The Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase airs today.
Ahead of Nintendo’s Partner Showcase, it seems a release date for LEGO Horizon Adventures might have been revealed ahead of schedule.
On Sony’s official PlayStation website, a huge banner on the main page mentions how this new title will be arriving on multiple platforms (including the Nintendo Switch) on 14th November. This was originally spotted on Reddit, with Gematsu highlighting it on social media.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
Dragon Ball has many inspirations, none more notable than Journey to the West — the famous Chinese novel that also served as the basis for Black Myth: Wukong. Now Dragon Ball Z and Black Myth: Wukong are being united thanks to a new mod that replaces The Destined One with Son Goku.
The new mod is a relatively straightforward swap — no kamehameha or going Super Saiyan here — but it is pretty neat to see Goku running around Black Myth: Wukong’s incredibly detailed world. He can even zip around on the equivalent of the Flying Nimbus, the magic cloud that itself was borrowed from Journey to the West and appears in Black Myth: Wukong. Check it out in the video below.
You can download the Son Goku Black Myth: Wukong mod right here.
Aside from Son Goku, a host of other Black Myth: Wukong mods let players swap in Tifa, swap The Destined One’s staff for a double-bladed lightsaber (very cool), and make tweaks to various aspects of the visuals and performance.
Whether you play with Goku or not, though, you’ll need a pretty beefy rig to be able to enjoy Black Myth: Wukong. Our reviewer Mitchell Saltzman utilized a top-of-the-line setup with a GeForce RTX 4090 and he still dealt with numerous crashes and other issues. Still, that hasn’t stopped Black Myth: Wukong from enjoying record concurrent numbers on Steam en route to selling 10 million copies in just three days.
If you do decide to pick up Black Myth: Wukong, make sure to check out the following guides, which you can find linked below. And of course, make sure to check out the other best-reviewed games released in 2024.
Kat Bailey is IGN’s News Director as well as co-host of Nintendo Voice Chat. Have a tip? Send her a DM at @the_katbot.
Pokémon came home.
It has been 20 years since the first Pokémon World Championships took place in Orlando and in what may be a move to celebrate, the Pokémon World Championships returned to a place where it has frequently been held: Hawai’i. However, this time rather than being on the big island, it went to the island of O’ahu and the city of Honolulu.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
The post Towerborne Developer Diary: Fine-Tuning Fun appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Early test footage of what seems to be Valve’s recently announced multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) shooter, Deadlock, has surfaced online.
The footage was shared by X/Twitter user, content creator, and leaker @gabefollower, who says it comes from a Valve developer known as Yoshi. It’s a barebones version of the Deadlock we now know, with texture-less buildings, concrete floors, and triangle pine trees. As Gabe Follower points out, this early version also utilizes assets from a few other Valve titles. Half-Life Antlions, for example, can be seen filling the minion role, while the game also uses assets from titles like Left 4 Dead and Dota.
It’s far from impressive but still an interesting look at a game that we still know so little about. It’s unclear when exactly the footage was captured, but you can see what was shared below.
Valve dev “Yoshi” shared early footage of gameplay prototype for Deadlock. Placeholder assets from Left 4 Dead, Dota and Half-Life… pic.twitter.com/fmKfl7d1KA
— Gabe Follower (@gabefollower) August 26, 2024
Valve properly revealed Deadlock as its first new IP in years just last week. It’s a third-person, 6v6 shooter that’s still very much in early development, and the lead-up to its announcement has been anything but ordinary. The Half-Life and Portal developer has allowed a select group of players to play the game throughout the last few weeks, asking those who participate to refrain from sharing any content or opinions from their experience. It’s led to confusion among those not on the shortlist, as playtesters have still managed to sneak some gameplay footage onto social media. Meanwhile, PC statistic website SteamDB revealed a growing number of players flocking to Deadlock in secret through August, with players starting to join earlier this month and peaking at 44,512 users days before Valve pulled back the curtain.
Deadlock platforms have not yet been announced, but it is currently playable on PC for playtesters. No release date has been shared yet. While Valve keeps its head down to continue development, you can read about a few other early leaks that teased some of what would eventually be revealed as Deadlock.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
Be sure to give him a follow on Twitter @MikeCripe.
Gather ’round, Dungeons & Dragons fans! It’s nearly time for this year’s D&D Direct, the annual event that showcases what’s on the horizon for the legendary tabletop RPG. Incredibly, it’s been 50 years since the creation of D&D, and it’s still the king of TTRPGs. This year marks the third annual D&D Direct, and there’s sure to be some exciting and unexpected announcements.
We have all the details you need to know going into the show, including when it goes live, where you can stream it, and what you can expect to see.
The show will air on Tuesday, August 27, starting at 9 am PT / 12 pm ET / 5 pm BST. For our friends in Australia, that’s Wednesday, August 28 at 2 am AEST. The show will be about 15–20 minutes long and will be livestreamed across IGN’s channels. You can watch it at any of these places:
IGN.com (our homepage)
If you’re unable to watch live or want to see it again, the full show will stay on IGN’s YouTube channel after it finishes, just like last year’s D&D Direct.
The show will be all about what’s coming for D&D. The game studio team will be on hand to talk about the 2024 Player’s Handbook that’s coming out in September. It’ll be the final sneak peek before release, and you’ll get to see some of the artwork featured throughout the book. Plus, you’ll get a glimpse into what’s in store for the 2024 versions of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, Monster Manual, and more.
The Project Sigil dev team will also join to share the latest information about the project. If you’re not familiar with Project Sigil, it’s a 3D sandbox that can bring your D&D campaign to life in a new way. You can create new adventures and share them with friends to play as a group. If you’re interested, you can sign up for the closed beta that will open this fall.
On top of all that, there’s bound to be some surprises even we can’t see coming. You’ll just have to tune in to the livestream to see what they are.
EarthBound turns “adults into kids, and kids into adults”.
Soapbox features enable our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random stuff they’ve been chewing over. Today, Nile celebrates the innocence of youth, the pain of growing up, and the magic of a cult classic SNES RPG, which celebrates its 30th anniversary on 27th August 2024…
There’s arguably no more praiseworthy label than calling a piece of media “timeless”, a product so true to its singular vision that its sights, sounds, and ethos succeed in emotionally impacting audiences across generations. Three decades on from its release, EarthBound (Mother 2 in Japan) is, for many, a game that indisputably earns the label.
Read the full article on nintendolife.com
From the moment he popped out of our transformed DualShock DualShock 4 wireless controllers in Playroom VR, it was clear that Astro Bot was going to charm hearts across the galaxy. Eight years later, this amazing character is truly ready to step into the spotlight via his titular PS5 adventure – Astro Bot. So we sat down with Team Asobi’s studio director Nicolas Doucet to get into the nuts and bolts of the origins and evolution of this iconic PlayStation mascot-in-the-making.
The Playroom
The very first conception of Astro Bot emerged from Team Asobi’s desire to experiment with the DualShock 4 controller connection with the PS4 camera, crafting a demo provisionally titled Little AR (Augmented Reality) Men. The main characters were initially tiny robots that you could interact with on your living room floor.
“That was really the starting point,” says Doucet. “At the time we didn’t have any art, so we made prototypes out of primitive shapes. The characters were just robots made up of cylinders with little eyes. Eventually we renamed them to AR Bots.
“We worked with artists to bring these characters to life, but we only had five months to implement the demo into The Playroom. So to make them sci-fi looking within such a short period of time, we gave them a Sony robotics style. But it was also important that they were endearing, so we gave them big cute eyes and made them waddle like toddlers, so they kinda became baby robots.”
The Playroom VR
As the AR Bots became customized as part of The Playroom’s evolution into The Playroom VR, Astro Bot himself emerged needing a more central character to control for a VR platformer prototype, which became the Robots Rescue mini-game.
“We internally called him Captain Astro,” explains Doucet. “We added a PlayStation blue livery and more parts to have him stand out from the environment, gave him the ability to hover and modified his hands to grab things.
Astro Bot Rescue Mission
“He also had to feel tangible for VR. We looked at him as if he was a real-life robotics product – it’s a character you can take apart and understand how his joints come together.”
It wasn’t until 2018’s solo PS VR platformer, Astro Bot Rescue Mission, that Astro officially claimed his name – and with it came with the help of animation and art talent from other development teams, including Gravity Rush and The Last Guardian.
Making sure Astro was primed for his full solo escapade in Astro Bot Rescue Mission meant tweaking his design, both from a visual and gameplay perspective. Already gifted with classic platformer design considerations – a low center of gravity and a compact frame – Astro benefited from several little details, some made even more distinctive in Astro Bot:
Eyes
Astro’s blue LED eyes are key to his facial expressions, changing shape to convey a variety of emotions – but they’re also fundamental to the VIP Bots in the game. More on that point, later…
Jetpack
“In the original design whenever Astro hovered, two little wings came out of his back for him to glide,” says Doucet. “You don’t really notice them, but we wanted to create a rationale behind the function.”
Chrome dome
Astro Bot’s star shines in more ways than one, with the plate on his head subtly showing off the dazzling power afforded by PS5. From jungles to oceans, all the game’s environments are now fully reflected on the back of Astro’s silver head plating during his travels.
Robo voice
We might think Astro’s cute, high-pitched voice was a natural decision, but lots of thought went into what he can say, to the point that he’s secretly a bit of a polyglot. “Astro fundamentally does not talk but his sounds do mix English and Japanese, but also universal words and onomatopoeia, masked into robotic sounds,” says Doucet. “He’s being played by kids all over the world, so we also had to think about sonority, sounds and syllables that work for as many languages as possible.”
It’s things like Astro’s reflective head plate that symbolizes his growth over the years, now unlocked for PS5. Being in 4K has meant more detail and higher fidelity across the board with a compatible 4K TV or display, making Astro and his companions pop, something that extends even to the game’s flora and fauna.
“There’s a lot of wildlife – about 70 new animals in this game,” says Doucet. “From frogs and small insects, to polar bears and elephants, and they all follow the design language of the bots with LED eyes. Even power-ups like Barkster the bulldog booster have the same traits. So the idea of blue LEDs for friends and red LEDs for enemies has become something of a trademark we’ve built on.”
And then there are the VIP and Cameo Bots – in-game versions of popular PlayStation-related characters – that had players buzzing with delight at their reveal. The franchise isn’t a stranger to cameos, but Astro Bot takes it even further, with a staggering amount of consideration given to integrating its robotic tributes to Kratos, Aloy, Nathan Drake, and many others.
“They had to be a cool sci-fi design but also have things like fabrics or furry boots, so we sometimes felt we might be going against the original intent of the character,” explains Doucet. “So we substituted more organic materials, like hair, with materials such as vinyl.
“But with all of these characters, the eyes are paramount. Sometimes LED eyes just didn’t work on certain characters because the original design relies so much on the pupils being a certain size or color for instance . So for more cartoony VIPs like Crash Bandicoot or from Ape Escape, the Bots are wearing a mask to help bridge that problem!”
Excited for Astro’s first PS5 adventure? You’ve not got long to wait – space, speeders, and surprises will be yours to enjoy as Astro Bot gears up for its September 6 launch.
It’s no secret that today’s wrestlers, whether from AEW or WWE, are massive gamers. Nevertheless, that doesn’t stop the phenomenon of witnessing superstars like AEW’s Will Ospreay displaying his affinity for Assassin’s Creed with a thematic entrance at yesterday’s All In pay-per-view any less remarkable.
August 25 was AEW’s All In pay-per-view in Wembley Stadium, one of the biggest pay-per-view events in wrestling. One of the matches at the stacked four-hour event was Ospreay competing against Maxwell Jacob Friedman for the newly minted American championship.
We. Are. Assassins.
— Will Ospreay • ウィル・オスプレイ (@WillOspreay) August 25, 2024
Ospreay, the babyface, and out-and-proud Assassin’s Creed fan, made a statement before entering the ring with an Assassin’s Creed Shadow’s inspired entrance. The entrance also had the distinction of being narrated by none other than Ezio’s voice actor, Roger Craig Smith.
Unlike Ospreay’s Assassin’s Creed Syndicate entrance at New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Wrestle Kingdom 18, his pyro-heavy All In entrance was kitted out with a crew of cloaked break dancers, Assassin’s Creed Shadows gameplay interspersed with his death-defying flips, and Ezio cutting a promo hyping up the Essex-born “Aerial Assassin” to defeat MJF.
Ospreay’s entrance was all the motivation he needed to defeat MJF thanks to the help of his Assassin’s Creed-inspired Hidden Blade signature move and the long-awaited return of his devastating Tiger Driver ’91.
Image Credit: @WillOspreay on X/Twitter
Isaiah Colbert is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow them on Twitter @ShinEyeZehUhh.
Konami has released a wealth of new screenshots from Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, the remake of Metal Gear Solid 3 officially called Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater.
The screenshots, below, show the remake isn’t changing either the serious tactical espionage action of the original or the ridiculous, almost cartoonish elements. Protagonist Snake can be seen creeping around enemies in the forest and shooting at a rubber duck.
Snake can also be seen in various states of battle worn, from feeling fresh in new camouflage to going topless covered in blood. It also shows a handful of enemies, a revamped UI, and the first person mode players can jump into when looking for some extra precision.
Announced in May 2023 after a series of rumours, Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater promises to be a faithful retelling of the original game. Konami has already confirmed it’s coming to Xbox Series and PC alongside PlayStation 5.
A 2024 release date is expected according to PlayStation itself, though a handful of trailers from the game have since arrived with no word on an exact date.
In IGN’s first preview of the game, we said: “This new, [original lead Hideo] Kojima-less Metal Gear Solid Delta seems more like a very shiny HD remaster than the elegant remake it could have been. It’s an admittedly beautiful nostalgia trip, but almost faithful to a fault.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
