Commander Fury

Tripwire is excited to announce the release date for Killing Floor: Incursion for PlayStation VR: May 1, 2018! We’re also happy to announce that Killing Floor: Incursion will be playable by the public for the first time at PAX East in Boston this weekend at the Sony booth. Previously at PS Blog, we shared the news that there was a special bonus level coming for PS VR players. We’re happy to say we can now share details about this level with you. It’s called “The Crucible” — and it’s a blast to play! The map contrasts sharply with the realistic style of the rest of the levels in the game with it’s Tron-style virtual sci-fi aesthetic. The Crucible started out as our development arena for trying out gameplay ideas in the Holdout game mode. When playing it though, we found the map was so fun that we made the decision to fully flesh it out and add it in for PS VR players to enjoy. Killing Floor: Incursion is the first time we’ve done a game with an entire story arc in the Killing Floor universe. This was one of the most exciting aspects of developing the game, as we could bring a depth to the Killing Floor universe that we’ve never been able to do before. Not only that, but the feeling of true presence in VR, that feeling of “Wow, I’m really standing here in this other world,” makes storytelling in VR that much more impactful. Let us set the premise for the game’s story — we’ll do our best to avoid spoilers, but if you don’t want any surprises spoiled go ahead and skip the next paragraph. In Killing Floor: Incursion the player is a Horzine security forces soldier that has been wounded in combat against the zeds. You are placed in a neurological simulation to keep your brain stable while Horzine medics can repair your body. Emma Rose, a Horzine training officer, is your only link with the outside world, and is trying to guide you safely through the simulation. We say safely, because if you die too many times in the simulation your mind might lose coherence and you could die. This would have been a simple task for Emma to guide the player through if there wasn’t some sort of viral corruption taking over the neurological simulation and sending all kinds of genetically engineered monsters at you! Still, something about all of this just seems off to you… When Killing Floor: Incursion launches for PlayStation VR on May 1 you’ll learn who Colin is, why Foster is a giant head, and just how scary four story genetically engineered monsters can be! So grab a friend, get those Move controllers charged up, and get ready to battle through one of the most exciting PlayStation VR experiences to date. View the full article

Hi there! My name is Neill Glancy, and I’m the Creative Director of New IP at Aspyr Media. Last month at PS Blog, we introduced the world to Torn, a dark science-fiction mystery in the style of the Twilight Zone and Black Mirror. If you missed the announcement, you can check out the trailer here. Today, we’d like to take you on a brief tour of just a few of the locations you’ll explore in the Mansion of Torn. From the beginning, it was a major design goal that the Mansion be a tourist destination for fans of classic science fiction. We want this mansion to feel alive, to grow and change as the story progresses, to slowly reveal its secrets, just as our characters will do through the narrative. So please, sit back, relax, and enjoy these 360-degree images of The Mansion, exclusively at PS Blog. The Grounds Our team spent a significant amount of time pouring over concept art and movie art books to discuss what we felt were the right DNA characteristics of the Mansion. One of our early inspirations was the mansion seen in Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children. We felt this building most matched the size and scope of the home we wanted to create — not too big, not too small, not too happy, not too creepy, with just enough Willy Wonka style machines jutting out to make you wonder what the heck is going on here. For the mad dimensional scientist Dr. Talbot, it’s just right. The Observatory The Observatory is special location and the mansion’s highest point. This is where, 64 years ago, Talbot and his wife Rena experimented with a radio telescope to locate in galactic space the place they named “The Parallel.” Space is vast and this was no easy task, so they brought the comforts of home to help pass the time as the aimed the telescope at star after star. One of the central puzzles we wanted to player to be curious about in this room was “How do I get upstairs?” The Music Room The Music Room was where Talbot and his wife entertained guests in the Mansion’s heyday. One can only imagine the wild parties and late night card games that took place here. If only the walls could talk! The room features a large and very bizarre looking self-playing organ. We loved the outlandish size and presence this instrument brought to the room, but it’s certainly not the only thing you can play with here. The Parallel The Parallel is the mysterious realm that Dr. Talbot finds himself trapped in. It’s been Talbot’s home for 64 years — home to his consciousness, at any rate. The whereabouts of Dr. Talbot’s physical body are, at present, unknown. The Parallel exhibits strange, physics-defying properties. Here, thoughts are made manifest simply by thinking them. After spending so much time here, the Parallel reacts to Talbot’s emotional state. But what — and where — the Parallel is, remains a mystery. View the full article

Email us at blogcast@sony.com! Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Google or RSS, or download here Welcome back! On today’s episode we discuss games with unusual mechanics, like the recently released Minit that you play one minute at a time. What are your favorite, atypical games? Enjoy the show! Stuff We Talked About Games with interesting / weird mechanics …like Minit! Marvel’s Spider-Man Spyro Reignited Trilogy Final Fantasy VII Octohedron Persona 5 Recent Episodes 286: Triple Preview 285: Like Father, Like Son 284: Wayfaring Stranger The Cast Justin Massongill – Social Media Manager, SIEA Ryan Clements – Sr. Social Media Specialist, SIEA Kristen Titus – Social Media Specialist, SIEA 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

Toys for Bob has long admired the original Spyro trilogy. Long before Skylanders, way back in 1998, the very first Spyro the Dragon was an inspiration to us. The level design, the controls, the art style, the humor, the music, the sense of discovery – it was groundbreaking in so many ways. There’s no getting around the fact that the feisty purple dragon is one of the most important and influential heroes in 3D platformer history. Now twenty years on, we are deeply honored to have the responsibility of remastering Insomniac’s historic trilogy, and our most powerful motivator is knowing how important Spyro is to millions of passionate fans across the globe. Spyro Reignited Trilogy | Pre-Order Updating a Classic Remastering a classic is a unique undertaking for a game developer – unlike the creation of a new game where you have to find the fun, you’re starting with a game that already has proven, time-tested fun. The real challenge lies in how to remaster a beloved classic in such a way that is true to the spirit and feel of the original while also maximizing fidelity (art, animation, visual effects, sound effects, music, controls) and integrating quality-of-life improvements that modern players expect (analog stick camera control, auto-save system, more fast-travel options, etc.). Staying True Given the intense passion the fans have for the original trilogy, we are approaching development with reverence—a deep respect for all the decisions that went into making the original games. In the interest of getting the feel right, one of the first things we agreed upon internally was that Spyro’s original movement metrics — speeds and accelerations for walking, running, jumping, charging, gliding, flying, swimming, hovering, and more – should be matched as closely as possible. And in a similar vein, an authentic recreation of the platforming gameplay throughout the expansive and enchanted levels of the original trilogy would require the dimensions and collision details of the world geometry to come very close to matching the originals. Needless to say, the Dragon Realms of 2018 utilize considerably more polygons than their 1998 counterparts. Engineering Magic In the interest of recapturing the enchanted details from the classic trilogy in fine detail, our programming team set out to magically slurp inspiration directly from the original games. Spyroscope was born. This internally developed tool sends fairies into the original games who convert game details into a format that designers can easily interpret, allowing for extremely accurate game object placement and motion. Ultimately, we were also able to leverage many of the original assets such as level models, level collision, animated objects, character models, music, game text, and game sounds through a combination of other in-house tools and a few payments to Moneybags. “Thank you for releasing me!” Upon this solid foundation of data from the original trilogy, we’ve set out to craft a remaster trilogy worthy of Spyro’s 20th anniversary celebration. Each day, we’re working hard to fill the Dragon Realms, Avalar, and the Forgotten Realms with all the magic you remember. We can’t wait to share it with you all later this year. Stay posted for more updates from the team—we look forward to revealing more details with the PlayStation community as the release date approaches. In the meantime, we hope you don’t have too much trouble with the trolley. View the full article

Hey KOF XIV fans, We have some really big news for you today! As most of you may already know, we have a big Ver. 3.00 update releasing for KOF XIV in the coming days, which includes four new DLC characters. Today, I am pleased to announce that the final DLC character to be added in Ver 3.00 is Blue Mary! She was one of the most requested characters by fans, and will now be playable in KOF XIV! For the uninitiated, Blue Mary is a veteran of both the Fatal Fury and KOF series. I was involved in her creation when she made her original debut in Fatal Fury 3, and she quickly became one of the most popular characters from that series. Her popularity meant that she was also selected to make her KOF debut a couple of years later in KOF ’97, after Japanese fans voted for her via gaming magazines. A total of three characters were chosen that way to form the ’97 Special Team, and now that same team can be re-created in KOF XIV! ’97 Special Team Blue Mary has always had a very unique fighting style, with moves that are based on the Soviet martial art, Sambo. Her move set includes a lot of grapple moves and as you can see in the trailer, we worked very hard to faithfully recreate all of those bone crunching attacks in KOF XIV! Blue Mary has always been a challenge to design as a result of how complex her grapple moves are to animate. Back in the day, when we were designing her for Fatal Fury 3, not many people on the team knew much information about Sambo. At one point, one of the designers working on Blue Mary, Youichiro Soeda, actually used me as a training dummy to show off some of the attacks he had in mind to the rest of the team. Just watching this new trailer of hers, I think I can feel my neck hurt a bit… We got to have a lot of fun while creating Blue Mary for KOF XIV thanks to the new engine. It was always difficult to put an emphasis on her grappling moves when they were created with 2D sprites, but with KOF XIV we were able to use the 3D camera and go crazy with the cinematic shots for her flashier moves, which meshed really well with her unique fighting style. Blue Mary is the last DLC character to be announced for this update, and we have previously announced 3 more additions to the roster!! Feel free to check out the previously released trailers below for more info! The new Ver. 3.00 Update will also include character balance adjustments, which we know the fans have been waiting for! These characters will be available for purchase when the Ver. 3.00 Update goes live on April 12th, 2018! View the full article

Hello everybody! My name is Michael Douse, Director of Publishing at Larian Studios. In 2017 we released a PC game called Divinity: Original Sin 2, a sandbox RPG with the singular goal of bringing interactivity and exploration to new (sometimes ridiculous) heights. Since that release, we’ve been inundated by letters and comments asking us to bring Divinity: Original Sin 2 to PlayStation 4. We heard those requests loud and clear, and we’re very excited that it’s finally happening. If you haven’t heard of Divinity: Original Sin 2, it’s a massive RPG in which you control a party of one to four, chosen from six origin characters with their own personal agendas and histories, or a custom avatar you can build from the ground up. You can play alone or with friends, in split screen couch co-op or online. The game world consists of a fantastic realm built to react to players’ creativity. Combat rewards experimentation, and elemental spells can be layered for max impact. You can cast rain on burning allies, teleport them to safety, and electrify the battlefield to stop enemies in their tracks. If an opponent is too close, you can lash them with temporary tentacles, summon a demon to fight for you, and fly away on your own pair of wings. While Original Sin 2 was highly reviewed we knew we still had room for improvement, and bringing the game to PS4 was the perfect opportunity to introduce a massive number of much-wanted tweaks and additions. We’ll be talking more about the specifics of those changes in coming posts but suffice it to say we’ve been hard at work bringing the entire experience to a new level. So stay tuned for more news on what’s coming to the PlayStation 4 version of Divinity: Original Sin 2, and come chat to us on the socials — we’re always here to say hello! Thanks for reading! View the full article

You all have been waiting for it for a long time – we’ve got emails, phone calls, tweets, Instagram posts, and impassioned pleas. You want to know when Marvel’s Spider-Man will finally be in your hands. Everyone here at Insomniac Games is thrilled to announce that Marvel’s Spider-Man will launch on Friday, September 7, 2018 exclusively for the PlayStation 4 system. It’s been an incredible experience for us to spend the last few years working on this game. From getting to create our own unique universe and story for our favorite Super Hero, to working with our talented collaborators at PlayStation and Marvel Games, to developing relationships with the Spider-Man and Marvel fan communities (#SpideySquad represent!), it’s been an amazing journey thus far. Along with the release date, we get to show you the final box art for Marvel’s Spider-Man! Insomniac has a history of excellent game covers, from Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time to the bold Olly Moss Resistance 3 cover. We went with a pure red background and a striking image of the web-slinger. Our more experienced Spidey in his brand new Advanced Suit can be seen confidently web-swinging against a bold red backdrop. To juxtapose the unique look of our Spider-Man, his pose takes inspiration from over 50 years of fan-favorite Spider-Man comic book art and artistry. Astute fans of the wall-crawler will see nods to the work of J. Scott Campbell, Mark Bagley, John Romita Sr., John Romita Jr., Joe Quesada and (of course) Steve Ditko, as well as many other iconic Spider-Man artists. You’ll see this cover adorning the standard edition of Marvel’s Spider-Man when it is available at retail and digitally for US $59.99 / CDN $79.99 MSRP. While many of you have been asking us to show the cover for the game, many more have wondered: will there be digital deluxe and collector’s editions of the game? You betcha, True Believers — we’ve got both. The Digital Deluxe edition of the game (US $79.99 / CDN $99.99 MSRP) will include a copy of the game as well as new story chapters with our post-launch DLC series – Marvel’s Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps. That’s right, we’ll be supporting the game post-launch and you’ll be getting three new chapters each with new missions, new villains and characters, and additional suits for Spider-Man. More details on that a bit later down the road. Buyers who pre-order the Digital Deluxe edition will also receive by mail a limited edition collectible pin (only available to residents of US and Canada) featuring Spider-Man as he appears on the cover art for the game. Pre-order at PlayStation Store Of course, for those collectors out there who want an incredible Spider-Man collectible alongside Marvel’s Spider-Man, we have just the edition for you. The Collector’s Edition (US $149.99 / CDN $199.99 MSRP, while supplies last) includes all of the digital content from the Digital Deluxe Edition, as well as a Steelbook case featuring the iconic white spider, Mini Artbook from Titan Books, and an awesome Marvel’s Spider-Man statue by Gentle Giant. Pay extra special attention to the statue though and you’ll notice something is obviously missing. We haven’t revealed the entire statue for the Collector’s Edition, just Spider-Man perched on top of something. What could that be? It’s too spoilery to show you now, but stay tuned! That said – no matter where you buy it, or which edition you get, you have a chance to grab these pre-order items. Whether it’s a Spidey-Suit Pack featuring Spider-Punk, as well as a couple suits we will reveal this summer, the Spider-Drone gadget, a PSN avatar, an original PS4 theme designed by renowned comic book artist Adi Granov, or just some extra skill points to unlock faster web-swinging sooner – our pre-order bonus is the total package. Check out this video of Spider-Punk and its suit ability in action below. That’s a lot of info – but I realize some of you have been dying to get your hands on new information about the game itself as we haven’t said much since Paris Games Week and PSX last year. Well, there are a ton more details in the cover story of the May issue of Game Informer. The GI crew came out and got to go hands-on with Marvel’s Spider-Man, talking to the dev team and bringing you the biggest look at the game yet. Plus we got famed Marvels and Amazing Spider-Man cover artist Alex Ross to create this “Amazing” cover painting for the magazine. Game Informer will also be posting stories and interviews with members of the Insomniac Games team all month long, so keep an eye on their website for the latest. That’s all for now – we can’t wait for you to get your hands on the game on September 7, 2018 exclusively for PlayStation 4. In the meantime, get your pre-orders in for Marvel’s Spider-Man at PlayStation Store or a friendly retailer online or near you. And for all the latest from Insomniac Games, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Also for all the latest from Marvel Games, be sure to follow them on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook! View the full article

Hi Playstation Fans! I’m Miguel Sternberg, game designer and art director at Spooky Squid Games. We want to introduce you to Russian Subway Dogs and announce our full lineup of amazing (or at least amazingly weird) guest characters! Russian Subway Dogs is a systemic arcade game inspired by the real life stray dogs of Moscow Metro. These dogs have actually learned to how to navigate the subways and commute from the quiet safe suburban stations to the downtown where they can scavenge for food. Seriously, google it! The Moscow Metro happens to also be an amazing setting featuring some of the most beautiful stations in the world that we’ve meticulously recreated in detailed pixel art. You play as one of these stray dogs, scaring commuters to steal their food, competing with other wildlife, and cooking the occasional meal with highly explosive vodka. If you played our demo at PlayStation Experience, PAX, or other events, you’ll know you can play as more than just a stray subway mutt. We’ve teamed up with other indie creators to bring their dogs, cats and other critters to the game! Our line up of canine and kitty criminals we’ve already revealed include: Meme hero, Question Hound (aka “the This is Fine Dog”) from the comic Gunshow. Revolutionary canines Nacho and Rad Shiba from the PS Vita game VA-11 HALL-A Hybrid trash vermin, the Ratcoon, from action roguelike Ruin of the Reckless. Our own demonic Clawed Kitty, inspired by our previous game, They Bleed Pixels. The Proletaricat, your boss and head feline of the pack. We’re excited to debut several new members of the Subway Dogs crew, many of which will be very familiar to PlayStation players. Half goat, half man, all teacher: Uay Chivo from the game Guacamelee! will be playable in all his goaty glory! Doppler and Kepler, friends to the friendless and your faithful animal companions when playing single player Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, come down to earth to scavenge for food. Fidel, dungeon delving doggo from the turn-based dungeon puzzler Fidel Dungeon Rescue, will be exploring our suspicious subway tunnels. Not a fan of cute fuzzy mammals? looking to play as something with less of a backbone? Nidhogg from multiplayer masterpiece Nidhogg 2 will be playable! We’re honored all these creators trusted us with their creations and we’ve been working hard to capture the feel of each of them. From custom bark graphics, to unique deaths like Question Hound bursting into flames, we want players to have fun unlocking each one and discovering these little touches. We love this sort of crossover and want to encourage other creators to share their worlds with each other. It’s a small way for us to compete with the Big Media Giants() while basically drawing fan art, and it’s fun for both players and creators. In that spirit we’ve also loaned our own characters out to other indies: you can play as The Clawed Girl in Bleed 2 on PS4, and if you look carefully in Guacamelee and other Drinkbox games you’ll find more They Bleed Pixels references. Look forward to stealing food, juggling vodka, and battling bears and babushka on the Moscow Metro as your favorite dog, cat or weird giant worm thing later this year on PS4 and PS Vita! You can also get a chance to check out these new “dogs” later this week at PAX East, where you’ll find us at booth #23105. View the full article

Hey everyone, I’m Dan Smith – representing 100% of Dan Smith Studios. I’m a British developer based in Newcastle and today, in collaboration with my publisher Ripstone, I’m delighted to be announcing my first game: The Spectrum Retreat. The Spectrum Retreat is a narrative-driven first person puzzle game coming to PS4 this summer. You wake alone in the Penrose Hotel, with no memory of your past or identity. Only mannequin-like staff are present and their reasoning for wanting to keep you inside the hotel is unclear. The game challenges you to transfer colours, teleport and manipulate gravity to gain a clearer understanding of your current situation, but it soon becomes apparent that not all is as it seems. Check out the reveal trailer above for an insight into the unsettling world we have created. From Bedroom Developer to BAFTA Winner I first began developing a puzzle game prototype in late 2013, at the age of 15. Bored one day, I downloaded the Unity engine and created my first project ‘Spectrum’. I thought I was just going to create something simple, a puzzle game that invited you to look at any object and swap colours around. Swapping colours was fun, but I soon found that you can’t design puzzles with zero constraints. The solution was to limit colour swapping to particular cubes and design levels around those, in turn creating the core mechanic of what is now ‘The Spectrum Retreat’. One of the developers I was fortunate enough to meet during the creation of this prototype was Dan Pearce, who told me about the BAFTA Young Game Designers competition. By the time I submitted the game to BAFTA at age 18, I had a polished 20-minute prototype over three years in the making. ‘Spectrum’ was nominated and won the BAFTA YGD Game Making Award in 2016. Pushing the Boundaries Later that year, I signed a publishing deal with Ripstone. With additional support from them and their internal development team, The Spectrum Retreat has come on leaps and bounds. Over the last year we’ve been able to push the gameplay, art and narrative far further than I could have achieved on my own. Every aspect of the hotel has been meticulously crafted to create a captivating environment to explore, and you can get an idea of the detail involved in the screenshots released today. I’m really excited by how much the game has progressed and what we have been able to accomplish. The game has an intense narrative focus, with a unique vibe and soundtrack. We’ve structured the narrative and puzzles in a different way to other games in the genre and I can’t wait for you to experience it for yourself. The Spectrum Retreat is due for release later this year and I’m looking forward to sharing more details in the coming months. View the full article

Activision recently announced The War Machine, the second DLC Map Pack for Call of Duty: WWII. This pack brings with it three new maps, a new War Mode experience, and a new chapter of Nazi Zombies. We’re definitely excited for players to get their hands on The War Machine, and to help you get prepped for combat, we have a close-up look at the new War Mode map, Operation Husky, developed by Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software. Feast your eyes on this exclusive map image which will provide some tips, and then read on for some key intel to pass along to your troops. Operation Husky takes its historical cues from the real-life Operation Husky, the codename for the Allied invasion of Sicily, that took place in July of 1943. This operation wrestled control of Sicily away from Axis powers and put into motion a course of events that opened up the Mediterranean Sea lanes for the first time since 1941. It also toppled Italian leader Benito Mussolini from power and paved the way for the Allied invasion of Italy. As an Allied participant in Operation Husky in Call of Duty: WWII, you’re a soldier in the town of Ragusa, Sicily. Your mission is to retrieve key intel to initiate a bombing of enemy forces. Or you might find yourself on the flipside of that equation as an Axis soldier, trying to stop the Allied advance, as they try and complete their mission. There are three key objectives for the Allies to complete before they can declare victory, so let’s take a look at what they are. Objective #1: Retrieve the Intel As Operation Husky opens, you and your fellow soldiers will need to collect three key pieces intel under the cover of night. Two of these are located on the upper levels of an Axis-controlled building, while one is in the garage below. Allied forces have access to a finite number of Molotov cocktails that can used to push into the defended areas, while Axis fighters have a limited number of tripwires that can set up to ambush incoming soldiers. On the Axis side, several buildable walls can be constructed to try and stop the opposing side from coming in but be aware that you can’t seal every entrance. Also, the Allies don’t have very far to go in order to return any intel that they’re able to grab, so set up your tripwires, seal up whatever you can, and keep your eyes peeled. For the Allies, those Molotovs are perfect for flushing out foes before you rush in to snatch the intel. Just keep in mind that you only have a limited amount to use before you run out. Make sure you return the intel to the church that serves as your field HQ, which is located just across the street from the Axis buildings. Tip: Be aware that there is a small, upper platform just inside the front doors, which is a perfect spot for enemies to ambush you from as you bring back the goods. Objective #2: Transmit the Intel Once the Allies have secured three pieces of intel, they must push forward and take control of a nearby Axis-held radio station to transmit the information back to Headquarters. This multi-level building is fortified with a machine gun nest, along with two buildable walls. It’s a tough spot to defend but can also be a hard location to capture. As an Allied solider, you’ll need to concentrate on getting demolition charges on one of the buildable walls to create a new path towards the objective, or you can ignore the walls completely and storm the machine gun on the left side, which will secure entrance to the radio station from above. You must completely control the station until the broadcast has been sent out to complete this step of the mission. For Axis defenders, focus on keeping those walls and defenses up, and post someone on the upper level to defend against soldiers looking to skirt the machine gun. A good item to keep in your loadout for this is an s-mine, which you can utilize to close off the upper route. And if you’ve managed to hold onto any tripwires for this long, they make perfect deterrents in all doorways. Tip: Smoke grenades will create a ton of confusion inside the small radio station space on both sides, so keep one handy if you need to create chaos to broadcast or defend. Objective #3: Take to the Skies If the Allied forces are successful in getting the radio intel through to Headquarters, you will find yourself in the cockpit of a fighter plane in the skies high above Sicily, dogfighting against your enemies. Take down the enemy fighters to defend the bombers and achieve victory as the Allies or wipe out the opposing fighters so that you can take down the bombing run and successfully win on the Axis side. As an Allied pilot, you’ll need to keep the skies clear in order to protect your bombers so that they can proceed to the designated target zone. Meanwhile, Axis pilots need to take out Allied fighters to stop them from winning. For a crash course in aerial combat: your left stick controls your airspeed, while your right stick controls your aircraft. L2 will focus your aim directly in front of you, akin to aiming down sights, while R2 will fire your machine guns. Those are the basics, but you’ll find that there’s a lot more to it when you’re in the game. This is a fast-paced level, with very little margin for error. When you have a bandit on your six, your best options are to hit the brakes and hope they sail by, or to try and pull off some evasive maneuvers. Dogfighting is a game of many turns while you try and gain an angle on your foe. You can square off head-to-head but dropping in behind an unsuspecting fighter is key to taking them down, but stay alert because they can sustain several hits, and once they realize you’re targeting them, they’ll do everything they can to shake loose. Tip: While the combat space for dogfighting is very large, be wary of the border that surrounds it. Stray outside the combat zone, and your aircraft will be knocked out of the skies. The War Machine DLC Pack for Call of Duty: WWII is available to pre-order now, exclusively on PlayStation 4. It will launch in just one week on April 10, so study the intel, get ready, and we’ll see you on the field (and in the skies!) View the full article

My name is Andrew Reiner, executive editor of Game Informer magazine. I’ve been writing about PlayStation games since 1994, and have had the opportunity to visit many of Sony’s studios, including Naughty Dog and SIE Santa Monica Studio, to see games in various forms of development. My latest opportunity was traveling to Insomniac Games in Burbank, CA, to get my hands on the studio’s forthcoming Marvel’s Spider-Man game. The May issue of Game Informer has Marvel’s Spider-Man on the cover – featuring an amazing custom cover design by world renowned comic book artist, Alex Ross – and offers 14 pages of exclusive details. I played through the first mission in the game – which pits Spider-Man against a familiar foe – and freely explored New York City for an extended period of time. My impressions dive deep into the combat mechanics, web swinging, open-world activities, unexpected RPG elements, and story details. I was also given a brief look at a number of the unlockable Spider-Man suits. In my time at Insomniac, I spoke with a number of people on Spider-Man’s development team, including the project’s creative director, Bryan Intihar. A true Spider-Man fan, Intihar offered great insight into the development of the game, and what fans can expect from it. You’ll be able to get your hands on the print edition of Game Informer’s May issue as early as this Friday, but can read the entire story tomorrow through Game Informer Digital. Our website, gameinformer.com, will also offer a full month of coverage with additional details not in the print or digital edition beginning tomorrow. I hope you enjoy the magazine and extended content for Marvel’s Spider-Man. If you have any questions about the game, I plan on spending a ridiculous amount of time answering them on Twitter (@Andrew_Reiner). View the full article

Hello! I’m Matt Denomme, Senior Product Manager at En Masse Entertainment. I’m excited to introduce you to an amazing new MMORPG experience now available on PS4—Tera! En Masse publishes Tera on PC, but we always saw tremendous potential for the game on console. Two years ago, we set out with the developers at Bluehole to not only bring Tera to PS4, but to deliver an experience equal to the PC experience, if not better. Our efforts have finally paid off, and we’re excited to finally launch Tera as a free to play title on PS4 starting today! Let me tell you what Tera is all about. True Action Combat is Tera’s claim to fame in the MMO world. Your character’s skills don’t matter nearly as much as your skill with the controller. Skills require aiming, timing, and precision to execute correctly. Get sloppy and the fight will take a long time—or you’ll get killed. Position yourself just right though, and your skills will do more damage and speed the fight along. That philosophy was born from action games, so it’s no surprise it feels right at home on PS4. Then there are Tera’s trademark baddies, the Big-Ass Monsters, or BAMs, as we like to call them. These brutes hit hard, can take what you can dish out, and are just fun to fight. A warrior wading in with her swords is going to get a surprise the first time a dracoloth takes to the sky to drop fireballs from above. A party may set up the perfect formation, but a naga battlemaster will leap around the battlefield and devastate players who are not prepared. Battles like this are the core of True Action Combat. Bringing Tera to the PS4 meant making some adjustments, too. We wanted players to have a smooth experience, so the team at Bluehole made lots of tweaks that improve the game without detracting from it. For example, they added a lock-on system to keep the action centered on your screen. They simplified inventory management by automatically sorting items into categories and added a radial menu to give you rapid access to whatever you need. These little quality-of-life changes add up to a streamlined experience. Life isn’t all swordfights and spell-hurling, though, there’s story in this RPG too. The world of Tera was born from a dream. The titans, Arun and Shara, laid down to sleep through the eons and their shared dream became the world of Tera. Their bodies became continents and their children became gods. Children squabble in any family, but when gods battle the results can be catastrophic. The world of Tera is scarred by wars and struggles, and the races are caught in the affairs of the gods. Each race brings their own flavor to the world, too! The mischievous poporis, the honorable aman, the volatile castanics, and the (mostly) noble humans are just part of the diverse tapestry of the game. Tera on PS4 is the result of years of hard work by many people, across vast distances, all passionate about gaming—artists, developers, writers, testers, and customer support all working together. Of course, we couldn’t do it without our players, and so we’re excited to welcome you to the Dream. Pick your class, equip your weapon, and we’ll see you in there, fighting to take down those BAMs! Tera’s is available now at PlayStation Store and is totally free to play from character creation all the way to level 65 and beyond. Create a hero and start your adventure in Tera today! View the full article

This month we’ve got a diverse batch of new action, shooter, racing games and more hitting PlayStation Now, ready for you to stream to your PlayStation 4 and PC. Joining the library of more than 600 games – including more than 150 PS4 games – are Homefront: The Revolution, F1 2016, Saints Row: Gat out of Hell, The Unfinished Swan, Mantis Burn Racing, and more. New This Month You are the revolution in Homefront: The Revolution. In an alternate future, build a resistance against the occupying North Korean army in your hometown of Philadelphia. Explore an open world environment, scavenge supplies and modify your weapons and equipment as you start a new revolution. This month we are upgrading the PS3 version of the open world action game Saints Row: Gat out of Hell to the PS4 version. Play as either Johnny Gat or Kinzie as you tear apart Hell in a quest to save the Boss’ soul. Historical icons, old friends, older enemies, a talking gun, a full length musical number, and a whole lot of other shenanigans all await you in this open world standalone expansion playground. Soar through the air on fallen angel’s wings, and wage war in the five unique districts of hell any way you want. Get ready to create your own legend and go deeper into the world of the most prestigious motorsport than ever before, with F1 2016, the official videogame of the 2016 FIA FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP. Featuring the full 2016 season calendar of 21 tracks and the full roster of 22 drivers and 11 teams, F1 2016 lets you work with your agent, engineer and team to develop your car in the deepest ever career experience, spanning up to ten seasons. Forge your own path to glory, and rise to be the champion. With the indie hit The Unfinished Swan, explore a mysterious all-white landscape by splatting paint to reveal the world around you. As Monroe, a 10-year-old orphan, you’ll follow a swan that’s stepped out of an unfinished painting and wandered off into a surreal, storybook-inspired kingdom. Each chapter brings surprises, new ways to explore the world, a host of bizarre (and sometimes dangerous) creatures, and encounters with the eccentric king who built this empire. Omega Quintet is a hybrid RPG and idol simulation where five idols wield Sound Weapons against the dark forces of the world. Build up an arsenal of attacks, get the crowd’s pulse racing with extraordinary skills, and then get them on their feet with a live performance! Customize your idols’ outfits, accessories, hair and more, and enter battle where every fight is a performance and the audience always wants more! The race is on in Mantis Burn Racing, where fast-paced bumper-to-bumper racing combines with intuitive, tactile gameplay and stunning visuals in one of the most immersive top-down racers around. With a RPG-style upgrade system providing players with deep tactical choices, this is racing at its rawest but most exciting! Features 4-player local split-screen racing with extensive online modes for up to eight players (PlayStation Plus not required for online play through PS Now). Here are all the new games available to stream on PS4 and PC starting today. We’ve got action, open-world, racing, shooters, puzzle and indie games, unique Japanese imports, and more. April’s New PS Now Additions APB Reloaded Azkend 2 Baseball Riot Dark Rose Valkyrie Dead Island Retro Revenge Dynamite Fishing World Games F1 2016 Homefront Homefront: The Revolution Mantis Burn Racing Mighty No. 9 Omega Quintet PS3 > PS4 upgrades Risen 3 Enhanced Edition Saints Row: Gat out of Hell The Unfinished Swan March’s Most Popular PS Now Titles Red Dead Redemption NBA 2K16 WWE 2K16 Mortal Kombat Fallout: New Vegas Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution The Last of Us God of War 3 Remastered The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Payday 2 Crimewave Edition If you haven’t given PlayStation Now a try yet, check out the seven-day free trial for PS4 and PC to experience the streaming service for yourself. PS Now provides unlimited on-demand access to a growing library of over 600 games, with new games added every month, and no game downloads required. PS4 save data in PS Now is also compatible with PS Plus cloud saves, so you can upload/download save files to and from your own console. Stay tuned to PS Blog for more PlayStation Now updates. Happy gaming! View the full article

Full disclosure: I’m a Dark Souls bore. Gaming’s equivalent of one of those guys who pulls out an acoustic guitar at a house party and starts singing Ed Sheeran songs. Everybody knows one. When From Software’s revelatory action RPG first launched back in 2011, I fell for it hard, playing it over and over and over. NG, NG+, NG++, DLC, NG+++. For a six month period, it dominated my waking hours, and then invaded my nightmares. But that was seven years ago. Things have changed. Sequels happened. PS4 happened. Bloodborne happened. And with the upcoming release of Dark Souls Remastered looming, I was curious as to how my GOAT has stood up to the ravages of time. In search of answers, I was delighted to take Bandai Namco up on its offer of some hands-on time with its returning masterpiece. Watch our U.S. team dive back into the depths on the latest PlayStation Underground! Here’s everything I learned in my first 60-minute foray back into Lordran… 1. Muscle memory is intact You know the old saying, “Tiptoeing around Lordran cowering behind a shield is just like riding a bike?” Never a truer word was spoken. It’s been six years since I last booted up Dark Souls and getting back in the saddle was a breeze. First time around I found Dark Souls’ UI a touch inscrutable. Confession: it wasn’t until I was more than 30 hours into the game that I realized I’d solely been levelling up my Vitality stat. It was an… interesting build. This time I was equipping items, studying item stats, tweaking my build, and lobbing projectiles around straight out of the gate, like a champ. Come at me, Burg-dwellers. 2. Pity Undead Burg’s hapless residents Where once I inched through the Burg in a state of permanent paranoid anxiety, this time I marched through its streets with untouchable swagger, dispatching its dead-eyed residents with a nonchalant flick of the thumbstick and a few pithy ad-libbed one-liners. Back in 2011 their booby traps and ambushes elicited shock, awe, and sweaty palms. Not today.* 3. It’s lonely out there Following the busy world of Dark Souls 3 and the torch-wielding mobs of Bloodborne, the eerie quiet of the Undead Burg was a surprising – and welcome – reminder of just what an amazing job From Software’s classic does of establishing atmosphere and a sense of place. With incidental music all but non-existent, Dark Souls is a game soundtracked almost solely by your interactions with the environment. With a pair of headphones on, and a big 4K TV screen inches from your nose, it’s still a uniquely solemn, lonely world to inhabit. 4. It’s good to be back at Firelink Shrine Is there a safer, more tranquil bolthole in any video game than Dark Souls’ Firelink Shrine? I think not. That gentle orchestral theme, the crackling campfire, the Crestfallen Warrior’s rousing pep talks (“There’s no salvation here. You would have done better to rot in the Undead Asylum”) – yup, it’s my happy place. 5. It’s great to get the gang back together And speaking of friendly faces, it was all I could do to stop myself reaching through the TV and giving good old Petrus of Thoruland a hug when I ran into him mooching about the Firelink ruins. As per last go-round, the feeling did not appear to be mutual. “Have you business with us? If not, I’d prefer to keep a distance.” <3 6. Dark Souls makes you feel good… You can’t beat the dopamine release of vanquishing a boss, kicking down a ladder, and having that “Eureka!” realization that you’ve opened up a shortcut back to a bonfire. A close second? Landing your first backstab animation and eviscerating a poor Burg-dweller. It’s the little moments in Dark Souls that really set it apart. 7. …except when it doesn’t What’s the opposite of dopamine? I’ve no idea – but whatever it is, two things are guaranteed to send it coursing through my neural synapses: Black Knights, and getting poisoned by giant rats. My first sighting of the former, standing stock-still at the far end of a corridor, sent a familiar chill trickling down my spine. The latter, meanwhile, won my first Dark Souls-inspired volley of four letter words since I last dispatched Gwyn, Lord of Cinder all those years ago. 8. Prepare not to die Humblebrag: I timed my first death at 53 minutes. I breezed past the Asylum Demon with barely a scratch on me; and the once-feared Taurus Demon capitulated quicker than you can holler “Death From Above!” I hear you. There are few online cliques more tedious than the “Actually Dark Souls is really easy, dontchaknow” crowd. That said, when you actually know what you’re doing, progress is quick and satisfying. It’s a great feeling clearing out an area in 10 minutes that once took you days of toil. 9. Pride comes before a fall But with Dark Souls, it’s exactly that kind of complacency that lands you in trouble. There are few other games where disaster can befall you at such unexpected speed – even when you know every inch of its terrain. My assassin? Those darn rats guarding the entrance to the Undead Parish. 10. And after a fall? Calamity. Peeved that my bubble of perceived invincibility had been popped so unceremoniously, I duly decided to put my head down and charge back through the battlefield from the nearest bonfire to snatch back my lost souls. Sure enough, with my blood up and concentration punctured, I got cut down well short of my goal. Goodbye, hard-won soul cache. Never forget, Dark Souls takes great pleasure in punishing greed or hubris. Come May 25, remember to stay humble! *Okay, yeah, sure – I totally fell for the old “flaming barrel kicked down the stairs” trick ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ View the full article

Aloha, PlayStation VR Fans! Adam Volker here from Flight School Studio excited as heck to tell you that our next PSVR game, Island Time VR, is out today! This arcade-style survival game strikes a very different tone from our last PSVR release, Manifest 99, which was recently nominated for an Emmy Award. In Island Time VR, you are shipwrecked on a tiny virtual island. You’ll have to find a way to survive and not starve; so, you’ll catch fish, craft tools and fend off pesky creatures like seagulls who steal your stuff. Oh! And, you’ll have to start a fire to cook food. Good luck with that one. And, today, I’m chatting with the amazing Ruby Wang, Art Director for Island Time VR and Greg Miller of Kinda Funny, the illustrious voice of Carl The Crab. As the island’s only resident, Carl is the friendliest crustacean you’ve ever met. He helps players out with (sorta) useful tips, tricks, and the occasional claw. He’s your new best friend. Kinda. Ruby, where did you start with the visual design for Carl? How’d you nail his wacky shape and big personality? Because Carl is the primary character you interact with and you are constantly dying, it was important that he be as adorable/goofy as possible to give the player encouragement. To try out lots of options, I drew a bunch of character thumbnails to quickly try out several kinds of shapes and styles that might fit his personality. For the team, the round shape version of Carl just stood out as friendly and cute (bottom row second from the left)! So, we expanded his design from that small sketch. Once you know what Carl is like, every design detail just followed naturally! Ruby, what’s some of the challenges of designing characters and objects for PlayStation VR? What makes a great character like Carl work in VR? Doing design for VR is a little different than designing things in animation, films, or some games. For art, we have to aim for a big, clear silhouette. Because people can get really close to an object in VR, we have to give a lot of detail to props and characters, even if the design seems very simple. We want our game to look nice from far; but, it still should look great if we get closer. For character design, we have to pay attention to player’s point of view. Most of the time in the game, players see Carl from a top-down view. So, I had to make sure Carl’s silhouette read well and looked cute from that angle. Also, that his floating eyebrows don’t look weird! Greg, what did you think when you got the first impressions of Carl? How did Ruby’s design impact your voice performance? Oh, man, I thought he was adorable! The first clip you guys and gals sent me was him just walking around, and even at that rough stage, I thought he looked great. I mean, I’m not a voice actor. I don’t know how anyone can stand my voice! So when you reached out for the role, I assumed I’d have to do something different, but you explained you wanted me for Carl because Carl is me — honest, heart on his sleeve, and positive as can be. Once I saw him — saw Ruby’s design — I got it. The first trailer my voice is in ends with him talking about how impressed he is with the player, and you can see that in his eyes and — hopefully — hear that in my voice. That’s something special. Greg, what do you think are Carl’s most helpful tips? Do you think he’s truly motivated to help the player? Carl is 100 percent motivated to help the player. When we were in the booth, you kept bringing me back to honestly being happy with the player’s performance and positive in Carl’s criticism. It’s not about mocking a player — this is Carl’s only friend; he wants the player to survive just to have someone to talk to. As far as tips? Experiment! You folks have done a great job of making a game that seems simple. It gets deeper the more you tinker. There’s plenty the player will be discovering on their third or fifth playthrough. Alright, for both you: if you could send one thing to Carl to use while stranded on the island, what would it be? RW: Another friend, like you! We all need friends around us, making sure we have company in difficult times …like dying. He needs you as much as you need him. So, go get stranded on this tiny island and be a lifelong friend with Carl the Crab! GM: Chicken wings and a PlayStation Vita. Duh. Well, nobody asked me so “Gee, Adam, what’s the one thing I’d take with me if I was stranded on an island?” I’d start with a comfy chair to sit in and then go from there. Thanks Ruby and Greg for bringing Carl to life and for being the absolute best collaborators on the game. I can’t wait to beat your high score. In any case, dear reader, we’re looking forward to seeing your best survival times and creative solutions to uh… not dying in Island Time VR. View the full article

Hi everyone, M from Truant Pixel here; I’m excited to finally reveal that 2MD: VR Football is coming to PlayStation VR this Spring! 2MD is a motion-controlled VR gridiron football game – it’s a thrilling, two-minute drill arcade experience that encourages players to stand up and take on the role of a quarterback tasked with capturing victory in the final minutes of a championship game. The goals are simple: Draw the plays, call the shots, and throw, hand-off, or run the ball to take down opponents before the clock runs out! We’ve built a unique, 1:1 throwing model which allows for natural form in VR. It’s customizable for players of all sizes, for either standing or seated play, utilizing Move motion tracking to create an experience that is truly the first of its kind for PlayStation. The idea for 2MD came about after we first experienced room-scale virtual reality: we were motivated to create an engaging, physically active experience that would best utilize the technology and the available space, even when the room to move around might be limited. Most important of all, the experience had to be fun in a way that was natural, quick to learn, but challenging to master; kind of like… throwing a ball. From there, a proof of concept that was drafted – simple at first, inspired by two-minute drill arcade football games of old, with primitives sliding around a bare field, falling over each other to chase down a ball. Drafting plays in VR was subsequently birthed as a natural extension of using the interface to give the primitives on your “team” routes to run. It’s really no exaggeration to say that, with this game, simple and addictive fun was at its core, with the rest of the title evolving from that. We had such a good time with the concept that we committed to turning it into a full-fledged, polished experience, and 2MD: VR Football was born. 2MD is unique to PS VR in several ways. In addition to realistic passing, you can also hand off the ball to a runner, or even run the ball yourself. Because you have freedom to design your own offensive plays (up to eight unique ones that can be dynamically ‘flipped’ for 16 total), you’re in complete control of your strategy before taking the field. Once there, you can call audibles using either standard digital controls, or using speech recognition if you choose. You’ll need a creative strategy, after all, because your opponents are also one-of-a-kind. The defensive AI is deceptively simple at first, but quickly becomes complex as you progress through the seven-round heat. Defenders have unique behaviors that will vary from one play to the next and may act individually or respond as a group. As a result, no two plays will turn out the same. The defense will continue to get better at responding to your strategy, too, so be ready to change it up if you want to earn that championship ring. In addition to building from the ground-up for PSVR, we’ve taken the time to add even more to round out the experience: We’ve enlisted the talents of professional voice actors like SungWon Cho (@prozdkp) as coach, Xander Mobus (of Persona 5 and Super Smash Bros) as our announcer, and David Wald (@davidwald_va) to voice some of our players. The PS VR release of 2MD also features music by up-and-coming Hip-hop artist K.Carter, whose fight song “Down the Field” plays during the championship game. All this plus eight immersive stadiums (with unique touchdown celebrations and thousands of screaming fans), customizable teams, rapid-fire post-game bonus rounds that allow you to exponentially increase your score, and more. There’s much more to 2MD than I can list here, and that really describes the game in a nutshell: simple to pick up, easy to get into, but with a deeper strategy and challenge beneath the surface for both casual and serious football fans alike. Thanks for your time, and we can’t wait to see everybody on the leaderboards soon! View the full article

G’day from Australia! My name is Ed Orman, and I’m one of the founders of Uppercut Games. I’m super-excited to announce that our hack and slash adventure City of Brass is coming to PS4 on May 4, 2018! To celebrate, we’ve put together a brand-new action-packed trailer showing off the game! City of Brass is a first-person action adventure, where you take on the role of a daring thief who has entered the ill-fated city in search of treasure, only to find it filled with traps, terrors and an evil curse that forces you to die and be reborn over and over again. Armed with scimitar and a whip that can grab, trip, disarm, stun or shatter as well as swing, you’ll lash and slash, bait and trap your way through hordes of undead, collecting treasures and powerful relics as you struggle to reach the center of the city and break the curse. You’ll also encounter Genies who will provide their services – for a price. With the ability to sprint, crouch, slide, leap and vault, you’ll quickly become accustomed to fluidly moving and fighting through the city. The city shifts and changes every time you play, and we’ve provided tools to allow players to tune the challenge to the level that you are comfortable with. We’re really looking forward to finally getting City of Brass into your hands! View the full article

Are you prepared to put an end to a fight centuries in the making? SNK is bringing one of the most iconic entries in the KOF franchise to PS4 and PS Vita tomorrow! Releasing at $14.99 with both cross buy and cross play, this is a must-buy for any fighting game aficionado! KOF ’97 Global Match | View Gallery About KOF ’97 Global Match The biggest addition to this release is the inclusion of online multiplayer, including options such as the ability to play single player while waiting for matchmaking. As with our previous releases that were made in collaboration with Code Mystics, The King of Fighters ’97 Global Match will also include a special Gallery Mode with unlockable art pieces, and the ability to set the Menu BGM to your favorite music track! The original KOF ’97 release was a key entry in the franchise, because it concluded the first overarching KOF storyline, the Orochi Saga, which went on to be a staple in the series going forward. Looking Back on the Development of KOF ‘97 I sat down to talk with Yasuyuki Oda and Hideaki Asanaka about the development of KOF ’97 to get an idea of what sets it apart from other entries in the series, at least in the eyes of the developers. JW: Can you tell us a little bit about your history with KOF ’97? Oda: Well, I was not directly involved in the development process for the KOF titles as I primarily worked on the Fatal Fury series; however this entry is particularly special because it added a few new characters from the Fatal Fury series, Blue Mary and Ryuji Yamazaki. In fact, one of the new teams added to the game was actually the result of polling fans through a handful of Japanese gaming magazines for characters they wanted added to the series and all three of them (Billy Kane, Blue Mary, Ryuji Yamazaki) were actually characters from my Fatal Fury series, which made me very happy. Billy Kane had already appeared in the KOF series, but the other two made their debut in this title thanks to their popularity among fans. On top of that, we always had trouble creating the sambo style grappling moves for Blue Mary in the Fatal Fury games. In certain titles, we actually started cutting down on her grapple moves because they were hard to balance. However, I feel like the designers who worked on her in KOF ’97 managed to find the perfect balance in her gameplay, which really impressed me as we had struggled there. Asanaka: I was the Main Sound Designer on KOF ’97 and it still sticks in my mind because we challenged ourselves to create a very different type of soundtrack. As part of the plot, the KOF tournament stops being a secretly held event, with more of a mainstream appeal, complete with sponsors and TV broadcasts. In that sense, we wanted to move away from the standard format with every character having their own music tracks, and instead focus on a more overarching sound styled after competitive events. I believe that the ’96 Olympics being fresh in everyone’s minds also helped influence that direction as well. It was a challenge and there were some necessary cuts made to match that direction, but I think we succeeded in making a very unique soundtrack for the game that still has fans to this day. JW: Considering the series had yearly updates during this period, were there any other changes to make things fresh? Asanaka: The team members for the KOF titles actually changed quite a few times, so each team definitely had their own take on things. One thing that comes to mind is that there was actually a push to add some levity into the title to balance out the fairly dark storyline. The addition of Shingo Yabuki to the game highlights this in my opinion. He’s designed to be a comic foil to the main character Kyo, and his design and personality is definitely influenced by common anime tropes such as school rivalries. Oda: The series definitely started delving more and more into that realm over the years. I wasn’t involved in the creation process myself, but one example would be the ‘202 Shiki Koto Tsuki You’ move added post- KOF ’94 to Kyo’s move list. Every time I see that move it reminds me of a similar move in one of my favorite 90s giant robot anime! Not sure if that is a coincidence or not though… JW: Were there any other interesting stories or changes to KOF ’97 that you remember clearly? Asanaka: There is one more actually, though I’m not sure how interesting people will find it! One issue we always had with KOF was that the arcade center income was less efficient than other titles such as Fatal Fury. This was just simply because having a 3v3 system meant it took longer per play for rounds to finish, which meant less 100 yen coins for the company! We obviously did want to touch that system as it is central to the KOF experience, but we made changes elsewhere, such as speeding up the message speed. Oda: Yeah, actually we did something very similar with Real Bout Fatal Fury 2, removing a lot of extraneous features so that matches started and ended much quicker. JW: Do you have any last comments for the fans? Asanaka: KOF ’97 felt like a turning point for the franchise as we finished the first overarching storyline and it was a huge hit with fans. I hope they enjoy the unique soundtrack we put together for this iconic release. Oda: KOF ’97 is still currently one of the most popular eSports titles out there, especially in China where huge tournaments are still regularly held. I hope that this release motivates more fans overseas to try their hand at competing in these retro titles! 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If you were deciding whether to get a PS4 back in 2014, you may have walked up to a demo kiosk at your local Best Buy or Target and tried out a game called Chasm. Or maybe you were already familiar with it from the time it first hit the public eye the year before when it blew away its funding goal on Kickstarter. And then you may have wondered whatever became of that game that reminded you of your favorite games from back in the day. Well, I’m happy to report that the little team that could is now putting the final touches on this passion project that has consumed five people for nearly six years. We expect to be submitting the final game to Sony in a couple months and launching this summer. We’ve created a teaser trailer to whet your appetite which you can watch above. Welcome to Chasm, an action adventure game in which you play a new recruit undertaking your first mission for the Guildean Kingdom. Thrilled to prove your worth as a knight, you track strange rumors that a mine vital to the war effort has been shut down. But what you discover in the mining town is worse than you imagined: The townspeople have begun to disappear, kidnapped by supernatural creatures emerging from the depths. Honor-bound to solve the mystery and restore peace to the Kingdom, you embark upon an epic adventure, with deadly battles against cunning monsters, exploration of ancient catacombs and castles, and powerful new equipment hidden at every turn. Though the overall story is the same for all players, your hero’s journey will be unique: each of the rooms has been hand-designed, and behind the scenes Chasm stitches these rooms together into a one-of-a-kind world map that will be your own. This map isn’t a spoiler since yours will be different! We were grateful and humbled by the outpouring of enthusiasm for Chasm when we first announced it five years ago. So many people tried the demo we put out with the Kickstarter and thought that it already seemed like a finished game. In fact, we’re still using some of the assets from back then, including the main character, some of the NPCs, and a few enemies. So what have we been up to all this time? We certainly fell prey to Hofstadter’s Law, which states that things always take longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law. A lot of our favorite games took over five years to make, including Axiom Verge, Owlboy, and Spelunky. On one hand, we may have started talking about Chasm too early, so people who were excited by it felt that development was taking forever. On the other, had we not talked about it when we did, Chasm would never have gotten made. The game exists thanks to the financial and emotional support of those early fans, and we are eternally grateful. One of the most difficult things to get right was the underlying code base. When we made that early demo, it was stitched together with bubblegum and duct tape. We wanted to make sure that everyone playing Chasm would have their own world map that was unique to them, and we also wanted to make sure that every possible world map had the right pacing, variety of gameplay, and challenge. I think we succeeded. Many of our playtesters didn’t even realize that their world was a one-of-a-kind until they started a second playthrough. Another challenge was the sheer volume of content. We had an overall story arch and world structure in mind when we set out to develop the game, and that required a lot of content. Whereas the earliest demo had a few enemies and room types in the first area of the game, Chasm now has six fully realized areas, with tons of enemies, bosses, puzzles, and platforming challenges. Detailed backgrounds, sound effects for every enemy, puzzles, and side quests are all critical to the creation of an immersive make-believe world. We don’t want to spoil too much with our official release finally just around the corner. But we will give you one final bit of new information. Back when Axiom Verge launched on PS Vita, lots of people asked Dan Adelman (who handles the business side of both games) if Chasm would launch there too. Dan replied that it would depend on how Axiom Verge did. Well, I’m excited to confirm that Axiom Verge did well enough on PS Vita that we decided to make Chasm cross-buy. And best of all, this added no time to our schedule, since the guy who did the Axiom Verge port was able to get Chasm’s code base up and running while we were still working on the game. We’ll have more details about the specific release date soon, but for now, keep your summer open! View the full article

Pack your bags for a small, curious adventure. Minit launches April 3 on PS4. Venture outside the safe, comfortable confines of your home and explore the world outside with only one minute to spare. Vanquish dangerous foes, help the locals, and uncover secrets as you work to lift the curse that ends each day after 60 seconds of adventure. For a full list of games coming to PlayStation next week, read on. And enjoy The Drop! The Adventure Pals PS4 — Digital Inspired by classic platformers and cartoons alike, The Adventure Pals sets you and your best friends (a giraffe and a rock) out to save the world and your dad from turning into hotdogs! Bunny Must Die! Chelsea and the 7 Devils PS4, PS Vita — Digital (Out 4/5) The year is 1999X. After a curse causes Bunny to grow cat ears when a purrmodynamic power plant explodes, she is led by a chubby and divine messenger into the Cave of Devils so that she can remove the hex. Crisis on the Planet of the Apes PS VR — Digital Five years since its outbreak, the “Simian Flu” has wiped out half of humanity and left other primates… changed. You are an ape with advanced intelligence, captured and held prisoner in a heavily guarded scientific facility as mankind desperately searches for a cure. Dangun Feveron PS4 — Digital (Out 4/4) Get in the groove with Dangun Feveron’s old-school style of refreshing and simple vertical scrolling gameplay. Dead Land PS4 — Digital Welcome to Dead Land. You must defeat your fears for survival and salvation in this reign of zombies. Enigmatis 3: The Shadow of Karkhala PS4 — Digital (Out 4/6) The demonic preacher has escaped to the remotest mountains in pursuit of a grim secret that could give him ultimate power. He has already eluded the investigation of the protagonist detective and her partner Hamilton twice: once in Maple Creek, and again in Ravenwood. It’s no mystery that this time it’s personal. Epic Dumpster Bear: Dumpster Fire Redux PS4 — Digital An evil corporation destroyed his forest, now it’s his turn to take out the trash. Epic Dumpster Bear is an action packed platformer inspired by the 16-bit classics where you play as a dumpster bear with a chip on his shoulder. Flight of Light PS4 — Digital (Out 4/5) Fly through fantastical forests in-time to the funky beat. Cruise round coral reefs to the sounds of chilled out tunes. Race past asteroid colonies powered by electronic music! Impact Winter PS4 — Digital (Out 4/5) A mysterious radio transmission claims that help is inbound. You are Jacob Solomon: leader of a makeshift team trying to survive the aftermath of a devastating asteroid collision. The world you once knew is no more – buried deep beneath the constant snowfall. Your goal: keep your companions alive until rescue. Infernium PS4 — Digital Infernium, a non-linear first person survival horror. Dive in an interconnected beautiful portrait of hell, die in a prison without bars, and overcome a brutal penitence. Island Time VR PS VR — Digital After a journey at sea, you are shipwrecked on a tiny island. Using your wit, ingenuity, and the advice of Carl the Crab, you must find a way to keep yourself from starving and survive. The King of Fighters ’97 Global Match PS4, PS Vita — Digital (Out 4/5) The final chapter in the KOF Orochi Saga, this title is one of the iconic entries in the series that cemented KOF as a staple in the fighting game community around the world. Now it returns with new features such as online play! Metropolis: Lux Obscura PS4, PS Vita — Digital (Out 4/4) This city is rotten to the core. You can’t even tell night from day in this hell where big money runs everything. And the best way to prove you’re right is with brute force. Minit PS4 — Digital Minit is a peculiar little adventure played sixty seconds at a time. Journey outside the comfort of your home to help unusual folk, uncover countless secrets, and overcome dangerous foes, all in hopes of lifting a rather unfortunate curse that ends each day after just one minute. Of Mice and Sand -Revised- PS4 — Digital On a desert planet in the farthest reaches of space, mice await your command! Direct their mobile fortress, and seek the legendary city of gold! Penny-Punching Princess PS Vita — Digital Penny-Punching Princess is an isometric brawler that takes place in a world ruled by capitalism, where cash is king. Fight or bribe your way to reclaiming your kingdom from the greedy Dragoloans. Raining Coins PS4 — Digital (Out 4/5) It’s raining gold coins! The skies have opened up but it’s not raining cats and dogs! It’s raining gold coins! Help poor Eve catch the gold coins and buy the toys she loves. Rememoried PS4 — Digital (Out 4/6) Rememoried is an independent video game, a virtual place where memories change to dreams and the only possible way is forgetting, which becomes a mechanism for proceeding to the next layer of dreams. The Surrealist explorative first-person adventure game. Sir Eatsalot PS Vita — Digital The kingdom of Gluttington was at peace… until one day, Hysterica poisoned the Isotonic Waters with sour lemonade. That evil witch! The kingdom’s crops are withering, but this plague has yet to befall all the lands. There is still hope! King Dietan III dispatches his greatest, bravest, stoutest knight to save the kingdom from certain ruin: Sir Eatsalot. The Weeknd – Dear Melancholy, Alan Silvestri – Ready Player One Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Rich The Kid – The World Is Yours The Post Legion Don’t miss the season premiere of Legion, Tuesday, April 3 at 10 PM on FX PlayStation Vue has your favorite sports, news and must-watch shows. The information above is subject to change without notice. View the full article

Last week, we asked for daring shots from the middle of the action of your favorite game. You shared characters fighting, leaping and defying gravity using the hashtags #PS4share and #PSBlog, and we’ve selected the shots that blew us away. Aloy launches into attack mode in this crisp shot from Horizon Zero Dawn by @LUCKYless11. @superwasabi138 caught inFAMOUS Second Son’s Delsin barrelling to the ground. Nathan Drake swings into action on one last adventure in this Uncharted 4 capture from @gamescapes_. Senua will not be stopped in this fiery moment from Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice by @Kirill_Skulkin. Search #PS4Share and #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in next week’s Share of the Week? Theme: Far Cry 5 Share by: 9am Pacific on Wednesday, April 4 While you build the resistance in Hope County and give Boomer all the tummy rubs, share your best shots using #PS4share and #PSBlog. View the full article

Welcome back! On today’s program our very own Sid Shuman (you know the one) details three recent hits from his gaming queue. From the recently released co-op adventure A Way Out to the nostalgia-inducing Crossing Souls, we cover… all three games! Enjoy the show. Email us at blogcast@sony.com! Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Google or RSS, or download here Stuff We Talked About Tesla vs. Lovecraft Crossing Souls A Way Out Ni no Kuni II Far Cry 5 Recent Episodes 285: Like Father, Like Son 284: Wayfaring Stranger 283: Fast-Forward The Cast Sid Shuman – Director of Social Media, SIEA Ryan Clements – Sr. Social Media Specialist, SIEA Kristen Titus – Social Media Specialist, SIEA 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

Starting today, the TV & Video experience on PlayStation 4 is getting a complete refresh in the U.S. The new design puts content front and center, making it easier for you to discover and watch the best movies and TV shows available across your favorite streaming services, such as Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu, and YouTube, in addition to PlayStation Video and PlayStation Vue. Browse in one place – You can now find trending content or discover new movies, TV shows, live TV events and user-generated content from your favorite video services in a single place, without jumping in and out of apps. TV & Video is now a central destination for exploring content and easily renting, purchasing, or subscribing to services that give you access to the content you want to watch. Featured and Spotlight categories – The ‘Featured’ section shows you a mix of the best content from various video services. We also have a ‘Spotlight’ section that shows you popular content based on a rotating theme, such as “Superheroes” or “Award Season.” Personalized YouTube experience – You can link your YouTube account to your PlayStation Network account to get personalized recommendations in the YouTube section. Personalized recommendations for other services are coming soon too! Currently trending live channels on PlayStation Vue – The PlayStation Vue section shows you live channels that are most popular now in your area. PS Vue subscribers get one-click access to the livestreams and the content shown will be tailored to your subscription plan. Direct app access – With the updated interface, you still have fast access to the video apps you use most, a full list of all available video services, and your PlayStation Store video library in ‘My Videos.’ We hope you enjoy the new look and feel of the PS4 system’s TV & Video experience, and we’ll continue to update with additional features… so stay tuned and keep checking back! View the full article

We’re thrilled to confirm that we are bringing the heart-pounding action of Guns of Icarus Alliance to PS4 on May 1, 2018. Starting today, you can pre-order Guns of Icarus Alliance at a 25% discount while also receiving a ship figurehead and a costume set forged exclusively for those who pre-order. Guns of Icarus Alliance: PS4 Edition is the ultimate steampunk airship combat game, complete with an ongoing war between six elite factions vying for control of a world ravaged by machines. Up to 32 players can engage in epic PVP airship battles, with 4 players manning each ship. Or team up with your faction to take on the AI in heart-pounding PVE skirmishes. Take the roles of Pilots, Engineers, and Gunners and work with your crew towards victory. Repair your ship’s armor, gun down enemy balloons, and deftly weave in and out of combat to dominate the skies in a variety of game modes and maps. In this ever-changing universe, a team’s successes and failures constantly shape and reshape the world based on who dominates the battlefield. In the skies of Guns of Icarus, you and your crew triumph or perish, together. Since day one, the heart and soul of Guns of Icarus has been the idea of teamwork. However, we didn’t want to simply create a game where individuals just happened to be placed on a team together, with everyone focusing on their individual kill/death ratios. We sat down and really thought about what the concept of a “team” meant to us – and that ultimately boiled down to the understanding that each individual member should feel like a part of something that can only work if everyone contributes. We didn’t want the opportunity for a single player to “carry” a match, but rather to encourage communication, strategizing, and sharing a single communal goal that can only be achieved through cooperation and shared effort. The ship is the team’s collective life bar – when the ship goes down, the crew goes down with it. Every member of the crew plays an integral role in not only maintaining the “life” of the ship, but also weakening the integrity of enemy ships as they work cooperatively towards a shared victory. When we made the decision to release the game on PS4 as a console exclusive, it was a priority for us to find a way to ensure that the new release would not be a point of division, but rather a way for us to grow our community. PlayStation affords us the opportunity to seamlessly bring console and PC players into the same match, and it was the perfect fit. However, just allowing PlayStation 4 players the chance to play in matches with players on other platforms wasn’t enough. We wanted to be sure that all players had the opportunity to experience the full teamwork experience – which is why we also prioritized cross-platform voice chat. Releasing on PS4 has been a long-time dream, and this dream was made possible with the assistance of Unity and Photon. Since we are bringing the game over from PC, in many cases it has been like flipping a switch to bring aspects of the game to PS4. We were lucky enough that we didn’t have to rebuild our UI from scratch, as the system was designed to be able to handle controller input. While we still created some custom pieces on top of this foundation, we did not end up in a position where we had to rebuild everything. Quite a bit of what we already had in place transitioned to PS4 seamlessly. However, the development process was not without its hiccups. Working on PS4 presented very different problems than we were used to on PC, where we get to decide where to optimize, and set the hardware requirements to match. On PS4 we have one set of hardware. In some respects, and that made things more challenging. Getting our CPU usage to a reasonable level took a lot of work, especially while maintaining identical gameplay for a cross platform title. On the other hand, that meant we always knew how far we could push the hardware, and we didn’t have to spend time worrying about players that might try and play on unique, old, or untested hardware. Guns of Icarus Alliance is about communication and community. We wanted to push the boundaries of what this means now, and what it can mean moving forward. We’ve been working towards this moment for a long time, and we can’t wait to share the skies with all you amazing PS4 players. View the full article

It’s PlayStation Plus time! Here are the free games coming to PlayStation Plus members in April 2018. First stop: Mad Max for PS4! Developed by Avalanche Studios, you star as the iconic lone warrior surviving a hostile Wasteland. Max Rockatansky’s dangerous journey begins after a gang steals his legendary Interceptor. Combining open-world vehicle combat with bone-crunching battles, Mad Max will keep you fully immersed as you fight to get your Interceptor back and make it to the Plains of Silence. Racing fans will appreciate TrackMania Turbo, a polished PS4 arcade racing game where your goal is to achieve the perfect racing time. You can hone your skills with 200 pre-built tracks, then create and share your own custom tracks to make the competition last forever. This month’s PlayStation Plus lineup also includes: In Space we Brawl, PS3 Toy Home, PS3 99 Vidas, PS Vita Q*Bert Rebooted, PS Vita (Cross Buy with PS3 and PS4) Of course, with PlayStation Plus you get a bunch of other benefits: exclusive discounts, online multiplayer, cloud saves, Share Play support and more. Learn more here. And that’s it for April. See you next month! View the full article