment. The PS5’s impressive 3D audio works to envelope you in the buzzes, beeps and groans emanating from around the station. A particular highlight for us is when you’re tasked to navigate a mineral extraction pod through a dense asteroid field. The violent, metallic thumps of the asteroid rocks bashing against the pod always leaves a grin on our faces. That’s all we have for today! Remember, Heavenly Bodies is coming in 2021, so keep your eyes peeled for release announcements soon! http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/RyuOwwdBAV8View the full article

Back in January Sony Interactive Entertainment, San Diego Studio and the Jackie Robinson Foundation (JRF) announced a new partnership. We committed to donating $1 for every MLB The Show 21 Collector’s Edition sold in the US through December 31, 2021, including the Jackie Robinson Edition, the Jackie Robinson Deluxe Edition, and the Digital Deluxe Edition to the Jackie Robinson Foundation. Those donations were used to create multiple JRF/PlayStation-MLB The Show Scholarships which will provide students of color with financial assistance to attend institutions of higher learning. It was important for us to write more than just a check. Play Video The partnership with the JRF will include SIE employees serving as mentors to the JRF/PlayStation Scholars throughout their four years of college, and paid internships at San Diego Studio during the JRF Scholars’ junior and senior years. The internships provide real world on the job experience at one of the best video game studios in the industry. We couldn’t be more excited to kick off this partnership with Jackie Robinson’s Estate and the Jackie Robinson Foundation. How to apply Are you a graduating African American high school senior, with a passion for video games? Do you want to work in the video game industry after college? Would you like an opportunity to intern and work at the San Diego Studio? If the answers to all those questions are yes, please keep reading for more details. To be eligible for a Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholarship, an applicant must: Be a graduating, African American high school senior Be a United States citizen Present evidence of financial need Demonstrate a record of academic excellence Demonstrate leadership potential and a dedication to community service Submit an official SAT and/or ACT test exam score from junior or senior year* Plan to attend an accredited and approved 4-year college within the United States or affiliated with a United States-based college or university Not possess a degree from, or be enrolled in, a 2 or 4-year college when applying *JRF recognizes the challenges of taking standardized tests during the COVID-19 pandemic and will accept PSAT scores. Applicants with NO TEST SCORES to submit will not be disadvantaged in the selection process. Completed applications must include: Official high school transcripts One letter of recommendation from a non-family member Application link: https://jackierobinson.org/apply/ The application deadline is Wednesday, January 12, 2022. All applications and supporting materials must be received on or before the deadline. Incomplete applications will not be considered. Regional virtual interviews with the semi-finalists will be conducted in the Spring 2022. Scholarship winners will be announced in early summer of 2022. If you have questions concerning the Jackie Robinson Foundation Scholarship or the application process, please contact JRF staff at connect@jackierobinson.org http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/5KOzmaHfLI8View the full article

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com! Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google or RSS, or download here This week the team celebrates 5 years of PlayStation VR and shares more games they almost missed out on. Stuff We Talked About PlayStation VR Sheepo Moss 2 Jackbox Party 8 Jett: The Far Shore A whole bunch of games we almost missed out on The Cast Sid Shuman – Senior Director of Content Communications, SIE Tim Turi – Manager, Content Communications, SIE Brett Elston – Manager, Content Communications, SIE Thanks to Cory Schmitz for our beautiful logo and Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music. [Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.] http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/uZXYN8mxIUEView the full article

Last week, we asked you to take a stroll through the moonlight of your favorite games using #PSshare #PSBlog. From moon-soaked portraits to nights out on the road, here are this week’s highlights: Gamography_ shares a side profile of Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn. dee_danya shares Dani making a daring dive in Far Cry 6. Jin rides his horse through a field under the moonlight in this Ghost of Tsushima share from foxghost181. ZacheryyyEduard shares Deacon hitting the road under the crescent moon and stars in Days Gone. Amianan_NiRaGuB shares Eivor’s raven Synin seemingly grip the moon in its talons in this Assassin’s Creed Valhalla share. mett981 shares Ratchet gazing towards the cosmos in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week? THEME: PlayStation VR SUBMIT BY: Wednesday 9 AM PT on October 20 PlayStation VR turned 5 this week! To celebrate, share moments that shook your reality from a PlayStation VR game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/eY4YXfc5iDcView the full article

Jett’s out now, it’s resonating, and we’re thrilled. It’s the latest videogame from Superbrothers A/V and Pine Scented, it was co-created for years by two full-time people and composer scntfc, then bolstered by an all-star Jett Squad of contributors. It took a village to get Jett done, and we’re all immensely proud of our efforts together. Jett is my second video game as director, writer, art director, and music coordinator, among other roles. Unlike Sword & Sworcery, Jett is grandiose, with depth and breadth, intricate, and byzantine. So, I had a pretty heavy workload for a while there. However, an advantage of being at the intersection of those roles is the opportunity to try to craft something very distinct, in keeping with the Superbrothers A/V approach. The Superbrothers A/V approach goes roughly like this: You start with a vision, and a vibe. You marry the picture to the sound, get them to stew together. You get it to move right and feel right. You present a world with intriguing narrative concepts, with credible naturalistically-proportioned intelligent characters with heart and soul, who have interesting concerns. You choose your moments, intimate or epic, a few here and there, and you get those exactly right. Nested within all this, you figure out a design that supports that vision, and that vibe. Foundational to creating a distinctive vibe, and powering Superbrothers A/V’s approach, is audio. Sound and music, and how they fit. Getting the spirit of the music and sound right is essential, as music ends up being foregrounded in our videogames, often becoming almost the primary text. For Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP we collaborated with Toronto composer, maestro Jim Guthrie, whose immediately appealing and memorable score accounted for so much of sworcery’s magic. As an album it found its way into headphones and speakers around the world, and resonated. This time out, for Jett, we were so fortunate to have on deck the brilliant Seattle-based composer scntfc since day one, with whom we collaborated for years. Play Video C Andrew Rohrmann, known in the biz as scntfc, has since composed beloved scores to several video games, most notably Oxenfree. However, scntfc’s first videogame contribution was to Sword & Sworcery back in 2010. On Sword & Sworcery we had the idea for a “number station transmission” and we were put in touch with scntfc, who cooked up some relevant audio in his laboratory, audio that ended up in Sworcery’s “moon grotto” as well as at Sworcery’s memorable finale. As I explored scntfc’s back catalog I encountered sweeping atmospheric music and rich ambiances, and these immediately became Jett’s target vibe. It was evident to me that scntfc was precisely the right person to carve out a broad musical terrain for the science fiction universe Patrick and I were then feeling compelled to build. I travelled to Seattle in 2013 and 2014 to pour Jett’s audio foundation alongside scntfc, in his underground laboratory. His instincts, preferences, ideas, and insights shaped Jett’s aesthetics and feel in innumerable ways, he had a creative seat at the table with Patrick and I throughout. Jett’s audio design and musical score was something we shaped together, with me steering and curating, and Andy composing and inventing. At a certain stage, in around 2016, it became necessary for scntfc to build a single grandiose musical edifice to align and harmonize all the discrete pieces of music he had previously been composing. The result, the sixteen minute “Soak In Brine” is Jett’s low-key overture. Let Jett’s 0.Embark listening room play and let scntfc take you on a suitably grandiose Kubrick-inspired musical odyssey. Then in 2019 we were able to assemble an all-star Jett Squad, Jett benefited from heavy lifts from A Shell In The Pit, an audio vendor company in Vancouver who delivered on, and surpassed, our vision for sound effects and voices. Also integral to Jett’s soundscapes are the contributions of Priscilla Snow, whose expertise made “the hymnwave” possible, as well as the choral music heard here and there. Priscilla was also crucial in the creation of Jett’s in-game spoken language, “volega”. In the clip below you’ll hear all this in Jett’s memorable first few moments, as the player abruptly awakes in a hutt on the steppes, emerging into the warmth of a mournful farewell song before ‘mounting up’ into the jett and going aloft.. Play Video Another song that has a very special place on Jett’s score is Jett To Cosmodrome, which is derived from a pre-existing song by new age composer Morgan Kuhli, a friend of scntfc’s who lives quietly on an island off Oregon’s misty coast. When Jett was just a baby, a simple prototype put together over a weekend in 2011, our Jett gameplay began with a distinctive wind-up sound and this song. Now, ten years later, a Jett-ified iteration of this song accompanies the players first moments at the helm of the jett. To me this song has always struck a perfect tone for those first feelings of flight and wonder, and we couldn’t resist using this song on our launch trailer last week. It is warm, wonderful, and nostalgic. For those of us aboard Jett Squad, it bottles up a lot of emotion. Play Video So please, soak in this ocean of new music, devised over long years by the brilliant composer scntfc, in deep AV collaboration with me, at Superbrothers. I recommend you experience scntfc’s work first in-game, then seek out Jett: The Far Shore’s Official Soundtrack, two hours of atmospheric music from the videogame ranging from symphonic spectacle to otherworldly synths, ambiances and off-kilter oddities, and old songs sung under new stars. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/4iO6LQVUf-wView the full article

As we near the release of Sledgehammer Games’ Call of Duty: Vanguard on November 5, we’re excited to share with PlayStation players a deep-dive on two of the game’s core modes. It’s time to take a closer look at the epic characters and stories you’ll encounter across the single-player Campaign mode and in Zombies, the latter of which is developed by Treyarch, the studio responsible for bringing Zombies to Call of Duty more than a decade ago. From the international heroes forming the original Special Forces group, Task Force One, to the undead threat of Kortifex the Deathless, Vanguard is set to take PlayStation players on one wild ride on November 5, in addition to the massive amount of content players will experience with 20 maps coming to the Multiplayer mode at launch. Play Video “Der Anfang”: The Next Chapter in the Zombies Saga The next iteration of Zombies, developed by Treyarch Studios, is coming to Call of Duty: Vanguard on November 5. Prepare to face a new type of evil, bond with new allies, and meet terrifying new enemies in a gameplay experience that gets you to the fun faster, all wrapped in a brand-new dimension of Zombies that you’ve never experienced before. In Call of Duty: Vanguard, Treyarch is introducing a Zombies experience that builds on the Dark Aether universe introduced in Black Ops Cold War, in a franchise-first crossover that provides continuity from a lore standpoint while innovating on the core gameplay loop. It began with the opening of the Dark Aether gateway at Projekt Endstation. As the Nazi experiment went catastrophically wrong, punching a hole through the dimensional veil, the effects traveled far and wide. You are now stranded in the snowy graveyard of Stalingrad, held in by the dark magic of Kortifex the Deathless, one of five Dark Aether entities bonded with mortals via their otherworldly artifacts. The other four — Saraxis the Shadow, Norticus the Conqueror, Inviktor the Destroyer, and Bellekar the Warlock — are in revolt against Kortifex, and are now there to help you defeat him and Von List. Play Video “Der Anfang” — the Beginning — introduces players to these Dark Aether entities via their artifacts, which were plundered by antagonist Oberführer Wolfram Von List, officer in command of the Die Wahrheit battalion in search of mystical antiquities to help turn the tide of the war in the Nazis’ favor. Von List, now bonded with Kortifex, has gained the power to raise the dead. What better field to create an army of undead than the mass graves of Stalingrad, a year following the Nazis’ worst defeat in one of the war’s most decisive battles? In this new chapter, Treyarch Studios takes players straight to the action, whether you’re looking for a quick match or a deep run. In addition to classic features like Perks, the Crafting Table, weapon upgrades, and the Pack-a-Punch, you’ll encounter the new Altar of Covenants, offering randomized upgrades for unique build options in every match. The mode is developed on the same engine as the rest of Vanguard, for a seamless experience between all three of the game’s core modes. Additionally, you will be able to advance through Vanguard’s Battle Pass system via unified progression between Multiplayer, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Zombies. Your player level is shared between the modes, too, so you’ll always earn progress in tandem for a fully unified experience. Campaign: The Rise of Special Forces In the single-player Campaign for Vanguard, Sledgehammer Games is bringing you to epic, history-altering battles across multiple fronts, seen through the eyes of five ordinary soldiers who become heroes forged in the fires of World War II. The story of Vanguard is ultimately about the origins of the original Special Forces unit that these five soldiers comprise — Task Force One — and about stopping a plot that could spearhead a Nazi resurgence as WWII appears to be coming to an end. The game’s story arc begins at its climax: as a newly recruited soldier within the budding Task Force One, you are en route to a heavily fortified Nazi facility to obtain vital military intelligence — stemming from something code-named Project Phoenix — before it is smuggled out of Germany. Your squadmates are five soldiers whose individual actions helped turn the tide of World War II across four major fronts. Each comes from a very different background, and none would have imagined themselves in the situation they’re currently in. But each has had a moment in the war that allowed them to stand out from the rest: Australian Private Lucas Riggs in the North Africa Campaign, American Lieutenant Wade Jackson in the Pacific, Russian Lieutenant Polina Petrova who defended her home country in Stalingrad, British Sergeant Richard Webb in France, and your leader: Sergeant Arthur Kingsley of the British Army’s 9th Parachute Battalion, also in France. Through Vanguard’s Campaign, you will live out the moments that made them heroes in the battles that helped change the world, and learn how they came together to spearhead Task Force One. You will also get to know the concept of international “Special Forces,” and ultimately, what brings them face-to-face with the man who is spearheading Project Phoenix: the ruthless Nazi Officer Hermann Wenzel Freisinger. It is a deeply immersive, moving and character-driven story, that will be sure to keep players engaged throughout. With an incredibly immersive single-player Campaign, an action-packed new Zombies experience, and a massive launch-day Multiplayer offering coming to Call of Duty: Vanguard, there will be a mode for every type of player from day one. Now gear up and prepare for the fight. Deploy starting November 5. Rise on every front. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/6nKttlguFVgView the full article

How high are the stakes in the all-new Battlefield Hazard Zone? Let’s just say it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. A tense, squad-focused survival experience, Hazard Zone combines edge-of-your-seat gameplay with the best of the Battlefield sandbox. Before we dig into the details, let’s give you a little of the in-game history that will help you understand this new mode. In the year 2040, a worldwide event known as The Blackout took out roughly 70% of satellites in orbit – decimating worldwide communication, navigation, and surveillance. Prior to this mounting tensions caused by rising sea levels, economic collapse, and massive waves of the displaced set the stage, but it was The Blackout that completely destabilized a world already on the brink. International distrust inspired both the US and Russia to engineer a surveillance solution: the use of satellites equipped with capsules containing radiation-hardened data drives. These capsules (and the precious intelligence they contain) are dropped into their respectively controlled territories for the Occupying Forces to secure. Of course information isn’t only prized by the superpowers, many of the Non-Patriated (or No-Pats) are very interested in getting their hands on the data drives as well. Some want them for the price they’ll fetch on the Dark Market, while others are more focused on using it to keep themselves and their friends and families safe. Regardless of their reasons, the No-Pats are very motivated to intercept as many data drives as possible – so much so that they’ve organized and funded Task Forces for this sole purpose. And in Battlefield Hazard Zone you and your squadmates will make up one of these teams. Your job: locate, gather, and extract data drives before a storm overtakes the area. Oh, and did we mention you only get one life to do it? Hey, we did warn you the stakes would be high. So how does this all play out? Well, there are five elements to every match: Step 1 – Strategize and equip Step 2 – Insert on all seven maps from 2042 Step 3 – Retrieve the intel Step 4 – Extractions Step 5 – Pat yourself on the back and claim your rewards You’ll start with a Mission Area Briefing where you’ll get the info you need to succeed, from regions of the map with a high probability of enemy combatants, data drives, and Uplinks. The latter are powerful items that can turn the tide of battle. Three types of Uplinks will be available at launch: Vehicle, Ranger, and Reinforcement Uplinks. Whether you need to bring back a buddy, gain a quick tactical advantage, or get the heck out of Dodge – Uplinks have got you covered. You’ll then select the Specialists and loadouts you and your squad will join the fight with. Choose wisely (and strategically) at this stage and you’re likely to do well. So balance your squad and skills carefully before you deploy. From this point on you’ve got just one mission – securing those capsules and data drives. Of course you won’t be the only ones doing so. Rival squads will have the same objective and then there are Occupying Forces who will guard the contents of those capsules with their lives. Ok great, you’ve defeated your enemies and secured the data drives…now what? Let’s just say getting out in one piece – intel in hand – is going to be pretty tricky. Two extraction windows are available per match at randomized locations, but only for a short period of time. To succeed in your extraction, you will have to wisely consider whether you’re going for the first window, or, risk it all and stay until the very end. Locate the LZ then get there as fast (but as safely) as you can. Naturally you won’t be the only ones to show up, so you’ll need to defend the area against rival squads and Occupying Forces long enough to get everyone on the aircraft. If any of your squad don’t make it they’ll get one more shot during final extraction, but remember, if you’re all left behind, you’ll lose everything you’ve gathered! Congrats, No-Pat, you beat the storm and your opponents and made it out in one piece with plenty of data drives – that means you’re going to rack up both XP and Dark Market Credits. The former’s pretty self-explanatory, and the latter means you get the opportunity to unlock more (and better) equipment options for you and your squad in the next match. Hazard Zone, All-Out Warfare, and Battlefield Portal will allow you to take on revamped fan-favorite modes, discover new innovative experiences, and witness an unprecedented scale that adds a new dimension to your multiplayer battles. Are you ready to plunge into the chaotic near-future combat of Battlefield 2042? Deploy on launch day, November 19, 2021, or pre-order the Gold or Ultimate Edition now and put boots on the ground starting November 12. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/ITlm6kPeAH4View the full article

Hi, my name is Spencer Ham and I’m a game director at Jackbox Games. It’s time to dust off your cell phone because we’re releasing The Jackbox Party Pack 8 at PlayStation Store on October 14! That’s right, we’ve broken the record for most Party Packs. Please text us back, Guinness World Records. This year’s release feels especially rewarding since our studio was completely remote during production. Although that brought on its fair share of challenges (seriously, Allard, you’re still on mute), it also inspired us to work in new ways. Gone were the days of us huddled in a room, brainstorming game concepts with quick paper tests. Being forced to move to a completely digital landscape meant we had to adapt and find new approaches to our (record-breaking) method. Play Video Here’s some insight into how three of the games in this year’s Party Pack came to be. Drawful: Animate As you may know, each Party Pack has at least one sequel in it. This year, it’s Drawful’s long-awaited turn. An astute observer will notice that it’s not called Drawful 3, and that is intentional. Since it’s an exciting new twist on the core mechanic, we view it as having its own identity rather than just a continuation of a franchise. In this version, players create looping, two-frame animations based on absurd prompts. This concept thrived as a digital prototype because it would’ve been much harder to showcase how fun and effective the animations are if playtesters had to awkwardly fumble through a paper flipbook. The Wheel of Enormous Proportions The inspiration behind The Wheel of Enormous Proportions came very organically. One of the morale boosters for us this past year was using a digital wheel to raffle off random items. The prizes weren’t even that good—they were things like a t-shirt or a mouse pad, but that didn’t matter because wheel frenzy would take over. During a spin, chat would light up with comments like “Obey the Wheel,” “The Wheel knows all,” and “WHEEL.” So that got us thinking. What if we replaced a branded mouse pad with a prize just as, if not more, fun? Winning a trivia game. So that’s exactly what we did. The more trivia questions a player answers correctly, the more slices they receive on a wheel that will distribute points. Not great at trivia? No worries, because it’ll ultimately be up to the all-knowing, mysterious Wheel to decide! The Poll Mine The Poll Mine is an intense survey game where competing teams try to deduce how the group answered as a whole. If you guess incorrectly, your squad will open a door full of terrifying monsters that will devour you whole. But no presh. As you might imagine, this game requires a lot of group communication. Teams must do a lot of speculating before they make their decision. Prototyping this game on Discord was a great proof of concept. Instead of playing this exclusively in a room and then hoping it would translate to video conferencing platforms, we streamed it from the outset and knew it would work well in either environment. Although this past year was certainly challenging, it was also inspiring. Just like in some of our games, limitations fuel creativity. We hope you enjoy The Jackbox Party Pack 8 as much as we do! http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/sL_lHC9wh2kView the full article

Ayrton Senna was a legendary Brazilian driver who changed history – his name is still commonly remembered as one of the most iconic racers of all time. So what better way to honor his memory than to have a Brazilian-made PS4 game relive his steps in a nostalgia-driven arcade-style racing game? ;) Horizon Chase Turbo: Senna Forever is the game’s largest expansion to date, debuting an entirely new set of cars, tracks, and features inspired by Senna – which, by the way, is all thanks to the partnership and support of Senna Brands. Part of the profits obtained with the expansion will also be dedicated to support Ayrton Senna’s Institute educational programs, isn’t that amazing? But let’s get to the fun part: racing! The trailer below shows just a little bit of everything we’ve packed for you, check it out! Play Video Career Mode? Championship Mode? Achievement system? New exclusive skins? Multiplayer? You name it, we got it. If you heard a familiar tune in this trailer, your ears are also quite right, because it was made by our dearest Barry Leitch, the very same composer for the soundtrack of the main game. The expansion also features tailor-made new tracks for you too! Imagine being in the shoes of such an amazing driver, especially in first-person view gameplay. That’s exactly what you’ll do on Senna Forever’s Career Mode. There are five different chapters, each with a set number of races from his life you’ll have to go through – oh, there are also his own achievements, which we call Senna’s Marks, that you can complete here as well! Oh, did I mention you get a cool narrative screen like the Rain Master for completing these? Yeah! Senna was known as the Rain Master because he was so good at racing in this weather – will you too? Let’s find out! For the first time ever, you’ll get to feel the heat of the moment from the inside of a cockpit in Horizon Chase Turbo with this brand-new first-person view, a feature exclusive to this expansion. Normally, in Horizon Chase Turbo, you’d have a selection of cars to choose from. Only this time, you’re Senna, so you’re using cars inspired by the ones he drove. To maintain the strategy, there’s a new mechanic before each game where you’ll have to pick your focus: Enhanced Tires, Advanced Aerodynamics, or Special Fuel. Of course new cars are also coming! There are 6 new ones coming to the Career Mode and also 34 different other playable cars to choose from on Championship Mode. Fancy, huh? If you’re worried about the replayability of this game, the Championship mode has you covered.There’s 18 different teams to choose from and more than 30 cars to unlock. There are three categories depending on what kind of challenge you’re looking for and also randomized competitors, tracks and weather so you’ll never know what’s coming. Remember, as kids, when we used to all sit together on the couch to play? That was awesome, wasn’t it? We think so too! That’s why you can play Horizon Chase Turbo: Senna Forever with up to four local players, also with randomized stuff from the Championship Mode. So, are you excited? Because we certainly are. As you read this, we’re thinking of new challenges to keep the game going for quite a long time yet, so stay tuned for more. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/dvbYlcWAA1EView the full article

Shuhei Yoshida, head of PlayStation Indies, Sony Interactive Entertainment, introduced the world to PlayStation VR by stating that it was going to be “the next innovation from PlayStation that will [shape] the future of games.” And boy was he right. For the past five years, PlayStation VR has provided the industry, specifically VR developers like us, with an incredible opportunity to create worlds and games that push entertainment and emotional connection beyond what today’s more traditional game technologies provide. VR is the only platform that truly immerses players in other worlds, allowing them to be a part of a narrative experience. You are a part of the story. Characters look at, converse with, and react to you. Not only do you have presence in beautifully rendered worlds, but you can also interact with the world in a physical way that feels intuitive and true. For instance, in Moss, whether it’s dragging a giant, heavy device to solve a puzzle, or poking hanging vines to sway them back and forth, players convince themselves that they are interacting with a genuine world. That is, until they take off their headset. But it’s not just the physical interaction that makes VR special, it’s also the emotional connections that you make with virtual characters. When developing Moss for PlayStation VR, we learned that VR gives players the ability to build deep connections with characters over time through shared experiences. And in doing so, players believe that this connection is real—because, it kind of… is. These connections and the emotions they elicit—excitement, joy, and even heartbreak—are mind-opening for players who didn’t know they could feel so strongly within a digital experience. Since releasing Moss on PlayStation VR in 2018, we’ve continued to experiment, learn, and advance our understanding of VR. In fact, Tyler Walters, principal technical artist, and Richard Lico, animation director, have provided a quick behind-the-scenes look at the work we’re doing to enhance both the thrill of physical interaction, and the joy of emotional connection, in Moss: Book II. Tyler Walters: Moss proved that dynamic interactive visuals are very enjoyable and rewarding in VR. With additional team members on Moss: Book II, we found an opportunity to create many more visual effect systems and shaders that can only be experienced at their fullest within VR. This ranges from snowflakes falling in the mountains, to candle flames that move around as the player creates wind with their hands. Each of these systems create a different mood and sensation, so much so that some of us even feel colder while playing in the snowy levels of the game. We’ve also added a new player ability that allows players to grow traversable foliage for Quill in the game. This includes a vine bridge that enables Quill to access different sections of the game. Relative to Moss device interactions, we wanted this to feel more fluid and expressive. To bring this to life, once the player initiates a bridge to grow, mossy vines spiral out to form a walkable surface, which then blooms little white flowers on top. In the world of Moss, no detail is too small. Speaking of details, the library and book from Moss were essential narrative tools that acted as glue for the story structure. We’ve taken this formula and improved upon it for Moss: Book II. Now, players will find meticulously hand-painted artwork, audio, and visual effects that move and evolve as the story progresses. Some pages even have dynamic content that interacts with the player as they move around. Richard Lico: In Moss, we spent time and effort to animate certain book pages. They were little snippets to highlight important moments where the characters on the page would animate like a film. Even though this approach was a strong, visually striking story tool that helped us tell more story on a single page, we noticed that players didn’t often react to seeing them. In fact, we were unable to support the animated pages in the book when porting Moss to another platform, and nobody seemed to notice. Couple that with how much people loved Quill and her reactions to in-game moments, and it became obvious that we needed to enhance the book experience like Tyler said, as well as shift additional resources to what makes Quill’s role in the game so special. While playing Moss, players often found Quill acting autonomously to tell them how she felt or what she was thinking. For Book II, we decided to expand on this, giving her significantly more robust in-game story moments that seamlessly weave in and out of gameplay. We still have plenty of story being told in the book, but the more intimate emotional spikes will now happen organically in the game with you standing by Quill’s side. In Book II, Quill will have an even wider range of emotional performances for you to experience. This added range required us to change a few things from Moss. We’ve doubled the animation team size from one to two animators. We’ve reconstructed Quill’s face so she’s capable of a wider range of expression. And our engineering team built new systems to support all of the various ways in which we need to use these organic in-game performances. We believe all of this will help deepen the bond players feel with Quill in Book II. Yet hearing about these changes isn’t the same as experiencing them in VR, and we simply cannot wait for players to re-enter the world of Moss and see it all for themselves in Book II. We remain excited and eager to further build upon these enhancements and discover new ways for players to experience physical interaction, emotional feedback, and object persistence. We’re thrilled to continue that work as we imagine what’s possible for the future. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/lnW6S99uzJ8View the full article

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the day PlayStation VR was introduced to the world, and we want to take this moment to thank all of our fans and our talented development community for embracing this platform and supporting PS VR through the years. It’s amazing to see how virtual reality has really established itself in these past five years as a platform for gaming, and we’re pleased to have PS VR play a big role in VR’s growth. And to celebrate this PS VR milestone, we wanted to give a special thank you to PlayStation fans: Starting in November, PlayStation Plus* members will get three PS VR bonus games for no extra charge. Stay tuned for more details in the PlayStation Plus update in the next few weeks. Since the PS VR launch, we have seen a diverse range of unique experiences that showcase a sense of presence we set out to achieve with this platform, including critically acclaimed games such as the thrilling sights and sounds action shooter Rez Infinite, the epic rescue mission platformer Astro Bot Rescue Mission, and the stealth action of Hitman 3. With more than 500 games and experiences available on PS VR, let’s take a look back at the top five most played** games on PS VR worldwide since launching five years ago. Most-Played PlayStation VR Games Globally Rec Room Beat Saber PlayStation VR Worlds The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR Resident Evil 7 biohazard Most-Played PlayStation VR Games, By Region Europe: Rec Room, PlayStation VR Worlds, Beat Saber, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim VR, Resident Evil 7 biohazard North America: Rec Room, Beat Saber, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR, Job Simulator, Firewall: Zero Hour Japan: Resident Evil 7 biohazard, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR, PlayStation VR Worlds, Beat Saber, Gran Turismo Sport There’s plenty more PS VR games to look forward to, with games in development such as Moss: Book II, Wanderer, After the Fall, Humanity, Puzzling Places, Zenith: The Last City and more. The games created for PS VR come from some of our industry’s most talented developers who consistently challenge themselves to bring amazing experiences to the platform. To mark this occasion, we decided to take a trip down memory lane with developers who share with us what their experience was like when they first got their hands on PlayStation VR. Play Video Can you tell us about your first experience with PS VR? We were working on a VR prototype in 2015 and had been talking to the PS VR team. I wasn’t still sure about what PS VR could do at that time and they encouraged me to check out the demos at that year’s GDC in March 2015. The London Heist demo completely sold me on the hardware and its potential. The first scene had you being interrogated by a brutish looking fellow and he would respond to your head movements and where you were looking. The second scene you were rifling through a desk looking for items with full hand interaction using Move Controllers and then getting into a fire fight while taking cover behind the desk. It was the most high quality content I had experienced in VR at the time and I found myself getting on the floor of the demo area at GDC. Exhilarating! – Chandana Ekanayake, Outerloop Games VR was technology I was always interested in, so I was very excited hearing that PlayStation was creating a VR headset for a household setting. The first time I got to really experience PS VR was working on the prototype for KITCHEN, which was arguably the prologue setting things up for what later would become Resident Evil 7 biohazard. Initially, I had only seen the prototype through a regular monitor and could only imagine how things would be in a VR environment, but I was not anticipating just how much the scare factor ramped up seeing things from within the headset. It really was astounding to see how much more immersive of an experience VR could truly be. – Masachika Kawata, Capcom As far as I can recall, my first experience of PS VR was actually with a prototype of Project Morpheus (the codename of PS VR in its early phase) where I found myself at the top of a very high diving board with an Olympic pool right below me. This demo was meant to show how we can get a sense of vertigo in VR. And it worked remarkably well. – Nicolas Doucet, Team Asobi As a gamer, I have great memories of playing Thumper on PS VR around the launch in 2016. The heady mix of insanely high speeds, beautiful worlds and rhythm based play come together to create a game which is incredibly tight and compelling. I was also blown away by getting to be the Dark Knight in Batman: Arkham VR, it helped me realise the immersive power of being a character in PS VR could be a game changer for how we could make games in the future. – Stu Tilley, Firesprite I remember way back in 2016 getting a sneak preview of London Heist at Carnegie Mellon University from an alum who showed early demos at the Entertainment Technology Center. It was so exciting to see that Sony was fully embracing VR in a way that wasn’t happening on any other console. – Jesse Schell, Schell Games I think our first PS VR experience was with Rush of Blood and RIGS: Mechanized Combat League. Rush of Blood was and is one of the best horror experiences in VR to date, that game is awesome. I want more! RIGS: MCL was a ton of fun, it showed us the potential of true multiplayer in VR and inspired us in many ways. It was truly before its time and was one of the better MP VR shooters out there. – Hess Barber, First Contact Entertainment I remember playing Thumper at a friend’s place who showed me PS VR for the first time. I was impressed how such a simple switch to its VR mode completely changed the game experience for me. It was still the same game but somehow it felt like a totally different world which was more epic than its 2D counterpart. – Vladimír Hrinčár, Beat Games How has PS VR changed what you thought was possible for console gaming? I think the biggest shift was realizing that players were no longer watching things on a screen, but that they could enter the virtual environment and truly be within the game world. Even if you’re offering the player the same base gameplay experience, it was fascinating to see just how different that same gameplay experience could be from a regular TV environment to a VR environment. – Masachika Kawata, Capcom PSVR has given a whole new way of playing that wasn’t quite the same beforehand. Being able to move your hands around to aim a weapon, lift a hatch, drag yourself up a mountain, or throw a donut into a neighboring cubicle felt totally unique compared to regular gameplay. The immersion PS VR offers through the quality of the displays is the ultimate way to experience a game world – sitting at the dinner table of the main house in Resident Evil 7 on PS VR is truly unforgettable! – Stu Tilley, Firesprite PS VR really brought us an opportunity to simplify the experience to a very instinctive level. The best example I can think of is the entire removal of camera control. By becoming the camera, you no longer have to learn camera manipulation and can focus on the action. A simple glance left and right, leaning to see behind a wall, all these are every-action we do without thinking but are actually quite hard to incorporate in traditional games. With PS VR, we got all of these virtually for free (pun intended) and that helped us make a more accessible game! – Nicolas Doucet, Team Asobi PS VR is very comfortable to use for extended periods of time which opens up all sorts of design possibilities for different types of games. It led us to make three different distinct experiences for the platform: Wayward Sky – a third person diorama action adventure, Dino Frontier – a western town simulation game with dinosaurs, and Falcon Age – a first person action game with a pet falcon. All three of these took advantage of the PS VR hardware and we had to rethink each genre approach during development to fully embrace what was possible with the hardware. – Chandana Ekanayake, Outerloop Games I think PS VR is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to where VR will go. I truly believe that one day, VR will be the preferred way to play all games. PS VR is the only real dedicated gaming VR platform. It still has more quality games than any other VR platform around today. With so many high quality titles it really is the gateway to AAA VR Gaming. It showed us just how effective VR can be and the potential direction of VR gaming in the future. – Hess Barber, First Contact Entertainment It is like a night and day difference – PS VR with Move controllers unlocks so many options which were not possible to experience on a 2D screen with just a normal controller. – Vladimír Hrinčár, Beat Games What should people know about when developing games for PS VR? Any key learnings? We learned early to try things out on the hardware as soon as possible even if it’s the silliest idea. What you think will happen vs what actually happens when you tried it out on PS VR differed greatly. While making Falcon Age, we worked with a real-life falconer in Washington to make sure we were accurate in how we treated falconry in the game. She gave us some pointers on how the falcon should behave after a hunt, how it spreads its wings and protects a kill, and how falcons react to water. There was a scary part during our time with the falconer. She warned us to not look directly at the falcon’s eyes as it would see us as a threat! It’s hard not to stare at a beautiful bird like that but we managed to do it and no developers were hurt during production. – Chandana Ekanayake, Outerloop Games [W]e worked hard on Kitchen, which was a PS VR prototype that would be a stepping stone for eventually incorporating VR into Resident Evil 7 biohazard. It was our first time venturing into that kind of game scape, so we did a lot of internal testing. I still remember coworkers participating in the play tests would jump out of their seats or slip out of their chairs from fright and would laughingly and angrily remark that the experience was “too scary.” We released a snippet of that footage back in the day, so I’m sure it’d be a good chuckle for anyone who is interested in checking it out. – Masachika Kawata, Capcom When developing our horror game, The Persistence for PS VR, we would often have the headset on whilst developing features, being totally lost in the nitty-gritty of the work. But the game also supports a companion app where you change things in the world. One member of the team (who shall remain nameless!) used to love dropping enemies in behind people who were working away on their features. Suddenly they would get attacked from nowhere by a raging mutant and you’d hear them screaming across the studio! – Stu Tilley, Firesprite Halfway through the development of Firewall, we realised all our playtests were so much fun because we (the team) all knew each other and everyone naturally communicated. We realized if people were playing [with] strangers and were shy, it could really limit the experience and we were worried. But the funny thing about PS VR is that it is so immersive and the mic is already a part of it, (most) people just naturally become social. Not only did the game thrive with the communication but it also formed so many relationships, people from all over the world have come together, some have been married, some even had children together. The thing we were worried about actually is one of the best features about the game, it’s incredibly social and friendly. – Hess Barber, First Contact Entertainment *PS Plus is subject to a recurring subscription fee taken automatically until cancellation. Full terms: play.st/PSPlusTerms. **Data from October 13, 2016 – August 31, 2021, excludes The Playroom VR PlayStation®VR is not for use by children under the age of 12. A PlayStation®4 or PlayStation(R)5 system (sold separately) is required to use PlayStation®VR. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/-M7-loCLEKIView the full article

In the industry, the development story of Final Fantasy XIV has reached an almost mythical status. After a difficult launch, the second massively multiplayer online RPG of the Final Fantasy franchise needed salvaging. Producer and Director Naoki Yoshida, an avid MMO player himself, was the one tasked with this herculean undertaking, a process that led him and his team to rebuild the game from the ground up and relaunch it under a fitting new name, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Endwalker’s brand-new title screen, a sight that will welcome players from the 19th of November. As a 1.0 player myself, I vividly remember Yoshida-san’s initial introduction to the community. Aware of the awkwardness of the situation, the newly appointed producer chose to address players directly. He introduced himself and his preliminary plans in what he called a “Letter from the Producer” – a written account to the community that set the tone for a two-way communication that endures to this day, initially gauging players for direct feedback in a handful of small, targeted surveys, assessing expectations and wishes for the game they were playing despite the tumult. It wasn’t until months later than the idea of A Realm Reborn was formally introduced. Final Fantasy XIV would be “nuked” to be reborn anew – both figuratively and quite literally. In 2012, after a climactic cinematic and months of increasingly gloomy in-game updates, the servers shut down. A few months later, A Realm Reborn would introduce a brand-new world to explore. The final days of Final Fantasy XIV before its shutdown and eventual 2.0 rebirth. Players had no idea what terrors slept in Dalamud, the ominous red moon… Now, eight years since A Realm Reborn’s release and on the eve of its fourth and largest expansion to date, Final Fantasy XIV boasts more than 24 million players and has become the most profitable title in the Final Fantasy franchise, a feat largely attributed to the diligent work of Naoki Yoshida and his team. As part of Square Enix’s recent Media Tour, I was able to play a preview version of its upcoming expansion, Endwalker. Brimming with content, this new behemoth of an update will increase the character level cap to 90 and will introduce two brand-new playable jobs, a male variant of the fan-favorite Viera race, and a wealth of raids, dungeons, and other new content to the MMO. Tag-teaming with fellow interviewer Jade King from TheGamer, I was able to get Naoki Yoshida’s thoughts on the current state of the game, Endwalker’s development, and his own journey all the way to this new release. Now with the additional title of Director, Yoshida still regularly hosts his Letters of the Producer, nowadays presented during livestreams in a continuation of this now decade-old tradition. The latest instalment, the 66th to be exact, presented in detail some of the exciting gameplay features to be introduced in the upcoming Endwalker expansion, fostering the excitement of players all around the world. The unique relationship Yoshida has nurtured with the game’s community since the start of his involvement has become a key part of what makes Final Fantasy XIV special to its players. “From our perspective in the XIV team, we don’t think of the players as just players,” he goes on to explain, “we really look to them as our friends and part of our family, we’re in this game together.” Perhaps most importantly, Endwalker will close the chapter of a story arc that stretches back to 2010, before the game’s relaunch. Hydaelyn and Zodiark, two deities of the realm eternally at odds with one another, are prophesied to resolve their conflict in a climactic end to the age-old saga. But we’ll have to wait for the 23rd of November to know more on that… Left – Sages control four floating nouliths to mend their allies, right – Reaper’s weapon of choice is a double-handed scythe. In the preview, I tested the two brand-new jobs: the mecha-inspired barrier healer Sage and the incredibly fast and powerful melee DPS Reaper. Both felt incredible to play, Reaper offering a satisfying flow of attack phases that culminates in a rapid, dispossessed burst of strong combos, and Sage showcasing intricate, pleasing-to-the-ear healing abilities that seem primed to handle wave after wave of incoming raid damage. The design of these two jobs and the overall abilities rework seem to hint at interesting developments for the game’s ever-hungry raiding scene. The three new areas I was able to explore were an absolute dream to any Final Fantasy fan, featuring the gorgeous, ancient Greek-inspired Old Sharlayan, the culturally dense and colourful lands of Thavnair, and their complete antithesis, the monochrome and cadaverous lands of Garlemald, three lore-established areas XIV players have been longing to explore for eons. Up – the vivid grounds of Thavnair, down – the colourless ruins of Garlemald. “Our approach to designing new areas is a bit different for each expansion,” explains Yoshida, before going on to clarify: “In the case of Stormblood, for example, we had Ala Mhigo as a location. This was a place that was already established in the lore in Final Fantasy XIV, so for a location like that we didn’t really have much freedom and leeway to incorporate our own ideas. What I did instead was think about the remaining areas that haven’t been shown to the player yet. “Endwalker is going to mark the end of the Hydaelyn and Zodiac saga, so for this expansion, we focused on the loose ends we have in the current story arc. Deciding on those aspects and creating the maps for the new areas go hand in hand, so in this respect, the process with Endwalker was a bit similar to what we did with Stormblood.” Alisaie and Alphinaud Leveilleur, twin Scions of the Seventh Dawn who have both been central to FFXIV’s ongoing story, return in Endwalker. Of course, I was only able to play through a selection of the many new environments due to be introduced in Endwalker, some of which remain secret so players can experience them first-hand. “There are some areas which we have not announced in Endwalker yet. I have no intention of announcing them until the game is released! I’m really excited for players to experience those regions themselves and I’m sure they will be surprised with what they find.” The build of the game that I played was obviously stripped of any lore hints, meticulously preserving the storyline surprises Endwalker has in store for its players. “I think if there’s one thing that really sets Final Fantasy XIV apart from other titles in the genre, it’s that we really aim for FFXIV to be a gold-standard, story-driven MMO,” says Yoshida. “I think that’s an important point of differentiation compared to other MMO titles.” Reaper’s destructive limit break seen from the back If FFXIV’s most recent expansion Shadowbringers is any indication, Endwalker will assuredly take players on a thrilling journey of remarkable reveals. In fact, Shadowbringers was so critically acclaimed that I simply had to ask if the team was feeling any pressure with its follow-up. “My case might be a bit similar to a movie director,” Yoshida explains. “When a movie director works on a new creation, they’re always trying to develop it to the best of their ability. They’re always trying to create the best story, the best thing that they can. “I believe that various players will have their own opinions and preferences. There might be some who enjoyed Heavensward better than Shadowbringers, and others who preferred the journey-centric adventure we had in Stormblood.” “My approach is to always go one step further and raise the bar we’ve previously established, striving to create something better with each instalment.” Sage’s restorative limit break seen from the front “Having said that,” he continues, “Endwalker will in fact close the Hydaelyn and Zodiac saga, which has been carrying on since XIV was originally launched and carried through all of our previous expansions. In that respect, we have been working towards a huge climax. As a standalone expansion, the volume [of story] in Endwalker is huge. There really is a lot to get through. “I would be glad if… after you’ve played through the whole of Endwalker, why not go through the previous expansions and play through them again? Then you might be able to appreciate the direction we’ve taken with Endwalker and all the intricate things we’ve done with the plot.” This last sentence surely leaves a lot to the imagination, and I’m sure many players cannot wait to experience the end of this decade-long story for themselves… but wait we must. Endwalker launches 23rd November, with early access from 19th November for those who pre-order. See you then! This article is based on the play of an in-development build of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, and content in the final version is subject to change. Interview answers have been slightly edited to improve brevity and flow. FFXIV 1.0 screenshots kindly provided by fellow meteor survivor and decade-long Eorzean friend Llen Coram. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/Ni4rAN2Gy6YView the full article

When we started development on Disciples: Liberation, we knew one of the biggest hurdles we’d face would be bringing a genre not that widely available on consoles to an entirely new audience of players. Taking something like a dark-fantasy-strategy RPG, a genre that had predominantly lived on the PC platform, and moving it across to the PlayStation 5 and DualSense wireless controller was a challenging but satisfying adventure, especially for a small but passionate team. From the get-go, we knew we would only have the time and resources to focus on a single UI (user interface) philosophy and due to the game’s availability on PC, this would need to serve two completely different input methods: both the DualSense controller and a keyboard and mouse. In bringing Disciples: Liberation to the PS5, our objective was two-fold: Ensure veterans of the franchise didn’t feel like anything was simplified or sacrificed in making a complex dark-fantasy-strategy RPG for consoles Developing intuitive menus and button mapping that felt organic to the DualSense controller As the lead UI/UX designer for the project, it was my responsibility to marry those two worlds, ensuring the game’s interface was deep and intuitive whilst perfectly in sync with the DualSense controller. Due to ongoing back issues (by spending both work and free time sitting at a desk) I have been using the DualSense controller full time when gaming on PC and PS5. I was thrilled with how well the controller worked across both platforms, so much so that I even transposed my entire UI layout from some of my favourite MMOs (no small feat!). With this unique background, I knew I was up to the task of building Disciples: Liberation as the perfect DualSense controller coupling. If I could give more accessibility to players, allowing any type of person to choose whichever input they would like to play our game, I would consider my job a success. It was fairly early in development that we started to lean towards a virtual cursor for the in-game menus. For those that don’t know, a virtual cursor is one which players are able to freely move around the screen using the left or right analogue stick. From my experience playing other games using this same system, I knew we could come up with something really special if we spent the time considering how best we could create menus that felt at home on the PS5. To begin, we put some time into researching a handful of previous titles that had implemented a virtual cursor in their interface and quickly noticed that a fairly fast-moving cursor that slows over buttons and interactive elements, to give players time to react and stop over them, was perfect. We also used Fitt’s Law for the menus and on-screen button interactions, a law that states that any target is harder to hit the smaller and further away it is. Keeping this in mind, we decided the best way to virtually increase the size of a button (make a small button feel larger to the player) would be to slow down the speed of the cursor when players passed over it. For example, if the cursor moved at 100 pixels per second and the button was 200 pixels wide, it would take the player two seconds to cross it, whereas if the cursor slowed to 50 pixels per second when moved over a button, we would have just doubled the time players have to hit that button when making their selection. Once the design was complete, I discussed it with our lead programmer, and we went to work. Two days later, we had a very convincing prototype and spent the next couple of weeks adding features to fine-tune the experience for players. This included small but significant changes such as setting a specific cursor slow-down rate on a ‘per element’ basis (so we could adjust the speed of the cursor interactions with individual buttons) background counter-scrolling (making the screen move in the opposite direction to the cursor for a virtual increase in speed), and adding a platform-specific filter to any element on the screen, allowing us to tailor the UI experience specifically to PS5 players. The filter worked much like those old red/blue “3D” glasses – the information for all platforms would always be there but if you enabled our filter, just the DualSense controller prompts would show to the player. Having a virtual cursor also meant we could easily create layouts that felt organic and were aesthetically pleasing across all platforms. In designing the menus, we even used Fitt’s Law to tweak tiny interactions, such as having an inventory item populate from the left or the right side of the screen depending on an element’s on-screen location. This meant less travel time between a category and the first items in a player’s inventory list, and resulted in a really satisfying, buttery-smooth user experience. In terms of gameplay, we applied a similar philosophy, ensuring that core actions were easily accessible via the buttons on the DualSense controller. In game, moving and zooming the camera during combat and assigning actions to your units all feels very natural and we also added button shortcuts to actions that could be repetitive or that may have the player move their cursor back and forth across large swathes of the screen. Instead, players would have the choice to either select the button using the virtual cursor or use one of the DualSense controller’s face buttons to upgrade an item or skip a results screen. Our QA was pretty happy with that one. Designing Disciples: Liberation for the DualSense was a unique challenge but I’m extremely proud of the game and can’t wait to hear what PlayStation players think when it launches on October 21. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/vvD7R4tr7z4View the full article

Introducing Adventure Mode “The Hinokami Chronicles”, where you’ll follow Tanjiro through his journey, and Versus Mode “Battles”, which can be played in a 2 vs 2 setting! Tanjiro and his friends make their way to the Mugen Train, but what awaits them there is… Be sure to check it out! ＜Adventure Mode “The Hinokami Chronicles”＞ In Adventure Mode, follow Tanjiro Kamado through the story from the “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” anime by diving in and taking control yourself! This game includes the events of “Tanjiro Kamado, Unwavering Resolve Arc” where Tanjiro would begin his journey, join the Demon Slayer Corps and fight a variety of demons, as well as “the Movie: Mugen Train” where he was accompanied by the Flame Hashira, Kyojuro Rengoku! The fights against the demons from the anime are given new life with incredible graphics! ＜Versus Mode “Battles”＞ 12 characters from the “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” anime, including Tanjiro Kamado and Nezuko Kamado, are joined by 6 characters from the series’ official spinoff, “Junior High and High School!! Kimetsu Academy Story”, for a total of 18 characters where you can choose any combination of 2 characters to take part in battles! Characters can be paired together as they were in the anime or even partnered in ways yet to be seen, which means you can form your ideal tag team! “Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles” The third game trailer Play Video 【Specs】 Title: Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles Genre: Demon-slaying Action Players: 1-2 (online mode available) Release Date: Coming 14th October 2021 Official Website: http://asia.sega.com/kimetsu_hinokami/en/ ©Koyoharu Gotoge / SHUEISHA, Aniplex, ufotable ©DEMON SLAYER KIMETSU NO YAIBA THE HINOKAMI CHRONICLES COMMITTEE ※ The release date of games and contents may vary by country/region. ※ The contents are subject to change without prior notice. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/fwAAGkKJpfQView the full article

Last week, we asked you to journey through the dangerous peaks and valleys of Death Stranding Director’s Cut using #PSshare #PSBlog. From lush landscapes to Sam’s many modes of transportation, here are this week’s highlights: RevolutionAndre shares Sam throwing up a fist in the air triumphantly. gamingbyframe shares a landscape grown over with grass. toyo_3po shares Sam raising up his BB. oolong_cha_cha shares Sam riding his motorcycle towards a rainbowed blue sky. yokoichi444 shares Sam standing in front of a wall with the BRIDGES logo on it. Photoingame shares a close up look at one of Sam’s cars. Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week? THEME: Moonlight SUBMIT BY: Wednesday 9 AM PT on October 1 Next week, we’re taking some time to bask in the moonlight. Share your favorite nighttime gaming moments using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/KLmqbjaOwWwView the full article

Hey everyone, Hispanic Heritage Month is officially underway and here at Insomniac Games, we’re proud of the work that went into the cultural representation of the Morales family and East (sometimes referred to as Spanish) Harlem in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. As someone who comes from a Hispanic background, I felt a powerful connection to Miles’ story so I’m delighted to share the details that went into establishing the game’s representation and giving people like myself meaningful recognition in Marvel’s New York. I’ve had the honor to speak with the writers, artists, animators, and audio designers at Insomniac who collaborated with dialect coaches, consultancy groups, actors from across Latin America, and our own studio talent to ensure the Hispanic representation felt genuine and specific. The team also traveled to East Harlem to study the neighborhood and learn about the people who continually make it a vibrant place to live. So, let’s talk about how the environments were influenced starting with Miles’ apartment. Originally his grandmother’s, the apartment is an homage to Puerto Rican culture and celebrates Miles’ roots. Paintings that depict Puerto Rican dancers and pueblos are hung on the walls alongside flags, straw hats, and family portraits. Meanwhile, Puerto Rican staples like coquí frog statues, inspired by the country’s national animal, are found on shelves and as refrigerator magnets. The set also includes wooden Santos figurines that allude to Abuela’s religious upbringing. During the sequence La Nochebuena, Rio can be found frying up tostones in the kitchen while pasteles boil in a stock pot. Keen eyes can find other mouthwatering dishes such as flan and fresh empanadas on plates alongside a bowl of arroz con gandules. When we spoke to Puerto Rican consultants, they reminisced about their childhood and Christmas gatherings, offering detailed descriptions of visiting their grandparents’ homes. Specifically, we wanted Puerto Rican players to feel a sense of home and comfort, so we included the little details that would take them back to those moments growing up. Music also plays a crucial role in connecting Miles to his heritage. In La Nochebuena, players are given a choice of music to pick for the party, each embodying key figures in Miles’ life: a jazz tune from his father; an R&B track from Uncle Aaron; and from Abuela, a salsa tune some may recognize as Esta Navidad (“This Christmas”) by Puerto Rican salsa musicians Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe. At Rio Morales’ campaign rally, you can also hear La Gozadera, a reggaeton dance tune from Cuban music duo Gente de Zona. The selection was inspired by songs you’d hear at Latin-American events: the Willie Colón classic can be heard at family gatherings during the holiday season, meanwhile Gente de Zona hypes up parties and invites Latin Americans to celebrate their diversity through song and dance. Out on the streets of East Harlem, you’ll notice other cultural Hispanic touchstones: beautiful murals depicting the lives of people in the community – friends, family, camaraderie, elders playing games, and children playing sports; ambient sounds of salsa music that attracts neighbors to dance in the streets; and the balconies and alleyways are canopied with Puerto Rican flags. An aspect of Harlem that also caught the team’s eyes were the family-owned businesses that line each block. These are shops run by the neighborhood’s people, the heart of Spanish Harlem, who inspired us to get the details right. We needed to bring life and authenticity to these locations to help players feel connected to this part of the city. It was important the neighborhood felt like it was more than a mere backdrop, to instead give players a home they’ll fight to protect. For Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the team wanted a diverse and memorable cast that accurately reflected the neighborhood and stood out from the rest of the city. People are at the heart of our game’s story and world, so we put representation at the forefront through their personalities and physical appearances. This was achieved by scanning in actors who more closely characterized the real people of Harlem, capturing their different skin tones, ages of the community members, and their unique fashion senses. Our writing team also researched backgrounds for each of these characters to tangibly connect them to Harlem. Teo Álvarez and Camila Vázquez, owners of Teo’s Bodega and Pana Fuerte, are examples of our teams collaborating to create characters, landmarks, and stories that enrich the neighborhood with a layer of personality, diversity, and connectedness. It was also important for the writers to represent the nuances of language and relationships through dialogue. During recording sessions, our script writers and actors gained insight on the mixing of Puerto Rican Spanish and New York English with the help of a dialect coach. As a result, the actors who played Miles Morales and Rio Morales captured the subtleties of Spanglish, mirroring conversations we had with our parents growing up – or maybe still do! Parents are often a source of love and worry, and we wanted players to feel that through spoken nuances. During the Rhino chase sequence for instance, when Miles lies to his mom about the coconut milk, the conversation is mostly in English. But Rio catches him in the lie: “Mira, mijo, no seas mentiroso!” (“Don’t be a liar!”) It was almost like I was being scolded by my own mom! The team wanted to put players in the shoes of Miles Morales, not just as Spider-Man, but as a teenager finding himself in East Harlem. It was important that Miles and the community were represented wholeheartedly, from something as obvious as genuine dialogue and even small details like fridge magnets. As a second-generation Hispanic-American, the game’s focus on representation provided me a moment of recognition that allowed me to establish a deeper connection with Miles and make me feel like a plausible hero in this world. The care that went into the game’s details is incredible and I’m happy to have shared some of those examples with you today. To get a behind-the-scenes look at the creators behind Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, I encourage you to check out the Creator-to-Creator series in the video below. Play Video Still haven’t web-slinged through Marvel’s New York as Miles Morales? Learn more here! http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/rqa7jssGIosView the full article

Greetings! The numbers are in and we’ve got some piping-hot charts for ya. NBA 2K22 was the big winner last month, topping the PS5 US, PS4 US, and PS4 EU lists (and earning the runner-up spot for PS5 EU). Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Deathloop round out the top three for PS5, with big debuts from other newcomers like Diablo II: Resurrected and Death Stranding: Director’s Cut. Peep the full charts below, then mosey over to the comments to let us know which games you think are going to make a splash this month. PS5 Games US/Canada EU 1 NBA 2K22 Kena: Bridge of Spirits 2 DEATHLOOP NBA 2K22 3 Kena: Bridge of Spirits Diablo II: Resurrected 4 Diablo II: Resurrected DEATHLOOP 5 Madden NFL 22 Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR’S CUT 6 Ghost of Tsushima DIRECTOR’S CUT DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR’S CUT 7 Tales of Arise Tales of Arise 8 Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales 9 DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR’S CUT Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 10 Life is Strange: True Colors F1 2021 11 Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Life is Strange: True Colors 12 TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX SIEGE TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX | SIEGE 13 Marvel’s Avengers It Takes Two 14 HOT WHEELS UNLEASHED HITMAN 3 15 Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War 16 Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Marvel’s Avengers 17 STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order Metro Exodus 18 HITMAN 3 No Man’s Sky 19 Demon’s Souls STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order 20 Aliens: Fireteam Elite Watch Dogs: Legion *Naming of products may differ between regions *Upgrades not included PS4 Games US/Canada EU 1 NBA 2K22 NBA 2K22 2 Madden NFL 22 Grand Theft Auto V 3 Diablo II: Resurrected Minecraft 4 Grand Theft Auto V Red Dead Redemption 2 5 Minecraft Diablo II: Resurrected 6 Red Dead Redemption 2 Need for Speed Heat 7 Need for Speed Heat Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout 8 Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War The Forest 9 Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Gran Turismo Sport 10 Insurgency: Sandstorm eFootball PES 2021 SEASON UPDATE 11 Batman: Arkham Knight TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX | SIEGE 12 God of War The Crew 2 13 Tales of Arise F1 2021 14 THE FOREST Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War 15 TOM CLANCY’S RAINBOW SIX SIEGE Assassin’s Creed The Ezio Collection 16 Marvel’s Spider-Man: Game of the Year Edition Kena: Bridge of Spirits 17 Dead by Daylight Assassin’s Creed Valhalla 18 Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Assassin’s Creed Origins 19 Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition 20 Sonic Colors: Ultimate Insurgency: Sandstorm *Naming of products may differ between regions PS VR Games US/Canada EU 1 Beat Saber Beat Saber 2 Job Simulator Job Simulator 3 Swordsman VR Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality 4 Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series Swordsman VR 5 Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series 6 Creed Rise to Glory Creed: Rise to Glory 7 SUPERHOT VR The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners 8 GORN SUPERHOT VR 9 The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners Cave Digger 10 Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality GORN Free-to-Play (PS5 + PS4) US/Canada EU 1 Fortnite eFootball 2022 2 Splitgate Fortnite 3 Genshin Impact Genshin Impact 4 Call of Duty: Warzone Rocket League 5 Apex Legends Call of Duty: Warzone 6 Rocket League Mega Zombie 7 Destiny 2 eFootball PES 2021 LITE 8 Super Animal Royale Splitgate 9 eFootball 2022 Super Animal Royale 10 Rec Room Apex Legends http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/PSBlog/~4/c-apEkPi94UView the full article