Developer Thunder Lotus and iam8bit are scheduled to release physical editions of Spiritfarer for PS4 and Switch on August 3. Ahead of the release of the physical editions, I sat down with creative director Nicolas Guérin to discuss how folks at Thunder Lotus embraced vulnerability to create a death-positive game that deals with themes of grief, love, loss, and self-care.In our conversation, Guérin shares how the stories told in Spiritfarer were inspired by the team's own experiences with loss. He also talks about early concepts for the game--like how Spiritfarer originally saw Stella conducting a train as opposed to steering a boat and how the cyclical gameplay loop was once tied to the changing of the seasons--and explains why these ideas were ultimately cut. There's a moment we rag on The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks and bond over our love for If Found too.As a final note before jumping into the interview, the last question of our conversation goes into spoilers for Spiritfarer. If you still haven't beaten Spiritfarer (which you should--Spiritfarer was one of GameSpot's Best Games Of 2020), don't keep scrolling when you get to the part of the interview where Guérin asks me whether I've beaten the game and I tell him I did. We discussed the ending of the game after that. There is another spoiler warning further down in the text right before we go into spoilers, but I wanted to give y'all a heads up upfront.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Welcome to the Reapers' Game, Players! Neo: The World Ends With You is out now, and we're here to give you some advice to help get your adventure off on the right foot. Whether you're a complete newcomer to the Shibuya Underground or an older fan who may have forgotten a thing or two with time, our starter guide should help you keep in step with the beat of Neo: TWEWY's unique gameplay.Keep Pushing ButtonsNeo: TWEWY has an action-based battle system, but what's unique is that you can control all of the characters at once by pressing their assigned attack buttons. The best way to fight is by using lots of button presses in tandem to lock down enemies and score combos. For example, with a PS4 controller, if you have a mash attack set to square, a charge attack set to L1, and a hold attack set to R2, you can be pressing all of those buttons at the same time: hold R2 to launch a sustained attack to keep an enemy stunned while charging on L1 and rapid-pressing square, then release L1 to finish off your team attack with a charged strike once the other attacks run their course.After you charge your Groove meter and execute a special attack, don't let up on the normal button-press strikes while the big attack is going down! You can still get in additional hits while the special is playing out. Use this opportunity to maximize damage and even get some of your Groove back!Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

343 Industries has announced that the studio will go live with the fist look at Halo Infinite's technical preview tomorrow at 2PM PT. The multiplayer technical preview will take place this weekend, July 29 - August 1. You'll need to register for a Halo Insider account in order for a chance to participate able to participate. However, that doesn't guarantee you a spot during the technical preview. The studio will also go over how players get in if they're selected.Tomorrow, we’re going live with the first look at #HaloInfinite’s upcoming technical preview! Hear directly from the team about what’s in store, and how you’ll get in if you’re selected.🕙 Wednesday, July 28th @ 2PM PT📺🟣: https://t.co/dda9QxxAU8📺🔴: https://t.co/ZPEd9AiBUx pic.twitter.com/lQzaZP4Cs1 — Halo (@Halo) July 27, 2021Invites have already started to go out to the first wave of Halo Insider members, which include hundreds of thousands of people. Throughout the technical preview, 343 will be testing game & services performance metrics, such as stability, communication systems, and flighting tools at scale. Player feedback will be gathered as well regarding areas such as core gameplay, maps, modes, and user interface.The studio is looking to test out its Battle Pass system, Challenges, and in-game Store to see how well they hold up to scale. They've been included for technical reasons and don't reflect the amount of unlockable content at launch. A set amount of in-game credits (cR) will be provided to help players unlock items, but please note that anything that's unlock during a technical preview will not carry over to the main game.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

A viewing of The Forever Purge in Corona, California turned deadly on Monday night when a shooter opened fire on moviegoers, killing one and critically injuring another, according to The Hollywood Reporter.The shooting occurred at the Regal Edwards Corona Crossings RPX theater on Monday night. Police were called at 11:45 PM, where they found a 19-year-old man who was taken to the hospital in critical condition. An 18-year-old woman died at the scene.Corona Police Department Cpl Tobias Kouroubacalis confirmed to THR that the victims were watching The Forever Purge when the shooting occurred. The fifth film in the Purge franchise escalates the premise of the original film--a 12-hour period in which all crime becomes legal--with Purgers trying to take the event past its 12-hour bounds.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Pretty much everyone agrees that Matt Damon's film The Great Wall is not a very good movie. That includes his daughter, who apparently gets great joy out of teasing her father, Damon himself said on Marc Maron's WTF podcast (via The Hollywood Reporter)."She just likes giving me s***," Damon said. "She's playfully hard on me. She doesn't go to see my movies on purpose, the ones she thinks might be good. She crushes me on the ones that don't work.""Whenever she talks about it, she calls it The Wall," Damon said. "And I'm like, 'come on, it's called The Great Wall.' And she's like, 'Dad, there's nothing great about that movie.' She's one of the funniest people I know."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Like a great detective novel, The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles gives us clues in its opening moments that won’t pay off until its final hours. That trick is even more impressive here as the adventure games collected, The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures and The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve, were originally published two years apart and together tell one continuous 80 hour story. Clues, character arcs, cases--all are revealed slowly over the course of the two visual novels, culminating in one satisfying conclusion that ties it all together.Adventures, from 2015, and Resolve, from 2017, take players back roughly 100 years before Phoenix Wright ever entered the courtroom. Here, players take on the role of that famous ace attorney’s ancestor, Ryunosuke Naruhodo, at the dawn of the 20th century. The story begins in Meiji Period Japan before traveling to Victorian-era England, where the bulk of the action takes place. That action, as in Phoenix Wright, involves collecting evidence from crime scenes, waiting for the right moment to use it in court and then presenting it at the right time during a cross examination to make a witness’ testimony fall apart.As The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures begins, Japan and Great Britain have just entered into a trade agreement. The ink on the agreement is barely dry--historically speaking, that is; a character later suggests that the agreement has been in place for a decade--so when Naruhodo is caught with a pistol in his hand at the scene of a visiting British professor’s murder, the resulting trial carries with it the weight of the fragile alliance between the two empires. With the case all but decided against him, Naruhodo must prove his innocence with the help of his best friend, Kazuma Asogi, a law student set to embark the next day for a study abroad program in England. The katana-wielding Kazuma is strong-willed, confident, and believes wholeheartedly that his friend is innocent, and that belief motivates Naruhodo’s own practice of law as the game progresses, with the young defense attorney understanding well the difference that his belief in his clients’ innocence can make.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Modern Fortnite is largely defined by its huge collaborations. In the past few years, we've seen the game draw in heroes and villains from Marvel, DC, and Star Wars, some of the world's biggest streamers, musicians, athletes, and much more. The contents of a new Fortnite survey conducted by Epic Games suggests there may be a lot more yet to come.First shared online by reliable leaker ShiinaBR, the survey asked for respondents' opinions on a wide range of people and properties, ranging from real-life celebrities to beloved fictional characters and IP. The survey curiously name-drops some cosmetics that have already appeared in the game, such as Lara Croft, Daredevil, and the Epic-owned Rocket League, but there are many more that have never appeared in the game and would surely excite different fandoms.Yesterday, Epic sent me a survey in my emails asking for my opinion on many characters/people/franchises.I'll just post some of the most interesting ones here! 👀Remember that Guggimon (Season 7 BP) was also in one of these surveys before he came into the game! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/4il4WJJMiL — Shiina (@ShiinaBR) July 25, 2021Some of them we've heard before thanks to Epic versus Apple documents, such as Naruto, while others, like Breaking Bad, have never been mentioned until now. It's likely that at least some of these properties will appear in Fortnite down the line, though that timetable is unforeseeable given the continuing massive popularity of the game.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Microsoft Flight Simulator will make its console debut on Xbox Series X|S on July 27, and the reviews are finally live. Given the massive critical acclaim that greeted the technologically-staggering simulation game on its PC release last year, we shouldn't be surprised to find that the Xbox release of the game has received similar plaudits.Currently, the game sits at a Metascore of 92, which denotes "universal acclaim." For comparison's sake, that score makes it the best-reviewed Xbox Series X|S of 2021 so far--It Takes Two and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 are tied for number two with Metascores of 89.As a whole, critics have praised Microsoft Flight Simulator as an impressive game on every level, with Ars Technica's Sam Machkovech calling it the first true "next-gen" first-party console game on Xbox Series X|S.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Blizzard has canceled a planned livestream for Hearthstone's next expansion, United in Stormwind. This follows several streamers who canceled their own card reveals in light of allegations of sexual harassment and abuse at the company sparked by a California state lawsuit.United in Stormwind is scheduled to release next Tuesday, August 3. Typically the weeks before a new expansion launches, Blizzard spreads card reveals through various websites, streamers, and other influencers, culminating in a final card reveal event where it takes the wraps off all of the remaining cards. At that point the patch often goes live as well so that players can download it in preparation for launch. Today's stream had been planned for 10 AM PT / 1 PM PT.This year, however, the abuse allegations raised by a California suit against Activision Blizzard has disrupted those plans. Popular streamers Alliestrasza, Lt. Eddy, and Trump canceled their own card reveals in light of the suit, leaving those cards unrevealed. In recent days it has been an open question whether Blizzard would proceed with its reveal stream--and if so, if that stream would address the controversy.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Netflix and The Pokemon Company are working together on a new live-action Pokemon TV series, according to sources speaking to Variety. The production is said to be "in its early days" and it is not confirmed at this stage. The project is described as being near the beginning of development, not production, so it's not a done deal by any stretch, it seems.As such, there is no word yet on the plot, cast, or release date. However, it's reported that Joe Henderson (11.12.63, Lucifer) is boarding the project to writer and be an executive producer.Variety's report said the new Pokemon series would be similar to the 2019 movie Detective Pikachu, which blended live-action with CGI elements to bring the pocket monsters to life. The film, which starred Ryan Reynolds and Justice Smith, was an enormous success, becoming the highest-grossing video game movie in US history until Sonic dethroned it.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Forza Horizon 5 is hitting the roads later this year on Xbox and PC, and the developers at Playground Games have now shown off a lot more of the racing game as part of a livestream.The 30-minute broadcast below features creative director Mike Brown and associate art director Conar Cross showing off the different biomes of the game's setting, Mexico, and the new Emerald Circuit race. This is a live gameplay demonstration, and the game is certainly looking very good ahead of its scheduled release in November.The stream includes a first-ever look at Forza Horizon 5's new swamp location, which is filled with water and mud aplenty, with gorgeous scenes in the background. The water, in particular, looks lovely, featuring a nice blue-green hue. Some of the 10 other locations you'll explore in Forza Horizon 5 include the tropical coast, farmlands, arid hills, the jungle, the desert, a rocky coast, the city of Guanajuato, and a volcano with snow on top of it.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Splitgate, the free-to-play portal shooter from developer 1047 Games, has had its official 1.0 launch delayed into August so the team can work on server capacity after receiving $10 million from a venture capital firm.The game has exploded in popularity this month despite being on the market since May 2019. 1047 Games turned Splitgate into a cross-play, cross-gen title on July 13 and in the 14 days since, over two million people downloaded it. This surge in players caused widespread server issues, with many unable to get into matches because Splitgate's servers were reportedly always full.1047 Games tweeted on July 22 that current server capacity is only capable of handling 65,536 concurrent players; optimization is futile at this point.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Shadow of the Tomb Raider has received an update on PS5 that gives it a big performance boost. The 2.01 patch adds 4K support at 60fps on PS5 in the game's high-resolution mode.The update slipped out quietly, without much fanfare from Crystal Dynamics or publisher Square Enix, Eurogamer reports. Similarly, the game now carries an "Optimized for Xbox Series X|S" label on the Xbox store, suggesting it may have also gotten a performance boost for the new-generation version.Shadow of the Tomb Raider was the finale in the rebooted trilogy that Crystal Dynamics began in 2013 with Tomb Raider and its followup. The new take on Lara Craft began her journey as a younger woman on her first adventures and learning to cope with the weight of responsibility and danger. While Shadow maintained a lot of its previous games' core mechanics, it wasn't received as well as the critically acclaimed Rise of the Tomb Raider.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Gaming has become so commonplace and ubiquitous that it no longer makes sense to call someone a "gamer," according to Electronic Arts VP Elle McCarthy. McCarthy is the VP of brand at EA and her current mission is to reinvent and reinvigorate EA from a branding perspective.Speaking to AdWeek, McCarthy said gaming is "no longer a medium or an industry, it is simply 'interactive.' You can now interact with almost everything through play--from an interest area like interior design to a movement like Black Lives Matter or exploring your sexual identity.""I often get asked about how brands can partner with gaming or talk to gamers--but there's really no such thing as gamers at all and understanding that will be crucial," she said. "Did you know that only 14% of players self-identify as gamers and that is as low as 6% for women? It might be the safety someone finds in playing with people like them, free from the shackles of identity politics that can factor less in positive gaming spaces than they do in the world."Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com

Originally, Ghostbusters: Afterlife--a direct sequel to 1989's Ghostbusters 2--was supposed to hit theaters last summer. Thanks to COVID-19 delays, it's not scheduled for November 11. Thankfully, you won't have to wait much longer to get a peek at the movie, though. A new trailer will be released Tuesday, July 27.Original Ghostbusters star Dan Aykroyd, who serves as an executive producer on the film and will be reprising his role as Ray Stantz, shared the news on Twitter--along with a short video of the Ecto-1 in action. "Something's coming, he wrote. "Watch the new trailer for [Ghostbusters]: Afterlife tomorrow!"Something’s coming 👻🚫 Watch the new trailer for @Ghostbusters: Afterlife tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/Y3DSYhJcB2 — Dan Aykroyd (@dan_aykroyd) July 26, 2021This is the first we have heard about the movie in quite a while. Back in April, a clip debuted, featuring Paul Rudd's character encountering an army of tiny Stay-Puft marshmallow men, while some toys released earlier this year offered some small hints at what the movie will look like.Continue Reading at GameSpotInfo from Gamespot.com