Commander Fury

Hi, fellow pilgrims! I’m Maikel Ortega, and I work as a game designer on Blasphemous. Our team is beyond excited after this launch, and I wanted to take this chance to explain some bits about our first DLC, a huge free update called The Stir of Dawn. The Stir of Dawn adds new content, game modes, world areas, NPCs, bosses, quality of life changes, balance changes, and a lot more! Many reasons to start a new pilgrimage or continue your travels through the barren lands of Cvstodia. Challenge Yourself to True Torment Mode After finishing the main game, you will now be able to Ascend into our New Game+ mode: True Torment. This means starting a new playthrough from the beginning, keeping all your unlocked skills, and equippable items such as Rosary Beads, Sword Hearts and Prayers. And you will need them! The difficulty has been carefully rebalanced to offer a greater challenge. Enemies will be tougher and much more deadly, so making full use of your arsenal is a must if you want to survive the True Torment. Choose your Penitence! A new altar can be found at the very beginning of a True Torment run, allowing veteran players to further challenge themselves with our Penitence System. They will force you to play the game with different strategies, but completing these will unlock permanent rewards: The Penitence of the Bleeding Heart is our homage to classic 8-bit titles like Castlevania where we have replaced the Penitent One’s lifebar with Health Orbs. Every hit you take will deplete one orb, and to keep things interesting, all enemies will respawn every time you come back to an area. So you will really need to learn their patterns if you want to stay alive! The Penitence of the Unwavering Faith severely weakens your normal attacks with Mea Culpa, but adds constant Fervour regeneration! Prayers and abilities will be your main source of damage, so plan your build accordingly, and choose appropriate Rosary Beads and Sword Hearts! And the final is the Penitence of the True Guilt — by far the most punishing of the three. Choosing this Penitence will change your Bile Flasks into Azure Flasks where they will no longer replenish your health, but your fervour instead. And keeping yourself out of harm’s way is a must in this run, as you will lose all your Guilt Fragments and Tears of Atonement with a single death! Find a Confessor Statue, or retrieve your Fragment, or you will lose all those hard-earned tears too! Only true masters of Blasphemous’ combat will be able to rise to this challenge. The Amanecidas Rise Again Ancient creatures, born and forgotten centuries ago, will wake up from the innards of Cvstodia and try to stop The Penitent One. Find Jibrael, their harbinger, during a True Torment run, and follow his instructions to challenge these gilded wardens of the Miracle. This new storyline includes five completely new boss fights, harder than any other you’ve faced before in Blasphemous. Changes to the Core Game Playing in True Torment is not required to enjoy all the new content though! We redesigned the map screen, improving the experience of exploring the dark corners of Cvstodia. And well, we added quite a few more of those dark corners too! New shortcuts, new areas, additional warp points and NPCs have been added throughout the world, and we improved the level art in many of the existing areas. And, as requested by many of our players from all around the world, we have added full Spanish VO, recorded by top notch voice actors and actresses. Our game is heavily inspired by our culture, so this was a no-brainer! Concept art Balance Revisited As a game designer, fine tuning the experience you players will face in our game is always our main priority. This is why we took our time to create a satisfying True Torment mode, but also revisited the base game! Lots of Prayers, Rosary Beads, and even player skills have been revisited, tweaked, and, in some cases, made some pretty big changes. Summon an army of Cherubs with the improved Campanilleros Prayer, or stun your foes with a perfectly timed Sacred Onslaught to the face, leaving them open for a gruesome execution. And yes, we also added a bunch more of those too! If you’re new to Blasphemous, or a veteran pilgrim, I’m sure you will deeply enjoy your travels to the updated world of Cvstodia. Sorrowful be the heart. View the full article

Hey everyone, Santi from Mighty Polygon here! I’m really excited to say that there is only one day left until Relicta is released on PlayStation 4. We here at Mighty Polygon wanted to take this opportunity to tell you a little bit more about us, the inspiration behind the game and its design. But if you don’t know about Relicta yet, this will also be a good place to start. Relicta is a first-person physics-based puzzle game where you need to creatively combine magnetism and gravity in order to unravel the secrets of Chandra Base. Alone in the treacherous depths of the Moon, your scientific mind is the only thing that can keep your daughter alive. You will play as Dr. Angelica Patel, a brilliant physicist that is conducting research in an old lunar base, focused on an amazing material that has magnetic and gravitational properties which will be the main element behind the puzzles. So, who is Mighty Polygon? We are a small Spanish indie studio with a core team of five people that has been working hard to bring you Relicta for the past three years. All of us have different backgrounds and specialties, but as a small team we all contributed in different areas to help with the development and to be able to release the game as polished as possible. Outside of the main team we were also lucky to have some external help with the music, sound and narrative design. The inspiration behind Relicta comes from various sources. We like games with strong narratives, but we started from a game design viewpoint. When we were doing the first prototype, our goal was to find a set of simple mechanics that could be combined in interesting ways. After some tests we found our winner, the mix between magnetism and gravity. There are other games that use those in a separate way but when we combined them we started to see new patterns and were surprised by the new applications we found for them. Do you want to go flying on a box as a means of transport? Checked. Do you want to redirect the trajectory by using magnetic fields? No problem at all. Would you rather use the environment to interact with the puzzles? Go right ahead. We cannot wait for you to discover all the possibilities or even find new ones. One of our main goals was to make the puzzles fun but also to have a good learning curve so even if you are new to the genre you can wrap your head around the mechanics at a good pace and solve the puzzles while we increase the difficulty and add more mechanics gradually. Although we were inspired by games like Portal and The Talos Principle we of course tried to make a game within the genre that has its own identity and could be fun to play even for the more experienced players. Our focus wasn’t only on the game design of course, the narrative also plays a big role in the game. Our goal was to tell a compelling story that combines deeply personal emotions with the big picture of future orbital politics. For those of you who just want to test their puzzle-solving skills without worrying about following the story, you can absolutely do that as well, but we also have more lore hidden throughout Chandra Base for those who want to find out more about the world we created. With the narrative also came the big question about the setting of the game. We wanted to avoid solving the puzzles in closed spaces like most of the other games in the genre and make it more organic, so we ended up terraforming the moon and adding a few different biomes. Making the levels in a more open environment came with its problems, like adjusting the game design and having to improve the performance of the game. Luckily for us, we chose Unreal Engine 4 to develop the game, so we were able to adjust everything so we could deliver a smooth experience for you, with the graphics quality we had in mind and Relicta looks even better in 4K resolution on the PS4 Pro. We hope to see you on the moon and that you’ve enjoyed this look into Relicta. Let us know how the puzzle solving goes! View the full article

For Project Cars 3 — the new instalment of the best-seller racing franchise releasing August 28 — we decided to spice things up a bit by creating an entirely new player progression system that offers a unique take on what you’d expect to find in a simulation game. Development looked like this: take the authentic handling cars, the real motorsport tracks, and the moment-to-moment simulation of the franchise; add performance part upgrades that realistically modify cars that players can now own in-game; and then create an engaging progression layer on top to enhance the fun of racing up from weekend warrior to motorsport legend. And that’s Project Cars 3 — a racing game with a host of optional assists, graphic enhancements, new game modes, better career, and with the physics and handling of Project Cars intact. Player Progression The core of the player’s progress in Project Cars 3 is how you acquire XP. Being a Project Cars game, we’ve naturally kept the sandbox element alive by giving you the freedom to decide exactly how you want your motorsport journey to grow. So, whether racing in Career Mode against the reworked AI, competing in Multiplayer, or simply messing about in the new Breakout Mode, you’re always earning XP. This was important for us since we know many of our more hardcore fans just want to get online and race and won’t necessarily be actively chasing XP. Freedom, though, doesn’t mean you’ll get XP by bashing into other players — driving like a lunatic will actually see your XP go nowhere fast in a hurry! This is key because we want to reward players for their skill and get them to up their driving abilities in-game. Drive cleanly and skilfully, race with less assists on, and your XP rewards will get a boost as a result. The goal with XP is to fill your level bar: each time you do that, you earn a cash reward, and levelling up also unlocks more cars in the showroom that you can now buy with your hard-earned credits. All of this is up to you of course: if you want to just grab the new mid-engined Corvette (or a favourite car that you’ve upgraded) and race online, or you just want to do some laps on a rainy day at the ’Ring, you can do that anytime you want, irrespective of what cars you own or your XP. A Better Career Mode This new player progression system has resulted in Career events having different vehicle requirements. With 192 events, you’re looking at over 40 hours of racing to complete your motorsport journey, so you’ll need to acquire a lot of cars to complete all the objectives. Or you can just keep upgrading your own hero car and see how far up the motorsport ladder you can go with it. New Modes Project Cars 3 comes with three new modes, and the standout for me is Rivals, a leaderboard-based competition with daily, weekly, and monthly challenges for the whole community. The leaderboards are split into Divisions, and at the end of each month, players are ranked based on their total number of Rivals Points, earning greater XP rewards for higher ranks. And that’s the core of Project Cars 3. While simulation remains the focus, if you want to race with the reworked controller and have a more casual experience with your mates, the new progression system now offers you a unique new way of engaging with the realistic handling model and exploring all the great content. Have fun with it! View the full article

It’s been a while… but State of Play returns this Thursday with a focus on third-party-published games coming to PS4 and PS VR. We’ll have a few PS5 game updates on third-party and indie titles you last saw in June’s PS5 showcase. The episode is weighing in at 40+ minutes(!). We’ve got a great lineup in store featuring plenty of new gameplay footage and other game updates. Can’t wait to hear what you think! And just to be super clear — there will be no PlayStation Studios updates in Thursday’s episode. There won’t be any updates around hardware, business, preorders, or dates either. On Thursday, our focus is squarely on showcasing some cool upcoming games coming to the broader PlayStation ecosystem. Should be fun! The new State of Play episode airs Thursday, August 6 at 1:00pm Pacific Time / 4:00pm Eastern Time / 9:00pm BST, and you can watch it live on Twitch and YouTube. See you Thursday! View the full article

In our June Future of Gaming digital event, we announced an array of PlayStation 5 peripherals and accessories that will be launching this holiday season. But we know that many of you were also wondering if and how existing PlayStation 4 peripherals are compatible with the next-gen system. Today, we’re happy to share a brief FAQ that will answer some of your questions. If you have questions that aren’t addressed, feel free to leave them in the comments below. Which existing PS4 peripherals/accessories will work on PS5? Specialty peripherals, such as officially licensed racing wheels, arcade sticks, and flight sticks, will work with PS5 games and supported PS4 games. The Platinum and Gold Wireless Headsets, as well as third-party headsets that connect via USB port or audio jack, will work on PS5 (the headset companion app is not compatible with PS5). The DualShock 4 wireless controller and PlayStation officially licensed third-party gamepad controllers will work with supported PS4 games. Both the PS Move Motion Controllers and the PlayStation VR Aim Controller will work with supported PS VR games on PS5. Please note, not all PlayStation officially licensed or third-party peripherals/accessories may work on PS5. We recommend checking with the manufacturer to confirm whether a product will work on PS5 and specific titles. Will DualShock 4 work with PS5 games? No, we believe that PS5 games should take advantage of the new capabilities and features we’re bringing to the platform, including the features of DualSense wireless controller. Is the PlayStation Camera for PS4 compatible with PS5? Yes, PlayStation Camera will work with PS5 for playing supported PS VR games. It will require a PlayStation Camera adaptor that will be provided at no additional cost to PS VR users. More details on how to get the adaptor will be announced at a later date. And that’s it! We’ll continue to provide updates on PlayStation 5 down the road, so make sure to check back soon. View the full article

Every time our development team updates Warframe — that’s 28 major updates since 2013 — it’s learned to evolve, change, or expand on the original premise of stepping into the skin of an all-powerful space ninja. Revealed during a live demo in today’s TennoCon 2020 Convention, Heart of Deimos unveils the newly playable moon of Deimos, overrun and corrupted by the disease-like “Infested” faction. Beautiful but grotesque, crawling with a hostile living landscape, featuring a backstory that’s also a new chapter, for us Heart of Deimos is ground breaking. For the first time in Warframe history, this update will simultaneously ship on all platforms later this month. Day one. When it launches, Heart of Deimos will introduce our third complete open world. Coupled with our new cinematic introduction, which places players into a larger, more meaningful context than before, and our 44th Warframe, Xaku, this update will bring Warframe into a new era of accessibility, depth and level of content than ever before. An early concept illustration of the Infested home planet Heart of Deimos dives into the central hive of the Infested faction, a biomechanical pathogen created by the ancient Orokin civilization to fight the Sentients. Deimos is slithery and sticky, alien and alarming, gorgeous, ghastly… even gross. When you first start playing, it feels like the whole moon is moving under your feet, alive and changing. Because it is. To understand the Infested hivemind of Deimos better, Warframe veterans PC Producer Dave Kudirka and Associate Art Director Kary Black dig into their respective disciplines to explain how Digital Extremes progressed from sketches and drafts to a full-blown, working open world. What made the dev team interested in tackling a third open world? Dave Kudirka, Producer: The Infested as an aesthetic is already strange and uncomfortable with its assimilated forms and unusual biology, and so the opportunity to develop a planetary region where this is most concentrated, and with its own natural inhabitants… well, that’s exciting for game developers. We are very proud of our previous landmark updates that introduced those open world areas on Earth and Venus (The Plains of Eidolon and Fortuna), and the civilian centres connected to those environments. We think it serves our game well to provide a compelling and unrestricted space to explore, and have your actions in that space framed by a rich cast of NPCs who have relationships with us (and each other), bringing meaning and revelation as we go. There is some existing tech and design infrastructure we could lean on to speed up development for this new alien landscape, but we were still presented with familiar challenges of new content production, design balance and testing, and a large amount of writing and VO (voice-over) required for world building. Maybe this time we bypassed some of the hard lessons we learned the first couple times, but our instinct and ambition are always to create something new and unseen that can surprise the player, so new risks are typically part of the formula. Why the Infested? What was the attraction to explore and delve into this faction of the Origin System? Dave Kudirka: The Infested have been a long-standing part of the Warframe universe along with the Grineer and Corpus factions. As players journeyed their way through our quests and narrative threads, we learned more about the Grineer and Corpus culture, their technology, and their history. The Infested have largely been on the periphery in this sense acting more as mysterious factions with unknown origins and motivations, not usually a direct or imposing threat… but our curiosity remains. The Heart of Deimos content is available very early on the player path, so older and newer players alike will get to experience this weird and twisted landscape, and meet its friendly (and hostile) inhabitants to gain insight on what the Infestation is. For those seasoned Tenno who have already put in their time with Warframe, it makes important connections to the experiences and storylines players have already discovered, but also reveals items relevant to events to come. Kary Black, Associate Art Director: The simple answer is: They are the faction that was yet to have a landscape, and that was enough to get people thinking about it. Layout Artist Ross Colgan did an opening take, which felt appropriately gooey and fun to walk through. Then Nightwave Season 2 proved you could tell a compelling story with the Infested. When a team wrapped on the Sentient component of Empyrean, we wanted to keep the momentum and solid previz and confidence that narrative would work, which made the Infested a freeing choice. We sketched out several takes; as a vast landscape inside an Infested Void Tower floating in space, on Eris, or doing it all as a “fleshscape.” Those commingled and became Deimos. What lessons did the design team learn from creating the visual landscape of Orb Vallis incorporated into Deimos? Kary Black: Deimos would not have come together without lessons from Orb Vallis (Fortuna), Plains of Eidolon, and the Plains of Eidolon Remaster. Each step has made for a more capable team. Orb Vallis was so vast and hilly that it was hard to get visual landmarks to anchor you. But on Deimos, locations such as The Dome, ‘Brain Building,’ the Worms, and Mars can all act as points on the compass. We also wanted to leverage our procedural tileset system. It’s consistently fun to turn a corner and not be sure what is on the other side. Orb Vallis had some great interior spaces, but their layouts stayed static, which is unlike most of Warframe. With the Infested, it felt right to do a proper procedural dungeon crawl. We also had the lesson of scope. Orb Vallis was a large and complex project, and we wanted Deimos to be a tight, dense experience on a quick turnaround. But it was tricky, particularly with a pandemic and working from home as a new experience. One of the key locations on Deimos, the Infested’s ‘tower nest’ What are some of the key new mechanics and features that make this Open World distinct and different from Fortuna and Plains of Eidolon, or even from the rest of Warframe? Dave Kudirka: Do you like giant centipede creatures? Lucky day. They skitter up and down the terrain, blend into their environment and they are hard targets with their speed and low profile. And the sounds they make are just unsettling. One of many new creepy crawlies to discover on Deimos. There will be some curious new resources to uncover in Deimos that will help you craft some specialized gear, or, the raw material can feed back into an aspect of loadout tuning (with the Helminth being a part of this interaction). Without revealing too much here, I can say the organic nature of these resources ties in well with themes of biological evolution and body horror that resonates with the Infested theme. Deimos topography is very different from the previous landscapes with its deep and narrow trenches, oozing rivers, grotto-like caverns, and winding organic tentacles that spread throughout. It feels like a weird living planet with its own biological growth and immunology. The erratic terrain is especially fun to navigate when you leverage your parkour abilities or any vehicle gear you might have already picked up along the way…or perhaps corral the local wildlife for a ride. Akin to a K-drive, this winged creature flutters like a dragonfly but rides like a hoverboard Kary Black: Most prior works were an Infestation of a Corpus, Grineer, or Orokin location; this setting let us look at what would happen if the Infestation was dominant. The innards of Deimos are a very different experience to run through. The team did a lovely job maintaining the flow of movement, organic angles and created a beautiful and unsettling location. What are some of the source material, references, or creative inspirations you drew upon for Heart of Deimos? Kary Black: We are at the point where Warframe is expansive enough that inspiration and source material are within it. We could take considerable reference from the Infested Ancients because we wanted to show a space that was Infested for a long time. Outside Warframe, there wasn’t a single artist who we could point to, like we did with the Sentient set. There, Zdzisław Beksiński (the Polish painter, photographer and sculptor) had an influence on our surfacing. With Deimos we hoped to capture the mood of a Friedrich painting from the hilltops (Caspar David Friedrich, the 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter), the energy of Mynki’s first Infested sculpts (Mynki is a former Digital Extremes creative artist), and, in our best moments, the lighting and atmosphere paid their due to (English cinematographer) Roger Deakins. Feeling excited, ready for action, or maybe wondering where to start? Luckily, Heart of Deimos appears early in the Warframe experience. We recommend new players follow the nodes laid out on the Star Chart through to Mars, after which players will see a cluster of moons nearby. And just like with Plains of Eidolon and Fortuna, acquiring an Archwing and a K-drive (hoverboard) would be a good idea, too! That should get you all set up for Heart of Deimos, coming out Tuesday, August 25. See you in Deimos, Tenno! View the full article

Email us at PSPodcast@sony.com! Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google or RSS, or download here PlayStation · Official PlayStation Podcast Episode 373 – Crash and the Boys Welcome back! This week Tim chats with Toys for Bob about Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, while Sid and Brett share their favorite game soundtracks. Stuff We Talked About Ghost of Tsushima Days Gone Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout Cuphead The Cast Sid Shuman – Senior Director of Content Communications, SIE Tim Turi – Senior Content Communications Specialist, 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.] View the full article

Greetings, PlayStation Slayers! For the uninitiated, Dauntless is a free-to-play co-op action RPG that’s all about feeling like a badass while taking down boss-sized Behemoths with your friends in the world of the Shattered Isles. We’ve released over a dozen content updates since we launched on PlayStation 4 last May, and with our latest, we’re introducing a complete redesign of our hub city of Ramsgate. New Horizons Ramsgate is near and dear to our hearts, and we took a great deal of time thinking about how a new Ramsgate could best serve you, designing it in a way that is fun to navigate and makes sense for the actions you take when you aren’t off fighting Behemoths. It’s also been integral for our team to see how we could incorporate Ramsgate community feedback over the past months (and years). We can’t wait for you to check it out for yourselves. Let’s take a look around, shall we? A Living City In addition to reworking the general layout of Ramsgate and adding more height and depth to the city itself, we wanted to offer you more ways to interact with the world and learn about Ramsgate and its inhabitants. The animation you see above is one of several vista shots you can interact with to see the city from different angles, and perhaps catch something you would’ve missed exploring on foot. You can also collect lore about Ramsgate and the Shattered Isles by interacting with objects strewn about the city. These will populate in your Journal, which can be accessed within the Quests and Progression section of the main menu. We’ve also given each vendor area a stronger theme, both visually and aurally – you’ll notice the music change depending on where you are in the city and who you’re talking to. We’ve added a number of new landmarks to our city, including the bazaar where Gregario has opened up shop for all store and Hunt Pass needs, along with the eclectic tent-by-way-of-crashed-airship for our new tonic vendor, Granny Strega. You can also now easily and quickly navigate Ramsgate using the aether jets scattered throughout the city, which makes getting to where you want to go a breeze. Take a tour of the city yourself, and let us know what you think in the comments! Clear Skies, Sharp Swords The Clear Skies update launching today also introduces the rework of our sword class, which was the first weapon we created in Dauntless. The sword is the first thing you wield against a Behemoth in Dauntless, and our initial design was meant to ease newer players into our combat and teach them the ropes. Over time, this design began to feel outdated compared to our newer weapons, so we completely redesigned the sword combat system from the ground up, developing new combos, new mods, and general tactics for you to learn. Escalation, our latest hunt type that pits you against a gauntlet of Behemoths with random modifiers and amps, is the perfect proving ground to try out the new sword once you get a feel for its playstyle. We hope it feels like a brand-new weapon, so check it out and let us know what you think! Join The Fight Now is the perfect time to jump into Dauntless and check out all our new additions, along with a number of Umbral Escalation modifiers and amps that arrive with this update. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to get in touch with us on Twitter, Discord, or Reddit. See you in the Shattered Isles soon, Slayers! View the full article

Imagine the most badass pistol-wielding action hero ever. Now, become them. That’s it. That’s the game. At least, that’s the aim when developing Pistol Whip: for you to experience each level, or “scene,” as cinematically as possible, as though you’re the action hero yourself. Most design decisions — from game modifiers to art direction to future plans — are made with this goal in mind. Before we get into examples of those decisions, and the films that inspire them, I’d like to take a moment to mention how over-the-moon excited everyone at Cloudhead Games is about Pistol Whip launching today on PlayStation VR. Not only is this a huge milestone for the studio, it’s also a personal dream come true for many PlayStation fans who work here, myself included. Fun fact: my pseudonym is inspired by an old-school PlayStation RPG, Vagrant Story. Modify and Play Your Way Default With default settings, you’re equipped with a single pistol and a dash of aim assist. This helps with landing shots, allowing more freedom to focus on rhythm and survival — no easy feat. At its toughest, Pistol Whip uses your whole body to dodge, duck, and weave away from projectiles and obstacles, which is great for those of us who use VR to workout at home. The choice to go single pistol default, is intentionally meant to reinforce the classic cinematic feeling of being virtual versions of some of our favourite unstoppable action heroes. Here are some examples of other ways to play, and the films that inspired them. Dual Wield Always wanted to master the art of Gun Kata? Turn on dual wield and go nuts. In this mode you get another pistol, but your final score is reduced. Deadeye Anyone hire a hitman? This mode turns off aim assist and deducts points if you miss. The benefit? Your final score is increased along with your ability to aim. God Mode Want to feel like the Terminator? Turn on No Fail and Infinite Ammo for a maniacally good time mowing down everything in your path. No Ammo What if I told you, you could be the One? Enter the Matrix and turn on No Ammo to show off your bullet dodging skills. This modifier is also great if you want to up the fitness level of your favourite scenes. Behind the Scenes The scene selection menu in Pistol Whip is a collection of movie posters representing each experience. Shooting the scene poster you want to play starts the game, but this isn’t how it always was. In early days scene selection was a text-dominated list. The only art displayed was album art, meaning scenes with songs from the same albums also displayed the same art. This wouldn’t work. The Neo Tokyo streets highlighting Akuma’s intermittent, angelically-haunting Japanese vocals were crafted with inspiration from cyberpunk classics like Akira and Ghost in the Shell. Revelations, on the other hand, gets its slick vibe and colour palette from films like Reservoir Dogs and Ocean’s 11. Each scene is a unique cinematic experience with its own very distinct identity. The light bulb went off for Art Lead Jonathan Hackett during a meeting on how to best solve this issue: Movie posters. Eureka. The type of movie poster that Black Magic (the game’s first scene) would need was immediately clear to Jonathan, and he got to work right away. The first iteration created that day is nearly indistinguishable from the final version in the game now. Every Great Action Film Deserves a Sequel While the first 15 tracks released for Pistol Whip were a collection of face-melting musical scenes, our next free content update — the Heartbreaker Trilogy — is a chilled out, more pop-inspired take on all things action hero. Heartbreaker will launch later this year with three colourful new scenes, and new ways to play via new modifiers. There’s also a new water gun collection making a splash that we’re really excited to share with you! Pistol Whip is a truly unique blend of action, rhythm, FPS, and fitness that we hope PlayStation fans will really enjoy. If you do, we would love to hear about it on our Discord or on Twitter. Virtually yours, Cloudhead Games View the full article

Fans of Super Heroes, Wonder Woman, Old Gods, New Gods, and collapsing multiverses have a lot to look forward to in Wonderverse, our next episode launching today! Whether you are looking for an end-game challenge or just starting your journey, Wonderverse delivers. Remember, anyone level 15+ can play the more accessible event versions of our newest episode for free, right up until we launch the next one. The Council of Wonder Women Our story picks up where our last few episodes left off: with a damaged and cracked Source Wall. Look, that’s a HUGE deal. The Source Wall surrounds and contains the multiverse, so when it stops working, universes stop working. In Wonderverse, five universes have begun to merge, and it will be catastrophic to all of them if the boundaries cannot be repaired. Enter Wonder Woman. And Wonder Woman. And Wonder Woman. You get the idea: the Wonder Woman from each of these universes must step up to heal what’s broken. Despite their differences, they will found the Council of Wonder Women, led by Nubia (Earth-23). Most notably joining Nubia on the council are two other Wonder Women, both new to DC Universe Online: Red Son Wonder Woman and Flashpoint Wonder Woman. Red Son Wonder Woman In Red Son Wonder Woman’s universe, a slight delay sent Superman’s ship to land on Earth not in Kansas, but in the Soviet Union, and the world was never the same. The Wonder Woman there rises up in support of Superman, defending the common people against injustice and oppression. She is bold, pragmatic, and cunning, and exactly what the council needs. Flashpoint Wonder Woman Flashpoint Wonder Woman is altogether different. Unlike most incarnations of Wonder Woman (who are kind, benevolent, and strong), Flashpoint Wonder Woman is cruel, tyrannical, and, okay, still really strong. She is dangerous, a murderer, and warmonger in her universe. But with her universe at stake, too, what role will she play? What decisions will she make? Old Gods, New Gods, New Old Gods As the Source Wall deteriorates, so too do the powers of the gods. Desperate and not accustomed to threats, the gods realize they can sustain their powers by accumulating fragments of the Source Wall itself, even as it crumbles into the merging multiverse. The New Gods of Apokalypse, led by Darkseid, Grail, and Orion, are quick to seize upon the opportunity. They strike not just to maintain their power, but also to deprive power from their rivals. Not far behind them, capricious and dangerous themselves, are the Old Gods of Olympus, led by Zeus, Hera, Athena, and Poseidon. Poseidon is all-new to DC Universe Online, rising up from the ocean depths to reclaim his power in Atlantis. So, here’s the problem. You’re going to need those fragments of the Source Wall if the council is going to have any chance to save their universes. And the gods are rarely reasonable. How do you convince the gods to give up their fragments, and with them their power? Spoiler: it’s not going to involve a whole lot of talking. Get Started This universe-shattering episode is available now, and the multiverse is already in jeopardy. Download and play DCUO today for free. Remember, the event versions of Wonderverse are free for everyone, and you don’t even have to have PlayStation Plus. All you have to do is: Download DCUO from PlayStation Store. Create your own unique Super Hero or Supervillain, with special powers and a look all your own. Start playing. It’s also a great time to get into or back into the game, because all of our other episodes are still free-to-access with Open Episodes, and our ongoing bonus weeks will continue apace, multiverse or no. View the full article

When it came time for a blog post about Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2, I knew exactly who I was going to ask to help out. Mr. Hiroki Miyazawa, the director of this game and the first Curse of the Moon, knows the ins and outs of this series better than anyone. If you saw our last post here about Dragon Marked for Death, you may remember his name! He’s the person the director turned to in order to take the gameplay from the old build of the game and make it more fun and engaging. Needless to say, he delivered then, and I firmly believe the Curse of the Moon games feel as satisfying as they do due to, in no small part, Miyazawa-san’s awesome design sense. The latest update releases today and adds a brand new difficulty mode with the “Legend” setting. But hey, absolutely NO shame in playing on Casual or Veteran! Those demons get crushed either way! Now let’s hear what Miyazawa-san has to say about the creation of Curse of the Moon 2, its characters, gameplay, story, and more! Good day and good evening, everyone. This is Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 2’s director Hiroki Miyazawa. Creating Brand-New Playable Characters Before development had fully begun, I told myself that I had to “make something fans will love.” In order to best achieve that, I wanted to both bring back the characters from the first game as well as introduce a new cast. Since all the characters would be available, the new characters had to stand out in their own way compared to the old ones, so things got started by examining the strengths of the previous cast. The first character we decided on was Robert, whose role was to be an “ultra long-distance sniper.” Initially, he was a weapon specialist with a long range normal attack and a wide variety of sub-weapons. He ended up being the sort of character who could complete the game on his own without any real need for synergy with the other characters. In order to give him some way to interact with the rest of the team, we gave him the wall cling and wall jump abilities. His massive attack range made him a damage-dealing specialist, so we drastically lowered his health to make sure he wasn’t over-powered. I thought it was a bit weird that a soldier would have such low health, so in the story we decided it was because he was “just a normal human with no experience fighting demons.” But, you know, I’ve never heard of any “normal humans” who can grab onto solid walls and jump off them… needless to say, I was relieved when nobody on the team pointed that out. When designing Robert there were a few other ideas that we left on the cutting room floor, such as “a demon has corrupted his body,” and “the human form of the boss Bathin from the previous game.” But as I mentioned above, we needed a reason for him to have such low health, so we set aside all those ideas and went with “a normal human soldier.” The wall jumping ability was a remnant of those other ideas. There was also another design that had him as a short, stocky soldier — completely different from the final design. We already had a design on the comical side of things with Hachi though, so we decided to make him look cool in the end. Robert Final Design: A New Mascot: Hachi The first idea we had for Hachi’s design was to make the Ride Armor from Mega Man X into a playable character. You know, that robot suit you would ride in then throw away when you’re done with it. Normally in action games where you have characters that can switch on the fly, I feel like the big bruiser characters are often hard to use. So for Hachi, we wanted to design a character that would help people realize “Wow, big characters are really strong!” even if it should be obvious. I don’t think it’s necessary for every character to be equally powerful, though. Of course, it’s necessary for every character to have something they excel at, but I think that as long as some characters are strong, it’s fine for others to be a bit on the weaker side. It can be a real shock when your strong character dies, but there’s something special about struggling through with your weaker characters after that. It often becomes a good (albeit painful) memory, doesn’t it? What I believe is important is not how a strong character is, but how much charm they have. When we began development on Hachi, the character played completely different from the final version. Early on, the suit was invincible at all times, but would constantly heat up. It consumed weapon points as you used Hachi and when they ran out, the suit would overheat and explode. We eventually decided that in a game with 7 playable characters, it wasn’t good to have just one that operated on a different set of rules, and Hachi ended up with the comparatively simple playstyle in the final game. Hachi’s favorite food, shaved ice, harkens back to that overheating design. There was also an early design of a woman trapped inside a large fish-tank-like monster. However, the magic armor design looked more powerful, plus, you know, dogs are cute, so the Hachi design won out in the end. The initial design for Hachi looked like this, with a cockpit that Hachi could look out of. As you can clearly see, this was just way too cute. To avoid making the design overly cute, we made the final illustration hide the dog completely. Now, you must be wondering how Hachi controls the robot, right? Does it use its brainwaves or maybe a Mobile Tracing System? We may never know, but personally, I like to imagine Hachi moving it around with just a pair of joysticks. Also, thanks to this cute early design, we drew the in-game Hachi as an energetic little pup. When you see Hachi’s sprite, instead of an artificial leg, maybe you see it all wrapped up like a furoshiki (a cloth used for wrapping up things like gifts, lunchboxes, etc.) ? There’s no official illustration of Hachi in the final design, so feel free to interpret the pixel art as you see fit. Here’s another earlier design, before IGA pointed out that it was lacking a “gothic touch.” This one’s a bit rustic and not very showy. When I requested a new design from the designer, Yuji Natsume, I mentioned that this one was more “steampunk” than “gothic.” He quipped back with “What even is a gothic touch?!” and got stuck on the design for a while, but managed to make a cool design with a gothic touch in the end. Hachi Final Design: A New Character from Ritual of the Night We decided to add three new characters, but for all three to be brand-new would feel lacking in familiar faces for players. So for the last character, we wanted someone from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night who wouldn’t overlap with any of the current characters’ identities. We landed on Dominique, but only if we would be allowed to tweak her design a bit. We had to be careful when implementing Dominique’s signature action, her pogo strike. It’s the sort of attack that can trivialize a boss or allow players to just ignore tough enemies. I paid careful attention to bosses’ movements to make sure they made big side-to-side movements so that it wouldn’t be easy just to pogo them to death. Even so, if you do it just right, you can still hop on them with reckless abandon… Later on, we added her Resurrection Anthem to revive teammates and her healing plant, both of which were a challenge to balance. I wanted players to think of Dominique as a reliable ally and gave her these abilities to make this very clear. However, when we began development on her, these two abilities were so strong you wouldn’t even dream of destroying a blue lantern with her to get a different sub-weapon. On top of her capabilities, Dominique has a variety of useful offensive sub-weapons. One of the most important ones would have to be her Impact Lance, mainly because it can be used as a high jump. It’s crucial for reaching shortcuts, so for anyone out there getting ready to play the game, be sure to use Dominique to destroy those blue lanterns. The final game has been thoroughly tuned so that in any area where you might need a certain sub-weapon, a nearby blue lantern will drop said weapon. We want players to change sub-weapons often and try them all. As for her design, just like Hachi before her, the initial design was lacking in gothic style, as she was wearing clothes that wouldn’t look out of place today. It looked something like this: For her main colors, we made both a blue and a pink version so that it wouldn’t overlap with any of the other characters. Pink didn’t really fit with the setting though, so Dominique ended up with a blue color scheme. Dominique Final Design: Character Action with Individuality and Choice One thing we always had to be careful about when making an action game with seven playable characters was to never make any one character too necessary. We didn’t want people to be in a position where if that character died the difficulty would get too harsh. To alleviate this, we tried to give multiple characters the ability to overcome these situations. For example, Hachi can attack enemies hanging beneath the floor without spending weapon points. If Hachi is no longer usable, other characters have sub-weapons that can tackle the same problem by spending weapon points. In this way, the hurdle raises a bit, but never too much. Also, I’m not sure if people realized this, but even Zangetsu can attack enemies below the floor with his upgraded magic charms. Designing Brand-New Bosses For the previous game, we used bosses that were present in Ritual of the Night, so the designs were already created and ready to go. We used the look of the bosses to decide what sorts of attacks and movements they should have, but for Curse of the Moon 2 we didn’t have that luxury. We needed to make all-new bosses. (There were some RotN bosses that hadn’t appeared in CotM, but we felt most of them were too difficult to render in 8-bit style. Vepar is the only one who made the cut.) I gave instructions to the designers based on how I wanted the boss fights to play out, especially in ways that differed from the previous game, and told them to make designs based on these ideas. Just as with the new playable characters, the designs were made to suit the gameplay plans. For example, “a boss that appears in a volcano and is only vulnerable momentarily, and best defeated with single high-powered attacks” and “a boss with a second weak spot where Robert with his low-power, high-reach attacks can shine but other characters can’t reach” were design concepts we used to put gameplay at the forefront. The team, from the veterans to the rookies, got to design freely based on these ideas and came up with some really interesting combinations. One example of this was this design based on the idea of “an Egyptian-themed boss with a weak point in a high place that moves far to the left and right.” This design is for a snake where its head sways back and forth. I also received a design for this boss where it had multiple bodies and the weak point would move around. I received so many vastly different ideas for the same idea just like this. Choosing the final boss designs may have been the most fun part of this game’s development for me. When designing original monsters, one thing I wanted to be careful of is taking monsters of legend and designing them exactly as the legend goes. I don’t think it’s very interesting to face off about a fearsome boss that makes you feel like you’ve seen it before. To avoid that pitfall, we decided to add unique elements of gothic horror to the designs. We held a meeting on the theme of “What makes a design scary?”, and had some memorable one-liners like “Fire-breathing dragons are cool, but they’re not very scary,” and “Wouldn’t it be unsettling if when it opens its mouth, there’s a person inside?” We considered many other things as well, such as combinations of gross-looking parts, and what makes designs scary and shocking. I wanted the boss fights to include an element of storytelling as well, such as the impression a boss gives when it first appears and is defeated, how its body changes in battle, and if its true form is revealed after it dies. In my opinion, something that appears beautiful at first but is actually grotesque underneath is one of the essential thrills of horror. Curse of the Moon 2’s Story I won’t talk about the latter half of the game to avoid spoilers, but I will say that we had the game’s ending in mind from the start. The path to the ending was going to be pretty wild, and we were afraid that we might make IGA upset when we sent our ideas over to him. It was all for nothing though, because we got the OK for the main story with hardly any changes requested. Personally, when I’m making an action game, I prioritize the gameplay above all else and can sometimes totally lose sight of the setting, story, and characters. But the fans who played CotM and RotN really came to love the characters, so I was determined to treat them with the care they deserved. I did everything I could to make a game where players would come to love each and every character. However, when I get attached to a character, I have a tendency to go a bit overboard. I infused Zangetsu with too much humor and got denied by IGA, who ended up editing a bunch of the script himself. At the end of the day though, I think we ended up with the story in a good place. Now, I want all of you out there to go forth, take control of my beloved characters, and crush those demons! View the full article

It was 2014 when I decided to take things more seriously. I’d just made my debut in the mobile gaming arena. Yet while my title had been financially successful, I didn’t feel any creative satisfaction. I decided that had to be the driving force of my next project. I looked to my childhood for inspiration. As a child of the ‘80s, I was born into the flourishing video games industry. From the 8-bit computer days to the golden arcade era, I played so many masterpieces now considered timeless classics. The ‘90s saw college life beckon and so I missed much of what that decade’s worth of gaming had to offer. It wasn’t until the early 2000s that gaming returned to my life and two games that would leave a lasting impression on me and serve as inspiration for what I would do next: Ninja Gaiden and God of War. The former perfectly captured the feeling of being an ever-agile warrior ninja. The latter impressed upon me the thrill of a great combat system. (I can proudly say that I completed its various incarnations at the highest difficulties.) Flash back to nearly 10 years later and the plan was clear: create a beat ‘em up/brawler hybrid. It’d perfectly reflect the new slogan for my company: “games for the future from the past.” Easy to grasp, yet deep, gameplay. A slick, modern pixel look. Co-op to enjoy the adventure together with friends either in the same room or in different parts of the world. And a catchy name: “Clan N.” Inspired, I set to work. I hired people to help with the visuals as I knuckled down to code the game and work on designs. Yet I quickly hit roadblocks. With everyone working remotely, we struggled to keep the same hours and additional delays from all sides meant the project quickly lost momentum. And around the same time, I became ill, the fallout of years of poor diet and heavy smoking. Progress on the project came to a complete halt. The road to recovery took three long years. Yet with my health restored and a changed, much improved lifestyle in place, I had renewed focus. I gathered my courage and decided to make a fresh start on Clan N. It was one of the best decisions I’d made. I quickly found a new partner who’d work on the visuals and whose work rhythm gelled harmoniously with my own. We met, sometimes even delivered early on deadlines. Productivity surged and a near-discarded project is a game that will launch on PS4 next week: August 6. So, what has this little project called “Clan N” become? It still captures that original vision: a beat ‘em up/brawler hybrid which combines classic arcade gameplay with modern day flourishes. Tight controls. Attacking and throwing shurikens feel so satisfying as if you are the martial artist that you always wanted to be. Dodge rolls keep you agile, blocking gives you a fighting chance to challenge any strike that comes your way. And of course, co-op comes in two flavours: local and online. What does Clan N stand for? Clan N is an ancient samurai group sworn to protect the realm from all who seek its destruction. The four group members consist of the shinobigatana-wielding ninja Akira, the staff-striking Reina, the dual sword-swinging Daiki, and the sickle-slashing monk Tarou. After years of training and dedication to their respective craft, each character has uncovered their own unique magical abilities. Akira can command the storms to call down lightning bolts onto his enemies. Reina can call forth the power of the Earth to throw punches with the strength of a rock fall. Daiki, as lord of the wind, produces brutal tornado waves that no enemy can escape, and Tarou, as the master of Dragons, can call these fearsome beasts to breath deadly fire to his enemies. They battle against the forces of Akuji, a former samurai of Clan N. Discovering that the balance of the world lies in three areas: Peace, Knowledge, and Time, Akuji found by throwing any of these three primal forces out of balance would grant him awesome powers. Ejected from Clan N for his attempts to unbalance the world, Akuji rampaged through the world, building himself an army and eventually becoming the realm’s most powerful sorcerer. Once his actions were discovered by Clan N, they set on a journey to stop the villainous pillaging by Akuji and his army of warriors, the Seishin Gun. Depart on your journey solo or with friends and bring peace back to the land from August 6! View the full article

Hello PlayStation Nation! Our second Marvel’s Avengers War Table dropped today, loaded with Beta goodness and a tease of one of our first post-launch heroes. Read on for all the key info! But first, we want to say a massive thank-you to fans around the world that tuned into our first two Marvel’s Avengers War Table streams and provided great feedback on both the format and the content. Keep it coming! Okay, on to the big news from today. Play Video Beta Breakdown Beta Dates So when can you get your hands on the Marvel’s Avengers Beta? The answer is next week! August 7 – PlayStation Advantage Pre-order Beta: As part of our PlayStation Advantage, those of you who have preordered Marvel’s Avengers will be the first in the world to get your hands on Earth’s Mightiest Heroes the weekend of August 7-9. Pre-load: August 6. August 14 – Open Beta: The second Beta weekend will be open to the entire PS4 community as part of our PlayStation Advantage partnership. Pre-load: August 13. August 21 – Open Beta: Same as the above — our final weekend is also an Open Beta for all PlayStation players. Pre-load: August 20. Want to ensure you’re ready to go as soon as the Marvel’s Avengers Beta drops? You’ll need a Square Enix Member’s account to participate, which we use to validate pre-order codes and content, as well as to deliver post-launch goodies, like new heroes, new missions, and new regions at no cost. Beta Content What will you be playing come Beta day? We built the Marvel’s Avengers Beta to give you a slice of the full game experience: single-player content from the original campaign, co-op War Zone missions, hero and world progress, and even more! Here’s a brief overview of the Beta content. Golden Gate Bridge Demo: The Golden Gate Bridge sequence of A-Day is a roller-coaster that gives you a chance to try out the unique combat and traversal style of Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, and Black Widow. We’ve even included a boss battle against longtime Natasha nemesis Taskmaster. After completing A-Day, the Beta will give you access to new story Hero Missions, and eventually War Zones, where you can play as Iron Man, Hulk, Kamala, or Black Widow. To Find Olympia: In this Hero Mission, you’ll play as Kamala and Hulk in search of the last known location of JARVIS, exploring the beautiful forests of the American Pacific Northwest. We’ve thrown in another boss fight for good measure, which will test your resolve against a fellow big green guy. Missing Links: After finishing the Olympia Archive, Kamala and Hulk will take the Quinjet to the frozen Russian Tundra on a mission called “Missing Links” with the goal of uncovering SHIELD secrets. HARM Challenge Rooms: Next up, the Beta will test your grit through Marvel’s Avengers’ Holographic Augmented Reality Machine rooms, also known as HARM Rooms. These virtual training simulators let you take on increasingly difficult waves of enemies with other players, or with companion AI. In the Beta, you’ll unlock three HARM challenge rooms, which are called Excursions when chained together in the full game. Once you best the three rooms, you’ll earn a Nameplate that carries over to the full retail version of the game. WAR ZONES: Once you’ve unlocked an operational War Table in the Beta, you’ll have the option to tackle a series of War Zone and Drop Zone missions with friends or your AI team. We broke down War Zones extensively in a past PlayStation blog, which we highly recommend you check out. There will be five Beta War Zones to play, filled to the brim with human and robotic AIM baddies to beat. In the full game, War Zone missions can range in duration from as short as 10 minutes to around two hours in length. Drop Zones are a smaller, more focused version of War Zones, and they almost always have just one Objective, and are great for earning gear or leveling heroes. The Beta will include five Drop Zones. Beta Progression As we described earlier, we’ve built the Beta to let you sample many of the different types of gameplay and systems that you’ll find in the final game. The Beta includes missions built for different players and power levels. As you build your Heroes, you will take on increasingly ambitious missions. Hero progression is one of Marvel’s Avengers main systems, and the Beta gives a taste of earning experience to level up your unique Hero. In the Beta, you’ll have access to the starting Skill page for each hero. As you earn experience you level up, and each level will grant you a Skill Point. You can then spend these to unlock Skills and shape what each of your Avengers can do. You can reach up to a Hero Level of 15 and a Power Level of 45 in the Beta. There are dozens of cosmetics to acquire and show off during the Beta. Cosmetics are available to acquire as part of progression with a gifted amount of in-game currency. No store transactions can be made with real money during the Beta. In addition to the HARM Challenge Room nameplate, you’ll unlock a second exclusive nameplate for participating in the Beta, which will be carried over to launch. Other progress – such as story progress, gear, and character leveling, will not be carried over to the final game. However, your progress will carry over between weekends; if you played the Beta on August 7, your progression carries over to August 14 and August 21. This gives you a chance to try and hit those level caps! Our Post-Launch Plan Our second Marvel’s Avengers War Table looked beyond the Beta though. We gave a quick glimpse of what the future holds by revealing that fan-favorite Clint Barton, aka Hawkeye, is coming to the post-launch campaign. In Marvel’s Avengers, the “Reassemble” campaign follows Kamala Khan reuniting the Avengers and taking on the current AIM threat led by MODOK. Following that, players will enter the ever-present Avengers Initiative. Through the renovated helicarrier, you’ll expand your team to protect Earth from an array of threats, and in doing so, gain access to new heroes, new missions, and new regions. A ton of work goes into new heroes, as we’ve designed them from the ground up to ensure each delivers a unique experience that honors their comic book legacy. Like the core six heroes, all future characters will have custom move sets and combos, Skills, Gear, Heroics, outfits, emotes, and name plates. From a gameplay and cosmetic standpoint, we’ve drawn on 80 years of Marvel history. Hawkeye is no exception. Our team revisited their favorite comic arc at the beginning of any hero concept process, including Writer Matt Fraction and Artist David Aja’s “My Life as A Weapon.” Hawkeye has his own in-depth story mission chain, and it’s unique from the main campaign because it can be played either co-op or solo, whichever you prefer. He’ll also bring a new villain with him, which you’ll learn about in the future along with other surprises! Below you can see concept art from one of his alternative outfits, drawn from the aforementioned My Life as A Weapon comic. We’ve got big plans for Marvel’s Avengers. The fight against AIM is only just beginning, and reassembling the Avengers is just the start. There is much more story and heroes on the horizon. Marvel’s Avengers Fortnite Collab Before wrapping up the second Marvels’ Avengers War Table, we had one last surprise in store! We’re excited to reveal that we’re teaming up with the Fortnite team for some awesome in-game rewards. Players who complete the Beta’s three HARM-room challenges will earn the Hulk Smashers Pickaxe with a bonus Hulkbuster style in Fortnite. You can visit Fortnite.com for more info! The Bigger Picture We revealed a lot during the July Marvel’s Avengers War Table. The Beta is BIG, but it’s only a fraction of what our passionate team has carefully crafted. Marvel’s Avengers will feature a full-length campaign, over 80 War Zones/Drop Zones, more than 50 enemy types, regularly updated configurations of HARM rooms and challenges, and even more later game mission types. On top of that, you get six heroes with the game at launch, each with more than 50 skills to upgrade, and gear and outfits to earn and unlock. The longer you play the game, the more it grows and evolves as we add new characters like Hawkeye, and new story content and regions – all at no additional cost. We’re pretty excited about what the future holds for Marvel’s Avengers. Keep an eye on the PlayStation blog next week for some Beta tips and tricks from our Dev team. We can’t wait to see you on the Quinjet! View the full article

We are Cradle Games, a Quebec-based studio founded by veterans of the industry in 2015. After five years of hard work, we are excited to finally release Hellpoint, an atmospheric dark sci-fi action-RPG, an unholy child of Demon’s Souls and Dead Space, blurring the line between science and occult. The World of Hellpoint In Hellpoint, we created a new badass dark sci-fi fantasy universe that players will love to immerse themselves into: with an intoxicating atmosphere, unsettling soundscape and ever more bizarre cast of characters and creatures. The game takes place on Irid Novo, a derelict space colony orbiting in real time around an ominous black hole. All inhabitants appear to have suffered from a terrible affliction called the Merge. You play as a Spawn, a soulless, mechanically printed servant forced to take part in a strange scientific experiment that hides many dark secrets. Depending on the time, a variety of dynamic events can take place based on the influence of the black hole. Mini-bosses can appear and patrol an area, hordes of enemies can invade the station en masse, and secret doors suddenly become accessible. By exploring the world, the secrets of Irid Novo slowly begin to unravel, telling stories of a society dominated by the cult of science, manipulated, drugged and exploited to serve the goals of a hidden elite that worship evil for power. Three main enemy factions have been summoned to invade Irid Novo. The brutal Daemons, the soulless Archons and the wicked Thespians. Each faction is ruled by their own cosmic god, and each can be attacked in any chosen order. Depending on which god remains dead or alive, the basic enemies present in various environments may change from one faction to another, greatly contributing to the replay value of the game. Making Your Way Through Irid Novo Regarding game mechanics, the game offers a quick and responsive “souls-like” combat system that includes dashing, jumping, melee and range weapons. Upgrades can be transferred from one weapon to another, using special chips called “conductors.” This way the player can decide to use a newly collected weapon if it proves more interesting to him. Commitment to a weapon is still rewarded though. The more the player inflicts damage using a particular weapon, the more this weapon will unlock special abilities unique to its kind, like piercing attacks, backstabbing, weapon throws, and sometimes even stranger powers. The game is often terrifying, but rewards courage. The only way to regain healing power is to slaughter enemies, as damage dealt is transferred to restoration energy which is then used to perform healing methods using syringes, nanobots, and blood rituals. Range weapon ammunitions and special ability powers work on a similar system. Early into the game, the player will find an “Omni-cube,” a versatile tool that can be used as a flashlight, a turret, or to leave bread crumbs behind. The Omni-cube can also be utilized to teleport the player to the last encountered “Breach,” respawn all enemies and grind some more. The Irid Novo station is a huge and complex space colony and research center, with many interconnected cities, ports and laboratories. For those who can find them, the world is riddled with secret passages and multiple accesses, an homage to the level design from days of old. The player is often teased with an inaccessible glowing reward which requires clever exploration to be reached. Bring Your Friends The first feature that the Cradle team has developed is split screen multiplayer support. Just like the old days, a second player only needs to press start to join. Loot is shared, progress is saved and the entirety of the game can be enjoyed in coop without interruption. The game also supports online multiplayer! Both co-op and PVP, with either your friends (just send them your match code) or strangers (just leave a sign on the wall and wait). Two couch co-op players can be matched with the other two couch co-op buddies for a good fight! With Hellpoint, we aim to create a new retro-fresh world filled with strange stories to be expanded into many games to come. View the full article

Hi! This is Irene, and along with everybody in the team of WildSphere I’m thrilled Naught is coming to PS4 this Friday. We’ve always wished to see Naught on consoles. And finally here it is! We can’t be more excited, and actually we’ve really enjoyed playing it as we advanced in the development. Naught is a game that combines original mechanics with a minimalist visual style that mixes light, shadow, and little touches of color. A game that challenges your skills and your mind. You will find yourself immersed in labyrinths that go in all directions and where the only way out is to defy gravity and turn everything around. Unlimited by gravity The origin of Naught was a character that wouldn’t be limited to the ground and could move in any direction. We also wanted to achieve a very agile, fluid and fast behavior. My colleague, Miguel Diaz, is a huge fan of Sonic and we couldn’t avoid being inspired by the loops and the speed of this character. The first versions of Naught, as a character, were slower and more rigid, but as the concept evolved in the different prototypes and games the control has become more organic. Another important characteristic of the character is that he doesn’t have any offensive action; he doesn’t attack, but slides among the dangers and enemies. Turn everything around When we started to design the controls and what would be the most natural way to navigate the environment, some of us couldn’t stop thinking about using the shoulder buttons to rotate the world. However, it was also natural to use the left stick and other people in the team preferred it. So, we thought maybe players would appreciate having both options, and also added a trick to use both controls to achieve a sharper rotation that is useful in some corners of the levels. At some points, you need to make a 180º turn, so we added a button for that. Dynamism and variety The controls of the game are quite simple, but the key part — and where it gets addictive — is the levels themselves and the way they challenge your skills. The first thing you have to do is forget about the ceiling and floor, and take advantage of the changes of gravity. Some levels can be completed without even touching the ground. There are levels of many kinds: some of them are relaxing and involve more exploration to find the three hidden diamonds that every level contains; others are more tense and will keep you running from the shadows; others will test your skills, like some levels where you will be falling through walls full of spikes, or avoiding dangers that appear everywhere. There are some levels where the protagonist is the Spirit of the Tree, who with his eyeball shape will go through narrow tunnels that form more classic labyrinths. An emotional story as backdrop The name of the game, and of the main character, is linked to the story. Naught is ‘nothing’; he is non-existent. He is a soul, awakened from his rest by a spirit that turns him into a semi-evil being. The story narrates the fight against the shadows, and the way Naught defeats them is linked to the emotions of Irish, Naught’s companion during life, and her internal fight between light and shadows. The challenges of development Adapting this game for consoles was indeed a challenge because we wanted to differentiate it from the mobile games without losing what made it unique. We then decided to make a full reboot, redesigning all the art, and renewing the control and behavior of the character. The starting point for the new look & feel was not the original Naught, but more Naught Reawakening and the way the concept had evolved since then. The development has also been quite atypical due to the current global situation. We had to delay the release because the sprout of the pandemic in Spain took us by surprise. And Naught has seen us change in depth the way we work at the studio. As many other teams now, we’ve finished this development at home and stuck to the headphones. But we think it was worth the effort and we really hope you enjoy playing Naught. If so, we will bring you more surprises soon! Naught is one of our most appreciated projects, if not the most one, and we would love to continue working on it and evolving it to create new experiences of this saga. We hope you like it! View the full article

PlayStation skaters: get ready to shred to some new songs coming to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 on September 4. Thirty-seven new songs that represent the ever-growing and diverse soundtrack of skateboarding culture will be added on top of those nostalgic hits from 1999 and 2000. Here’s the drop on these new tracks: Don’t Just Read – Tune In When the new songs were announced, Noisey presented a concert with some of the artists – both returning and new – from the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 soundtrack. Watch and listen here: For a longer, more in-depth look – or listen – at some of the new songs, check out the updated Official Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 Playlist on Spotify: If you can’t rock out and listen to this now, don’t worry, we have you covered: A Breakdown of the 37 New Tracks for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 For Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, here’s how five decades of skating – from the 80’s all the way to the hits of today – is further represented through songs from over a half dozen countries and genres: A Tribe Called Quest – Can I Kick It? A. Swayze & the Ghosts – Connect to Consume Alex Lahey – Misery Guts All Talk – Let’s Do It American Nightmare – Life Support Backchat – Step It Up Baker Boy – In Control Billy Talent – Afraid of Heights Black Prez ft. Kid Something – The Struggle CHAII – South Charlie Brown Jr. – Confisco Cherry Kola – Something To Say Chick Norris – Made Me Do Craig Craig ft. Icy Black – Stomp Crush Effect ft. KARRA – Coming Through Destroy Boys – Duck Eat Duck World DZ Deathrays – IN-TO-IT FIDLAR – West Coast JunkBunny – Sedona Less Than Jake – Bomb Drop Machine Gun Kelly – Bloody Valentine Merkules – Bass (feat. Tech N9ne & Hopsin) MxPx – Let’s Ride Pkew Pkew Pkew – Mid 20’s Skateboarder Reel Big Fish – She’s Famous Now Rough Francis– Deathwire Screaming Females – Let Me In Skepta – Shutdown Spilt Milk – Run It Up Pt II Strung Out – Firecracker Sublime – Same In The End The Ataris – All Soul’s Day The Super Best Frens Club – Like This Token – Flamingo Tyrone Briggs – Lose Control Viagra Boys – Slow Learner Zebrahead – All My Friends Are Nobodies Pre-Order Now for the Warehouse Demo There is still time to pre-order Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 digitally and access the Warehouse Demo, available on August 14 for PlayStation 4, which serves as a warm-up to the full experience coming out on September 4. This warm-up to the full experience will have you skating as Tony Hawk in the iconic opening level to THPS 1, allowing you to try pulling off The 900 over the halfpipe just like back in the day, or to find some new combos around this classic skatepark. Stay tuned for more information on the Warehouse Demo as we roll closer to August 14, and pre-order the game now through PlayStation Store here. View the full article

Hi everyone, after months of intense testing and development, I’m excited to announce that Escalation – the biggest PlanetSide 2 game update ever – launches on PlayStation 4 tomorrow (Friday, July 31, in EU). For the uninitiated, PlanetSide 2 is a revolutionary, massive scale, first-person shooter that challenges the grit and skill of every soldier through intense infantry, air, and ground vehicle gameplay. PlanetSide 2 is synonymous with large-scale warfare – we hold the Guinness World Record for most players in a single FPS Battle (1,158!) – and, better yet, it’s completely free-to-play! Escalation builds on the camaraderie, strategic teamplay, and scale PlanetSide 2 is known for with a stunning breadth and variety of content for soldiers of all skill levels and playstyles. From new resources and tools, to weapons and vehicles, to an entirely new social space, here are a just a few of the highlights from this massive game update: No playable aircraft can match the awesome power of the Bastion Fleet Carrier, the massive interplanetary flagship of PlanetSide 2’s armada. Seating 48 players, the Bastion is the ultimate force multiplier on the battlefield, capable of engaging enemies at long distances with mannable turrets, and serving as an air vehicle spawn point for your Outfit. Not to be outgunned on the ground, the Colossus Heavy Tank adds a powerful and versatile option to the PlanetSide 2 motorpool. Seating five players, one to drive and man the primary cannon, four more to operate each of its customizable targets, the Colossus is capable of filling a variety of roles on the battlefield. Its deployable Skylance Battery can target Bastion weakpoints and enemy ESF, providing unique anti-air support for your combined forces. The Bastion and Colossus are just a few of the War Assets available in this update, an all-new tactical feature that offers Outfits (communities akin to guilds or clans) the ability to craft and deploy powerful tools and weapons on the battlefield. Outfits can now accrue communal resources by capturing bases and holding territories, which can then be spent on War Assets like Steel Rain (a coordinated drop pod assault), Citadel Shields (massive projectile-blocking bubble shields), and the A.N.V.I.L. (an airdrop of a ground vehicle of your choice). Escalation also introduces Sanctuary, a satellite station that acts as a social hub for players of all Empires. Sanctuary serves as a recruitment area for Outfit leaders, a trading space for new vendor NPCs, and a low-key relaxation zone for the war-weary outside of combat. These new features just begin to scratch the surface of this massive update – Escalation brings new weapons (like the NS-66 Punisher, an SMG with class-specific abilities), new community tools (like Outfit Logs and Facility Modules for base defense), and a raft of performance improvements and bug fixes. This update has been a long time coming for our PS4 community, and our entire team is incredibly eager to get it into your hands. The war for Auraxis enters an all-new era this week! View the full article

Hey everyone! Skater XL launch day is upon us and we honestly could not be more excited to bring the evolution of skateboarding games to the PlayStation platform! Without a proper entry into the skate genre in over a decade, and fans clamoring for a new title, the question that we had to ask ourselves was; what would a skateboarding game designed from the ground up today look like? We’ve spent the last few years looking to answer that question, designing and improving Skater XL through Early Access, and now moving towards the full launch of the complete game. From early in development, we were very decided on bringing something new to the genre. We felt there was another big step that this genre could take and we were very well positioned to have a go at it. This is our interpretation of the skating game people really wanted the whole time.This is where things were moving to. The most important thing to understand about Skater XL is that it’s designed to be fun in the same way that skateboarding is fun. The core of the gameplay is designed more as an expressive and creative tool than a traditional video game with pre-set challenges to complete. The game is unique in that it doesn’t have any tricks programmed into it, only control of the movement through the thumbsticks. Each thumbstick is connected to the character’s corresponding foot — the right stick controls the right foot, the left stick controls the left foot. This control scheme is consistent through all parts of the gameplay, making it easy to learn and rely on when inventing new tricks and movements. There are a range of basic movements, with a ton of freedom in how they are performed. Skater XL uses physics controlled by the sticks to drive all movement in the game, which is a huge shift from traditional ‘canned animation’ based systems which all past skateboarding games have been based upon. Precise movements made through the thumbsticks will make your tricks look and feel different each time, adding a level of expression, personalization, and style to the gameplay. There are so many ways to combine and style the same few tricks, and there are a lot of tricks possible in Skater XL. The resulting gameplay is very much free-form, sandbox and creative in nature. Think of it more like a musical instrument than a conventional game. And while much work was put into pushing and evolving the controls and game mechanics, careful consideration and testing were put in so that the controls were not difficult to learn. One of our goals in developing the controls and gameplay for Skater XL was to make skateboarding accessible to anyone with even a casual interest in skateboarding. We didn’t want the controls to be the challenge of playing the game, but rather have them be intuitive and allow the player and challenge themselves to develop their skills, allowing a huge amount of depth for those who choose to progress their skill-set and creativity. We’ve seen countless times in testing and through the game’s Early Access that once players have experienced the level of control available in Skater XL, they can’t imagine ever taking a step back to previous control schemes. It’s that satisfying. And while the core gameplay mechanic is at the center of everything Skater XL was designed around, the environments, pro skaters, customization, challenge system, and community content provide the authentic window into the skate world that make the game a must have for anyone with even a casual interest in skateboarding. In building Skater XL we feel that we have really created something that gives people the tools to enjoy, express and appreciate skateboarding, and we can’t wait to see what PlayStation fans create with it. Thank you so much for all your support. View the full article

Hey, this is Chad from Studio MDHR, and I’m extremely excited to announce that Cuphead is headed to PlayStation 4! And you won’t have to wait to get your hands on it, because the game is available today. Like so many of you, we grew exploring the worlds of classic PlayStation titles, from Resident Evil to Vandal Hearts. So it’s surreal to think about players adventuring through Cuphead today with a PlayStation controller in hand. Cuphead is a run and gun action game set in the fantastical land of the Inkwell Isles. In either single player or local co-op, you play as Cuphead and Mugman as they seek to save themselves from The Devil by collecting the souls of massive, screen-filling bosses. While the game was heavily inspired by the arcade action titles of the ’80s and ’90s, something that we think makes Cuphead unique is that its visual style is inspired by the classic animated movies and cartoon shorts of the 1930s. In fact, we went as far as to use many of the same techniques of animation studios of the era. All of the game’s 50,000+ frames of animation were drawn on paper and inked by hand to capture the texture and imperfections that were a hallmark of classic cartoons; each level’s background is an authentic watercolor painting; and Cuphead’s soundtrack is made up of over 3 hours of orchestral, big band jazz music recorded in-studio by live musicians. To celebrate the launch on PS4, we worked with Toronto-based studio Stop Motion Department to create a brand new animated short. When we brought them the idea of announcing our PlayStation 4 launch with a “stop mo” trailer, we were thrilled that animators Philip Eddolls and Evan DeRushie were on board. But more than that, we were blown away by how similar our approaches to animation were. Inspired by our love for the eerie, off-kilter style of 1933 experimental short The Peanut Vendor, Stop Motion Department went the extra mile to ensure that they were holding themselves to many of the same techniques as stop motion animators of the era. Puppet Fabricators Karen Valleau and Lauren Craig built the King Dice and Cuphead puppets with wooden heads, leather hands, and lots of primary shapes to reflect the children’s toys of the 1930s, which were made with simple manufacturing like drill presses and saws. Meanwhile, the film itself was animated without the assistance of the computer programs that allow modern stop motion animators to preview their shots and correct errors. Instead, Philip and Evan limited themselves to drawn-out charts and metal gauges to record the position of each puppet, before lining them up to their next position. This mimicked the “try your best and see what happens” limitations of the early stop motion productions. Finally, the whole thing was filmed using real lenses from 1930s known as “C Mount” lenses, which blow out the footage and give it a deliberately vintage look. Each shot was used as-is, with no corrective editing or compositing, meaning that if you look closely enough, you will see supports and other animation implements in the background. The whole process was designed top to bottom to feel like the cheery, slightly creepy films and toy advertisements of the 1930s, and we couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. To all the impassioned PlayStation community that has sent us so many heartfelt messages over the years: we can’t wait for you to experience this swell battle. View the full article

Hi, Jamie here and I’m excited to announce that The Mean Greens: Plastic Warfare will be coming to PlayStation 4 on August 5! I’m so proud of the teams at Virtual Basement and Code Headquarters for all the hard work that’s led up to this exciting event. I can’t wait for PlayStation players to finally be able to get their hands on this wonderful online third person shooter that we’ve been supporting and updating for almost five years now. Over the years the team has really put together something amazing and the PlayStation release sees even more improvements in frame rate and level upgrades. So what is The Mean Greens? The Mean Greens is a colorful action-packed online third person shooter from the perspective of toy soldiers! Join matches of up to 10 players to jump, shoot, and roll your way into victory. The game features 21 unique map layouts set in 15 locations throughout a full scale home. Fight in close quarters inside a freezer or jump into a buggy and cruise along sand dunes in a sandbox. Each map has a different game mode such as: Racing to light candles on a giant birthday cake Trying to thaw a frozen dinosaur inside a freezer Capturing points on a moving train Pushing a giant soccer ball into a goal on a foosball table Oh, and did I mention there’s even a map that lets you play as a toy raptor? With this game, we really tried to capture that old school action gaming experience. Players start out with a full arsenal of weapons including a rifle, shotgun, sniper rifle, rocket launcher and a grenade! Use up all the bullets in one weapon, simply switch to another one while the original cools down and keep the action going. Development I thought I’d take a moment to talk a little bit about The Mean Green’s development. When we started developing the game we wanted to make something that was small in scale, but big at heart. We tried to approach each level as if it were a battle taking place in the mind of a child playing with their plastic toy soldiers. Battles would take place in seemingly ordinary places throughout the household but the child’s imagination would bring a sense of wonder to the location. Suddenly the soldiers were fighting inside a fish tank, slowly falling back to the ground with each jump due to being underwater. Or an ordinary birthday party could turn into a fantastic arena where soldiers could leap off a giant birthday cake and bounce from dessert trays! A Little Something One of my favorite things we’ve been able to do with this game is how we’ve been able to incorporate little easter eggs throughout the levels. Such as putting our names on the stockings in Off the Rails, putting pictures of our actual pets on the refrigerator in Kitchen Run. Even the dog in Lazy Hamster is modeled after the artist’s actual dog Remmy! Be sure to look around as we’ve put lots of little details into packaging and other areas that are sure to give everyone a smile. It really has been quite an amazing adventure building The Mean Greens over the years, with an incredibly talented and very small team we’ve been able to take a very small idea and make it larger than life. The best part is we’re not even done! Because each map has its own game mode the possibilities are truly endless! We’ve got lots of ideas for new maps and modes that we can add in after launch, and with our new character select system we can add all kinds of new character models to choose from. Community Being a small development team has other benefits as well. We are able to communicate directly with the players and get feedback instantly! Our official Discord channel is a great place where we can answer questions or carry on a conversation. We are also very active on Twitter so be sure to give us a follow. One other benefit of having such a close relationship with our world wide playerbase is we’ve been able to translate The Mean Greens into multiple languages such as: Spanish French German Italian Portuguese Korean Japanese Chinese Russian I hope you’ve enjoyed this look into The Mean Greens and we look forward to seeing you melt some plastic in game! Thanks for playing, Jamie View the full article

Mark August 4 in your calendar as this challenging retro side-scrolling shoot ’em up releases for PlayStation 4. Its unique color-based shooting mechanic is built around the four colored buttons of your DualShock controller. Every button shoots one respectively colored rocket that is designed to hit the same-colored enemies and obstacles. This color-based targeting system requires dedication, endurance and learning all rocket buttons by heart. It really tests and trains your cognitive and multitasking skills and results in a truly satisfying gameplay experience. While you are flying, dodging and clearing your path, you pass the little hero “Pixelbot” through 25 handcrafted levels. Collectibles offer valuable shields, unlock new levels, open boss arenas and reveal the tricky Extreme levels. But be aware: You will die a lot! Fortunately, rapid respawns ensure a good flow so you will never be pushed back too far. A modern arcade classic With R-Type being one of our biggest inspirations, its retro feel and hardcore difficulty defined Pixelbot Extreme’s basic vision. Also we fell in love with challenging indie platformers that offer a modern take on retro games. For our first console game, we wanted to achieve the same captivating and rewarding feeling we had back in those days. Join forces and split rocket colors in couch co-op We spend a lot of time testing how to integrate the co-op mode. Instead of having both players shooting all four colors independently, we decided to split up the rocket colors between the two Bots. So you truly need to work together as a team and cannot simply double your firepower. That requires communication and really underlines couch co-op gameplay. A nostalgia-filled soundtrack The original and perfectly fitting soundtrack comes from the Slowenian Lo-Fi Band Phonotrash we found during the early development phase while searching for the right mood. Since they also love video games they happily contributed to the project and recorded some exclusive songs. Phonotrash’s music perfectly mirrors Pixelbot Extreme’s retro feel and content. Developer insights Pixelbot Extreme! was brought to life by my indie game studio PlayHeart Games and a bunch of friends I met during my career. As an eight-years-experienced game and level designer I was working for several bigger studios. During that time, I had the chance to meet Konstantin Dimitrov – a very talented artist and good friend of mine – who breathed life into Pixelbot and his pixelated world. I also met Fabian Russ – a Leipzig-based passionate composer and sound designer – who was exactly the right person to create high-quality retro sound effects. After six years of putting our hearts, souls and experience into our game, Pixelbot Extreme will finally be released next week on my all-time favorite console PlayStation thanks to Leipzig-based indie publisher FusionPlay. As an Indie developer it definitely feels like a dream coming true when you finally release your first own PlayStation title. PlayHeart Games and FusionPlay At a game developer meetup in Leipzig, Germany, I met Konrad Kunze – a truly inspiring game designer and developer from FusionPlay. He shared his passion for Arcade games, let me know that he really likes Pixelbot Extreme’s core game and that they are interested in porting and publishing the game for PS4. After co-developing some new features like couch co-op and difficulty selection, the PlayStation version will finally be next week. And now actually become one with your controller! Pixelbot Extreme is a realization of taking the best parts of some of my favorite video games and mixing them with my own crazy design ideas. It is not for the easily daunted but is forgiving in terms of keeping you in the flow. Give it a try when it launches next Tuesday and follow our channels. View the full article

Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout is coming to PlayStation Plus next week! With launch just around the corner, we wanted to give our contestants a closer look at four of the 25 Rounds they will be playing when we open the doors to these blindingly colorful courses on August 4. If you want to get ahead of the pack with some insider tips and tricks then this is the blog post to be reading! First up… The Whirlygig How to play Created from the mad imagination of our Senior Game Designer, Anthony ‘Peps’ Pepper, The Whirlygig is one of our iconic ‘Gauntlet’ levels that pit our contestants against the toughest, funniest obstacles we can come up with! Designed for 60 Fall Guys at max capacity, The Whirlygig was inspired by the giant windmills seen on classic mini-golf courses—but with the chaos turned all the way up to 11. Giant spinning propellers, conveyor belt launchers and huge sweeper arms mean Fall Guys get flung further across the arena than on any other Round, and this is where our first Top Tip lies… Top Tip: Fling yourself forward! Any contestant worth their salt can dodge the rotating sweepers near the start, but the real skill comes from using them to catapult your Fall Guy forwards towards the finish line! This is especially useful for getting ahead of the pack as having a clear run up the giant steps keeps you out of the ensuing chaos of the stragglers behind! Next up… Hoopsie Daisy How to play: Hoopsie Daisy is a Team Round, meaning that all remaining Fall Guys get put into teams mid-Show, with the losing team being completely eliminated! This Round requires contestants to dive through hoops to score points for your team. Regular hoops are worth one point, but keep an eye out for rotating golden hoops that are worth five whole points! These can be the key to an epic comeback that saves your entire team from elimination. Joseph Juson, the designer behind this slapstick round found inspiration from video clips of circus performers jumping through hoops, “it felt incredibly important that we give Fall Guys the opportunity to do the same. Once we realised how good it felt to see your little jelly bean fly through a hoop we knew we needed to make this Round a reality!” Top Tip: Hold them back! Sometimes you’re never going to be the one to reach a Hoop, but if a Fall Guy from another team is close by try grabbing them to slow them down while they squirm to escape your grasp! You might not be the one nab the points but slowing an opponent down might just give your team-mate the extra time to steal the Hoop and take the win! On to… Perfect Match! How to play While most rounds test your reaction times, Perfect Match requires concentration and a good memory to progress. First, a grid of tiles will flash with different fruit at random — try to keep track of which fruit has appeared where! After a few seconds one of the fruit you saw will appear on the jumbotron above you, and from this point you have five seconds to stand on a tile that matches the fruit displayed! Get it right and survive — get it wrong and you’ll be swimming in the slime below. Lead Level Designer, Meg Ralph, explains, “We wanted to try a Round that was more logic based. Testing a player’s memories while still having an element of physicality has been a really interesting experiment for us! Got to keep contestants on their toes!” Top Tip: Play Dumb! Some contestants just haven’t got the skills to keep up in Perfect Match, and will end up following the crowd’s decision. Try standing on a tile you know is wrong to lure unsuspecting fools into joining you, and then jump to the correct tile at the very last second! There’s nothing more satisfying in Fall Guys than tricking others into getting eliminated early. And finally… Roll Out! How to play Roll Out is a 60 player survival Round, meaning that one missed jump will cause instant elimination! Contestants start standing on the top of a giant roller, but as the round starts segments of this roller will start to rotate in different directions, speeding up over time. Nowhere is safe for long, so contestants must do their best to survive until the round ends. Pay special attention to others — avoid colliding into them and being sent tumbling to your elimination! Another J.J. masterpiece, Roll Out’s inspiration stems from those rotating carnival Fun House tunnels “In the initial prototype, players had to survive inside the tunnel, but this proved tricky from a camera control standpoint. The concept was saved though, thanks to Meg’s genius twist — have the level take place on top of the tunnel instead!” Top Tip: Employ Shady Tactics! Fall Guys must jump across gaps in the rollers if they want to avoid elimination, and these gaps are the perfect place to set a trap. Linger near an unsuspecting Fall Guy (maybe give them a friendly wave to lure them into a false sense of security), and as they go to jump, grab them briefly to throw them off their timing. If you’re lucky they’ll plummet into the slime below and you can pretend nothing ever happened. Be careful though, if they survive they’re going to want revenge. Best get running! The Whirlygig, Hoopsie Daisy, Perfect Match and Roll out are only four of the 25 rounds you’ll find in Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout. Now that you’ve got the skinny on some elite-level strategies be sure to jump in on August 4 and we’ll see you on the start line! View the full article

It’s SNK’s pleasure to introduce our latest high-quality compilation together with developer Digital Eclipse: Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection, releasing today on PlayStation 4. The groundbreaking weapon-based fighting game series Samurai Shodown first hit the arcades in 1993 on the NeoGeo MVS (Multi Video System) arcade cabinets and on the NeoGeo AES (Advanced Entertainment System) home console as well. Thanks to our developer — the emulation wizards over at Digital Eclipse — and support from the original creators of this beloved franchise, Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection will be releasing on PlayStation 4 today as a monument to the series’ history for SNK, SamSho fans, and retro-gamers alike. The Samurai Shodown series has been lauded for its unique gameplay, impressive 2D pixel graphics, memorable characters, and devastating attacks that always kept players on the edge of their seats. Thanks to the entire Digital Eclipse team, as well as writer and video director Brandon Sheffield and Samurai Shodown V director Koji Takaya, SNK has finally been able to officially release the fabled ultimate version of the fifth and final NeoGeo installment in the series. Samurai Shodown V Perfect is a previously unreleased (but finished) update to Samurai Shodown V Special, and is the last official game ever pressed to a NeoGeo ROM. With its release today in 2020, it is certainly the last official NeoGeo game from SNK. Digital Eclipse has even translated the ROM into English! In addition to the seven titles in the collection, including V Perfect, we are happy to announce users will also be able to receive the PS2 Classic (on PS4) release of Samurai Shodown VI bundled with the Collection as a bonus exclusive to PlayStation Store from today until August 25. Here are a number of the exciting features found in the Samurai Shodown NeoGeo Collection: Online Versus: Players who have a PlayStation Plus account will be able to duke it out online via Online VS Matches in all titles included in the Collection, via PlayStation Network. From an Online Arcade to ranked and casual matches, as well as leaderboards for every title, this is definitely the biggest online experience the classic fighting game series has ever seen. Museum Mode: Users can experience the full series history in the Museum, which is packed with over 2,000 different items: Visuals, Concept Art & Design Documents (a great deal of which has been made public for the very first time), Character Database, and more! It also contains over two hours of video interviews produced especially for the Collection, featuring members of the original development teams. Sound Player: Over 200 tracks, encompassing all the classic background music from Samurai Shodown titles on the NeoGeo. Listen to your favorite songs from each game whenever you want! ROM and Emulation Enhancements: Digital Eclipse’s HD sprite scaling options, which make the games look better than they ever have before, plus a bevy of display settings that let players adjust the resolution, screen filters, borders, and more make this collection the highest quality pixel-perfect emulation that the series has seen to date. Relive the history of Samurai Shodown by playing through its entire library of main series titles, either just like they were on the NeoGeo or with many modern enhancements. This is the first time that Samurai Shodown I through V have been playable online since their individual releases over 20 years ago, so polish off that rusty blade and get ready to claim your stake as the mightiest samurai of all! “The Samurai Shodown community is such a passionate audience with high expectations, so it was important for the entire Digital Eclipse team to work extra hard to pack this release full of high quality content and features, many that have never been seen before. From newcomers to the series to the most hardcore of fans, we wanted to make sure this collection included something for everyone. We couldn’t be more appreciative of the trust that SNK has put in us to not only bring these classic NeoGeo games to modern consoles in one collection, but also to release a previously unknown sequel, Samurai Shodown V Perfect, for the first time ever.” – Executive Producer, Stephen Frost of Digital Eclipse. View the full article

Fifteen years have now passed since Destroy All Humans! made its franchise debut on PlayStation 2, yet the witty banter and observational humor somehow ring even truer today. Or maybe we simple humans are all just ripe for a good laugh! When Tom Abernathy set out to write a buddy-comedy-style, action-adventure game about a gruffy alien with violent tendencies named Crypto descending on Earth to harvest human DNA, even his writer’s imagination couldn’t predict what it would be like to be human in 2020. Creating a straight-man strategist in Crypto’s alien-boss Pox to balance the violent urges (and one-liners) of the overzealous Crypto were steps one and two in developing one of the funniest, most timeless videogames ever written. Destroy All Humans! offers a satirical presentation 1950’s McCarthyism and the predominant red-scare, while paying homage to the pulp movies and tv-shows of that era. A confused Commander in Chief, commie-hating lawmen, grandstanding mayors, bored housewives in housecoats, and seemingly strait-laced businessmen are all fair game. Crypto’s observations of these inhabitants of Earth, replete with human folly, feel delightfully familiar to the world we know today. A small comfort but a comfort, nonetheless. Transporting such a classic game to the year 2020, while maintaining the humor, was no trivial task. Most of the dialogue in the Destroy All Humans! remake is original but modernizing gameplay and tutorials made it necessary to expand the narrative with new dialogue and texts. The narrative team at Black Forest Games approached this task hands-on and we brought in seasoned writer Rhianna Pratchett (Overlord, Tomb Raider) to help polish the tone and humor. The manner in which Crypto and Pox are thinking and talking is very iconic and gave us a clear base on which to write new lines. It was all about adopting the chemistry between the two aliens. The rest, as Crypto would say, was “easy pickins.” The writing team ultimately had a great time contrasting humanity with the ignorance of the Furon alien invaders, as well as exploiting the social expectations of a 1950’s America with the hidden desires of individual members of the community. Another key element in carrying Abernathy’s humor into the year 2020 was creating a distinctive art-style for the remake. In a transition from the more realistic style of the original game, the art team at Black Forest Games decided on a more caricatural approach that supports the shrewd humor of the 2005 Destroy All Humans! game. Of course, graphic enhancements were also made to ensure the best-possible quality relative to today’s visual realm. When defining the art style of the Destroy All Humans! remake, we had to make a choice regarding the visual upgrade of the humans we depicted. We wanted to treat them as the “pathetic monkeys” that Crypto sees them as. Using caricature beautifully supported our hero’s dismissive view on mankind in addition to the all-important role comedy plays in the franchise. Caricature also enabled us to add our own jokes in the environment, cutscenes and wherever else it made sense to express our passion. I must say the caricature approach opened the door to a lot of amusing options when it came time to explore special skin designs for Crypto. We truly hope Destroy All Humans! will provide as many laughs to the players as we had while recreating this irreverent gem! View the full article

Hello, I’m Kareem Ettouney, Art Director and Co-Founder of Media Molecule. We’re thrilled to have just released a music video with Sony Music Artist Noah Cyrus, a collaboration made possible with Dreams, and wanted to show you a behind-the-scenes look at how it was made. We have been working with Sony for a long time to find the right opportunity to collaborate on making a music video in Dreams, showcasing the potential of the project for this wonderful art form. Our outreach team spent ages listening to loads of songs from potential collaborators, searching for the right match and finally found the opportunity to work as part of a One Sony collaboration group to make a music video for Noah Cyrus’ beautiful song “July.” We wanted to fully embrace the One Sony vision where Sony games, Sony music, Sony technology and Sony organisations all jammed together to deliver this video. Our first plan was to mix live footage of Noah with graphics made in Dreams, but this part of the project got shelved when the COVID-19 lockdowns happened, and we pivoted to a new idea and delivered a truly virtual collaboration. The Song We loved listening to Noah Cyrus’ July song — it felt so timeless, the melody was effortless. What was clear by the end of the song is that this wasn’t a story of liberation or enlightenment, it’s about exploring internal conflict, and we loved how brave it is to explore these emotions without promising a fluffy conclusion. So, we decided to take the audience on a visual journey that mimics the experience we had with the music. The Concept The concept was pretty fleshed out in our collective minds from the start… these first ideas came out as a natural response to “July” and as we developed the video and got Noah’s ideas and input more details presented themselves and formed the final result. We imagined Noah as a marble statue sculpted in wonderful detail laying on a plinth in a lonely cold gallery space. From there, organic elements like mountains and forests would flow from her, as visual emotions, and over the course of the video we would gradually pull away from her until she disappeared in a colourful cosmos of gaseous clouds. As we developed the pitch document we used Dreams to create storyboards, mood boards, concept art and animatics. The idea was refined through this process and elements such as the tear idea emerged, acting as a spark for the emotive visuals flowing from Noah’s sculpture. Through a single tear she sparks a visual orchestra of life… Noah and the Sculpture We knew from the start that capturing Noah’s likeness and mood in the song was key. As we were not going to animate the sculpture, it was essential that it was full of life even without movement. It was a challenging task, even though I have been using Dream tools since our very first prototypes many years ago, capturing human likeness and personality is one of the hardest goals in art, regardless of the medium! But Dreams’ unique sculpture tools allow for the artist to lose themselves in the form without spending too much of their time battling with complex, convoluted UI concepts. I sculpted Noah’s hair using one of my favorite features in sculpt mode, surface snap, while smearing with the curve tool. It’s pretty therapeutic. Noah’s reference photos for this piece also inspired new elements – the butterfly we open on comes from her tattoos and we use it to draw the viewer’s eye into the scene. Ultimately, this statue of Noah has become one of my favourite creations in Dreams. The Emotive Landscapes The emotive landscapes growing around Noah’s sculpture were inspired by waterfalls, salt mountains in Iceland and paradolia (likeness of something hidden somewhere unexpected). When we learned Noah had written the song in Bali, it felt natural to design our landscapes around Indonesia’s ‘Ring of Fire’ mountains that dominate here in the background. We played with scale, keeping everything small in comparison to Noah, so she gradually becomes this epic looming figure within the evolving landscape. Dotted around the scene are these ‘pareidolia’ and imagined them as different captures of Noah at points throughout the relationship in the song. I was very keen on integrating them in the landscapes to relate it all back visually to Noah throughout the piece. In this one, as a small touch, I tried to recreate Noah’s crown in the photo reference provided by her using pine trees to emphasise the scale. We lit these elements in a warm colour scheme, so that’d they’d stand out from the more naturally lit landscapes, and have their own visual identity. Towards the end of the piece, we use fire, encroaching and drawing into Noah to visualise her internal conflict. This isn’t over, the beauty and wonder that has grown around her is still full of sadness and turmoil. We pull out of the gallery as the fire and smoke take over. ‘You remind me every day I’m not enough but I still stay’ The box drifts off to become a star surrounded by billions of others. We imagine each of those stars a box of Noah’s emotions, an experience packaged up and drifting in the emptiness of space, always in us, not always wanting to be found. There’s a vastness and loneliness that plays nicely with the beauty of the imagery that leaves the song lingering in our minds long after the film has faded to black… and we realise that all these stars are other emotions of Noah’s, the stars then fade one by one to nothingness… this final act of the video was fleshed out in later stages based on Noah’s input and her feeling it needs to relate to the “end of everything” theme in her work. Dreams Collaborative Tools We used a lot of Dreams’ in-game collaboration features to help us all work on this project remotely. After all, this project was a true collaboration across disciplines and even countries, with Noah in the US and one of our freelance artists, a talented member of the Dreams community, Martin Nebelong in Denmark. The Mm team, Anthony, Pablo, Suzy and myself, are all based in the UK. One of the great aspects of the Dreams tools is that one can go in and create the 3d assets faster than making a concept digitally. This speed of 3d creation allows Anthony, our video director, to explore cinematography ideas and gives Pablo, our animator, the material to explore the animation of the elements simultaneously and early in the development process so that concept, previsualisation and final development methods to all blend together. The “collaborators” feature allows you to assemble a team of Dreams users to work together privately on content and publish work only for them to see and work on. We organised all our work using another of our in-game features called “collections.” They were a great way of putting all the work involved in this video into one place. We hope you enjoy the video and reading about how it was created. And as always, look forward to seeing what you create in Dreams. Play Video View the full article