The Knight Witch, which takes the thrill of the bullet hell shooter and wraps it up in a lovely Metroid-like-shaped package my brain can actually understand. It’s a fantastic little game, and I’m only sorry we didn’t cover it in more detail when it came out at the end of November last year.
The elusive shiny version of Heart Trim Furfrou, a Valentine’s Day exclusive in Pokémon GO, is now able to be transferred from the mobile game into Pokémon HOME!
The Valentine’s Day event started earlier today, and Serebii shared the news that — for the first time — the shiny variant of this exclusive form can, at last, be stored in HOME. Shiny Furfrou was only added to the game last September as part of the Fashion Week event, so while all other shiny variants could be transferred to HOME, players would need to wait until the next Valentine’s Day event to get their hands on this unique look.
The Callisto Protocol was already an unforgiving experience, tasking you with escaping Black Iron Prison amid an outbreak that turns its denizens into horrific biophages – but now it’s offering its sternest challenge yet. As part of a free update, Striking Distance Studios has introduced Hardcore Mode – and I caught up with Creative Director Ben Walker to dive into the new horrors it brings.
“It’s right there in the name – Hardcore Mode is just plain hardcore,” Walker begins. “We designed The Callisto Protocol to be tough, and with this new mode, we’re giving fans of really brutal gameplay a whole new level of challenge to master.
“We’re dramatically lowering the number of enemy drops, giving enemies more attacking power, shortening the time it takes for creatures to mutate, and giving items less resale value at the Reforge to make resources even tighter. We’re also reducing the damage doled out by the Stun Baton while making GRP charges more expensive.
“We’re also adding three new achievements for players who have what it takes to survive Hardcore Mode. But don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
Hardcore modes are a big part of the survival horror scene – in a genre all about getting through the experience against all odds, it’s perhaps no surprise that the most committed players want those odds made even harder. But even Striking Distance was surprised by how proficient those players could be:
“Hardcore Mode has been on the roadmap for a while,” Walker says, “but after launch, we were blown away by the number of people that were actually beating the game on the Maximum Security mode [previously the toughest difficulty level] – it validated the concept, and we’re thrilled to give it to players. We didn’t pull any punches here, so we think it’ll offer our hardcore players a hardcore challenge.”
But that’s not say this was simply a case of making the game a one-death game over experience. Striking Distance concentrated on how to make this notably different to Maximum Security mode, without simply adding a more artificial barrier. That means fewer ammo and health drops, reduced contraband value, and enemies even more keen to take you down:
“A lot of other hardcore modes are focused on permadeath,” Walker explains. “We wanted to lean more into the turning and creating scarcity for items. This mode is all about pushing players’ skills to the limits […] It’s hard as hell, but it’s fair, and it’s a pretty awesome accomplishment for those that can get through it.”
That begs the question: how many people at the studio have actually managed to beat their own Hardcore Mode?
“We’ve spent hundreds of hours playtesting the game, so lots of people around the studio have beaten the game on Hardcore Mode,” says Walker, “but I’ve still found myself sweating during some of the encounters. Especially with Two Head. I haven’t thrown my controller yet, but I’ve come close once in a while. Beating it always feels like an accomplishment.”
But one key question remains: will you be able to beat it? Find out today.
Hardcore Mode is a free update, available today, for The Callisto Protocol on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One. Also out today is the Outer Way Skin Collection, the first of four DLC drops, available as part of the game’s Season Pass and sold separately. The Callisto Protocol Season Pass is on sale, with 20% off, until February 13.
The Callisto Protocol™ for Xbox Series X|S – Digital Deluxe Edition
In this narrative-driven, third-person survival horror game set 300 years in the future, the player will take on the role of Jacob Lee – a victim of fate thrown into Black Iron Prison, a maximum-security penitentiary located on Jupiter’s moon, Callisto. When inmates begin to transform into monstrous creatures, the prison is thrown into chaos. To survive, Jacob must battle his way to safety to escape Black Iron Prison, while uncovering the dark and disturbing secrets buried beneath the surface of Callisto. Using a unique blend of shooting and close-quarters combat, Jacob will need to adapt his tactics to combat the rapidly evolving creatures while scavenging to unlock new weapons, gear, and abilities to outrun the growing threat and escape the horrors of Jupiter’s Dead Moon.
HORROR ENGINEERING
The Callisto Protocol is a next-generation take on survival horror from the mind of Glen Schofield. Blending atmosphere, tension, and brutality with terrifying moments of helplessness and humanity, The Callisto Protocol immerses players in a pulse-pounding story where unspeakable horrors lurk around every corner.
UNCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNITED JUPITER COMPANY
Set on Jupiter’s dead moon Callisto in the year 2320, The Callisto Protocol casts players as Jacob Lee, an inmate in Black Iron Prison. When a mysterious outbreak throws the moon into chaos, Jacob must face his darkest fears to defeat the bloodthirsty creatures that stalk him as he unravels the dark mysteries at the heart of the powerful United Jupiter Company.
MASTER BRUTAL, STRATEGIC COMBAT
The Callisto Protocol challenges players to master a thrilling blend of hand-to-hand and ranged combat, including a unique gravity weapon once used by Black Iron guards to control the prison population. Players will be forced to get up close and personal with their grotesque opponents, hacking off limbs, blasting off legs, and getting creative with whatever is at their disposal to survive each life-or-death encounter.
EXPERIENCE THE ISOLATION OF JUPITER’S DEAD MOON
One of the most hostile, isolated environments in the universe, Callisto looms large over Jacob’s desperate struggle to survive. Players must not only contend with the horrors of Black Iron Prison, but also the centuries-old secrets that plague Jupiter’s long-dead moon, both above and below the surface.
Pre-order now to get the following digital content:
– Retro Prisoner Character & Weapons Skin
– Season Pass
The Season Pass includes:
Outer Way Skin Collection: Bear the armor of the Outer Way, an underground insurgency pitted against the UJC, as you fight to survive the horrors of Callisto.
Contagion Bundle: Discover the ultimate survival horror experience with a new mode, Contagion. With reduced ammo and health drops, a customized difficulty and permadeath – there are no second chances to escape Black Iron Prison or the horrors lurking beneath the surface of Callisto. The Contagion Bundle also includes thirteen new Jacob death animations and the Watchtower Skin Collection.
Riot Bundle: Venture into a previously undiscovered area of Black Iron Prison and battle through waves of brutal enemies. Gather credits to upgrade your weapons, or forge new ones, and survive the onslaught as long as you can in Riot, an all-new mode. The Riot Bundle also includes twelve new enemy death animations and the Engineer Skin Collection.
Story DLC: Dig deeper into the horrifying secrets of The Callisto Protocol.
In this narrative-driven, third-person survival horror game set 300 years in the future, the player will take on the role of Jacob Lee – a victim of fate thrown into Black Iron Prison, a maximum-security penitentiary located on Jupiter’s moon, Callisto. When inmates begin to transform into monstrous creatures, the prison is thrown into chaos. To survive, Jacob must battle his way to safety to escape Black Iron Prison, while uncovering the dark and disturbing secrets buried beneath the surface of Callisto. Using a unique blend of shooting and close-quarters combat, Jacob will need to adapt his tactics to combat the rapidly evolving creatures while scavenging to unlock new weapons, gear, and abilities to outrun the growing threat and escape the horrors of Jupiter’s Dead Moon.
HORROR ENGINEERING
The Callisto Protocol is a next-generation take on survival horror from the mind of Glen Schofield. Blending atmosphere, tension, and brutality with terrifying moments of helplessness and humanity, The Callisto Protocol immerses players in a pulse-pounding story where unspeakable horrors lurk around every corner.
UNCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNITED JUPITER COMPANY
Set on Jupiter’s dead moon Callisto in the year 2320, The Callisto Protocol casts players as Jacob Lee, an inmate in Black Iron Prison. When a mysterious outbreak throws the moon into chaos, Jacob must face his darkest fears to defeat the bloodthirsty creatures that stalk him as he unravels the dark mysteries at the heart of the powerful United Jupiter Company.
MASTER BRUTAL, STRATEGIC COMBAT
The Callisto Protocol challenges players to master a thrilling blend of hand-to-hand and ranged combat, including a unique gravity weapon once used by Black Iron guards to control the prison population. Players will be forced to get up close and personal with their grotesque opponents, hacking off limbs, blasting off legs, and getting creative with whatever is at their disposal to survive each life-or-death encounter.
EXPERIENCE THE ISOLATION OF JUPITER’S DEAD MOON
One of the most hostile, isolated environments in the universe, Callisto looms large over Jacob’s desperate struggle to survive. Players must not only contend with the horrors of Black Iron Prison, but also the centuries-old secrets that plague Jupiter’s long-dead moon, both above and below the surface.
UPDATE: Preorders for Tears of the Kingdom have been made unavailable at retailers with the exception of GameStop.
On Tuesday, February 7, Tears of the Kingdom appeared on the Nintendo eShop site with a $69.99 price tag. The price was soon removed, but it got people talking a whole lot about the cost of games. Fortunately, this potential price increase hasn’t trickled down to any of the major retailers, so if it is going to have a $70 MSRP, you can lock in the $59.99 price now.
The sequel to Breath of the Wild is called The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It’s set to release exclusively for Nintendo Switch on May 12, 2023. Based on the glimpses we’ve seen, the game looks similar to its predecessor, but with a number of exciting new ideas thrown in the mix, including sky-high verticality in the open world. Hopefully we’ll get a much better look during today’s Nintendo Direct.
You don’t have to wait to lock down a copy of the game for yourself. Listings for Tears of the Kingdom are already live at various retailers right now (see it at Amazon, or GAME in the UK).
Preorder The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
So far, the standard edition is all we’re seeing available, and it retails for $59.99. It’s worth noting that Breath of the Wild got a Master Edition that featured a bunch of cool extras. Nothing like that has been announced for Tears of the Kingdom, but if any new editions pop up anywhere, we’ll put them here.
What Is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom?
A new trailer for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted during the Nintendo Direct on September 13, 2022. You can watch that one below.
First announced with a teaser trailer at E3 2019, Tears of the Kingdom (formerly known as Breath of the Wild 2) is a sequel to what many fans agree is one of the best games ever made. Nintendo has has taken its time and shown relatively little of the game ever since.
The E3 2021 trailer (see above) shows Link skydiving and then paragliding from high in the air above Hyrule. You can clearly see floating landmasses in the sky as well. And after it shows Link use his ability to freeze items and send them hurtling through the air, it also shows him using a flame thrower and teleporting vertically through the stone of one of the floating isles. Hmm.
There’s still plenty we don’t know about The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, but with the spring 2023 release date announced, we know it won’t be too terribly long before we’ll get to play it for ourselves.
podcast Indiescovery already? How time flies! In this episode, the Indiescovery squad reccomend a handful of awesome demos from this spring’s Steam Next Fest for our lovely listeners to check out – six demos to be exact! We recorded this episode on a Friday instead of our usual Wednesdays so, yeah, major end-of-week vibes in this one. Have a listen below!
After Microsoft’s shopping spree of studio acquisitions over the last few years, there’s a long list of video game licenses that are now technically first-party Xbox properties – but possibly the weirdest is that PlayStation’s biggest competitor is now the home of its original mascot, Crash Bandicoot.
If you grew up in the ’90s, Crash and PlayStation were almost synonymous. Not only were the first few crash games amazing tech demos of what Sony’s first console could do, Crash himself was an extremely vocal hype-man; the mascot platformer became a literal mascot for the PS1 and millions of people likely heard about Sony’s new console from a guy in a fur suit yelling through a megaphone about it in TV commercials.
The first three Crash games were published by Sony but the rights to the bandicoot himself belonged to Universal Studios’ video game publishing wing, Universal Interactive, which also happened to hold the leash of Sony’s second-most popular platformer, Spryo the Dragon. In 2001, Sony acquired Naughty Dog – the studio that created Crash – and Universal Interactive merged with another company to become Vivendi Universal Interactive Publishing.
After another merger in 2008 Vivendi became part of Activision Blizzard, but after a bunch of mediocre games and the decline in popularity of 3D platformers, the custody rights for Crash weren’t at the forefront of most peoples’ minds.
Sony’s earliest, most recognizable characters have officially packed their bags and moved in with their ex’s worst enemy.”
Then, at the 2015 Playstation Experience, head honcho Sean Layden appeared on stage in a Crash t-shirt, and a generation of PlayStation fans went N-SANE. Was the prodigal bandicoot returning home? 2016 turned out to be the year of the bandicoot and Crash’s 20th anniversary victory lap saw him popping up all over. He appeared in a Naughty Dog game for the first time this century, (okay it was an Uncharted game, but still…) then he was the guest of honor in Skylanders: Imaginators. Y’know, the Spyro spinoff that spun out of control.
Then finally, Activision Blizzard opened the nostalgia floodgates: full modern remakes of the original trilogy and Crash Team Racing paved the way for the long-overdue sequel It’s About Time. It seemed like Crash Bandicoot and PlayStation had rekindled that special connection they had in the ’90s… I mean, it was an open relationship so Crash could be on other platforms but still, the spark was back.
At least that’s how it felt until Microsoft ran off with Activision Blizzard, bandicoots and dragons and all. Sony might own Naughty Dog and Insomniac, the studios that created some of PlayStation’s earliest and most recognizable characters, but those characters themselves have officially packed their bags and moved in with their ex’s worst enemy.
Who knows? Maybe the next time we see Crash he’ll be in the parking lot of PlayStation headquarters, yelling through a megaphone about the wonders of Xbox Game Pass in front of a pickup truck full of series Xs. After all, stranger things have happened. There was a time when the idea of playing a Sega game on a Nintendo consoles was practically blasphemous and now that’s not only commonplace, we’ve got six whole games about Mario and Sonic at the Olympics.
Wood & Weather, an upcoming sandbox god game about manipulating weather as you oversee a small wooden toy town occupied by Notplaymobil figures. Someone wants coffee? Fetch them a coffee. Oh it’s too hot for coffee? Turn on the rain. Oh, and after all you do, they throw the empty cup on the floor? Great, thanks, lovely, pick it up and bin it for them. Check out the cute trailer below!
Nintendo’s share price has dropped on the Tokyo Stock Exchange following yesterday’s Q3 FY2023 Financial Report (via VGC). The company’s price dropped by around 7% since yesterday’s report, and at the time of writing, it currently sits at ¥5,226, which is down from ¥5,624.
This drop doesn’t come as a huge surprise due to the company’s slightly disappointing results, where Nintendo revealed that it’s cutting sales forecasts after a decline in year-on-year sales in hardware and software. Other than reducing its year-end forecast for Switch sales again, from 19 million to 18 million, Nintendo is still staying quiet about a successor, despite the console about to enter its seventh year on the market.
Reka. It’s a 19th-century witch sim being made by Emberstorm Entertainment, where you play as a traveling witch whose chosen mode of transportation is the legendary chicken-legged Baba Yaga house, which is the coolest thing ever.
Details on Reka are still super light, and the Steam page mentions a release year of 2024, but I’ve been following Emberstorm’s Twitter intently, looking at all the cool gifs for Reka and the house looks incredible! For one, it’s huge. It towers above the forest trees and looks like it could easily stomp unwanted visitors to death. When the young witch approaches the towering beast, it bends is legs to sit down, almost burring itself in the earth for her access to the house on top.
One eShop gem that’s already been released this year is Vengeful Guardian: Moon Rider – a homage to classic 16-bit action platformers like Shinobi III and Hagane: The Final Conflict. If you’ve been holding out for a physical copy of this one, the good news is pre-orders are now live.
There’s the option of a standard edition (34,90 €), collector’s edition (69,90 €), and a deluxe edition (149,90 €) – note: European pricing:
The Knight Witch, which takes the thrill of the bullet hell shooter and wraps it up in a lovely Metroid-like-shaped package my brain can actually understand. It’s a fantastic little game, and I’m only sorry we didn’t cover it in more detail when it came out at the end of November last year.
podcast Indiescovery already? How time flies! In this episode, the 
Wood & Weather, an upcoming sandbox god game about manipulating weather as you oversee a small wooden toy town occupied by Notplaymobil figures. Someone wants coffee? Fetch them a coffee. Oh it’s too hot for coffee? Turn on the rain. Oh, and after all you do, they throw the empty cup on the floor? Great, thanks, lovely, pick it up and bin it for them. Check out the cute trailer below!
Reka. It’s a 19th-century witch sim being made by Emberstorm Entertainment, where you play as a traveling witch whose chosen mode of transportation is the legendary chicken-legged Baba Yaga house, which is the coolest thing ever.