Commander Fury

Hi PS Blog! I’m Rhod from Dakko Dakko, and I’m very proud to show you our newest game, coming exclusively to PlayStation VR. It’s called Pop-Up Pilgrims. We’ve long been all about 2D gaming at Dakko Dakko, and at first it seemed like the recent arrival of VR gaming wasn’t likely to affect our development plans. Fortunately, I had the chance to try a friend’s VR kit quite early, and the moment I put the headset on my mind started racing with ideas for what our games might be like in VR. Within a couple weeks we had gone from never really thinking about virtual reality to having a specially adapted version of one of our PS Vita games – Floating Cloud God Saves the Pilgrims – playable in a VR space! The incredible impact of seeing a 2D game exploded out into multiple layers in VR instantly convinced us that our games have huge potential in this area. The player could look anywhere on the stage at any time, no scrolling required! Characters could be moved between 2D layers and the player could easily and accurately tell which layer they were on! Characters could lurch right out of a 2D scene! We were convinced, and Pop-Up Pilgrims was born! Pop-Up Pilgrims is a new kind of action game where you use your PS VR headset to guide a group of intrepid adventurers on a 2D-in-3D quest. The pilgrims need your help to cross treacherous pop-up islands and contend with a cast of peculiar demons as they try to reclaim their god’s source of power. Using PS VR’s head-tracking capabilities, you need only look where you want a pilgrim to act, and with the press of a button the nearest pilgrim will eagerly leap toward your cursor to do your bidding! It’s simple to control, but once your pilgrims start to wander in different directions things can get pretty crazy! You’ll have to move carefully in and out of the game’s layers to guide each and every pilgrim safely to the exit. We’re very excited to announce right here that you’ll be able to play Pop-Up Pilgrims very soon indeed! It’ll be available to download from PlayStation Store on February 13th. View the full article

Lost Sphear, the second title from Tokyo RPG Factory, will be released on January 23rd, and I am very excited to deliver this new RPG for fans to play. Many people played our first title, I am Setsuna, and we received a lot of feedback. We thoroughly reviewed that feedback during the development process for Lost Sphear and used it to examine how to improve various elements of the game. Some of these improvements include the freedom of movement in battle, a Spiritnite customization system, the ability to converse with your party at any time, a diverse variety of locales to explore, over 40 hours of gameplay, and the fact that we now have inns (lol)! We wanted Lost Sphear to deliver something players may have not experienced, so we made “memories” a central theme. The story and game mechanics revolve around this theme, and I believe fans will enjoy this new twist for an RPG. Another new feature is the addition of “Vulcosuits” – mechanized armor that can be equipped by your characters. Each Vulcosuit has unique abilities and can be used to traverse obstacles throughout the game, but most impressive are the special attacks known as Paradigm Drives that you can unleash in battle! Try out all of the different Vulcosuits you acquire on your journey! We paid careful attention to detail as we developed this title in order to power up in all aspects of the game, but there were many challenges we had to face. One of the interesting challenges was when we decided on the name of the title: Lost Sphear. Not only did we gather ideas amongst the development team, but we gathered input from team members across the globe and came up with “Lost Sphere” as one of our potential names. However, we wanted it to be a bit more unique, and as we pondered how to achieve this, CEO Yosuke Matsuda suggested “why not change the ‘Sphere’ in ‘Lost Sphere’ to ‘Sphear’?” According to what Mr. Matsuda looked up on his smartphone, he said that despite “Sphear” being an archaic way of spelling it, it does have the same meaning as “Sphere.” Now, I tried to look it up as well and have not found any information of the sort. Ultimately, we reached a consensus with the Western offices and finalized the name as “Lost Sphear.” Since then, we’ve referred to Mr. Matsuda’s smartphone as a “magic smartphone” (lol). Just the topic of deciding on the name brings up this much to talk about, which goes to show there was so much stuff that happened during the production that I could never run out of things to say. Thanks to that, I firmly believe this game will be something many people will enjoy. I would love for you take this game in your hands and enjoy it. Your support is greatly appreciated. Lost Sphear Director Atsushi Hashimoto View the full article

If you know me, you know my game never stops. Whether I’m at home or on the road, I’m always playing on my PS4, which is why I’m excited to announce my official collaboration between Nike Basketball and PlayStation with the PG-2 “PlayStation” colorway. Nike PG-2 “PlayStation” Colorway | Image Gallery Just like basketball, I’ve had a knack for video games since I was a kid. When I was 8 or 9, I used to amaze my uncle and all his friends by consistently beating them in all the sports games we’d play. And if I saw something cool while I was playing, I’d go outside and try it out on the court or the field. So in a way, sports and video games were always feeding off one another to me. This collaboration has been a long time coming. Ask me what my favorite PlayStation memory is and I’ll tell you it’s when my dad got me a PS2 for Christmas. I’d been dropping hints left and right because I knew that was it. That was the next big thing. You could say the same with Nike. As a kid, I’d make sketches of what I wanted my Nike shoes to look like because it’s something I’ve always wanted to be a part of. Now I have the opportunity to make something very special and personal to me with the help of two of my favorite brands. Working with designers from both Nike and PlayStation, we took inspiration from the console’s DualShock 4 controller and the iconic symbols that have been a part of every PlayStation product to create a colorway that honored my game both on and off the court. A few interesting things that you should know about the colorway: The tongues of the shoe sport the PG and PlayStation logos, which illuminate and pulsate blue just like when turning on the console The back heel of the left shoe has a unique barcode that contains a PSN voucher code, which can be redeemed at PlayStation Store for a Paul George Dynamic Theme for your PS4 The colors of the sneaker pay homage to the buttons on the DualShock 4 controller The iconic PlayStation symbols are embossed in patent leather on each shoe The look of the PG Dynamic Theme is reflected in the sock liner on each shoe I consider myself one of the biggest gamers in the NBA. Ever since getting my PS2 for Christmas as a kid, my game has gone with me wherever I go, so working with PlayStation was something that felt inevitable. The PG2 “PlayStation” colorway drops globally on February 10, 2018. For more information on the release, download the Nike SNKRS app. View the full article

A sprawling world! Towering monsters! Ferocious weapons! Delicious food! The beloved action RPG returns with Monster Hunter: World, launching January 26 on PS4. Select your favorite weapon and hurdle into the dangerous wilds of Monster Hunter: World. Stock up on items and hunt down monsters as they roam the verdant and varied environments in game. Only the most dedicated, well-prepared hunters will fell the beasts of Monster Hunter: World and reap the rewards, crafting even better gear for the next adventure. Good luck in your search, and never hunt on an empty stomach! For a full list of new releases coming to PlayStation next week, read on. And enjoy The Drop! New Releases: Week of January 23, 2018 The Aquatic Adventure of the Last Human PS4 — Digital Explore the ruins of humanity in this mesmerizing underwater action-adventure. Discover thriving wildlife, encounter monstrous beasts, and let curiosity guide you through an inevitable voyage of extinction. Celeste PS4 — Digital (Out 1/25) Help Madeline survive her inner demons on her journey to the top of Celeste Mountain, in this super-tight, hand-crafted platformer from the creators of multiplayer classic TowerFall. Dragon Ball FighterZ PS4 — Digital, Retail (Out 1/26) Dragon Ball FighterZ is born from what makes the Dragon Ball series so loved and famous: endless, spectacular fights with all-powerful fighters. Iconoclasts PS4, PS Vita — Digital Robin just wants to be a mechanic and help people, but without a license she’s a sinner in Mother’s eyes. Ever since picking up her wrench, the world has been going nuts and she’s wanted to bolt it back together. Now Penance is raining down on everyone she loves and One Concern agents are after her. But something big is going on — bigger than droughts of Ivory fuel and personal conflicts — and Robin’s in the thick of it. The Inpatient PS VR — Digital, Retail Discover who you are before it’s too late in The Inpatient, a PS VR exclusive set in the Blackwood Sanatorium, over 60 years prior to the award-winning Until Dawn. Laws of Machine PS4 — Digital (Out 1/25) There is a corporation called Robotech, which was established by Professor Sharpey. He developed the system of artificial intelligence based on neurospheres, which was recreated during his experiments with lunar type soil. Lost Sphear PS4 — Digital In the remote town of Elgarthe, a young man named Kanata awakens from a devastating dream to find his village is disappearing. Facing an ominous power that threatens the fabric of reality, Kanata and his friends set out on an adventure to use the power of Memory to save the world from being lost forever! Monster Hunter: World PS4 — Digital, Retail (Out 1/26) Welcome to a new world! Take on the role of a hunter and slay ferocious monsters in a living, breathing ecosystem where you can use the landscape and its diverse inhabitants to get the upper hand. OK K.O.! Let’s Play Heroes PS4 — Digital Based on the hit Cartoon Network show, this game stars pint-sized hero K.O. as he punches, slide-kicks, and power-moves his way through hordes of evil Boxmore robots on an epic quest to save Lakewood Plaza Turbo from the maniacal Lord Boxman. Wild Turkey Hunter PS4 — Digital (Out 1/24) Come experience interactive hunting at its best! Enjoy matching wits with America’s most elusive game bird the wild turkey. Fall Out Boy – M A N I A LANCO – Hallelujah Nights Dave East – P2 A Bad Moms Christmas Batman: Gotham by Gaslight Only the Brave The information above is subject to change without notice. View the full article

Switchblade is an intense high octane action combat game with an ever shifting array of strategic choices as the battle unfolds. Switch seamlessly between different heavily armed vehicles on the battlefield to create endless tactical choices. The closed beta opens to players on January 22nd and will only be available for a short period of time, so make sure to sign up here. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the game, we have a short Q&A below with Switchblade’s Project Director (Jeff Lewis) and the Creative Director (Craig Howard). How would you describe Switchblade to a newcomer in a single sentence? Jeff: It’s an awesome vehicle action game with MOBA rules. Craig: You play in a team of five and you just have to take out the rival teams bases to clear a path to their core before the time is over then it’s a knockout and you win the game. What are the rules in Switchblade? Jeff: You must disable the towers first by escorting exploding mobs to them, but the enemy team has the same objective. Everyone can take two vehicles into a match and switch between them at any time by calling a dropship. Where did the idea for Switchblade come from? Craig: We wanted to push the concept of vehicle combat games further than anything out there. The idea of a vehicle-based sport where strategy, as well as reactions, was key to winning and our focus as we feel compelling sports need both of these. What kinds of strategies tend to be most effective during a Switchblade match? Craig: The vehicles all have a unique range of skills that are better for different roles such as support and attack. As the game progresses it really does pose different strategic challenges for the team, such as when to defend or when to just hold ground. We have been playing the game internally for over a year, and even now no two games are ever the same. The range of tactics and action is something we are really excited about. Why did you decide to have cars be able to switch roles at any time? Craig: Switchblade is not just a three-minute-a-round game. With the constant ebb and flow of the battle, we felt that it would be more exciting for the player to be able to switch their vehicle as they switch tactics and weapons. Why did you decide to go free-to-play? Craig: It is a risk for us, but with Switchblade we want to create a new sport, and going free to play takes down any barrier for gamers to play our game. Even PlayStation owners who don’t have PS Plus can go online and play competitively. I must stress that it is not pay to win — skill is the only currency that you need to win a season in our game. Who, or what, inspired you creatively while working on Switchblade? Jeff: A lot of guys at Lucid used to work at Bizarre Creations, and the last game they worked on there was Blur. At first, we were considering a sort of a sci-fi update of that. Slowly, and from very small beginnings, it’s evolved into what we have today. Almost all that’s left from those days is that you drive a vehicle, it can shoot and you can switch to a different vehicle at any time. What’s next for Switchblade? Jeff: More vehicles are coming really soon. Further down the line are more maps, more game modes, and our own little twist on audience participation. How are you looking to capture E-sports fans’ attention? Craig: E-sports are something that we are very interested in supporting with Switchblade. It is a game based on pure skill and great teamwork. However, we cannot just assume it will become a popular E-sport, that is down to the players and its popularity. In the meantime, we will support it by featuring special broadcast modes so people can commentate on the action — along with some other features that we are not revealing yet. When will Switchblade leave beta? Craig: We are aiming for the end of Q1 2018, although like any beta we will be listening to the players and refining the game as we go along. We’ve only scratched the surface on what’s available in Switchblade. You can find out more by signing up for the closed beta today. Be on the lookout for exciting content updates and new maps coming soon! View the full article

Shadow of the Colossus has long been admired for its breathtaking landscapes and amazing vistas, not to mention the colossi themselves. As we rebuilt the visuals for the game from the ground up (literally), one of the things we decided we had to include was a Photo Mode. We found ourselves spending more and more time with Photo Mode as the system took shape, grabbing photos we thought captured moments that were unique and awe-inspiring. Take a look below at some of the photos the Bluepoint team captured during development. The thing that makes Photo Mode stand out is its power and flexibility. It’s an entire photo adjustment suite built into the game for you! Everything that I had access to as the Art Director, you have access to as the player. You can start with a filter and adjust all the way down to color balancing the shadows, midtones and highlights. Then on top of that, control the depth of field ranges and amounts, in addition to the vignette. That’s an amazing amount of control. Adjusting the camera to get that perfect shot is super easy. Being able to switch the camera from the player to the horse offers up a ton of possibilities. Letting the team loose with it was incredible. The amount of different looks you can achieve is limitless. To top it off, being able to rotate the camera 90 degrees either way to generate portrait images means that lots of photos will be used as cell phone wallpapers! That’s not all: you’re able to leave some of the filters running as you play, giving you exciting degrees of control over how the game looks in motion. I look forward to getting this in the hands of the community and seeing the awe-inspiring things you come up with! Just a little bit longer until the release of Shadow of the Colossus on February 6! View the full article

Hello from the PolyKnight team! Our first game, InnerSpace, is out today at PlayStation Store, and we have to say, this is a very different kind of flying game. InnerSpace takes place in the Inverse, a universe of inside-out-planets where gravity pulls outward instead of in. This dying realm is home to ancient structures of a lost civilization, and flying inside these tight spaces is going to be a challenge. To compensate, we built flying mechanics that encourage agility and experimentation. Here are a few of our favorite moves. Enjoy! Drifting lets you survey your surroundings and look for entrances to structures as you glide around them. It also lets you change direction quickly. Tight spaces ahead. Drifting allows you to avoid walls and make quick decisions. Eventually, you’ll have the skills to make some epic trench runs. If you want to survey the area from a new angle, fly towards the center of the chamber. Then, drift to get your bearings and plan your next flight path. Depending on how much space you have, you can yaw for a wide turn or roll into it for a tighter maneuver. Your wings are pretty rugged, so don’t be afraid to scrape them against walls and see what might come tumbling down. After surfacing, you can spread your wings to take… or just enjoy falling back to the ocean in a majestic Dolphin Dive. These are some of our moves, but we’re most excited to see what you come up with. We hope you enjoy InnerSpace, available now at PlayStation Store for $19.99, with 10% off for PS Plus members. Your greatest journey is within! View the full article

Monster Hunter: World is the biggest game yet in the beloved series, and we’re ready to celebrate with an amazing new Limited Edition PS4 Pro Bundle available for $449.99 USD (MSRP) exclusively at GameStop on January 26. The Limited Edition Monster Hunter: World PS4 Pro bundle will allow you to seek and slay ferocious beasts across a vast, ever-changing environment. Featuring a Limited Edition Monster Hunter: World PS4 Pro console, DualShock 4 wireless controller, Blu-ray disc and digital content, there’s no better place to hone your skills and take part in the ultimate hunting experience. Use the terrain to your advantage, or be hindered by the hazards they present. The choice is yours in an all new open world adventure teeming with surprises and excitement. This bundle will be available in very limited quantities, so if you want to pick one up, check with your local GameStop for availability. Looking for the perfect PlayStation product to match these snowy winter months? Well look no further! The Glacier White PS4 Pro will be available for the first time as a standalone console, so look for it exclusively in GameStop stores at the end of this month for $399.99 USD (MSRP). In Canada, the Glacier White PS4 Pro will be available exclusively at EB Games for $499.99. CAD (MSRP) in the coming weeks. Excited to take on the challenge of Monster Hunter: World? Think the Glacier White PS4 Pro is cool as ice? We’d love to know what you think in the comments! View the full article

Iconoclasts is less than two weeks away, arriving January 23, 2018! It will be available at PlayStation Store for both PS4 and PS Vita, with crossbuy! You play as an optimistic young mechanic named Robin, following her through a life of wanting to help those that remain in her life, using mechanical services she is not allowed to perform, according to the law of the world. There’s plenty of platforming, solving things and meeting people, but what will frequently be the focus of the game are boss battles! I’ve been known to love a good boss in the games I’ve made. They are the exam at the end of training for an action game, at best combining the things you last learned and testing your merit, or just being an entertaining culmination of the parts that have come before. So, Iconoclasts is no stranger to them! There are more in there than I even planned when development started. As advertised, there are over 20 running about (don’t want to spoil the exact number, of course), and their styles range from figuring out where to shoot them, where to twist them, just shooting them a whole lot, running from them, running at them or several of these at once. As you play, you’ll learn to master Robin’s wrench. It can do what you expect, like twist your classic bolt, but also can be used to protect yourself from projectiles, and deflect attacks back at your opponents. Alongside the wrench, you have your modified stun-gun that you procure a few upgrades for. The goal being that all equipment you get along the way have several uses in all their forms, without ever adding complexity to how you play. That way, once you first master your controls, the learning is only in what your boss or enemy does against you, not how you yourself should press your buttons, which is a design I have always tried to strive for. In the end, I feel the game has managed to create a parade of opponents that all have their own quirks and twists on the abilities you’ve learned without all resorting to being about shooting a ton, and remain fun, fast and satisfying. For the fans of my prior games out there, I hope it will be what you’ve waited for! It’s been a long road, but Iconoclasts is finally almost here. The game isn’t solely about boss battles. There are lots of people to hang out with, some pleasant platforming and other challenges. I just have a big heart for bosses, and wanted to highlight them for you today. I hope you will enjoy Iconoclasts! View the full article

We’re getting ready for the next major system update for PS4, and can use some help from PS4 owners to test it out ahead of launch. Starting today, you can sign up for a chance to be a beta tester and get an advance look at some of the improvements and new features coming to PS4. And good news for Canadian folks – beginning this beta, PS4 owners in Canada are also able to register for the beta testing. You can register to be a beta tester anytime between today and the start of the beta expected in February. Users must be 18 years or older. Once the beta starts, we’ll close registration. Beta testers for our previous major system software update, version 5.00, got a preview of features like Family on PSN, friend list management, message improvements and much more before launch. If you’re part of the program, you’ll receive an email with instructions on downloading the beta version of the next system software. In order to sign up, you’ll need a PS4 system with an internet connection and SEN account. And remember — you can roll back to the previous system software at any time. And starting this beta, you can choose to be added to future betas automatically without having to register again. If you choose to do so, you’ll receive an exclusive PSN avatar. We’ll be back soon with an update on the features you can expect in the beta. Many thanks to everyone signing up — especially our returning beta testers! Your feedback helps us make the system software update even better. View the full article

Subscribe via iTunes, Spotify, Google or RSS, or download here On today’s show, we speak to the two-man team behind the upcoming Wizard of Legend, a gorgeous spell-slinging adventure coming to PS4. Enjoy the show! Stuff We Talked About Wizard of Legend Interview Game of the Year 2017 Winners PS Store’s 2017 Top Download Charts Your favorite video game intros Dissidia Final Fantasy NT Recent Episodes 275: Live From Arcadia Bay 274: The Best of 2017 273: Donuts and Jedi The Cast Sid Shuman – Director of Social Media, SIEA Justin Massongill – Social Media Manager, SIEA Ryan Clements – Sr. Social Media Specialist, SIEA Kristen Titus – Social Media Specialist, SIEA Send us questions and tips! blogcast@sony.com Leave us a voicemail! (650) 288-6706 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

Rise up with the latest entry in the iconic fighting franchise. Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition arrives next week on disc, and as a free update for the original game. Built atop the exhilarating framework of Street Fighter V, Arcade Edition includes the base content from the original version alongside arcade mode, Character Pass 1 and 2 (12 additional characters), and updated mechanics. Step into the ring and compete in one of the most ferocious arenas in gaming history. For a full list of new games coming to PlayStation next week, read on. And enjoy The Drop! New Releases: Week of January 16, 2018 Albert and Otto PS4 — Digital In this first installment “The Adventure Begins” the player is thrown headfirst into a haunting world set in 1939 Germany in search of a mysterious girl with bunny ears. Clues as to who she is and what happened to her are scattered throughout the game in the form of drawings left in post boxes and shards that the player must piece together. Beholder Complete Edition PS4 — Digital You’re a government-installed landlord in a totalitarian state. Your job is to spy on tenants, peep into their lives, eavesdrop on their conversations, and profile everyone to ensure laws are beyond obeyed and the state is kept happy. Anyone caught plotting against the state’s ever-changing laws must be reported. But will you? Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory PS4 — Digital, Retail (Out 1/19) Get ready to dive back into the digital world in Digimon Story: Cyber Sleuth – Hacker’s Memory. Set in the near future, the line between the real and digital worlds is blurred and logging into cyberspace is a part of everyday life. InnerSpace PS4 — Digital In the final days of the Inverse, you must help the Archaeologist recover the last remaining memories before they are lost forever. Fly through ancient skies and abandoned oceans to discover the lost history of this fading realm, where entire civilizations have died, yet their gods still wander. Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition PS4 — Digital In Kerbal Space Program, take charge of the space program for the alien race known as the Kerbals. You have access to an array of parts to assemble fully-functional spacecraft that flies (or doesn’t) based on realistic aerodynamic and orbital physics. Kingdom: New Lands PS4 — Digital Tales spread of far off isles with mysteries waiting to be discovered. Rulers will need all the strength of their subjects to sail away and find new kingdoms in these New Lands. Portal of Evil: Stolen Runes PS4 — Digital The gates to another world will open soon! You can stop the impending disaster, but to do so at all costs to return the stolen stamps! Rento Fortune PS4 — Digital (Out 1/19) Rento Fortune is an online dice board game. To win in Rento, you have to bankrupt the other players. StarDrone PS VR — Digital (Out 1/17) StarDrone is a high-kinetic action puzzle with a mix of arcade, pinball, breakout, physics, and collect-the-objects. Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition PS4 — Digital Update, Retail Street Fighter V – Arcade Edition returns with more modes, more characters and enhanced gameplay. Vesta PS4 — Digital (Out 1/19) Vesta is a witty 6-year-old girl who lives in a desolate underground maze — the ruins of a once-bright city inhabited by humans and perfect machines. Although this world can be lonely, she is kept company by her friend BOT. It advises her and encourages her to do the tasks she is assigned, although it knows much more than it lets on. Borns – Blue Madonna The Neighbourhood – To Imagine Geostorm Last Flag Flying The information above is subject to change without notice. View the full article

Bluepoint Games is a studio known for their consistently excellent results in the realm of remastering, refurbishing, and remaking classic games. So, you’d expect their headquarters to be bit flashier than the outwardly unremarkable building they share in Austin, Texas. Their unassuming workspace doubles as an analogy for the studio itself: a group more passionate about their work than fame and recognition. The entrance to Bluepoint is proudly adorned with souvenirs from all the projects the team has worked on over the years. Watch the video at the top of this post, captured during a recent trip to Bluepoint Games, for a rare peek inside the studio behind some of the industry’s most well-regarded remasters. The Story So Far Bluepoint Games got their start at the dawn of PlayStation Network with the release of their debut title, Blast Factor, but they’ve come a long way since then. Here’s everything they’ve worked on so far: Blast Factor (PS3) God of War Collection (PS3) The Ico & Shadow of the Colossus Collection (PS3) Metal Gear Solid HD Collection (PS3, PS Vita) PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale (PS Vita version) Titanfall (Xbox 360 version) Flower (PS4 and PS Vita versions) Gravity Rush Remastered (PS4) Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection (PS4) Shadow of the Colossus (PS4) Bluepoint has grown into a team of a few dozen employees, but it all began with two people. Marco Thrush, now president of the company, and Andy O’Neil, the studio’s current vice-president. Marco and Andy built the still-in-operation Bluepoint Engine, and worked together to create Blast Factor, which launched alongside PlayStation Network in 2006. Bluepoint is in a unique position: having led the remastering process for so many legendary titles, the studio has had lots of opportunities to poke around the inner workings of some of the most technically impressive experiences from their respective generations. I asked Peter Dalton, the technical director on PS4’s Shadow of the Colossus, how he and the team took advantage of these opportunities. “We’ve definitely learned from each of them,” Peter explains. “From the original God of War series and bringing that to PS3, and seeing how they solved certain problems, to working with Naughty Dog’s technology for Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection. Bluepoint’s art director, Mark Skelton, has similar respect for the artists whose work he’s now responsible for recreating. “It’s amazing what they did with what they had. There are so many tricks and so many unique, groundbreaking things that they did in that game that I’ve never seen since or before that.” Clockwise from top-left: Art Director Mark Skelton, Studio President Marco Thrush, Technical Director Peter Dalton, Studio Producer Randall Lowe When remastering a classic, it must be tempting to fix each and every mistake, oversight, or inconsistency you would find. But where does one draw the line? Skelton shares a geographical example from Shadow of the Colossus: “So one of the areas is kind of wooded… I noticed — this is kind of funny — that it was a dual waterfall area. And the dual waterfalls had a U-shaped section that connected them, which to me made absolutely no sense. Where’s the water coming from? “Things like that we talked through and made sure that if we did make changes to it, that it didn’t have huge ramifications, visually or playwise. So what we decided to do was connect it to another connection that was kind of a mountain waterfall, which fed that waterfall, which in turn fed those two. “To me, changes like that were important. It makes more sense, and it was maybe just an oversight at the beginning of the first one. Stuff like that I don’t have a problem changing. You know, stuff that makes people scratch their heads and go why?” One benefit of working at Bluepoint: Everyone gets two monitors. The more you talk to the people at Bluepoint, the more you realize that this obsessive attention to detail is core to the studio’s ethos. Occupying a corner of the studio’s floorplan is a custom rack of four huge TVs, each representing one of the market’s most popular sets in a given price range. They wire PS4 dev kits to this rig to see the final product the way players will see it. Studio Producer Randall Lowe surveys Shadow of the Colossus’ central field on a range of popular TV panels If there’s one factor that clearly drives Bluepoint, it’s the desire to do right by fans — to do justice to the legacy of each and every game they choose to rebuild or remaster. “To us, making the game the way you remember it is the most important mission that we have, regardless of everything else,” explains Randall Lowe, one of the testers on the original PS2 release of Shadow of the Colossus, and now a producer on the 2018 PS4 version. “We need to make sure that the game you’re playing now feels like the thing that you played in the past. If we don’t hit those notes, then we failed in what we were setting out to do.” The Bluepoint kitchen has a great view of the Pennybacker Bridge, as well as the Colorado River underneath. Studio president Marco Thrush elaborates: “The games we work on, we hand-pick them — we usually have lots of choices, and we get to pick the ones we care most about or that we truly believe the player will enjoy most once they get rereleased. So we always give the best we possibly can on every single title we work on. I hope it shows in the end result.” Shadow of the Colossus launches February 6 on PS4, but in the meantime, you can learn how it runs on PS4 Pro, watch the game’s opening sequence, read our hands-on impressions, watch an episode of PlayStation Underground recorded at Bluepoint Games, or peruse a series of other SotC videos over at our YouTube channel. Phew! View the full article

We asked you to vote, and you showed up! 2017’s Game of the Year polls saw an astounding 1.6 million votes across all categories, with over 150k votes in the “Best PS4 Game” category alone. Thank you! There is definitely a clear winner this year — Guerrilla’s Horizon Zero Dawn stole the show, securing the Platinum Trophy in nine of our 18 categories. We’ll make sure Aloy hears about it! Read on to see who else took home the Platinum (and the Gold, Silver and Bronze) in more categories like Best PS VR Experience, Best Independent Game, Most Anticipated PS4 Game, and lots more. So, what do you think? Agreed on the winners? Did you vote differently? Did you not vote, but now wish you had? Discuss (nicely!) in the comments. Best PS4 Game Horizon Zero Dawn You’ll notice a distinct theme this year. Horizon Zero Dawn swept the polls, earning more votes than its closest competitor by more than 2:1. Epic’s Fortnite earned the most write-in votes, but not enough to crack the top four. Call of Duty WWII Assassin’s Creed Origins Persona 5 Honorable Mentions: Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Nier: Automata, Resident Evil 7 Editors’ Choice Nier: Automata. Through all of 2017, I pretended it was going to be tough to choose my final GotY pick as megaton after megaton dropped. But it’s Nier. It was always Nier. No game can make me cry over sexy robots fighting a proxy war on an abandoned far-future Earth the way Nier Automata can. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Persona 5. Persona 5 threads an oddly specific gaming needle and stands as one of the most invigorating and interesting releases of the year. I was equally invested in the outlandish and increasingly elaborate Persona and boss battles as I was making new friends and finding my place as a school boy in Tokyo. — Kristen Titus // SIEA Social Media Horizon Zero Dawn. A big-budget blockbuster done right. Guerrilla’s post-post apocalyptic vision is compelling enough, but the superior visuals, ferocious combat, and surprising plot twists inject fresh life into the action-RPG genre. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy pulls off an impressive feat: it manages to deliver some of the best writing, performances, and action moments from a franchise already overflowing with them, while at same time shaking up the Uncharted formula in thrilling, open-ended ways. It was one of the best experiences I’ve had this year, and might just be my favorite Uncharted game. — Zac Minor // SIEA Social Media What Remains of Edith Finch. In a year of amazing game stories, Edith Finch stands out for being a powerful narrative that is only possible in games. Each mini-story told within the game is accompanied by a unique art and gameplay style that build towards a profound emotional experience. — Andy Yen // SIEA PS Store Best PS VR Experience Resident Evil 7: biohazard Another blowout in the polls, this time for Capcom’s survival-horror revival Resident Evil 7, though Skyrim put up a muscular defense. Rec Room stood out for write-in votes. Skyrim VR Gran Turismo Sport Superhot VR Honorable Mentions: Doom VFR, Farpoint, Star Trek: Bridge Crew Editors’ Choice Resident Evil 7 biohazard. Capcom gives a master class in how to reboot a classic series. The first-person perspective adds a terrifying new layer to the survival-horror gameplay, and the PS VR support is second-to-none. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Superhot VR. The game where time moves when you move is magnitudes better in the world of VR where the PlayStation Move controllers can track your entire body’s movements. It’s the closest you’ll get in real life to bullet dodging in The Matrix without needing to do an apocalypse rave before. — Andy Yen // SIEA PS Store Gnog. Ko-op’s virtual reality toybox made me feel like a kid again. Pushing, pulling, turning and tweaking knobs, bells and whistles has never felt so rewarding. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Best Independent Game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Voters again had a clear favorite, with Ninja Theory’s well-regarded Hellblade earning the nod. Epic’s Fortnite led the field in write-in votes. Undertale Superhot Everything Honorable Mentions: What Remains of Edith Finch, Night in the Woods, Pyre Editors’ Choice Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. One of the best psychological horror games I’ve ever played – Hellblade was an amazing journey as an 8th century human suffering from psychosis. The threat of permanent death via save deletion made every combat encounter a thrilling sweaty palms affair. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Undertale. Okay, I get it. Now that I’ve finally played Undertale (multiple times), I understand why its fanbase is so… vocal. Toby Fox’s heart-warming/wrenching underground RPG marries fresh gameplay ideas with tack-sharp writing, unforgettable characters, and one of gaming’s most toe-tapping soundtracks. This one is going to stay with me. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media What Remains of Edith Finch. Giant Sparrow’s journey through a cursed family’s history takes you from the highest whimsical highs to some delicately devastating lows, all with a flourish of magic-realism that swept me away. — Kristen Titus // SIEA Social Media Superhot. Like being caught inside the world’s best r/nosleep story. The gameplay gimmick is inspired, the pacing alternately exhilarating and exasperating, and the mood ice cold. Even the war3z-styled Easter eggs go above and beyond. One of the year’s very best. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Best PS Vita Game Undertale No surprises — Undertale dominated on PS Vita, scoring the lion’s share of votes. Steamworld Dig 2 took top write-in honors. Danganronpa V3 Xenon Valkyrie + Ys Origin Honorable Mentions: Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, A Rose in the Twilight, Tokyo Xanadu Editors’ Choice Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony. Games about high school murder mysteries don’t come along every day, especially with the twists and turns of the Danganronpa series. Perfect for on the go play, V3 even has cross-save capability when you finally get home to your PS4. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Undertale. Undertale is a perfect “multiple playthrough” game — I got halfway through my second run in a coffee shop! Protip: If you’re playing this one on the go, make sure you have headphones. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Best Performance Ashly Burch Aloy, Horizon Zero Dawn An array of excellent performances this year, with Ashley Burch’s Aloy landing the coveted Platinum pick. On the write-in front, Nathan Fillion’s Cayde-6 from Destiny 2 saw significant attention. Claudia Black Chloe, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Melina Juergens Senua, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Janina Gavankar Iden Versio, Star Wars Battlefront II Honorable Mentions: Laura Bailey // Nadine, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy; Kira Buckland // 2B, Nier: Automata; Brian Bloom // BJ Blazcowicz, Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus Editors’ Choice Melina Juergens for Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. A quest through the Norse underworld was never going to look easy, but Melina Jeurgens’ excruciatingly raw performance highlights Senua’s paranoia, pain and determination with perfect clarity. — Kristen Titus // SIEA Social Media Ashly Burch for Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s hard to believe Aloy was just introduced to us fully in 2017, as she already feels like an iconic character in games. Chronicling her journey from a young girl to stoic heroine, Ashley’s performance in Horizon Zero Dawn was unforgettable. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Nyasha Hatendi for Mass Effect Andromeda. Bioware’s latest introduced Angarian resistance fighter Jaal Ama Darav, and he’s a memorable addition to the Mass Effect pantheon. Nyasha Hatendi’s portrayal is warm and wistful — a perfect fit for this enigmatic character. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Best Art Direction Horizon Zero Dawn Another big win for Guerrilla Games, with Horizon Zero Dawn soaring out ahead of the competition nearly 3:1. Star Wars Battlefront II scored the most write-in votes. Persona 5 Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Destiny 2 Honorable Mentions: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Gravity Rush 2 Editors’ Choice Persona 5. That dynamic battle UI. The bonkers boss battle reveals. Those stylish Palace-crawling costumes. And of course, your talking cat companion turning into a van. Persona 5 truly had a vision and executed it with flair. — Kristen Titus // SIEA Social Media Superhot. Sometimes less is more. Superhot’s ersatz environments and faceless, crystalline enemies radiate creepypasta levels of uneasiness. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Destiny 2. When it comes to epic, galaxy-building design, few come close to Bungie’s talents. From varied world settings, to unforgettable set pieces, Destiny 2 is breathtaking to look at and play in. Not to mention that sweet sweet exotic gear design. — Andy Yen //SIEA Store Best Soundtrack Horizon Zero Dawn A squeaker, with Horizon edging out Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and Destiny 2 for top honors. FIFA 18 netted the most write-ins. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Destiny 2 Nier: Automata Honorable Mentions: Persona 5, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, Sonic Mania Editors’ Choice Persona 5. I always let the opening sequence play all the way through… and sometimes waited to let it play through a second time. This game’s range of kinetic to ambient jazz was the perfect backdrop for being a Phantom Thief. — Kristen Titus // SIEA Social Media Nier: Automata. The unexpected, eclectic nature of Nier: Automata’s story is matched only by its score: sweeping orchestral set pieces give way to charming children’s choruses and chiptune arrangements, but somehow, no song ever feels out of place. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Undertale. Epic sounding chiptunes that will make you both nostalgic for yesteryear and pumped up for battle. It’s rare that a game has instantly recognizable character themes, and Undertale’s are unforgettable. — Andy Yen // /SIEA Store Prey. After the breakout success of his DOOM soundtrack in 2016, composer Mick Gordon scored TWO huge games in 2017: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, and Prey. Both sounded exceptional, but the blend of cyberpunk-electronic beats with classic horror ambience made Prey my favorite soundtrack of the year. — Zac Minor // SIEA Social Media Best Multiplayer Call of Duty WWII Call of Duty ultimately overcame Fortnite in this hard-fought deathmatch, with Friday the 13th cleaning up in write-in votes. Fortnite Destiny 2 Star Wars Battlefront II Honorable Mentions: Injustice 2, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood, Tekken 7 Editors’ Choice Destiny 2. The ultimate game for both PVE and PVP in a single package. No other shooter does 6-player co-op quite like Destiny’s raids while also including pro-caliber competitive play in the same sandbox. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Call of Duty WWII. A true return to form for the classic shooter. Sledgehammer wasn’t asleep at the switch: War mode, Nazi Zombies, Divisions, and Headquarters all brought fresh new ideas to the most polished multiplayer shooter on the market. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood. The arrival of the Stormblood expansion brought a beautifully crafted story, a refined combat system, and more exquisite music to the Final Fantasy XIV experience. But this is still an MMO, and running through dungeons to face towering boss battles with friends remains one of the game’s principle delights. — Ryan Clements // SIEA Social Media Best Story Horizon Zero Dawn Another commanding win for Horizon, with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy mustering a fierce defense. Among write-in votes, Destiny 2 led the pack. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Persona 5 Nier: Automata Honorable Mentions: Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, The Evil Within 2, Injustice 2 Editors’ Choice The Evil Within II. Tango Gameworks surprised me. The setup is interesting enough, but the escalating stakes combined with several memorable characters and boss fights elevate this to must-play status, whether you played the first game or not. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Nier: Automata. What begins as an almost generic Japanese sci-fi tale becomes one of the most profound stories I’ve ever experienced. As you experience plot points from other perspectives, the onion layers peel back, and you’re contemplating what it truly means to be human. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Horizon Zero Dawn. Horizon Zero Dawn had me hooked from the moment Rost raised little baby Aloy to the sun, but unravelling the mysteries of both Aloy and the Earth’s past was extremely satisfying thanks to the well written characters and intricately fascinating lore. — Kristen Titus // SIEA Social Media Best Sports Game FIFA 18 FIFA 18 managed to head off an aggressive offense from a resurgent GT Sport to cement the lead. Interestingly, Pro Evolution Soccer 18 led handily among write-in votes. Gran Turismo Sport NBA 2K18 Madden NFL 18 Honorable Mentions: Everybody’s Golf, Disc Jam, MLB The Show 17 Editors’ Choice Madden 18. I’m an on again off again Madden player, so I’m not as hardcore into Ultimate Team and the competitive angle as some, but as a casual, I really enjoyed the meaty new “Longshot” single-player story mode that was added this year. Mixing “Friday Night Lights” (with some actors from the TV show even!) with Life Is Strange and Madden gameplay is a formula that works surprisingly well. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Everybody’s Golf. It may go by a new name, but the spirit of Hot Shots lives on. Few games manage to balance instant accessibility with the idea of “I could have done that better… let me try it again” the way this series does, and Everybody’s Golf brings that — and so much more — to PS4. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Everybody’s Golf. As a Hot Shots fan from waaaay back, Everybody’s Golf is nothing short of a miracle. It’s everything I loved about classic Hot Shots gameplay, but packed to the gills with an absolutely insane amount of bonus activities — driving! fishing! Shuhei! — not to mention the unique open-course multiplayer. The art style is charming, the music is joyful, and the course design harkens to a utopia that only exists in my dreams. My Everybody’s Golf persona is the man I aspire to be. — Zac Minor // SIEA Social Media Best Post-Release Content Horizon Zero Dawn A nail biter, with Horizon squeaking past GTA Online by only one percentage point and Battlefield 1 leading among write-in votes. Grand Theft Auto Online Final Fantasy XV Overwatch Honorable Mentions: Fortnite, Rainbow Six Siege, Resident Evil 7: biohazard Editors’ Choice Darkest Dungeon. Surprise, surprise. The Crimson Court expansion is a literal gamechanger, with new mechanics that ripple through content both old and new. Just when I thought I was out… — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Final Fantasy XIV. FFXIV’s Stormblood expansion introduced revamped gameplay elements, new jobs to master, an entire soundtrack’s worth of excellent new music, and numerous quality-of-life upgrades, but where it really impressed me is with its story — easily the ever-growing MMO’s best yet. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds. A meaty addition to the world of Horizon, The Frozen Wilds organically adds a huge area for Aloy to explore whether you’ve finished the game already or not. The new characters and story missions are as in depth and lovingly crafted as they were in the original game. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Dishonored: Death of the Outsider. Okay, technically this is a standalone experience and thus not “post-release content,” but whatever (sorry Justin). (Editor’s note: I’ll allow it. -JM) Dishonored: Death of the Outsider needs some much-deserved praise. The focused scope and mechanical tweaks resulted in a Dishonored experience that encouraged playstyles that felt exciting and fresh, even to a Dishonored vet like myself. — Zac Minor // SIEA Social Media Best PlayStation Console Exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn Another big win for Guerrilla Games, though Uncharted and Crash managed strong support. Uncharted: The Lost Legacy Crash Bandicoot: The N-Sane Trilogy Persona 5 Honorable Mentions: Nier Automata, Gran Turismo Sport, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice Editors’ Choice Horizon Zero Dawn. A perfect example of a platform-selling blockbuster, Horizon excels across the board with astonishing visuals, superior PS4 Pro features, and unique combat you can’t find anywhere else. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Persona 5. Persona 5 is not a short game, but its length shouldn’t put you off from experiencing its unique brand of style, storytelling, and relationship building. By the end of it you’ll feel like a high schooler again, with a new group of best friends forged through shared experience. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Nier Automata. Big surprise, I know. Nier Automata is a game that’s going to be with me for a long time, for lots of reasons. Its DualShock 4 control layout was part of the fun, too — I found myself shifting into “Combat Mode” (basically just shifting my middle fingers up to R2 and L2 so I could keep R1 held down with my index finger) every time I came across a formidable enemy. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Best PS4 Theme Uncharted 10th Anniversary Theme Uncharted dominated this category handily, with Horizon leading among write-in votes. Persona 5 Character Themes Legacy Dashboard Theme Undertale Dynamic Theme (Ruins) Honorable Mentions: Mega Man Legacy Collection 2 Preorder Theme, Pyre Theme, Burger Love Returns Dynamic Theme Editors’ Choice Legacy. I’m usually not one for nostalgia plays, but man, this dynamic, 3D theme recreating the old PS2 system screen is an awesome trip down memory line. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Rez Infinite Singularity Theme. Rez Infinite is pretty much a religious experience in PlayStation VR, especially Area X — the new area added for the Infinite release. This theme brings the feeling of Area X’s final section to your PS4 dashboard, and I don’t plan to change it anytime soon. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Best Use of PS4 Pro Horizon Zero Dawn Despite tight competition, Horizon racked up another win. Star Wars Battlefront II was the leader among write-in voters. Assassin’s Creed Origins Call of Duty WWII The Witcher III: Wild Hunt Honorable Mentions: Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, Gran Turismo Sport, Destiny 2 Editors’ Choice Horizon Zero Dawn. Guerrilla’s technical excellence is on proud display here. The 4K output looks razor sharp, while the HDR features make color and vibrancy pop. Love that you can emphasize resolution or performance now, too. Developers: this is how you do it! — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice. Senua’s descent into madness is best experienced in 4K with a pair of the Platinum Wireless Headset. The game looks absolutely jaw-dropping in 4K resolution, but the 3D positional audio mix steals the show here, making you feel like you’re hearing the same voices in her head. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Nioh. Nioh’s exhilarating combat made for one of the best action games of 2017, but its use of PS4 Pro brought quality-of-life improvements that elevated it to another level. For coming out so early in 2017, Nioh established one of my favorite implementations of the Pro’s added horsepower: allowing the gamer to choose between modes that prioritized frame-rate or resolution. — Zac Minor // SIEA Social Media Most Anticipated PS4 Title God of War A tight competitive field here, but God of War lands the Platinum nod. Dragon Ball FighterZ saw the most write-in votes. You don’t have long to wait, folks! Red Dead Redemption 2 Marvel’s Spider-Man Far Cry 5 Honorable Mentions: Kingdom Hearts 3, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Death Stranding Editors’ Choice Shadow of the Colossus. I’m fascinated by Bluepoint’s work here; they’ve enhanced this 2005 classic to the point where it can hang with 2018’s elite crop of AAA titles. The game is almost too gorgeous to believe. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media God of War. Kratos’s new odyssey on PS4 is poised to be my first can’t miss game of 2018 – I can’t wait to see where venturing into the world of Norse mythology takes the series. We all know the game will deliver the goods on the action front, but I’m personally looking forward to seeing where his story goes in his grizzled years as a father. — Andy Yen // SIEA Store Marvel’s Spider-Man. I’ve been a Spider-Fan for as long as I can remember, and everything we’ve seen on Peter Parker’s upcoming PS4 outing indicates that Insomniac is the perfect studio to realize the potential of the character. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Dissidia Final Fantasy NT. Legendary heroes and villains meet on a battlefield unbound by space and time. A true embodiment of light versus darkness. You will be hard-pressed to find a more dedicated fan of the Dissidia series than me, and Dissidia Final Fantasy NT continues the RPG fighting tradition with a gorgeous visual overhaul. January 30 can’t come soon enough. — Ryan Clements // SIEA Social Media Most Anticipated PS VR Title Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality An easy win for Rick and Morty, though Ace Combat 7 saw extensive write-in excitement. Blood & Truth Star Child Firewall Zero Hour Honorable Mentions: Golem, Moss, The Inpatient Editors’ Choice Moss. Based on what I’ve played of Polyarc’s tiny, huge VR adventure, it strikes a perfect balance of old-school platforming action and an immersive virtual reality wow-factor. Plus, Quill is the cutest lil’ hero I’ve seen in years. Gimme! — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media The Inpatient. Part of what made Until Dawn so tantalizingly creepy were the sequences taking part in an old abandoned asylum. Now you’re telling me I get to play a fully-realized prequel set in that very asylum, and in VR? Sign me up. — Kristen Titus // SIEA Social Media Firewall Zero Hour. A no-brainer. This back-to-basics 4v4 FPS is an electrifying VR experience, especially when paired with the PS VR Aim Controller. It will appeal hugely to fans of Rainbow Six and the old SWAT games. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Blood & Truth. I’ll never forget The London Heist: it was the very first PS VR demo I tried, and still stands up as one of the most immersive and action-packed PS VR experiences out there. Blood & Truth takes the fundamentals they explored in that demo and fleshes them out into a full-length game, and I could not be more excited. — Zac Minor // SIEA Social Media Studio of the Year Guerrilla Games Though Guerrilla Games and Sledgehammer dominated voting, we saw a strong write-in showing in support of Naughty Dog (who won the Platinum in this category last year). Sledgehammer Games Capcom PlatinumGames Honorable Mentions: Atlus, Ninja Theory, Arkane Studios Editors’ Choice Guerrilla Games. I’ve never seen an established studio pivot so radically, or so successfully. Horizon feels like the beginning of an entirely new chapter for the veteran studio. — Sid Shuman // SIEA Social Media Supergiant Games. This small, San Francisco-based studio exudes pure heart in their work in a way no other developer does. Pyre, their newest, is the culmination of the studio’s expertise thus far, marrying music, story, and visuals with a truly unique approach to gameplay. If you’re not familiar with Supergiant yet, you should be. — Justin Massongill // SIEA Social Media Square Enix. Our colleagues at Square Enix made a tremendous impact last year. Not only did they publish the riveting and critically acclaimed Nier: Automata, but the team behind Final Fantasy XIV continues to define world-class MMO development. The launch of Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood thrust the game in a new direction, with awe-inspiring villains and an overhaul of the combat system. Spectacular. — Ryan Clements// SIEA Social Media View the full article

Hey there PlayStation pals. It’s been a long while since I’ve had the pleasure of penning a PS Blog post – the last was when we launched TowerFall Ascension on PS Vita. Well, we’re finally back with a brand new game. Celeste is a single-player, narrative-driven platformer about climbing a mountain, and it’s launching on PS4 on January 25th for $19.99! Madeline is on a mission to climb Celeste Mountain, and it won’t be easy. The mountain spans over 700 levels packed with hardcore platforming challenges and devious secrets. Along the way Madeline will meet peculiar characters and confront her inner demons as she jumps, climbs, and air-dashes her way to the summit. Dedicated mountaineers can even unlock hidden B-Side chapters that will truly test the limits of their skill. If you’re not looking for a challenge, try playing in Assist Mode, which lets you toggle some powerful accessibility features to tune the game’s difficulty to whatever suits you. You can give yourself extra air dashes, slow the game speed, and more. We certainly designed Celeste to be a challenge, but we understand that every player is different and we want allow players from a wide range of skill levels to enjoy it. Celeste is a modern take on the classic action platformer. It’s a genre very close to our hearts, and we wanted to create something that pushes the genre – and our team – in a new direction. The result is a game that’s very personal and unlike anything else we’ve played. We can’t wait to share it with you, and we hope you’ll enjoy your time on Celeste Mountain. See you at the top! View the full article

Almost two years ago, Street Fighter V arrived on PS4, kicking off a new era of the legendary fighting game series. Two seasons of characters and two Capcom Cups later, Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition is on the horizon, bringing highly anticipated modes and fan-favorite characters to welcome in 2018! As we anxiously await the next chapter to arrive, we wanted to provide guidance for the many new features. Here are five things you need to check out for SFV: Arcade Edition. 1. Play the newest character, Sakura, for free from January 16 through the 23rd The Street Fighter series’ resident schoolgirl, Sakura, has graduated high school and now sports a more mature look that reflects her current job in an arcade. The best news is that Sakura will be free to play for all SFV: Arcade Edition and existing SFV players from January 16 through 23! Once you update your game with the Day 1 patch, Sakura can be used in all modes, including online play, so start taking notes as you go into battle with her. Please note that any Fight Money and EXP earned during this time as Sakura will disappear once the free period is over. However, if you choose to purchase her individually or as part of the Season 3 Character Pass at any time in the future, the respective Fight Money and EXP will automatically be granted to your account again. Sakura is the first character in Season 3 and will be joined by Blanka, Falke, Cody, G, and Sagat throughout 2018. If you purchase the Season 3 Character Pass, available for $29.99, you’ll immediately get all six characters once they become available. You’ll also receive their Battle Costumes with colors 3-10 and default costume colors 3-10 unlocked! In addition, if you purchase the Season 3 Character Pass in North America between 1/16 and 1/30, you’ll receive the nine bonus costumes below as a bonus. 2. Arcade Mode True to its name, SFV: Arcade Edition introduces an Arcade Mode unlike any the series has had before. We’ve created an experience that invites players to relive all 30 years of Street Fighter history. You’ll choose between six different paths that each represent a main title in the series. Each path remains true to its respective title, containing the relevant characters, costumes, and music, in order to further celebrate Street Fighter’s 30th anniversary year. If you’re connected to the internet, your Arcade Score will be uploaded to monthly leaderboards where the top player will receive a unique title, so make sure to practice! There are over 200 beautiful ending illustrations from various artists, which can be collected in Arcade Mode by fulfilling certain requirements. Here’s a sneak peek at one of these illustrations! 3. Extra Battle Mode Once you’re connected to the internet, you definitely need to check out Extra Battle, a new mode that lets you obtain unique costumes, titles, Fight Money, and EXP! In fact, the opportunity to obtain the spunky costume below is available right when SFV: AE launches. Rashid is dressed up as Viewtiful Joe from the Capcom series of the same name, which made its PlayStation debut on the PlayStation 2 in 2004. The unique costumes you can earn include these Crossover Costumes that feature your favorite SFV fighters dressed as characters from Capcom’s vast library of games. Unique costumes can be obtained during certain time periods in Extra Battle Mode by completing a series of challenges. Here’s another Crossover Costume to get you excited with Nash as Captain Commando from the game of the same name, which was available on PlayStation in 1998! Every few weeks, a Golden Shadaloo Soldier will appear that will offer a decent amount of Fight Money if you can defeat it. Be on the lookout for these particular Extra Battle Challenges and mark your calendars accordingly! 4. Team Battle Mode Do you have any friends or family coming over to check out SFV: AE with you? Team Battle Mode will be perfect to spark up some friendly competition. You can set up each local match to your liking, including the number of characters per team (up to 5), how much Vitality is recovered in between fights, if you want the matchups to be randomized, and much more. Team Battle Mode is also a completely viable option if you want to set up a team on your own or are trying to learn multiple characters at once since you can play against the CPU. V-Trigger IIs If you’re a returning player, one of the first things you may notice when selecting a character is the ability to choose between two V-Triggers. That’s because every character, including Sakura, now has a V-Trigger II, which can significantly alter their playstyles and open up potential they may not have had in the past. Head into Training Mode to see the new V-Trigger IIs in action and you may discover a new main! Or jump straight into an online match to surprise yourself! Updating Street Fighter V The Street Fighter V servers will be going down for maintenance in the early morning (Pacific Time) of January 16. The SFV: Arcade Edition patch and server maintenance will then be completed in the afternoon on the same day. After we have released the update, SFV: Arcade Edition disc owners must connect to the internet to receive the latest update, which includes Extra Battle Mode, Team Battle Mode and new balance changes. They’ll also be able to redeem the code that comes with the disc to unlock Character Pass 1 and 2 content. Current owners of Street Fighter V will also need to download the patch in order to update to SFV: Arcade Edition. Once the download is complete, all the aforementioned modes and changes will be present when booting up the game. We hope this rundown helps for when you first pop in the disc or update your game! The entire Street Fighter team is incredibly proud of how far the series has come over the years. Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition has plenty more to explore, so get ready to fight next week! View the full article

When we last spoke, N++ had just come out on PS4, and we were ecstatic. It was the debut of this long-awaited sequel to the arcade-style ninja platformer that was released in 2004 (N), finally in the hands of PlayStation fans, and there first! Since then, we’ve been busy adding to N++ and making it even bigger and more beautiful with the free Ultimate Edition update that launched just before the new year. Go grab it now! We’ll wait ;) The Ultimate Edition is what N+++ (3 plusses!) would look like, if there were ever going to be such a thing – with it added 60 beautiful new colour schemes, and a dozen or so dynamic ninja headbands, so that you can really feel the wind in your ninja hair, plus a whole bunch more delightful surprises. The big news is that we’ve doubled the size of the game, bringing it to an utterly unprecedented 4340 levels, AND there’s a brand new game mode called Hardcore. Hardcore Mode lets you see the levels you’ve beaten in a whole new light by grouping columns of episodes into Stories and tweaking the rules of the game, making every attempt matter and every death a nightmare scenario you’ll want to avoid at all costs! Hardcore is especially great for speedrunners, since it provides a nice neat challenge you can really sink your teeth into. Anyway, with this update, whenever you feel like dipping in, there will be new levels for you to play, effectively forever! One thing you may not know is that on average about 2-3 hours of work go into making each meticulously hand-crafted level, from start to finish. Since N++ is all about the levels, this is pretty important. The Ultimate Edition’s 4340 levels took about 10,000 hours of development time, just for level design and testing! That’s over 400 full days, or 1250 8-hour work days, spread out over 4 years of development. So how do we make sure each level feels great to play? Our level design secret-weapon is the wealth of knowledge we’ve amassed over the past decade of designing N games. This includes things like understanding the best ratio of enemies and objects to balance risk with reward, and how to best hide secrets (which, as you may know, is one of the biggest new things in N++). What sets N++ apart from other platformers is the way the ninja feels to control – at first floaty and slippery, but soon precise and acrobatic, as you get the hang of it. After so many years of playing and making levels, we know exactly how the ninja moves and accelerates, and what sort of momentum you can retain in every situation. This means that it’s easy for us to get an intuitive sense of what jumps are possible and what tile arrangements will feel great to move around on, which makes for some really stellar levels. But the levels look so simple, you might be thinking – why does it take so long to design them? Well, they really only look simple. We design each level in many layers, testing and retesting hundreds of times, trying to consider how different players (eg newbies, speedrunners, party-goers, highscorers, etc) with different goals and abilities will make their way through the level. Although N++ is a very challenging game, we try to accommodate a broad range of players, gently refining the level mechanics and goals until there’s a satisfying possibility for everyone. Our years of experience making levels and watching people play them helps us quickly grasp what works and what doesn’t. There are several standard goals/layers in each level, for example: just make it to the exit; get all the gold; find the secrets; etc. In most levels there are many, many ways that each goal can be attained. We want to support each player’s agency and individual personality, and let each choose their own path through the levels so that every success is really their own. Their highscore replay is preserved for all to see, which is one of our favourite parts of the game – watching replays is great, because if you’re stuck, you can get tips, and otherwise it’s just really enjoyable to see all the different play styles other players have! The heart of N++’s design is a delicate balance of challenge with reward, and tension with joy, so that players can really appreciate how their skills are developing as they play, and feel proud of themselves when they complete an exceptional task. It’s all about that thrill and satisfaction. That’s what makes N++ the game of “just one more try!” :) Why not try making an N++ level of your own, using the built-in level editor? Just choose “Create” from the main menu. When you’re done making and testing your level, publishing it will add it to the free global database of N++ levels, where you can challenge friends and players all over the world to try it. There are already over 30,000 levels and counting! So that’s the Ultimate Edition update, a smorgasbord of juicy levels. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE! Because we know you PS4 players have been waiting a long time for this update, we’re also releasing a free N++ Ultimate Edition PS4 theme we think you’ll enjoy. The theme should be out shortly, so keep your eyes peeled! Thanks for reading, we hope you continue to enjoy N++! Happy N Year (plus plus)! View the full article

Hello everyone, this is Kasumi Yogi from Bandai Namco Entertainment America Inc., and we are excited to light the bonfire once again with Dark Souls: Remastered. What does Dark Souls: Remastered bring to the table for long-time fans of the critically-acclaimed action role-playing game series? You can return to Lordran to re-experience the original Dark Souls in 4K resolution and HDR lighting when playing on PS4 Pro. Whether you’re a die-hard fan of the Dark Souls series, or someone looking to take their first plunge into the series, you can experience an epic, dark fantasy universe stricken by the Curse in stunning, high-definition detail running at 60 FPS. Explore and build your character to create a unique gameplay experience with a wide variety of weapons, armor, and magic. Do you want to mercilessly slash away at your enemies, or devastate them with powerful spells? I say: Why not both? Not only are the graphics getting an upgrade, but fans of the multiplayer experience in Dark Souls are also getting a treat in Dark Souls: Remastered. Instead of 1-4 players, six people can gather to either support or betray each other, finding a home among nine covenants online with dedicated servers. Which allegiance will you choose? In this world, death is to be expected. From your first steps to complete mastery, refine your skills in battle. Learn to strategize freely and experience the rewarding taste of overcoming fearsome, daunting foes! We can’t wait for you to roll and fight your way through powerful demons and tricky traps in Dark Souls: Remastered on May 25, 2018. Just remember: You are never truly safe in the world of Lordran. View the full article

Strikers Edge was originally born from a “game development marathon” hosted at the Lisbon Global Game Jam back in 2014. It was raw, unpolished and ugly, but the main mechanic was there: shooting weapons at each other to take down your opponent. We saw its potential at the very beginning; it felt unique and easy to pick up, while offering an almost hidden complexity that versus fighting games usually offer. But above all, each match felt intense. With so much going on, every spear shot and skillful dodge felt like a clutch moment. Moving forward with the concept required us to think everything through. In this PlayStation.Blog post we’ll talk about two of the many, many aspects we improved since that game jam back in the day: the gameplay and the theme, while designing for intensity. Strikers Edge is a versus game that thrives on clutch moments and the intensity of each match. We wanted to maximize these feelings to provide “WOW” emotions and moments. We always came back to the wow moment that was Street Fighter 3rd Strike’s “Moment #37” and asked ourselves: “Can Strikers Edge provide even a small amount of the feeling this moment is about? Even for less technically experienced players?” We had an idea that was able to provide its share of wow moments: slow-motion. It works simply by momentarily slowing down time when someone is about the get a fatal hit. This ended up working great for multiple reasons: It acknowledges a clutch moment in the match, dramatizes that moment and creates emotion, putting people on the edge of their seats. So far, nothing surprising here, as that’s what slow-motion effects are designed to do. However,in Strikers Edge, we chose to activate the slow-motion effect before the weapon hits its target, making what seems to be an artifice a full-fledged gameplay mechanic. It gives the player in disadvantage an opportunity to turn things around by allocating him/her more time to react and avoid death. This, in return, allows time for the attacking player to outsmart their low-health enemy. This is where mind games come into play! There are few things more satisfying than blocking an incoming charged attack during a slow-motion moment. Conversely, there are few things more frustrating than dodging a fatal spear just to receive another well-timed attack from your opponent at the moment of your recovery. On top of the slow-motion mechanic, we added other little interactions that ended up adding to the game’s intensity potential. Here are just a few examples: Projectiles collide with each other in mid-air. Arena elements and occasional events protect, damage, push or slow you down. The high-risk, high-reward mechanic of charging an attack, slowing you down and temporarily disabling dodges and blocks in the process for an increased output damage and a special ability. Yet, for Strikers Edge to be as intense as we meant it to be, we had to find a theme for our game that would frame everything. It was clear from the beginning that ranged combat was core to the game. We wanted to make it somehow physical, making the player feel like every hit made a difference. Most of all, we wanted Strikers Edge to feel intense. Guns wouldn’t cut it, since bullets travel too fast and we needed something that was slow enough for players to dodge. The answer was obvious: the first prototype had spears, so it felt natural to keep going with ranged and melee weapons. Everything from axes, spears, javelins, shuriken, knives, even stones, among others, made it to our list of possible weapons. With this list we immediately started thinking about all kinds of warriors who could use these in combat, as well as what kinds of unique abilities they would have. This stage of development was super fun and it would have been easy to get carried away and lose focus, so we established a theme: medieval fantasy. It’s a theme that can host lots of different kinds of warriors without them feeling out of context. You can imagine a Ninja fighting a Viking and find it much more credible than, say, an Egyptian warrior against a modern-day Marine. We were quite happy with the theme and intensity the characters, their potential background and their weapons could bring to the fray. With the medieval fantasy theme sorted out, it became easier to come up with and justify characters, abilities, events, locations and everything about the world. Looking back, I’m proud of the team here at Fun Punch Games and the progress we’ve made. We hope you’ll enjoy playing Strikers Edge as much as we enjoyed making it. Here’s to clutch moments and those “WOW” feelings that have kept us gaming and creating. See you online when Strikers Edge launches on January 30. View the full article

It’s an exciting time at Squad’s Mission Control facility as we are getting ready to launch Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition on PS4 on January 16. We’ve partnered with the talented and experienced team at BlitWorks to develop this new PS4 version from the ground up that includes a bunch of enhancements for performance, user interface, and all-new controller layouts to improve your experience playing the game. Additionally, the previous version of KSP was only available on PS4 in America, but we’re pleased to announce that PlayStation fans around the world can enjoy Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition! The main challenge in bringing a game like KSP from PC to PS4 is making sure the game is just as fun to play with a controller as it is with a mouse and keyboard. So in addition to putting in a lot of essential work on optimization to improve the game’s performance on PS4, we focused on finding the best way to map keyboard actions to a controller. We made sure to do this in a way that feels natural and intuitive for PS4 players. These changes include updates to the UI that make the game easier to play from the couch, the addition of a new control scheme for the maneuver node controls, and three completely reworked controller presets that players will be able to switch between at any time during play. We know that one control scheme won’t satisfy the preferences of every PS4 player, so KSP Enhanced Edition comes with three options: Cursor Returning KSP players on PS4 might have gotten used to the previous control scheme, so the Cursor preset keeps things familiar for veteran players while adding a few enhancements as well. Radial We also wanted to revamp the Cursor preset by making a lot of low-priority or low-usage commands available on radial menus, instead of requiring the player to do a lot of cursor-mode pointing and clicking. So the Radial preset uses a lot of actions of the Cursor preset while incorporating radial menus that speed up the access to different commands. Simplified We also created the Simplified preset, an entirely new control scheme designed to be easier to pick up and play with a controller. The UI was rewritten and we implemented region navigation and a “look-at” system that allows players to access all sub-menus and tweakables without the use of a cursor at all. With this control scheme, the cursor has been replaced with a reticle in the middle of the screen; players can move the screen behind the reticle, rather than moving the reticle itself. We think PS4 players who are new to KSP will especially enjoy the Simplified preset. For those of you familiar with KSP already, Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition is built from the 1.2.2 Loud and Clear release. This means it comes with plenty of extra features and goodness in addition to the overall improvements on PS4, including new communication network capabilities between the Kerbal Space Center and launched spacecraft, an overhaul to the SAS system that assists your flight stability, and much more. Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition will be free for anyone who already owns the previous version of KSP on PS4. We’re excited to see all of you PS4 players in orbit when Kerbal Space Program Enhanced Edition launches next Tuesday. Happy launchings! View the full article

You may have already seen the top downloads list for the year of 2017, but we are now back to our regularly scheduled monthly charts. Welcome! Here are the lists for the month of December 2017, featuring a respectably strong debut from Boneloaf’s extra-floppy platform brawler Gang Beasts. These charts are sorted by number of downloads from PlayStation Store, rather than total revenue, and free-to-play games are not included (though we’re looking to add a separate chart for those in future installments of this post). Any predictions for January’s list? PS4 Games 1 Call of Duty: WWII 2 Gang Beasts 3 Star Wars Battlefront II 4 Grand Theft Auto V 5 Madden NFL 18 6 EA Sports FIFA 18 7 Need for Speed Payback 8 Rocket League 9 Human Fall Flat 10 NBA 2K18 PS4 Add-ons 1 Destiny 2 – Expansion I: Curse of Osiris 2 Destiny 2 – Expansion Pass 3 Ark: Aberration 4 Call of Duty: WWII – Season Pass 5 Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds 6 Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege – Year 3 Pass 7 Battlefield 1 Premium Pass 8 Rocket League – Fast & Furious ’99 Nissan Skyline GT-R R34 9 Rocket League – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Car Pack 10 Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege – Year 2 Pass PS VR Games 1 Job Simulator 2 PlayStation VR Worlds 3 Superhot VR 4 Accounting+ 5 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR 6 Driveclub VR 7 Doom VFR 8 Arizona Sunshine 9 Weeping Doll 10 Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul PS Vita Games 1 Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater – HD Edition 2 Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty – HD Edition 3 Minecraft: PS Vita Edition 4 Undertale 5 God of War: Collection 6 Muramasa Rebirth Complete Collection 7 Papers, Please 8 Jak and Daxter Collection 9 VA-11 HALL-A 10 Monster Monpiece PS4 Themes 1 Legacy Dashboard Theme 2 BioShock: The Collection Theme 3 Blue-eyed Wolf Theme 4 Christmas Village Dynamic Theme 5 Assassin’s Creed Origins – Dynamic Theme 6 Friday the 13th: The Game Theme 7 Dragon King Encounter HiQ Dynamic Theme 8 Gamers Don’t Die Dynamic Theme 9 Undertale Dynamic Theme (Ruins) 10 Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege Operation White Noise Theme PS Classics 1 Destroy All Humans! 2 2 Destroy All Humans! 3 Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas 4 Bully 5 Star Ocean Till The End Of Time 6 Red Faction II 7 Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy 8 Psychonauts 9 The Warriors 10 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City View the full article

After his losses in Bavaria, Doktor Straub has shifted his focus to a secluded island off the coast of northern Germany. He’s working there to finalize his plans for an undead assault on the Allied Forces, one that will change the course of history. The Darkest Shore follows our intrepid heroes into the next chapter of their dangerous and horrifying Nazi Zombies journey. Only days after the disaster in Mittelburg, the crew arrives at an island blanketed in fog and rich in occult history. A tactically important naval base for the Axis, the island is surrounded by air and sea power – and of course crawling with the undead. Pre-order at PlayStation Store Marie, Drostan, Olivia, and Jefferson will need to fight off legions of war-ready zombies, as well as survive Nazi airstrikes, strafing runs, and naval artillery barrages. As waves of thick fog roll across the island, the team will need to strategically time their stealth, melee, and gun-blazing assaults to avoid the horrors that hide in the fog. Luckily, the team will have powerful new tools at their disposal. Their time in Mittelburg has taught them how to combine mundane weapons with the enigmatic new energies of the undead for lethal results. And our heroes will need all the help they can get, because Straub has more secrets hidden away in the wet roots of this island. New threats, new traps, and new undead monstrosities, which are more cunning, quick, and even more bloodthirsty than before. Pre-order Call of Duty: WWII – The Resistance: DLC Pack 1 to ensure you don’t miss a single moment of the most terrifying chapter of Nazi Zombies to date. Your pre-order ensures you’ll get The Darkest Shore, as well as three new Multiplayer maps and an all new objective-based War Mode Mission, Operation Intercept. The Resistance: DLC Pack 1 arrives first on PlayStation 4 on Tuesday, January 30. View the full article

Dissidia Final Fantasy NT is a new brawler from Square Enix and Koei Tecmo coming to PS4 on 30th January. Known in arcades across Japan as Dissidia Final Fantasy, the latest installment of the fighting franchise features three-versus-three combat and a roster full of characters from all ages of the Final Fantasy saga. Ahead of the open beta kicking off this Friday, January 12th, we sat down with producer Ichiro Hazama to find out what makes this team-based fighting game so unique. 1. Dissidia NT was built from the ground up for PS4 “We actually designed for PS4 right from the start, when we made the arcade version. We went to Sony at the beginning of the development and asked them if we could put customized PlayStation 4 hardware in the arcade cabinets themselves. They agreed, so while the hardware the arcade version is running on is not exactly the same as the home console – it’s been a little customized for arcades — within each arcade cabinet in Japan there is actually a PS4! “Since the game was already created for PS4, we’ve focused on different things for the home version. One of the things we really felt was important was the story. Having a roster of characters drawn from all titles of the Final Fantasy series is such a good opportunity for a great story and this is what we have put the most effort into.” 2. Dissidia isn’t just for Final Fantasy fans “We do believe that Final Fantasy is what makes Dissidia NT so great, but we wouldn’t make a game that you can’t enjoy unless you know Final Fantasy. “If you put aside Final Fantasy, you have this three-vs-three battle system and fun-filled matches taking quite a short amount of time — games comes to a conclusion in about 3 and a half minutes — and I don’t think there’s ever been a game before that worked on that kind of system. So, even without the Final Fantasy bits, I think that system alone will be a lot of fun for new players.” 3. Dissidia NT features characters from every era of Final Fantasy “A very important thing for us is that the fans of the Final Fantasy series feel that the characters we’ve chosen work in Dissidia; that they truly feel like the characters from their original games. We’ve put a lot of focus into this aspect. “With some of the earliest Final Fantasy characters — FFI to FFIII for example — the amount known about them is actually very limited and we had very little to work with. “To overcome this and make these well-rounded characters, we’ve looked for all the clues we could from the original games – not just the graphics, the sprites and what you see externally from the game, but also the very detailed character illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano and all the little bits of info in them. From this, our creative director Tetsuya Nomura helped us flesh out the models and worked to make them a little bit more up to date. “But of course there’s more than their appearance. For example, on one of the characters there was a little line that said “he is the master of using different weapons” which led us to a lot of internal discussion along the lines of: ‘if this guy can use all the weapons, what kind of attacks would he have?’ So we imagined it and created a character setting from there. “This was something we started way back with Dissidia on PSP, and we’ve been adjusting with feedback from the players.” 4. Every character is different, but some can help you learn the ropes “Of all of Dissidia’s characters, Final Fantasy VII’s Cloud Strife is pretty much the easiest to learn. He’s great for people starting out with the game because he’s very straight-forward and his techniques are easy to understand. “He is also a very popular character, not only because he is the main character from the first PlayStation Final Fantasy, but also because of how his moves and attacks from the original game have been translated to Dissidia. “Then you’ve got Squall Leonheart and Sephiroth which, in the hands of very skilled players, can be absolute monsters to take down. If you’ve got a really good player with one of these two characters, they can overwhelm you in no time at all! “Of course, one-on-one, some characters can be stronger than others but because it’s a 3-vs-3 game, we look at the balancing from a team-fight perspective. Our director Takeo Kujiraoka is the one in charge of that, and I did notice that every time we add a new character he loses some weight. By the time the game comes out, he’ll have probably lost even more! (laughs)” 5. The arenas evolve as the battle rages on “My personal favorite arena is probably Besaid Island from Final Fantasy X. It’s a beautiful stage with the island and the sea but what I really love is how this stage recreates the scene from its original game. You can see the little inlets in the ocean, remember that specific treasure chest located right there, or simply reminisce on the ambiance of the game. “As the battle progresses there are a lot of things and effects that will slowly transform the stage and the scenery. In Besaid Island you’ll be able to see the fireflies floating across the horizon around the middle of the battle, for example.” 6. You will fight to your favorite Final Fantasy tracks… “The music of Final Fantasy has always been a huge part of the series success, and because of this, we’ve actually got a lot of the original tracks from the games, untouched, in Dissidia. But we’ve also asked Takeharu Ishimoto, Dissidia’s original composer, to rearrange some other Final Fantasy tracks. “A lot of times, when you ask people to rearrange music from Final Fantasy, they respect it so much that they only change a little bit of it and it’s not very different from the original, but I made sure that he made very radical rearrangements of them so he could create something new and interesting for Dissidia. 7. …but not always the ones you expect “Obviously Dissidia is all about battles, so most of the tracks we have chosen from Final Fantasy are battle themes or battle-related tracks. But we have also played around a little bit! “We have added quite a few tracks that are absolutely not battle-related, just to see how they’d work during fights. We’ve got “Pa-paya theme” from Final Fantasy XIV, for example, as well as “Gold Saucer Theme” from Final Fantasy VII. “Imagine the surprise: you have the two teams presented in this very epic way and they’re about to fight each other… Cloud is there with his massive sword… and suddenly you hear the Gold Saucer theme tune! It helps alleviate the tension right away!” View the full article

An earlier version of this post incorrectly mentioned that Yakuza titles will be available on PS Now. The post has been corrected. It’s officially 2018, and hot on the heels of last month’s batch of new PlayStation Now games, including Dishonored and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, is a slew of PlayStation exclusive games this month ready to stream to your PS4 and PC. As of today, PS Now features more than 600 games — with more than 120 PS4 games. The $9.99 1st month intro offer (US only) and the $99.99 12-month subscription are still available, so now’s the time to jump in and give it a try, or lock in your subscription for another 12 months. Act fast because these offers end February 6. Additionally, some users will start to see a new PS Now app interface roll out over the coming weeks. The interface update should make the app smoother and easier to use. Stay tuned for more on this update in next month’s blog post when we’ll also be introducing NBA 2K16. New This Month First up this month is Until Dawn, the acclaimed horror game where your choices determine who survives, and who dies. With branching storylines and multiple outcomes, guide eight friends through a deadly night at a remote mountain retreat. In Gravity Rush Remastered, the PS4 remake of the award-winning PS Vita game, gain a new perspective as Kat, a strong-willed girl trying to protect her future in a world that’s crumbling to pieces. With incredible gravity-altering abilities, Kat is the only one who can salvage the floating city of Hekseville — if only she could remember who she is… From Santa Monica Studio comes Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture, a non-linear, open-world narrative experience that tells the story of a remote English valley town shrouded in mystery. Piece together the fateful events from the fragmentary memories of the former inhabitants through revolutionary environmental storytelling. What you see and hear is just as important as what you do. Enjoy frantic top-down twin-stick arcade action in Alienation. With hordes of alien creatures swarming across the planet, work together with up to three friends locally and/or online (PS Plus not required when playing online via PS Now) to drive back the alien threat and save the world. Some of developer Housemarque’s other hit titles are also available on PS Now, including Resogun, Super Stardust HD, and Dead Nation. Knack is a colorful platformer/brawler for one to two players. As Knack, collect powerful ancient relics to grow bigger and more powerful and help fight off the invading goblin army. But the ancient relics hold secrets and mysteries that could put all of humankind in danger… Quantic Dream is a studio known for their gripping, narrative-driven experiences. The PS3 versions of both Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls have been part of the PS Now library for a while, and starting today you can play the PS4 versions of both games in PS Now. Here are all the new games available to stream on PS4 and PC starting January 9. New PS4 Games Until Dawn Gravity Rush Remastered Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture Alienation Knack Fat Princess Adventures Shadow of the Beast Escape Plan Hardware Rivals PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate PS3 > PS4 Updates Beyond: Two Souls Heavy Rain Super Stardust Ultra Hohokum Entwined Counterspy Here are the most popular games on the service in December: Red Dead Redemption The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Mortal Kombat WWE 2K16 Fallout: New Vegas The Last of Us Mafia II Injustice: Gods Among Us Sonic Generations Dishonored 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 more than 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. For new subscribers in the U.S. that want to take advantage of the $9.99 intro offer, you will need to purchase that directly, as the 7-day trial will transition into the standard monthly subscription. Stay tuned for more updates on PS Now, and happy gaming! View the full article

The Station drops you into a sci-fi mystery, serving up cosmic questions to ponder and problems to solve. Over a newly-discovered planet home to a hostile alien race, orbits a research space station. However, it has suddenly gone dark – all communication has ceased and the vessel’s stealth systems have shut off entirely. As a recon specialist sent to investigate the dark, ominous, puzzle-filled station, your only tools are your wits and the clues revealed through your augmented reality heads-up display (AR HUD). What you discover may have you questioning your ethics, morality, and beliefs. Welcome to the AR world of The Station. Your character is equipped with an AR device that feeds you audio and visual materials on board. Each crew member of the station was implanted with a device that would record moments during their mission. These audio logs were triggered by physiological reactions to stress and emotions. Your AR device renders these recordings as points of interests in the physical space. Discovering these orbs scattered around the station will reveal a crew member’s thoughts, decisions, and on occasion, their intimate desires. The information from these orbs will help you piece together what exactly went wrong. All your findings and discoveries are recorded in your TAB menu. This menu exists as a virtual object in space that you can interact with to find your map, inventory, and objectives. Provided you have enough room, at any time you can drop the menu in front of you at the press of the button. Feel free to walk around it, leave it, return to it, or drop it somewhere else. There’s no need for a journal when you have movable digital representation of your thoughts with you at all times. Additionally, the AR device displays the virtual notes left in the corridors, labs, and personal rooms by crew members. The crew left these messages around the vessel as public virtual messages for each other. Devices on the Station will also interact with your AR device, feeding you information and showing what life was like onboard in better times. The virtual signage will also help you interact with the Station, assisting with both navigation and puzzles. In many ways, the Station is as much of a character as the crew itself. The AR device is the only way to access information that will get you deeper and deeper into the Station’s systems, and closer to the heart of the mystery. The technology behind the AR HUD has been a challenge design, but we think you’ll enjoy using it to discover the hidden depths of the Station. It’s been difficult to keep these secrets to ourselves, but you’ll be able to untangle the web we’ve weaved for you on February 20. View the full article