Hey folks! This week the team got to sit down with Bioware Game Director Corinne Busche and Creative Director John Epler to talk Dragon Age: The Veilguard. We also discuss the newly released Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero and Fear the Spotlight.
Stuff We Talked About
Next week’s release highlights:
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered | PS5
Dragon Age: The Veilguard | PS5
Life is Strange: Double Exposure | PS5
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 pre-launch overview
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered first look at bosses and new map details
Monster Hunter Wilds Open Beta Test launches on PS5 next week
10 great horror games available with PlayStation Plus
Interview with Corinne Busche and John Epler (begins at 12:59)
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero
Fear the Spotlight
Silent Hill 2
Theatrhythm Final Bar Line
The Cast
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Kristen Zitani – Senior Content Communications Specialist, SIE
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Brett Elston – Content Communications Manager, SIE
Thanks to Dormilón for our rad theme song and show music.
[Editor’s note: PSN game release dates are subject to change without notice. Game details are gathered from press releases from their individual publishers and/or ESRB rating descriptions.]
Original Silent Hill art director and Pyramid Head creator Masahiro Ito has said he was too busy making Silent Hill games to get a girlfriend.
PC Gamer spotted a handful of X/Twitter posts from Ito who made clear that his time as a game developer wasn’t all sunshine and daisies — and not just because he was working on the terrifying survival horror franchise.
For a four-year period between 1999 and 2003, Konami released Silent Hill, Silent Hill 2, and Silent Hill 3, and Ito was heavily involved in their creation.
“All the time I was attending my art university or was developing Silent Hill 1, 2, 3, and a cancelled title, I never had any girlfriends cause I had no time for it,” Ito said. “I never thought I was a genius, but I was terribly competitive. The only way to beat geniuses is to give yourself up entirely to what you wanna accomplish.”
Though Ito didn’t say he regrets his time working on the series, which is currently enjoying a resurgence thanks to the criticially and commercially acclaimed Silent Hill 2 remake, Ito has been blunt about the series in the past.
“I wish I hadn’t designed f**kin Pyramid Head,” he said in a 2022 post. This comes alongside criticism of publisher Konami too. “To use [Pyramid Head] in so many titles makes [Pyramid Head] cheaper,” Ito said in a now deleted post.
Konami partnered with developer Bloober Team to recreate the game where Pyramid Head debuted. It arrived October 8 to glowing critical reception and strong sales too, leaving many fans of the previously dormant horror franchise eager for more.
In our 8/10 review, IGN said: “Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror.”
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.
Sonic x Shadow Generations has already sold one million units, Sega has announced, despite only coming out today, October 25.
Being a souped up remake of 2011’s Sonic Generations didn’t slow down the Blue Blur on the sales front, with the figure covering worldwide sales on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
Alongside the remake portion comes Shadow Generations, a brand new chunk of gameplay similar to how Super Mario 3D World was enhanced by Bowser’s Fury in the Nintendo Switch remake.
“Sonic x Shadow Generations is a title that combines two games: Sonic Generations, where players can enjoy speedrunning various stages with Classic Sonic and Modern Sonic, enhanced with new elements, and Shadow Generations, a completely new game featuring the dark hero Shadow racing through dynamic environments,” the official synopsis reads.
“The story begins as a mysterious creature called the Time Eater creates distortions in time and space, setting off separate adventures for Sonic and Shadow. Players can look forward to a high-speed action-adventure with distinct gameplay experiences and narratives.”
The game has reviewed well critically too. “Sonic x Shadow Generations takes an already excellent game and spring jumps it to new heights with a creative Shadow campaign and an appreciable graphical upgrade,” IGN said in our 9/10 review.
Ready to set sail with Adol? Ys: X Nordics is out today on Switch and all platforms in the West, and we thought it was about time we looked back at Ys’ history on Nintendo platforms. And what better way than a ranked list, hey?
Falcom’s long-running action RPG series started waaaay back in 1987 on the PC-8800 series with Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished, making it older than Final Fantasy. It’s a bit of a trailblazer, and the franchise is beloved for its incredible music and fast-paced combat.
Last week, we asked you to share gaming characters you’d like to dress up as for Halloween using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights:
ForgottenJasmin shares a katana-riddled samurai with a basket for a helmet from Ghost of Tsushima: Legends.
sorathluna shares a red-headed witch wearing an owl mask from Hogwarts Legacy.
AkiraAoyama_VP shares the quirky janitor Ahti from Control.
BitarHector shares Aloy striking a pose in one of the Oseram blue and red beaded armors from Horizon Forbidden West.
juniaxe shares Claire Redfield in her classic red leather jacket in Resident Evil 2.
Kirill_Skulkinshares a hulking blue Space Marine armor set from Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2.
Search #PSshare #PSBlog on Twitter or Instagram to see more entries to this week’s theme. Want to be featured in the next Share of the Week?
THEME: Ghosts and Ghouls SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on October 30, 2024
Next week, we’re ready to get haunted. Share ghastly ghosts and (non-gory) ghouls from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
War board games are one of, if not the, oldest genres of board games, with some of the earliest examples dating back to the days of the ancient Greeks. Fast forward a few thousand years, and you will find Axis & Allies, one of the modern era’s most prolific and well-regarded war games. Now, under the care of Renegade Studios, comes a re-release of the much sought-after Anniversary Edition of Axis & Allies with the Axis & Allies 40th Anniversary Edition, and at long last, fans and new players alike can once again find this elusive prize.
For those unfamiliar with the Axis & Allies franchise, the game places anywhere from two to six players in the roles of either the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan) or the Allies (United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union) during various conflicts of World War II in the 1940s (with a few exceptions, such as A&A 1914, set in World War I, and G.I. Joe: Battle in the Arctic Circle).
While many modern games of its type may rely on intricate tech trees, special abilities, and other systems, Axis & Allies is one of the purest forms of war board games out there. It’s a game where you move your pieces around a large board, roll dice to win fights, and conquer cities to achieve victory—a game where solid strategy and planning matter most. This experience has helped the series survive for so long. Among the plethora of versions and multiple editions, this Anniversary Edition release is widely regarded by fans as the de facto version. It’s even featured as the game played in Renegade’s Axis & Allies World Championship Tournament at this year’s GenCon, thanks in part to a few unique aspects that make it stand out from its fellow A&A siblings, like A&A 1942, A&A Pacific 1940, or A&A Europe 1940.
Spread across three large boards, Axis & Allies includes both 1941 and 1942 scenarios to choose from, which dictate where players will place their starting units and the order in which each country takes its turn. From there, play alternates between countries placing new units, moving units, rolling dice to resolve attacks, and buying new units, with the end goal being to hold a certain number of special victory cities. Mix in some special rules for land, air, and sea units, and you have everything you need to enjoy one of the longest-running board game franchises of modern times – simple in concept, rich in depth.
For those fortunate enough to have snagged a copy of the 2009 Anniversary Edition release, aside from a few visual adjustments for historical accuracy on the map (Honolulu now points to the correct island, for example), a bigger board, and a new FAQ section in the rulebook, Renegade’s new version is the same. All 672 miniatures retain the same detailed designs and can be easily stored in the returning nation-specific storage boxes, which are adorned with artwork that creates a collage when stored securely in the game’s box. All of the cardboard tokens are thick and sturdy, and the IPCs (the currency used to purchase new units) are still that same Monopoly-style paper. Though I’m not much of a fan of that myself, I opt for just a trusty notepad to keep track.
The components all feel sturdy and honor the previous releases, but there are slight stumbles, and I wish Renegade had gone a bit further with their tweaks beyond just fixing grammatical hiccups. Of particular note, it is far too difficult to distinguish the various naval ships, especially the Destroyers, Transports, and Battleships. A subtle tweak to the sculpts or something similar would have been welcome (as a quick Google search shows, this complaint isn’t new).
Some issues, such as units feeling cramped on their respective spaces on the map, can be alleviated somewhat by the deluxe neoprene map that is 20% larger, though it comes at an additional cost. All in all, though, for its $100+ price tag, the base Anniversary Edition is still a wonderfully produced board game.
Playing through a game of the Anniversary Edition is an event unto itself that will easily take a day or more to complete, especially if you are a newcomer to the series. To put it into perspective, the games during the world tournament, featuring teams of some of the best players out there, were limited to six hours. While this may sound daunting, there is something truly magical about having a game that turns into a weekend-long event with your friends.
In terms of length, the 40th Anniversary Edition finds itself in the middle range of the pack, with options like 1941 offering much of the same mechanics in a game that will only last a couple of hours. Alternatively, you can combine Europe and Pacific to create the utterly epic Axis & Allies Global, which will take even the most experienced players months of weekends to complete (a dream of mine to do one day). Thanks to Renegade’s efforts in reprinting the series, it’s fairly easy to snag a copy of whichever version you prefer.
The precision-platformer is a torturous genre at the best of times, and now developers Brlka and publishers Ysbryd Games have seen fit to combine it with Silent Hill. Their forthcoming Love Eternal is the story of Maya, a girl whisked off to a “castle built of bitter memories” by a weird, lonely god, and obliged to make her way “through over 100 screens filled with spikes, lasers, switches, and traps”.
When not getting spiked or lasered, Maya appears to spend her days in a kind of metaphorical suburban household. Here, she will contend with things like people crawling on the ceiling and coming over all John Carpenter’s The Thing. Maya does have one thing going for her: the ability to reverse gravity. Here’s a brand new trailer.
Rock Paper Shotgun has a fuzzy conception of “news”, in that we regard the “new” element of news as sorely overrated, more of a guideline than an obligation. The trick to selling this mindset gracefully is to overclock your obnoxious narcissism until it levels up into stylish solipsism. “It’s news to me,” I sternly insist, while announcing a game you might pedantically observe was actually announced in 2019. “I can obtain no reliable empirical evidence that this existed prior to my noticing it,” I declare, writing about my discovery that Call Of Duty: Black Ops 6 requires a permanent internet connection, even when you’re playing the campaign.
The CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, is getting a pay raise. A $30 million one.
According to a proxy filing published earlier this week and spotted by NBC, Nadella’s compensation for the fiscal year 2024 totaled $79,106,183. $2.5 million of this was his base salary, $71.24 million was stock awards, $5.2 million was non-equity incentive plan compensation, and the rest was a mixture of other types of compensation.
This is significantly higher than last year, when Nadella’s compensation totaled $48.5 million. While Nadella’s base salary remained flat between years, he saw a massive jump in the past fiscal year in stock awards, going from $39.24 million last year to $71.24 million this year.
Per the filing, the ratio of total annual compensation of Nadella to the median employee at Microsoft was 408 to 1.
Notably, the filing points out that this number actually incorporates Nadella taking a pay cut. The “cash incentive” portion of his pay was reduced at Nadella’s own request due to a security breach in 2023 where a Chinese espionage group hacked government email accounts through Microsoft. Per the filing, without this reduction, Nadella’s non-equity incentive plan compensation would have totaled $10.66 million instead of $5.2 million.
“Since the Board of Directors appointed Mr. Nadella as the third Chief Executive Officer in its history in 2014, Microsoft has nearly tripled revenue to $245.1 billion, nearly quadrupled net income to $88.1 billion, and more than quadrupled diluted earnings per share to $11.80,” the filing reads. “In addition to another year of consistently strong financial performance, Mr. Nadella and his leadership team have positioned Microsoft to continue to drive performance for years to come.”
Microsoft’s 2024 fiscal year took place from July of 2023 to June of 2024. During that period, the company acquired Activision Blizzard for $69 billion, a point that’s celebrated in the Microsoft filing. However, the company also laid off 1,900 staff from its gaming workforce in early January. A few months later, it closed Redfall developer Arkane Austin, Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks, and laid off others within Bethesda. And already this quarter, Microsoft has laid off another 650 gaming staff in a move which Xbox head Phil Spencer attributed directly to the acquisition.
Microsoft’s first quarter earnings call for fiscal 2025 will take place next week, providing an update on the company as a whole as well as the gaming division. Microsoft has been doing well on the strength of Azure, Cloud, Office, and its other divisions, and the Activision Blizzard acquisition has provided it with a significant boost to gaming revenue. However, hardware sales have been dipping over the last year (a problem also faced by Xbox’s rivals) and non-Activision Blizzard content sales have been relatively flat over the last year.
Photo by Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
