Ubisoft has delayed the shutdown date of several multiplayer servers for some of its games. The shutdowns were supposed to go into effect on September 1, but now they will stay up for an additional month, shutting down on October 1 instead.
"Decommissioning online services for older games is something we do not take lightly, but it is also a necessity as the technology that drove those services becomes obsolete," Ubisoft says in an update to the original post. "Over the last month, our teams have been hard at work exploring what is possible to reduce disruption."
The games which will continue seeing online services include:
Assassin’s Creed II
Assassin’s Creed III
Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Assassin’s Creed Revelations
Assassin’s Creed Liberation HD
Driver San Francisco
Far Cry 3
Ghost Recon Future Soldier
Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
Rayman Legends
Silent Hunter 5
Splinter Cell: Blacklist
ZombiU
The only exception to the new shutdown date is Space Junkies, which will have its servers turned off on September 1 as planned.
Furthermore, the team over at Ubisoft Mainz will push out an update to Anno 2070 that will upgrade and replace its old servers so players can enjoy the online components.
For PC players, Ubisoft notes to activate any single-player DLC for the affected games before the servers close on October 1 so that they can continue playing it after the date. Console players will see no impact on access to single-player DLC.
Note that the server shutdowns are only for the original PC, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 versions of the games. Any newer ones such as Far Cry 3 Classic Edition for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One or Assassin’s Creed III Remastered will not be affected.
2022 has seen quite a few multiplayer server shutdowns, including Killzone Shadowfall earlier this month.
George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @yinyangfooey
Upcoming survival horror Sons of the Forest has been delayed until next year.
According to developer Endnight Games, the upcoming sequel to The Forest has been pushed back to allow the team to polish the game.
“Due to the scope of our new game Sons Of The Forest, it has been hard to pinpoint an exact release date, and today we have to delay one last time” they stated via Twitter. “Giving us time to complete the polish we feel is needed, we will release Feb 23, 2023, priced at $29.99USD.”
Hey Everyone,
Due to the scope of our new game Sons Of The Forest, it has been hard to pinpoint an exact release date, and today we have to delay one last time.
Giving us time to complete the polish we feel is needed, we will release Feb 23, 2023, priced at $29.99USD. pic.twitter.com/9SmeLelmj6
Sons of the Forest promises more unnerving gameplay as a direct sequel to The Forest – the 2014 survival horror that follows the story of Eric LeBlanc – a plane crash survivor who’s forced to fight off cannibalistic monsters while searching for his son, Timmy.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time the sequel has been delayed.
Sons of the Forest was already pushed back three months from its initial release date – a shame since the recent trailer paints such an impressively horrific picture. Clearly inspired by the likes of The Descent and Cannibal Holocaust, it’s a sure pick for horror fans everywhere.
But you’ll have to wait a little while longer before you get to check it out.
IGN’s review of The Forest gave it 8.4/10 and said: “I’ve never been terrorized, stalked, or fascinated by enemy AI quite like I was in The Forest. It’s a harrowing survival ordeal that knows how to play with tension and create the sense of a real world with complex inner workings and mysteries I was eager to discover. It’s I Am Legend told in the depths of the hinterlands, with a meaningful story progression that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Disregard the warnings on the walls and hidden between the trees at your own peril – and if you want a unique and memorable survival horror experience, then you should absolutely dare to do so.”
Sony has announced the PlayStation Plus games for September 2022 are Need for Speed Heat, Granblue Fantasy: Versus, and Toem. Revealed on the PlayStation Blog, all three games will be made available at no extra cost to all PlayStation Plus subscribers on September 6.
Need for Speed Heat is the third game in the reimagined series that kicked off in 2015, taking players to the roads of the fictional Floridian metropolis of Palm City. Heat centres around a day and night cycle that brings out different style of racing, with the player required to master both clean street races and gritty battles with rogue police.
We much preferred this one to Need for Speed 2015 and its sequel, Payback, as in our 8/10 review, IGN said: "Need for Speed Heat is a mosaic of existing ideas but it is easily the most impressive Need for Speed game in years."
Granblue Fantasy: Versus is a different vibe entirely. This four-button Japanese fighting game is made up of light, medium, and heavy attacks — alongside a character-specific finisher similar to Street Fighter 5's V-Skills — and it's automatically implemented combos make it one of the best entry points to the fighting genre out there.
IGN said it was great, as "it smartly balances considerations for more casual fighting game players without ever stepping on the toes of its hardcore audience."
Finally, the most niche of the three new games is Toem: A Photo Adventure, a hand-drawn adventure game centred around the delights of photography. Intended to be a relaxed and charming puzzler, it certainly appeared to accomplish that goal as IGN also gave it an 8/10 in our review.
"Toem is a short, satisfying little photography adventure packed with witty writing, goofy yet grounded characters, and a wealth of interesting, picturesque moments to capture," we said. "Though simple to complete, its diorama-like maps, cartoon style, and pleasing music and sounds make it an inviting world to stay in long enough to uncover all its secrets."
Sony also unveiled the new games coming to its PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium Games Catalogue on September 20, headlined this month by Deathloop, which IGN called a masterpiece. The full list of games also includes:
Assassin’s Creed Origins
Watch Dogs 2
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2
Spiritfarer: Farewell Edition
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Monster Energy Supercross 5
Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX
Rabbids Invasion: The Interactive TV Show
Rayman Legends
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game
A handful of games are also coming to the Classic Games Catalogue for PlayStation Plus Premium members. The full list of games, which will also be available on September 20, can be seen below:
When I first took the controls of Tchia in my hands-on preview at Gamescom, I immediately took control of a fish in a river and propelled myself through the water, shooting out and up into the air above to do a flip, then back down into the stream. I eventually ran out of stamina to possess the fish, so I returned to human form and recharged while jogging toward a small settled area, where I resumed possession by leaping into an empty beer can and flinging myself all over the place. Later, I possessed a cow and was able to drop a large turd on the ground, before hopping into a bird and soaring through the sky.
These are the contrasts of Tchia, which swings elegantly between Prop Hunt-like sandbox and Wind Waker-like island adventure. Set on an archipelago inspired by Pacific island nation, New Caledonia, Tchia follows the titular young heroine in pursuit of her father, who is kidnapped by a tyrant wielding an army of animated paper warriors. Tchia herself isn’t a fighter, but she’s both resourceful and spiritually powerful. Her most potent ability is soul jumping, which she can use to possess any animal or most objects, tapping into their powers to reach new areas, solve problems, or ward off enemies.
Soul jumping was by far the best surprise of my time with Tchia. Every animal I saw, from fish to rabbits to birds to deer, was controllable if I wanted, and so were random objects littering human settlements. Every target has its own unique ability alongside its specific movement mechanics, which can open Tchia up to some pretty wacky scenarios.
Some soul jumps were more useful than others, admittedly, since flying allowed me to reach places I couldn’t otherwise. On the other hand, I haven’t found a good reason for the cow to take giant poos every few seconds. But I’m reassured that there is a purpose for everything, and with over 30 animals and hundreds of objects promised, I imagine I’ll spend an inordinate amount of time happily experimenting with different soul jumps in the full game.
Soul jumping was by far the best surprise of my time with Tchia.
If soul jumping made Tchia feel more like prop hunt, then it was prop hunt set in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Much of my time outside of other creatures’ bodies was spent exploring a beautiful island, leaping off cliffs and drifting down with my glider, climbing palm trees, and sailing about on a raft that I (clumsily at first) controlled by physically swapping Tchia between unfurling the sail and adjusting the rudder to steer. Dotted across the island, I found chests with collectible cosmetics and other little trinkets, minigames, and other points of interest worth going out of my way for, though oftentimes the view from the top of the cliff I had climbed to was enough to warrant the journey up. And with soul jumping, movement around the island was easy and free flowing, which enticed me to explore even more.
At the end of a path through a canyon I stumbled upon an encampment of the paper enemies that kidnapped Tchia’s father. Tchia herself doesn’t use weapons from what I can tell, but paper enemies are fortunately susceptible to being burned. I leapt into an oil lantern in the middle of the camp and immediately set one of three foes ablaze, but the other two were alerted to my presence and eventually chased me out of the lantern. We played a few rounds of cat and mouse before I took over a coconut, rolled it into the still smoldering blaze from my initial incendiary endeavors, lit myself up, and rammed into the remaining two enemies. Problem solved. It’s a fun combat trick, and while I’m curious if the fiery focus will wear out its welcome over the full course of Tchia, there’s enough going on in terms of soul jumping variations that I have reason to expect there’s more to this unusual combat system than what I’ve seen.
After exploring and burning my foes to cinders, the third main highlight of Tchia was its musical moments. Tchia plays ukulele, and can pull it out anywhere and play a little tune that isn't unlike Link’s ocarina, with specific combinations of buttons corresponding to different songs. There are songs to change the weather, to summon animals you can use for soul jumping, to shift the time of day, and more. But beyond that, Tchia will also play in rhythm game segments for key story moments – in one moment, she played along with her friend singing. There’s an option to autoplay these if you want, and there’s no scoring or penalty for playing poorly, but I enjoyed both the beautiful moment of the two friends making music together as well as the pace and challenge of the rhythm game that went with it. The handful of notes I dropped felt more authentic than jarring or messy.
What I saw of Tchia this week was joyful – a world of people, creatures, and nature seen through the eyes of a child. Though I can’t personally speak to how well it pulls off its representation of New Caledonia, Awaceb’s studio founders are originally from the region, and it’s voiced by local talent in traditional languages with subtitles – so there’s plenty to be confident about there. What I’m most curious about is how the lighthearted sandbox island world will ultimately play with Tchia’s story, which seems somewhat at odds with bouncing around the island as a beer can. But perhaps not – it’s a coming-of-age story after all, and there’s something refreshing about walking in the shoes of a jubilant heroine who still sees everything in front of her as an opportunity for a new adventure.
Sony and Tencent have increased their stake in Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, now owning over 30% of the company between them.
Sony now owns 14.09 percent of the company while Tencent, via its Sixjoy subsidiary, now owns 16.25 percent. FromSoftware clearly aims to capitalize on this increased investment, with majority stakeholder Kadokawa issuing the following statement:
“FromSoftware decided to conduct the Third-Party Allotment to Sixjoy within the Tencent Group, which has strength in its capabilities to develop and deploy mobile games and other network technologies in the global market including China, and SIE within the Sony Group, which has strength in its capabilities to deploy IP in games, videos and various other media in the global market, concurrently and separately.”
However, Kadokawa, which still owns 69.66 percent of FromSoftware, also asserted the company will double down on creating its own IP.
“FromSoftware will aim to proactively invest in development of more powerful game IP for itself to strengthen FromSoftware’s development capabilities and will seek to establish a framework that allows the expansion of the scope of its own publishing in the significantly growing global market.”
Elden Ring is just the latest in FromSoftware’s long list of popular games. The likes of Bloodborne, Dark Souls, and Sekiro have catapulted the studio to become one of the most popular developers in the world, with Elden Ring becoming one of the 10 best-selling games in US history. Not a bad investment for Sony and Tencent.
Of course, Elden Ring is clearly a big part of FromSoftware’s plans going forward. One of the company’s best-selling games, it also managed to secure the biggest YouTube launch in history with a staggering 3 billion views in just 60 days. Back in March, publisher Bandai Namco and FromSoftware released a joint statement calling the game “a fantastic start for the new franchise.”
“Much effort was placed into creating Elden Ring so that we could exceed the expectations of our fans worldwide," said Bandai Namco boss Yasuo Miyakawa. "In like manner, we will continue our efforts in expanding the brand beyond the game itself, and into everyone's daily life.”
Clearly, there’s more Elden Ring to come in the long term, and that’s likely a big reason why both Sony and Tencent are keen to increase their stake in the company.
When that will appear remains to be seen. Want some help tackling Elden Ring? Check out our full walkthrough for help playing through the game, and look up our boss guides if you’re having trouble with these major boss fights.
Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him onTwitter.
Many Half-Life projects have never come to fruition, from Half-Life 2: Episode 3, to spin-offs that never reached development. Thanks to some new concept art, we at least know what they could have looked like.
2K developer and Half-Life fan David McGreavy (via Kotaku) has released a selection of never-before-seen images from the long-awaited Half-Life 2: Episode 3 – confirming some previously-released plot points – not to mention a game idea that never saw the light of day.
Although McGreavy never worked on Half-Life 2, he has become a an avid collector, and found himself in possession of concept art that give us a glimpse into the chapter of Half-Life 2 that never came to be.
Spending my Sunday scanning and archiving my collection of #Valve concept art.
— David McGreavy 🔜 PAX West (@DominusNoctis) April 25, 2022
Back in April, McGreavy teased the never-before-seen artwork as he began cataloging his Valve collection, with new additions from a former Valve employee looking to downsize their collection. The most immediately interesting part is the slug-like creature at the top left.
That's 'BreenGrub' – a large, slug-like creature that fans will recognize almost immediately due to its name. Half-Life 2 villain Dr. Wallace Breen appeared throughout Half-Life 2 and was seen falling to his death after Gordon Freeman destroyed the reactor at the top of the Citadel. During Episodes 1 and 2 he only appears in flashbacks. Nevertheless, it looks as though he would have returned in Episode 3 after a video recording in Episode 2 mentions a transfer into a “host body”. It’s just not the kind of host body he might have preferred.
The once-human Dr. Breen was going to have his conscious mind transferred into a slug-like creature at the behest of the Combine – becoming a prisoner who would have been found by Alyx and Gordon during the events of Episode 3. How do we know that? Well, this gorgeous (but pretty gross) concept art confirms a plot revealed by former Half-Life 2 writer Marc Laidlaw before he left the company in 2016.
The plot, as revealed by Laidlaw, would have seen heroes Alyx and Gordon traveling to the Borealis – an Aperture Science vessel in a perpetual state of flux, phasing in and out of existence. The Combine, who set up base around it, have meanwhile transferred Breen’s mind into the aforementioned slug-like creature… and begs Alyx and Gordon to kill him.
Although Laidlaw has asserted that his version of events is “0% official” after he left the company, it’s nevertheless a fascinating glimpse into what might have been.
Additionally, McGreavy released scans of other concept art for Half-Life 2: Episode 3 that include post-apocalyptic vistas and a coastline covered in debris.
However, the two pieces of concept art showing Alyx Vance and robot companion, Dog were not from Episode 3 at all. Instead, McGreavy told Kotaku that these were part of a spin-off attempt that would have been entirely separate from both Half-Life 2: Episode 3 and the never-released Half-Life 3.
We can only guess at what that spin-off might have been for now.
High-res scans of Half-Life 2: Episode 3/Half-Life 3 concept art (previously teased by @DominusNoctis as part of his *extensive* Valve collection).
A huge thanks to David for sharing these with us and the community 🙏
Half-Life 2 was a landmark moment in game development, with IGN’s review saying: “It sets the standard in all areas, especially the use of physics as a gameplay tool instead of merely a visual treat for gamers." It was followed by two extra episodes, with a cliffhanger for a third. However, it took until 2020 for Valve to tell us why Episode Three was never made.
Despite food playing such a big role in Minecraft, few people go out of their way to design a fully furnished kitchen for their homes. Whilst they don’t serve a literal functional purpose, they do allow for a higher level of RP and allow you to dedicate specific areas of your home to certain tasks. Do you want to have visitors and host people over a long table, GoT-style? Do you want a basic, cute kitchen all to yourself?
As you plan out a kitchen design, your choice will depend on what matters most to you, such as lighting, aesthetic, size and location. From medieval tables to outdoor tropical buffets; from bar kitchens to BBQs, there's a kitchen waiting to be built in your world.
See our top Minecraft kitchen ideas right now to get you started.
1. Cabin Corner Kitchen
Depending on the type of home you’ve built, a simplistic design might benefit you. Sometimes less is more! Going with mostly wooden materials, Flower Pots with mushrooms and plants, mood lighting using Lanterns, and using a Netherrack fire or Campfire as the cooking area, you can have a quaint, cozy corner kitchen in your house without much effort.
2. Modern Kitchen
If you’re wanting some style coupled with simplicity, an ultra-modern look can work exceptionally well in Minecraft. Stick to one color scheme and add in modern amenities and appliances such as a microwave and fridge-freezer. Then, throw in a breakfast bar/center island, and you’re all set. This is a no-brainer kitchen style to continue your modern house themes out there.
3. Restaurant Kitchen
Particularly good if you are on a multiplayer server, and are aiming to do some RP; building a restaurant and cooking meals for your friends in exchange for valuables/materials is both easy and incredibly immersive.
Build a seating area, a space for people to put in their orders, and set up some serious cooking machinery behind the scenes to handle various meal preparations simultaneously. Use a Campfire as a grill, and build an ice room to store all of your meat prior to cooking it.
4. Banqueting Hall Kitchen
For those of us wanting to go extremely simplistic and old-fashioned, styling your kitchen as a banquet is a no-brainer. Set out a long table with lots of cooked goods, Flower Pots as flagons of ale, and an open fire to roast the gains from your various hunts and expeditions.
By default Minecraft has a very rustic, medieval aesthetic to begin with, coupled with the fact that this design only requires early-game materials to accomplish, and this is an enticing prospect for a showpiece that doesn’t consume your playtime.
5. Cantina Kitchen
A go-to staple for you sci-fi fans, why not construct a room for all kinds of alien folk. The sci-fi aesthetic allows you to use whatever materials you wish and have it work, and in terms of cooking utilities you can double up a Furnace/Blast Furnace as service droids behind the bar.
You can also incorporate other build ideas in, like a mini aquarium or fish tank that you can use to store exotic fish to gawk at (or eat). If you want to double down, you can always grab a sci-fi texture pack/skins from online or from the Minecraft Marketplace.
6. Boat Buffet Kitchen
Indoor kitchens can get stuffy and overcrowded, so why not move the cooking outside? Even better, shift it to the waterfront and have a tropical-themed buffet. Stock some boats on the water and some chests filled with Fishing Rods to keep the fish coming, and throw down a Jukebox and some Lanterns to complete the vibe of your cookout. There are many ways to customize this waterfront idea with amazing views to boot.
7. Hell’s Kitchen
If you're looking for a dark and moody kitchen in another dimension, unleash your inner Gordon Ramsay and build your kitchen in the literal worst place in Minecraft: The Nether.
Build it teetering on the edge of a lava lake, and forfeit Furnaces for burning Netherrack and glowing Campfires. You can set up a Hoglin farm nearby to collect piles of Porkchop while you're at it. Use some Obsidian to reinforce the walls from Ghast’s fireballs (or your own cooking disasters), and build some tables; just don’t expect too many regular customers.
8. Bar Kitchen
Even considered hanging out and enjoying some drinks and pub snacks with a few friends? Having this build in your world allows for a chilled experience, brewing delicious drinks and serving bite-sized meals.
If you want to go whole-hog, why not throw in a Jukebox to blast your favorite Minecraft tunes, and a pool table design to gather around and create some hilarious memories?
9. Underwater Sushi Kitchen
What could be better than immersing yourself fully in the world of the food you’re eating? Whilst it may be slightly morbid for the fishy friends swimming outside the dome, you’ll have some great views as you chow down.
You can keep it simple, or fully deck the space out with lavish decorations and make it the talk of your Minecraft town, bringing people far and wide to your exclusive sushi club.
10. BBQ Kitchen
Sitting in the summer sun, cooking up some juicy burgers and serving delicious salads with ice-cold drinks. Could anything be better? Have the perfect outdoor setup (be it large or small) and kick back.
You can always top your “BBQs” with Campfires instead, and really raise the visual heat of your cookout—or just pretend and keep the mood a little more mellow.
Summary
With these 10 kitchen ideas based on themes and different goals you may have, we hope you found something interesting to run with. Whatever kitchen build you decide, remember that home is where the kitchen is, or so they say.
Victoria 3 is the latest grand strategy game from Paradox Development Studios, parking you on the throne, presidential seat, parliament, or oligarchic junta meeting table of a nation from 1836 to 1936. I recently had a week-long hands on with a development build of Victoria 3, and though aspects like user interface and AI weren't finished, what I found was a promising new paradigm for Paradox's niche strategy series.
At its heart, Victoria 3 is like many other grand strategy games: It's for people who like to watch numbers go up. The trick is that this is a game that focuses on building a society and building an economy—it's about the last explosive stage of the industrial revolution that brought on modern wonders like streetlights, trains, cars, and globalized trade.
That is the real strength I found in Victoria 3: It wasn't just army sizes and damage stats when you were looking for numbers to improve. No, I was looking at numbers like jobs created, hammers manufactured, universities built, literacy rates, laws passed, political party approval, loyal citizens, and immigration stats.
It's broadly built around two backbones: Society and economy. Everything else stems from there, and is much more abstract than the manipulation you do around who does what, when, and how well they eat while they're doing it. To address that you engage with a deep and interesting economic simulation that's simultaneously less complex and more believable than others like it.
It's first and foremost an open-ended historical sandbox.
It's first and foremost an open-ended historical sandbox, and the core is how it simulates population person by person. Everyone on earth needs food, clothing, warmth, and more. All those goods have to be produced somewhere, and contribute to overall quality of life for a population.
It's all simple supply and demand principles based around a base price for each item compared to what it's actually being sold for. Abundance makes the price go down, need makes it go up—that snowballs into profits, how much the people working there are getting paid… which affects how much they can buy. It's complex, sure, but made approachable by clear, obvious screens that give you a summary of how your market works… or doesn't work. A shortage of clothing on the market might drive you to invest money in more textile mills. Those mills might have a lucrative side-business in luxury clothing that you'd like to export, but your economy doesn't produce enough fabric to support the extra input. So you go to your neighbors, or international allies, and set up a trade route that also generates profit for your government via tariffs—or doesn't, if you have a trade agreement.
Which is easy to get. The AI, however, has its own goals that range from obvious and clever diplomatic alliances to quixotic and seemingly random economic choices. It also didn't always understand when it should back down from a fight. Paradox's developers were clear that the AI was very unpolished at the nuances, so that's something to want improvements in before release. So raw materials don't always come cheap… and that's when you start looking overseas, or at less-developed neighbors. Victoria 3 doesn't make you colonize, or engage in colonialism, but it sure does give you an understanding of why it developed. Your strong economy always comes at someone's expense.
If it's not someone else's, well, it's probably your own population footing the bill. That's true in economics and in wars, which are fairly abstract, but which still take real people that could be working in the fields or factories out of your economy. Those populations, or pops, fall into broad categories like lower, middle, and upper, then drill down by occupation and education. People gather into broad interest groups that you have to appease, cajole, or even incorporate into your government.
Who's in charge determines what laws you can pass. Laws can change fundamental game rules, doing things like abolish serfdom and slavery, modernize an economic structure, or establishing functional healthcare systems. In short, all that political maneuvering lets you pass laws to improve or alter your society to fit your vision.
Political maneuvering lets you pass laws to improve or alter your society to fit your vision.
Changing things makes people mad though, especially if you change them quickly. Establish a police force? The lower class won't like that very much. Force the upper class to pay a proportional share of taxes? They don't like that either. Make a group too mad in quick succession and you radicalize parts of their base. If enough groups with enough in common become radical you face a revolt—how bad a revolt it is depends on who you pissed off. Overall, revolutions or not, going down in flames or not, I had a killer time with Victoria 3.
FIFA 23 seemingly leaked today, briefly making the entire game playable - and it may even have revealed some real-life kits that hadn't yet been shown to the public.
According to some players, a pre-load that was sent to those who pre-ordered the game was accidentally made live, allowing Ultimate Edition players to launch and play the upcoming FIFA 23 game. Additionally, the EA Play trial may have gone live early, allowing others to access the game, too.
FIFA 23 isn’t supposed to be playable until September 27.
People some how getting on FIFA 23 on Xbox already. Game isn't even released yet and mistake #1 is here!
A number of players were able to load and play the game, with Twitch user mexico07dan1 (via Eurogamer) streaming FIFA 23 before his account was swiftly banned. However, several gameplay clips of the upcoming game remain online.
Stats from this year's FIFA Ultimate Team have also begun to leak:
It’s unclear how this accidental release happened, but it’s bound to come as a blow to EA, which usually drip feeds info about its upcoming FIFA titles in an extended marketing push before the game’s release.
The fact that this often involves kit partners makes the leak even more problematic. Some kits featured in FIFA 23 have not yet been revealed by the real-life clubs, but in-game versions have now begun to leak online, including Liverpool and Atlético Madrid’s third kits.
Of course, this isn’t the only mistake involving FIFA 23 in recent weeks, after the game was accidentally given a 99.98% discount when FIFA 23 Ultimate Edition was listed for pre-order on the Indian Epic Games Store. EA responded by honoring the ridiculously heavy discount for those who purchased it.
Warner Bros. has filed a trademark for the Bugs Bunny meme, Big Chungus, and many think it's for an addition to fighitng game MultiVersus.
Per VGC reporter Andrew Marmo, the company has filed a trademark claim for the image of an inflated Bugs Bunny under the name “Big Chungus” – the very name given to him by an unknown Gamestop employee as per the original meme (based on a term coined by games critic Stephanie Sterling).
The trademark, filed on August 26, 2022 with the European Union Intellectual Property Office covers the use of “Big Chungus” and his image across video games, including “video and computer game programs." However, it also includes the use of Big Chungus in motion pictures as well as toys and merch.
MultiVersus fans are convinced that this means the classic Bugs Bunny meme is coming to the studio’s platform-based fighting game.
The design of Big Chungus originated from an old episode of Merrie Melodies in which Bugs Bunny inflates himself to oversized proportions in an effort to mock Elmer Fudd. But he wasn’t named “Big Chungus” until 2018, when a Gamestop employee’s encounter went viral.
Since then, Big Chungus has become a bit of an internet celebrity and has already made it into a previous Warner Bros. game – Looney Tunes World of Mayhem. Here, Big Chungus was a playable character, leading some to wonder whether this new trademark has in fact been sparked by the mobile game.
I mean I feel like big chungus in multiversus is very likely since they have been doing haha funny memes from like 4 years ago. but I also feel like this could just be updating stuff for world of mayhem but idk
Does this mean we’ll see Big Chungus in MultiVersus? For now, we’ll have to wait and see. But the meta nature of the game, as well as the trademark’s timing as the company gears up to add more fighters to its roster, certainly suggests a potential connection.
The Callisto Protocol features a lot of different ways to die - and will reward you for being punished with every single one.
During an interview with IGN Japan, developer Mark James revealed that there’s actually an achievement for seeing every single possible death the game has to offer.
“We’re working on our achievements and trophies at the moment, and we actually have an achievement in there for seeing all of the deaths,” he said. “You are gonna die in our game. A lot of people ask how long the game is, and it’s like, how many times are you going to die? Also, the variables are huge in the way they attack you or you attack them, so you might actually die more or less. Even things like backing into a fan, it’s a mistake and it will result in a death, you’ll have to do that section again.”
The Callisto Protocol is the upcoming survival horror game from Glen Schofield – co-creator of the Dead Space series. Much like its predecessor, The Callisto Protocol has become renowned for its inventive (and rather gory) ways to die, and a recent gameplay trailer gave us a glimpse of just how gory it can get.
“It’s become our signature now,” said James about the game’s numerous deaths. “We have a signature death at the end of every trailer. We want you to see death not as a punishment but as a time to learn about what you did wrong, and a little bit of tongue-in-cheek entertainment about how you die.”
There are plenty of gruesome creatures to encounter in The Callisto Protocol as prisoner Jacob Lee is thrust into the middle of an alien invasion, but it’s not just the monsters that’ll kill you.
“Each monster has its own way it kills you, and environmental hazards are hazards to you as well as to the enemy. In one of our trailers, he backed into a fan, and when you’re backing away from a monster you’ve got to be really careful because these hazards can kill you as much as the enemy in front of you.”
How many different ways are there to die in The Callisto Protocol? Lots. But achievement hunters will have to work out exactly how many on their own.
“We're not going to reveal the number of deaths at the moment,” said James. “But I think you’ll have to work hard to do it.”
It would appear that the recent decision by Warner Bros. to scrap the release of its near-completed Batgirl movie was motivated entirely by boring old tax reasons, but what if there was something far more sinister at play? Such is the setup for Immortality, the latest investigative thriller from the makers of Her Story and Telling Lies, which had me scouring through an archive of FMV footage from three unreleased films in an attempt to discover exactly why they never saw the light of day. In spite of some surprisingly shallow search tools what followed was a thoroughly absorbing undertaking that began as a sort of jigsaw puzzle but morphed into the motion picture equivalent of a Magic Eye poster, and I sat completely transfixed as each piece fell into place until suddenly Immortality’s true subject snapped into focus and its shocking bigger picture was revealed.
Connecting the three unreleased films is Marissa Marcel (played by Manon Gage), a model turned actress who starred in each of the doomed productions and subsequently never worked again. She’s introduced in the opening clip of Immortality by way of a 1969 guest spot on a Johnny Carson-style talk show, charismatic and full of optimism for her upcoming big screen debut, but from there her ill-fated career is experienced as a jumble of out-of-sequence on-set takes, table reads, rehearsals, and 8mm home movies that span a 30-year period of time. Gage gives an absolutely electric performance in the main role and I couldn’t take my eyes off her, quite literally so since I had to scrutinise close to 200 clips of her by the time Immortality’s roughly nine-hour story had reached its end.
A feast of found-footage that was every bit as easy to buy into as the original Blair Witch Project.
The footage itself is utterly believable, not only due to the era-specific film stocks and aspect ratios used, but also a slew of smaller details – from the archaic bullying in between takes from a misogynistic director during the 1968 production of Ambrosio, to the perfectly cheesy turn of the century pop performance in 1999’s Two of Everything. There’s a rawness throughout that enhances this sense of authenticity even further, with actors struggling not to giggle at a naked cadaver before the snap of a clapperboard cues a dramatic scene in a morgue, and stagehands stepping in to rig primitive special effects. Immortality almost had me fully convinced that I was poring over a collection of lost clips from productions that actually existed – a feast of found-footage that was every bit as easy to buy into as the original Blair Witch Project – which made my efforts to piece it all together all the more determined.
Splinter Celluloid
Actually navigating your way through Immortality’s expanding catalogue of clips involves a process that effectively marries the whirring mechanical playback of an old-fashioned Moviola editing machine with the advanced AI-based image matching of modern search engines. You can scrub forwards and backwards at variable speeds, jump instantly to either end of a reel, or even go frame by frame. Such fine control over playback is paramount, since unearthing new clips demands that you hit pause and click on a face or prop in order to instantly jump to a matching instance in another piece of footage. I quickly found myself tumbling down rabbit holes and teleporting between time periods as I gradually reconstructed the plots of all three films and, more importantly, got a deeper insight into the relationships between the main players through candid moments that played out after the director yelled “cut.”
This setup may sound reasonably straightforward for a non-linear story, but there’s actually substantially more going on in Immortality than initially meets the eye. To go into too much detail here would be to disarm it of its most astonishing story moments, but needless to say there are subtle clues that point to more malevolent forces at play from very early on. These initially came in the form of doubletake-inducing flashes of horror while I was scrubbing through a clip at speed, which triggered alternate sequences featuring an enigmatic provocateur known only as The One (played by Charlotta Mohlin) when examined more closely. Mohlin is absolutely spellbinding in the role, and her increasingly ominous influence on your ongoing search paves the way for a series of chilling revelations and alarmingly eerie imagery that give the term ‘behind the scenes’ a disturbing new meaning.
Cutting Room Flaw
Being able to criss-cross back and forth between footage by simply clicking on objects or faces may well be a more streamlined setup than the typed search terms of Her Story and Telling Lies, and it’s certainly far more controller-friendly for console players, but it can also be somewhat haphazard. Occasionally I would click on an object in the foreground, like a hand holding a keycard for example, only for Immortality to interpret that as me selecting the window behind it and thus match-cutting it to some random window in another clip. It was similarly disappointing whenever the cursor would change to indicate that a certain person’s face was searchable, only for it to just bounce me back into the sequence I was already in.
The image-based search function also means that Immortality feels oversimplified as far as the actual investigation side of things is concerned, and I got the overall impression that the majority of my discoveries came as a result of dumb luck as opposed to being the direct result of any real deduction. There were certainly a handful of memorable occasions when I felt rewarded for being eagle-eyed – freezing a frame in the split-second a character offscreen was revealed in a reflection, for example – but more often than not I just continually clicked on the same faces and objects until I’d exhausted the number of new matches they uncovered, before moving on to the next. It’s a method that can seem annoyingly approximate at times, like when I clicked on a very distinctive smiley face pendent and it matched it with an entirely different piece of jewelry, and that regular randomness makes the process feel a bit like forgoing a proper Google search in favour of spamming the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button instead.
That said, even though I rarely felt like I arrived at them under my own volition, Immortality’s major story revelations never failed to startle me. The complex narrative is masterfully crafted; looping around and layering on top of itself and continually recontextualising events via a drip feed of new details, gradually deciphering the initially cryptic monologues delivered by The One and bringing the real reasons behind Marcel’s apparent exile from the movie industry to the surface. In fact, so shocking was the moment that it all fell into place and the truth became fully apparent to me, that had I been livestreaming my playthrough the picture-in-picture shot of my face would have been thrown into a dolly zoom like I was the leading man in a Hitchcock movie.
Popular modder Akaki Kuumeri has continued his series of creating custom-made accessibility accessories by building a one-handed Nintendo Switch controller.
Sharing the creation on his YouTube channel, Kuumeri posted the step by step development process of the one-handed adapter, the final version of which allows players - left or right-handed - to fully play Nintendo Switch games using just one hand.
YouTuber Akaki Kuumeri has designed an attachment for the PS5 DualSense that lets you play with one hand. The 3-D printed piece was created for a design contest. https://t.co/yvIy241fgTpic.twitter.com/1PATqDnu6f
Having previously created one-handed adapters for the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller and the Xbox Series controller, Kuumeri commented that the Joy-Con adaptation was the easiest to do since the pair of controllers can be literally switched around to serve different purposes.
Kuumeri utilises this when creating the Joy-Con adapter, flipping over one of the Joy-Cons so that the left stick can be pushed against another surface to move the character around in the likes of Breath of the Wild. He also inverts the inputs (so that left is left and right is right), and brings control of the triggers and face buttons over using 3D printed connectors.
EA’s latest entry in the long-running Madden series sees some upgrades over the previous-generation game, including improved visuals, presentation, and animation. Today’s analysis is all about graphics, performance, and comparisons between platforms and generations, though I won’t be delving into the details of the sport simulation.
Performance
I’ll be looking at PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S, as well as PS4 Pro as the representative for the previous-generation consoles. All of these target and hit 60fps at all times during gameplay, though with the stop-start nature of the game, these segments are rarely that long. The only time I noticed a drop from that solid 60fps line was when the game shifts into realtime replays, inaugural segments, or video wipes, as these can cause short pauses that blend between them, and the video wipes all run at or around 30fps. That said, since these segments represent the TV presentation style, they weren’t of any consequence to gameplay.
The only exception to that 60fps target is in the Quality mode replays on Series X and PS5, which now target 30fps rather than 60. This is the case on PS4 Pro and Series S as well, which only have a single mode, rather than Quality or Performance to choose from. Again, the impact here is minimal considering these sections are non-interactive, and aside from the shifts into these segments, they hold that 30fps with no issues and then blend back to 60fps once play resumes. All in all, every format and mode delivers a smooth and consistent level of performance.
Loading is fast on current generation consoles, with PS5, Series X, and Series S all coming in less than three seconds from the menu. The PS4 Pro is slightly slower at around ~10 seconds, and also has other changes and cutbacks on presentation style, video quality and character models.
Graphics
The current generation version does offer upgrades in a couple of key areas, the biggest being the Field Sense animation system. Many may recognise this in other guises, such as Naughty Dog’s similar Motion Matching system used in The Last of Us Part II, or Ubisoft Motion Blending as we saw in For Honor. It has also been used in previous FIFA titles from EA, which did include last generation consoles. But here, this new motion blending technology is only available on the PS5, Series X and Series S. This aims to keep a multitude of motion-captured animation cycles in memory and then dynamically blend between many of them in real time based on a multitude of factors as they happen, such as foot position, speed, velocity, and even mid-air collision. The aim is to achieve even more realistic and convincing human movement and interaction during the games and replays.
Realistic human movement is a key aspect for sports games like this, where the human eye and brain is naturally good at detecting when things like body weight, limb position, and collision feels and looks unrealistic. And in this sense the new entry is a great first step to improving the quality of the simulation. In comparisons of last gen and current, you can certainly see cleaner, more organic shifts of animation routines as players turn, spin, and get tackled. At times, the PS4 Pro version highlights key frame jumps between two or more animation cycles as models warp into a new position or jump out of current ones. By contrast, the FieldSense system does increase the accuracy of motion – this is highlighted best in the replays, which can show some excellent levels of blending.
However, the main issue is that this is not always the case, and it does not hide every single blend. This means the ones that do show up stand out more, as the quality is not consistent. This is compounded by heavy clipping in many areas – in both gameplay and replays – as well as some severe gulfs in model quality at times – which are upgraded on the new generation systems also – likely due to the extra bone-rigged models required to run this new animation system. You can see the models look smaller and less, well, buff in some sections, as do some of the various pyrotechnics and particle systems. But they do offer increases in triangle count, which can be seen on the deformation of arms and other areas when skeletal rigs move into extreme positions. This means the new consoles are pushing more polygons per frame whilst computing higher bone density on animation and blends, which is overall better. As is the lighting which offers better per pixel coverage, higher shadow, and shading quality, along with higher detail in stadiums, grass, and textures.
Finally, the physics-driven hair system can also improve model quality, as seen here with Mr Madden himself, offering much denser geometry of hair rather than the flat, motionless hair fins of the PS4 Pro version, though this does vary depending on the model in question. While some might argue that some visual changes are not necessarily an improvement, ultimately the current-generation versions do offer better detail, shading, materials, and post effects over the last generation versions.
Resolutions
All of this means we get some varying numbers in resolution counts. Starting with the lowest first, the Series S offers a fixed 1920x1080 output both in gameplay and real time cinematics, which is not a surprise as FIFA games which use the same engine were also 1080p. The shock may come from the PS4 Pro, which targets 3200x1800 and uses a checkerboard resolve to hit that level, meaning the final output image is sharper than the Series S, but it has lower quality pixels, and the heavy chromatic aberration the game uses lessens the sharpness of the higher resolutions.
The chromatic aberration also affects the bigger consoles, which both target 3840x2160 in the Quality mode always, with the noted 30fps frame rate during replays. This is the sharpest image you can choose and overall the game is very stable in most sections with quite a flat lighting model and minimal specular or noisy pixels cropping up. The difference comes in the Performance mode, which targets 3200x1800 to enable the doubling of the real time replays to 60fps – but either this is dynamic or the checkerboard technique used here can falter, meaning we can get counts down to 2560x1440 on both consoles. In gameplay both modes target the same levels and outputs, which use a checkerboard technique to present 3840x2160, meaning the change to Quality mode only increases the replay resolutions along with increases to the bokeh depth of field, which can revert to a cheaper Gaussian blur filter in dense geometry shots, along with subtle shadow and hair changes – but this may be as a result of the lower resolution buffers. In all, even in side-by-side comparisons, the differences show that the increase in resolution is not as noticeable as the reduction in frames per second. Regardless, the choice being present is the best thing – and most importantly gameplay is identical from both, so pick your poison.
The increases that Madden 23 offers on current generation are good, but not great. Most players will likely not notice the improvements in the animations system in moment-to-moment gameplay, and even less so the increases in model quality and replay frame rates. Also, the improvements here are not consistent or even always better than the older models – at times crowds can look equally bad with fixed vertices being ill-placed with no movement when it should be cloth, low polygon arms being front and center in replays and heavy collision, and obvious jumps between animation cycles still cropping up. I hope this is a basis for the team to work hard on significantly expanding the move sets and blending techniques in use here for the next game in the series, along with redesigning many of the player models to work better with this new system and increasing the fidelity on offer. Other small changes would also be welcome, such as updating or even interpolating the video wipes to 60fps when in the performance mode, so they do not look as jarring. All in the boosts that Series X, Series S, and PlayStation 5 players get are certainly welcome and visible, but I doubt last gen players will feel they are missing out on much.
Colossal Cave - Reimagined by Roberta Williams is coming to more than PC and Meta Quest 2. In an announcement exclusive to IGN, Cygnus Entertainment confirmed that the upcoming remake will also be coming to Nintendo Switch.
"Colossal Cave - Reimagined by Roberta Williams will soon be accessible to gamers worldwide on an additional platform," Cygnus Entertainment founder and CEO Ken Williams said in a release. "We hope to bring back the spirit of traditional adventure games for devoted fans who grew up with the original game and the new generation of explorers alike. We believe bringing Colossal Cave Reimagined by Roberta Williams to the Nintendo Switch will help us do that."
Colossal Cave was originally conceived as a VR adventure in partnership with Unity, but its move to the Nintendo Switch means that it will be portable, too. It's based on the seminal 1970's text adventure that tasked players with finding "all the treasure" in an intricate labyrinth populated by trolls, bears, and pirates.
Here's the official synopsis:
Immerse yourself in a gorgeous Eden untouched by mortal hands…until now. Enchanted with the prospect of magical discoveries, plant a confident boot on the path ahead, unhindered by the looming threat of danger. Armed only with a trusty lantern and a limited supply of oil, cast a curious eye through massive underground labyrinths in search of something extraordinary.
Tread lightly through winding caverns so as to not awaken a magnificent dragon from its slumber. Encounter whimsical creatures of both friendly and cruel intention including adorable dwarves, brutish trolls, and fearsome pirates lurking within the corridors. Employ magic and wit to unveil mystical secrets and decrypt complex environmental puzzles. Discover exciting easter eggs and collect all 15 priceless hidden treasures before venturing back to the mortal realm.
Talking with IGN at GDC, Roberta Williams said that the remake would be as true as possible to the original, even going so far as to use all of the original source code and narration. Williams also said she doesn't plan to include any of her own puzzles.
"I want people that have played this game... to feel yeah, this is right," Williams said. "This is Colossal Cave. It's history. I get to see it now."
Colossal Cave does not yet have a formal release date, but is expected to be out this fall. It will be available for $39.99 on Nintendo Switch.
Kat Bailey is a Senior News Editor at IGN as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
Ulf Andersson, who worked on Payday and Payday 2, is returning to the co-op heist genre with his studio 10 Chambers. During an interview with NME, the developer revealed that his upcoming game will be a cyberpunk style, team-based action game.
“I'm back on the heist s**t, basically,” he said. “So, it's a heist cooperative FPS, and it has a sort of a techno-thriller theme. I read a lot of sci-fi books, and so imagine everything that cyberpunk is inspired by, and a ton of other s**t.”
The Payday games were defined by heavy action – gunning your way out of a bank and making off with as much cash as you could cram into a sports bag.
However, Andersson’s upcoming game isn’t that. “This one won't be constant shooting,” he explained. “Payday had a massive problem where the action would ramp up and then it would just stay ramped up.”
Andersson struck out on his own as CEO and founder of 10 Chambers after working on the two original Payday games, and the new studio is clearly taking a different approach to their upcoming heist game… but how it all works out remains to be seen. Either way, it looks as though it won’t be as difficult as its previous game, GTFO.
“You can sneak for an hour, at least, and then just f*****g die, right?” he said about GTFO. But his next game will be a bit more forgiving. “So, it's not gonna have that hardcore thing to it. It is more mechanically smooth, or you could say, easier to play.”
IGN’s review of GTFO said: “While the symptoms of its early access state may be keenly felt where breadth of content is concerned there is no shortage of depth in GTFO. It’s clever, creepy, and already surprisingly polished, and I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.”
As for the upcoming game, it doesn’t have a name yet… or a release date. “We haven't put a date on it,” said Andersson. “We don't want to miss a deadline or overpromise. We're in pre-production at the moment, but things are ramping up quite fast.”
Sony has announced a committed expansion into mobile gaming by establishing the PlayStation Studios Mobile Division and acquiring Savage Game Studios to develop "a AAA mobile live service action game".
The new division will develop "innovative, on-the-go experiences based on new and existing PlayStation IP that meet PlayStation Studios’ high-quality standards" and will operate independently from console game development.
"The PlayStation Studios Mobile team is focused on creating new experiences for players through innovative, on-the-go gaming based on new and existing PlayStation IP."
"PlayStation Studios must continue to expand and diversify our offering beyond console, bringing incredible new games to more people than ever before," continued Hulst. "Acquiring the talented team at Savage Game Studios is another strategic step towards that goal.
"I’m really excited about what Savage is working on and I’m confident they will deliver a high-quality experience. Our move into mobile, like our expansion into PC and live service games, strengthens our capabilities and our community, and complements PlayStation Studios’ purpose to make the best games that we can."
Savage Game Studios was founded in 2020 by veteran developers Michail Katkoff, Nadjim Adjir, and Michael McManus, who collectively have decades of experience working at developers including Spider-Man's Insomniac Games, World of Tank's Wargaming, Clash of Clans' Supercell, Farmville's Zynga, and Angry Birds' Rovio.
It's unclear if Savage Game Studios' game will see the creation of a new PlayStation IP or be incorporated into an existing franchise, but as it was in development for two years ahead of the PlayStation acquisition, it's perhaps more likely that we'll see something brand new.
A leak of a potential logo for the upcoming Xbox Game Pass family plan has seemingly leaked and it looks to confirm that Microsoft is choosing to focus on branding this new subscription as the "Friends & Family" plan.
This logo is very much in-line with Microsoft's current Xbox Insider test in Colombia and Ireland that allows users to share their Xbox Game Pass Ultimate benefits with up to four people in the country where they live. It's important to note there is no restriction on sharing these benefits with immediate family members, which very much gives weight to the friends part of "Friends & Family."
Xbox Game Pass for Console and PC is currently $9.99/month, and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate - which offers all the benefits of the cheaper tier and Xbox Live Gold, access to Xbox Cloud Gaming, and more - costs $14.99/month. There is no word as of yet how much this potential "Friends & Family" plan would cost.
I’m sitting across a table from Hideki Kamiya, mildly taken aback. This is, in part, because his response bypassed our translators entirely and came directly in English. Mostly, though, it’s because – I’m realising as my mind races to reshuffle the subsequent questions – this is not the typical answer given by an industry legend when asked how often they’re able to actually play games.
A much more typical answer is some level of remorse over not being able to play much these days, but that they found titles X or Y interesting over the past year or two. Be it because of a supernatural need for very little sleep, incredible talent and time-management, or perhaps just games really being his core pastime, Kamiya is very much not one of the typical.
Soon after, I am being schooled on not knowing enough about Columns. He is in disbelief that I dislike the music, until it becomes apparent that I’m only familiar with the Mega Drive game. According to the mind behind Devil May Cry and Okami, it’s all about COLUMNS 97 on the Sega Saturn: “The music is really good! You should try it!”
He’s right, it turns out. Columns on the Saturn sounds much better than the Mega Drive version in every way. But that’s not really the part of Kamiya’s after-hours gaming that is of particular interest. What stands out is how it reflects his preferences.
“I play a lot of classic games, Arcade Archives stuff,” he says. “I’m not up to date. It’s kind of a weak point.”
I play a lot of classic games... I’m not up to date. It’s kind of a weak point.
While he does acknowledge that his fixation with retro perhaps helps him to create “apparently more unique” games, he still feels that this is something of an Achilles’ heel. He tries to play and study more modern titles, but just keeps on getting drawn back to eras gone by. In some ways, it feels like he is now looking backwards, away from when he first entered the industry, back towards his earliest childhood memories of playing games in the less densely-populated prefecture of Nagano, when childlike innocence allowed one to see games as things that just kind of appeared sometimes, as if from the ether.
“From childhood onwards, I really liked games,” he explains. “I used to play them at these ‘game corners’ in department stores.” This is pretty easy to envision. Many Western readers, certainly, will likely have memories of two or three arcade cabinets begging to eat their change while waiting on an order in the local takeaway shop. “By the time I was in junior high, I would go to arcades. I just really liked to play games – just playing games, and nothing much else.”
During much of this time, games were purely a hobby: a favourite pastime, certainly, but nothing greater than that.
“It was only after I read a magazine that contained articles about Shigeru Miyamoto and Masanobu Endo – the director of Xevious – that my thinking kicked into gear,” he admits. “That article really inspired me. I started to think of games more as creative works that were crafted by people, that maybe I can create something like the games I loved as well.”
There was just one small problem: this was a young industry that lacked formal training pathways. Kamiya, it seems, got his break by making the right effort while groping around in the dark. “When it came to making games, there weren't really any game design-related courses at the time, it wasn’t something I could major in... so I just went for it.”
‘Going for it’ involved a lot more than polishing up a CV and filling in some forms. He wanted to be a designer, and so Kamiya went to the extent of producing full game-design documentation to send to various video game companies. “I had designed this entire world and made these characters and this story that I presented to these companies, but as a result of this, one company, Namco, wanted to hire me as an artist instead,” he says, laughing. Despite how he may feel about his first design attempts today, they also managed to land him an offer from Capcom.
I read a magazine that contained articles about Shigeru Miyamoto and Masanobu Endo... That article really inspired me.
This created something of a dilemma. “I had loved Namco’s games since I was a child,” Kamiya elaborates, while also making it clear that his feelings towards Capcom at the time were, to put it nicely, less enthusiastic. However, while Namco had interest in him as someone who could draw, the offer from Capcom was in the role of a planner / designer. “I had to choose between the ideal job at what I felt wasn’t the ideal company, or compromise my role to work for Namco. I was flip-flopping between them. In the end, I wanted a designer role, so I decided to work for Capcom.”
Times were changing, however, and for both better and worse the industry was moving away from those colourful Namco arcade titles that he had grown up loving. “I went to the show that preceded TGS and saw Namco’s booth. There were all of these games with sophisticated graphics. Watching Ridge Racer running at 60 frames per second was mind-blowing. Sega, too, was there with Virtua Fighter,” he says. The future of highly-detailed 3D games obviously excited the young Kamiya, and so when he found that Capcom’s presence was centred around a new revision of Street Fighter 2, his heart sank: “I was really worried and wondered if I had made a bad decision.”
It was perhaps the audacious way that Kamiya had applied for this work that proved his saving grace. As highlighted by Namco expressing interest in hiring him as an artist, the game designs that he had put together and sent in were visually rich and this is perhaps what secured his pass to work with the then-new 3D game developments he was so excited about.
“I was new and didn’t have any authority to choose my own projects,” he says. “But Shinji Mikami saw my drawings and thought I’d be a good fit for the cinematic aspects of his next game. Things such as setting camera angles and creating visual concepts for cut-scenes.”
And just like that, despite having no stomach for horror, Kamiya found himself working on Resident Evil. It’s a bit wild to think about, in hindsight. Resident Evil was his very first title, and from there he was bumped up to a game director role for the immediate sequel, Resident Evil 2. Despite Kamiya’s own general dislike of horror, hindsight has it making some sense that he was working on titles that traded so heavily in mood and atmosphere. He had entered the industry by accidentally impressing prospective employers with his artistic talent when he was trying to show an understanding of game design, after all.
Shinji Mikami saw my drawings and thought I’d be a good fit for the cinematic aspects of his next game.
When asked if the atmosphere-first nature of Resident Evil rubbed off on him in any way, Kamiya takes a moment to think, likely wanting to say something more useful than a variant of maybe-but-also-maybe-not.
“At first, when working on games such as Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe and Okami, I would focus on an image – say, this stylish character with two guns for Devil May Cry – in my mind and have a very good artistic picture of what I wanted this to be,” he says, opening up a bit about his early design process. “As far as mechanics were concerned, I really relied on the talent and abilities of those around me to make it all come together.”
This approach lasted for some years, and while, when asked, Kamiya struggles to suggest what it is that has enabled him to remain relevant for so long, his openness about a continued need to learn, even when in senior roles, likely plays a part. “It wasn’t until I got to designing Bayonetta that the mechanics, as well as the style and design,” he tells us without a hint of hesitation, “that it all finally seemed to come together and I had this really strong grasp on everything.”
Not that Bayonetta has ever been in want of style. I mention that my favourite parts of the first game were the manic moments of Sega fan-service, particularly when it went all-in on After Burner. This is hardly an isolated example, and Kamiya seems to enjoy such indulgences: “When we were developing Bayonetta 2 on Nintendo hardware, they were kind enough to let us slip in some Nintendo IP; in the form of alternative costumes, for example,” he says. “It’s easier to do this with companies that you’re actively working with, but the one I would like to do next would be to work with Konami and do something with the Gradius IP. I think it would make the fans happy if I could use some of the music.”
Without the need for further prompting, he also adds, with just a hint of regret, that “I actually wanted to make a sequel to the game Getsu Fūma Den, but one already came out.”
Kamiya clearly isn’t lying when he says that he is playing mostly classic games, the stuff of his own childhood. It’s a theme that hangs in the air. While his entrance into the games industry was coloured by excitement for a future built from millions of texture-mapped polygons, the man we’re speaking to now, perhaps as a result of learning more and more about mechanics, or perhaps simply due to life experience, is giving greater importance to looking back. Notably, while he speaks of a variety of genres, the roads almost always end up curving back towards shmups.
In this sense, it seems unsurprising that his most recently-released work fits into this genre. Indeed, on the surface, SOL CRESTA – a sequel to a pair of 1980s shmups – seems like a long overdue work of self-indulgence, but for a good while the prospect of going so far as to twist the entire genre was on the table. What started as a dock-and-split gameplay idea caused sudden remembrance of the previous games, Moon Cresta and Terra Cresta. Platinum had always been about creating original titles, and Kamiya timidly consulted with Inaba about this conflict between original title and actual sequel.
The final product shows, pretty clearly, that an evolution of the original is where the team at Platinum landed. “Eventually, we collaborated with Hamster Corporation to help us create this style or… feeling, really. Like you’re in an arcade. We thought that harking back to this old-style arcade experience was maybe something that would get people’s attention.”
Did it get people's attention? Yes and no. The arcade cabinet set up at Platinum’s booth at this year’s BitSummit managed to stand out among an ever-growing collection of impressive-looking games on show, but it – and the series it belongs to – could never become the backbone of what Platinum is all about.
“Maybe, in terms of sales, SOL CRESTA wasn’t the most successful game,” Kamiya says. “But people have been enjoying it, so in that sense it’s a success.”
It seems pretty clear that this is a game that Kamiya was particularly enthusiastic about designing. There’s a genuine fondness for the types of games that inspired it, even a degree of hero worship. When he told us about the magazine article that inspired him to think about games creatively, it wasn’t Miyamoto that stood out to him. It was Masanobu Endo: “Endo was one of the bigger names in videogames at the time,” he says, keen for more people to know. “I believe, if I’m right, that he is one of the first people in Japan to have come out publicly as a game creator.”
This may go a long way in explaining that elusive staying-power that Kamiya himself has been unable to explain; too modest to deeply consider. His taste in games is very much his own, not guided by popularity, review scores or modern trends. His work comes from where he is at that moment, and right now, for all of the pies that he has fingers in, he seems to be particularly enjoying working on smaller projects: “In my current role, I’ve been able to be involved in many different projects. I’m very satisfied with the types of things I’ve been able to produce,” he says. “But, if Platinum decided to move forward only focusing on big, AAA games, I would find that very boring.”
Fans of Kamiya’s larger, more famous works have little to fear, though. The realities of keeping the lights on means that Platinum’s future will likely consist of plenty of both. “On the other hand,” he concludes, “if we focused only on more modest, targeted experiences like SOL CRESTA, we likely wouldn’t be able to turn enough profit to survive.”
Tim Henderson is an Australian games journalist who, despite living in Osaka for numerous years, somehow ended up organising this particular interview in Kyoto. He is (at least at present) not blocked on Twitter by Kamiya andyou can find him here.
