Category: PlayStation

Last week, we asked you suit up and share epic mech moments in Armored Core VI using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights: 

TheFourthFocus shares a blue shaded mech with its arm gun outstretched and smoking

DotPone shares a mech blasting at an airborne enemy

marka_game shares a mech flying up towards a hexagon honeycomb shaped tower structure

AgentDuck99 shares a mech taking in a fiery sunset sky

shimo_ps shares a back view of the jetpack propelling a mech forward

UkkoVP shares a mech on a cliff overlooking a destroyed bridge and cityscape.

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:  Sea of Stars

SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on September 6, 2023

Next week, we’re taking in the colorful world of turn-based RPG Sea of Stars. Share beautiful moments using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

Greetings, PlayStation Stars members! With the arrival of September, a fresh wave of campaigns and collectibles is upon us. Get ready to conquer new challenges, earn rewards, and expand your digital collectibles to refresh your display case. Stay connected throughout the month on PlayStation App for more.  

Let’s jump right into some of the offerings that await you.

PlayStation & You: Wireless Keyboard

Available September 1

Attention, past owners of the PS3 wireless keyboard! Your gaming journey deserves a nod of appreciation. Activate the PlayStation & You: Wireless Keyboard Campaign and unlock an exclusive digital collectible – the classic PS3 wireless keyboard.

Simply start the campaign and this nostalgic piece will join your digital collectibles collection.

PlayStation Plus Game Catalog: Must-play this Month

Available September 5 

There are hundreds of games in the PlayStation Plus Game Catalog for Extra and Premium/Deluxe members. The catalog is regularly refreshed, so we’re highlighting monthly gems to play. When you play any one game in this campaign, you’ll earn 50 points. 

For this month, experience some of the Best Hits from Japan. Play any one of these iconic Japanese titles below to earn 50 points. 

• Dynasty Warriors 9
• Lost Judgement
• Devil May Cry 5
• Death Stranding
• Ghostwire: Tokyo

PlayStation Plus Monthly Games Campaign

Available September 5

New month, new PlayStation Plus Monthly Games. For this campaign, PlayStation Plus members can play any one of the September Monthly Games and earn 50 points. See the games announced here. 

Hard Game Club Campaign: Slay the Spire

Available September 7

It’s time to conquer Slay the Spire and earn the “Shapes” trophy. Achieve this feat, and the exclusive Hard Game Club Balloon digital collectible is yours.

For those already boasting the “Shapes” trophy, your reward is waiting for you. Simply start the campaign, play any PS4 or PS5 game, and the Hard Game Club Balloon is yours.

Hard Game Club: Cuphead

Last Chance: If you haven’t seen it yet on PS App, we have a Hard Game Club campaign for Cuphead available now until October 14^th. Earn the “A Day at the Fair” trophy to unlock the Cuphead Hard Game Club digital collectible. 

If you’ve already earned this trophy, simply start the campaign, play any PS4 or PS5 game, and this Hard Game Club Balloon is yours.

Unlock games with your PlayStation Stars points

As a reminder, your PlayStation Stars points are a ticket to an array of incredible games and more. Dive into the “PlayStation Store rewards” section of your PlayStation Stars Rewards Catalog and explore a selection of titles that you can redeem your points for right now. Here are just a few examples of the games waiting for you:

Exit the Gungeon 

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Cuphead  

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Moss 

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Dredge 

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Not a PlayStation Stars member yet? Learn more about PlayStation Stars and join here. 

Greetings readers. I’m Mårten, the Game Design Director at Hadoque, a collective of creatives in Sweden. I co-created the core concept of the game and oversee the game design. We’ve been working on Ultros – our first game together – for the past few years, and today, we’re thrilled to show you the core gameplay and a new boss.

To recap from our reveal at the PlayStation Showcase earlier in the year, Ultros is a mystical and poetic adventure where you fight dangerous space insects and plant seeds to create an alien garden. Our protagonist, Ouji, wakes up stranded on an overgrown sarcophagus in space. She has no memory of who she is and how she got here. But the world feels familiar, and it seems to react to her – like she has some sort of connection to it. Naturally, this is when you start to explore the depths of the sarcophagus.

As part of this exploration, platforming becomes vital. Ouji is nimble, swift, and can build momentum to create a natural feeling flow of movement. You’ll have to do your fair share of jumping, climbing, crawling, and breaking surfaces to reveal secret areas.

Play Video

Revealing the Ultros gameplay loop

Not so long into your venture, you’ll discover insect-like aliens that are generally very territorial and can get agitated if you get too close. They’re all part of the game’s cryptic ecosystem that you’ll take part in as you progress. The first ones seen in our gameplay first-look trailer are some of the weaker enemies called Puppaluppas. When you defeat them with your sword, they drop body parts or different organs. Ultros has a reward system for finishing off enemies with finesse – the more variety in my attacks, the better the creature parts. As you collect these, you’ll enter a more detailed inspection view of the parts, accompanied by a bit of lore behind the part of the creature. You can then consume these parts to increase your variation nutrition levels.

Also revealed in our gameplay is a friendly, whimsical character named Gärdner, and as you might guess from his name, he teaches us about some of the planting mechanics in the game. These plants usually produce some sort of fruit. There are many types of seeds to find and plant in the game. Fruits can also be eaten to gain health and nutrition. Different creature parts and fruits have different nutritional benefits – it’s good to keep an eye on this detail, as there’s a strategy for finding the food with the proper nutrition you need.

When you reach a rest point, you can unlock new abilities on a skill tree (or cortex, as we call it) depending on your nutritional requirements and what you consume. This gets used on another enemy species, PomPoms. They can have shields that you must break with a charged attack. You can also juggle smaller enemies after a combo and hit them into the environment or other enemies, which feels almost too satisfying.

Ouji collects The Extractor in the latter half of the gameplay. The Shamans used this tool in their ritual on this space station. So, it’s important for the main plot of the game. But it also provides some cool power-ups. This first one grants us a double jump. We also encounter another major character, Qualia, a mysterious figure you’ll learn more about when you play the game. Still, she has some form of link to and influence on the ecosystem in the game.

This leads us to follow Qualia, chasing her into the new boss fight we’re revealing today. It’s a huge, grotesque, worm-like creature. Like most bosses in the game, the key is to avoid getting hurt while learning patterns in their attacks, finding their weak points, and striking back when the time is right.

Following this, Ouji kills a Shaman in a chamber, revealing many more Shamans to find to break the seal that has trapped Ouji in this world. Tracking down these Shamans will now serve as the main objective in the game. This disturbance awakens Ultros, a demonic being, which effectively restarts the loop of Ouji’s journey as she awakes in a familiar place again. This will be the main mystery to solve throughout the game – you must explore different directions as you try to figure out how to break the cycle.

We hoped you enjoyed this new look at the game. Ultros will release in 2024 for PlayStation 5 & PlayStation 4 and is available to wishlist now.

Double, double coil and trouble. A.K.I., the maniacal mistress of poison will slither her way into Fighting Ground, World Tour, and Battle Hub in Street Fighter 6 starting September 27 on PS5 and PS4. Feeding off orders from her master, A.K.I. injects poison into enemies that dare stand within striking distance–all with a smile. You can’t fix her, but she will fix you.

A new character to the Street Fighter series, A.K.I. snakes through life only to please her outstanding and phenomenal master F.A.N.G from Street Fighter V. Under orders to dig into the remnants of Shadaloo, she finds herself infatuated with the powers that be.

In World Tour, help A.K.I. find her herbal medicine in Tian Hong Yuan, a new area where you can increase your bond with her and learn her deadly moves. Put those moves to use in the Battle Hub in the ever popular and always wacky Avatar Battles. Explore how the addition of poison improves your custom combos.

Game Director Takayuki Nakayama spoke on the team’s inspiration on designing a visually striking character like A.K.I.

“The character design we landed on was a pale-skinned disciple with her fighting style being a combination of the Poison Hand and the Fanged Snake Style martial arts. Therefore, we decided to proceed with A.K.I. being a white snake that carries poison.

Her snakeskin Chinese dress has a beautiful sheen like a black mamba with material that looks ominous when it shines and animates. The serpentine pattern you see from her chest to her stomach was meant to resemble the belly of a snake.

Her distinctive hairstyle was an idea that came from outside of the design team, which incorporates the symbol of an assassin: “kasa” (umbrella in Japanese) through her hair. Based on this concept, we tweaked the way her eyes hide behind her hair and the overall silhouette. We took extra care in making the silhouette of the collar and the way her eyes are hidden to look alluring when viewed from the side.”

A.K.I. has learned from her master about the best uses for poison, but her nails offer a twisted reminder that she is a different creature altogether. Excelling at long-range combat and with the ability to poison enemies through her cauldron of tricks, A.K.I. controls the stage waiting for her prey to blink.

Like F.A.N.G, once A.K.I. poisons an enemy, their vitality will slowly deplete as long as the effect remains. If A.K.I. gets hit, the poison will dissipate. From a distance, she can use Serpent Lash, sending her nails flying forward like a chain, poisoning enemies she hits. The OD version of Serpent Lash hooks on to enemies, allowing A.K.I. to hop forward to close the distance. When she strikes an opponent who is already poisoned with moves like Serpent Lash, a Toxic Blossom triggers where the resulting explosion can open enemies up to follow-up attacks.

Her fireball–Nightshade Pulse–sends a bubble forward that also poisons enemies on hit. She can strike the bubble with Nightshade Chaser to pop it in advance, increasing the area of effect. A.K.I. can also use Orchid Spring to place a puddle of poison in front of her, which affects opponents who step in it.

Snakes always lurk where their prey can’t see them. A.K.I. can use Cruel Fate to flip backwards toward enemies, sending her nails to strike from above. Like a contortionist, she can instantly coil to the ground and under enemies with Snake Step.

A.K.I. takes this even further with Sinister Slide, where she can slither from full screen to avoid threats while stalking forward. From Sinister Slide, she can perform three actions: Venomous Fang sees her leaping forward to poison enemies, Heel Strike starts combos on a successful hit, and Entrapment wraps her body around enemies to constrict them.

A.K.I.’s Level 1 Super Deadly Implication launches enemies in the air with a kick and traps them in a gigantic poisonous bubble, leaving them across the stage. Her Level 2 Super Tainted Talons extends multiple talons forward and leaves a large pool of poison in its wake that lasts for a significant amount of time.

During A.K.I.’s Level 3 Super–Claws of Ya Zi–she pierces various pressure points on the enemy’s body and injects a poison that detonates from within. Getting tied up in these chains will see you screaming in agony.

A.K.I. will be unlocked for owners of the Year 1 Character Pass, Deluxe Edition, or Ultimate Edition on September 27. Get a taste of her poison for an hour with a Rental Fighter ticket, which can be obtained in a Fighting Pass. Don A.K.I. in an elegant additional outfit, which is also available when she unlocks.

Speaking of, the A.K.I. Arrives! Fighting Pass will release on September 1 and contains cosmetic items to help prepare for A.K.I.’s incoming concoction.

Whether it’s from her tongue or the brewing poison, the soft hissing grows ever louder approaching the end of September when A.K.I. is introduced in Street Fighter 6 on PS5 and PS4. 

Tekken 8 for PlayStation 5 is the latest entry in the Tekken series, a legendary 3D fighting game series that has sold more than 55 million copies worldwide. The visuals have been completely overhauled from Tekken 7 with all-new, high-resolution playable character models. Small details like the way water droplets run down the characters’ skin and the subtle movements of their hair and muscles are also highlights of the game.

Play Video

We spoke with Kohei Ikeda, Director of Tekken 8, about how the game taps into the power of PS5 while pushing the limits of the console’s capabilities and technology.

The high-res character models and the overall details are major game highlights. How did you take advantage of the power of PS5 to achieve those visuals?

With Tekken 8, our goal was to replicate the intricacies of the human body, such as the stretching and contraction of muscles and sweat trickling down the skin. For example, the bone structure required to move a playable character in Tekken 8 is more than double that of the previous game. The PS5’s processing performance made these implementations possible and was successful in replicating more natural muscle movements.

Furthermore, not only the sweat but flushed skin, dirt, and the blood vessels on strained muscles are rendered in real-time and transition seamlessly depending on what is happening in-game. These effects enable a more authentic and immersive gaming experience. The advanced visuals are achieved through smooth 60 fps that fully utilize PS5’s GPU processing power.

How did you leverage the game’s unique PS5 features, such as haptic feedback?

One of our key pillars during the development of Tekken 8 was the phrase: All-Out Force x Destruction. Haptic feedback plays an important role as a means of providing an exciting experience that brings the idea of all-out combat and destruction to life.

For example, during battles, players can fully experience the sensation of heightened concentration when activating the new Heat System, the power of Rage Arts, and the feeling of the stage being destroyed through the rumbles and haptics of the controller.

In addition, Story Mode delivers dynamic fights and experiences that allow the player to directly feel the clashes of immense power, as well as the subtle vibrations of characters riding their motorcycles. These elements all work together to heighten the immersion of the story itself.

How did you utilize 3D audio?

Tekken 8 utilizes 3D audio formats like Ambisonics and object-based audio to create an immersive soundscape. We leveraged these methods for everything, including sound effects during battles, stage ambiance, various gimmicks, and even reverb. This provides players with a more realistic and lifelike sound experience.

In addition, all the cutscenes in Story Mode are produced in 7.1.4ch, which dynamically ties the sound and footage together. By enabling 3D audio, players can feel like they’re inside the story.

In addition to the traditional Arcade Style that requires command inputs, Tekken 8 introduces a new innovative control method called Special Style, which makes the game feel more like an action game designed for casual players. During Tekken 8’s development, what elements did you intentionally choose to change or not to change?

The thrill and excitement players feel through controlling their characters and performing tactical moves are constant throughout the series. On top of that, to achieve our concept of aggressive battles, we introduced a variety of new elements to Tekken 8. One of the elements that we focused on is the Special Style. This control method was designed so all players can experience the thrill of playing Tekken.

Special Style assigns each button with a recommended move and combo for each character, selected from more than 100 available move sets. This allows players to enjoy battles with easier controls that feel more like an action game. For beginners, it lowers the barrier for entry and allows them to easily enjoy the unique fun of the Tekken series.

This feature also allows intermediate and advanced players to try their hand at characters they’re unfamiliar with, as they can seamlessly switch between the traditional Arcade Style and Special Style with a single button press during battles.

What are some of your favorite PS5 games that have been released so far? From a developer’s perspective, how do you feel that the game takes advantage of the capabilities of PS5?

I’d say Final Fantasy XVI. The stunning visual quality, attention to detail, fantastical story, and seamless transitions between the intense Eikon battles culminate into an epic experience that draws in both players and viewers.

The game’s action sequences were also excellent, with beautiful VFX combined with the character animations. You can feel the game directly through the controller, and the magnificent background music was also spectacular.

Hiya, PlayStation foodies. Tj here, serving up a big plate of news for our experimental food art game, Nour: Play With Your Food. It’s a game that you might have seen around before. Perhaps you caught a glimpse of some of our wild ramen and boba tea out in the wilds of the internet or at a game event, but now we’re finally ready to say that you will be able to satisfy your virtual food cravings on September 12 when Nour launches on PS5 and PS4. For now, we have a little trailer as a treat featuring an original song by Tobi Lou.

Play Video

I’ve spent years making this game, yet I still discover new sights, sounds, and emergent mechanics. Nour’s outward beauty is balanced by an inner mechanical depth. Let’s discuss Nour’s secret sauces that make it a unique experience.

Tools

In the real world, kitchen tools come with all sorts of safety warnings. But not in Nour! Use the blowtorch, knife, salt shaker, and more to slice, squish, season, char, and paint your food. Use multiple tools on the same food to stack their effects, making your dream dish a reality.

Spells

And since this isn’t the real world, we’ve taken a few creative liberties with how you can play with your food. Combine your wizard’s hat and chef’s hat (actually, that would look sick) using Nour’s spells. Form culinary constellations, stunning ice sculptures, or undo gravity altogether. This is a brand new type of kitchen.

Feel free to combine these different systems to create interactions that no chef has thought possible. When you’re done, be sure to whip out the Camera tool to capture your masterpiece.

Nour is unconventional and wild, and it was a joy to make. We set out to make a game with no goals or objectives other than experiencing the joy of freely interacting with the highly detailed virtual representations of delicious food and snacks we enjoy every day. Now we’re almost done, and if you think that idea for a game sounds fun, we hope you give Nour a shot when it releases on September 12.

Even more secret sauce is to be revealed in the final game.

Last week, we asked you to share moments from the fantasy MMORPG Tower of Fantasy using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s highlights: 

call_me_xavii shares a white haired woman and man jumping away from a two-headed dog

dpruttz_vp shares a player riding a motorcycle across a neon-lit street

chic2ky shares a lake-view landscape surrounded by red leaved trees

xenobitz shares two characters talking in front of a large crescent moon light sculpture

shiyu_Eva shares a player swimming near a colorful coral reef

liuyixie shares a futuristic pyramid city structure floating above a desert.

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: Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon 

SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on August 30, 2023

Next week, we’re hopping into the mech world of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon. Share epic moments using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

In Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 4 Season 4, Vampire Kado Thorne has made the Island his home. Your mission is to infiltrate and extract valuable goods from his three properties: Sanguine Suites, Relentless Retreat, and Eclipsed Estate.

The fate of the Island is at stake, and pulling off the height of heists is the last resort. So, are you in?

Every rosy resort has a Thorne

Thorne has built three luxurious properties across the Battle Royale island — but beyond the lavish exteriors of Sanguine Suites, Relentless Retreat, and Eclipsed Estate are heavily fortified lairs complete with security cameras, laser alert grids, and guards. Gear up before you go in.

Wam, blam, Rocket Ram

In addition to existing and unvaulted weapons, you can now boost through the skies or through a wall with the Rocket Ram. Add to your arsenal with the Infiltrator Pump Shotgun, Scoped Burst SMG, Twin Mag Assault Rifle, or auto-firing Briefcase Turret.

Mythic items of legend

In the depths of Sanguine Suites, Relentless Retreat, and Eclipsed Estate, you can find Mythic items from Fortnite’s history like The Foundation’s MK-Seven Assault Rifle, Midas’ Drum Gun, Zyg and Choppy’s Ray Gun, and more. Grab one and escape before Thorne’s defenses defeat you.

Sink your teeth into the Nitro Fang

Once out of the building, it’s time to escape — look no further than the Nitro Fang by Victory Motors. If opponents are on your tail, use the Nitro Fang’s handbrake to make lock-tight turns. If you’re more of a highflier, point your Rocket Ram skyward and zoom into the distance.

Ragtag and ready

Leading the heist team is maverick Nolan Chance, who auto-unlocks with the purchase of the Battle Pass. Chance’s team includes Piper Pace, the getaway driver, Fish Thicc, the muscle, Mae, the hacker, and Antonia, the masqued maven. Villain Kao Throne also makes his appearance in the Battle Pass, and Jedi Ahsoka Tano arrives in Fortnite later in the season.

What to do when things get overcomplicated? Turn to the man who keeps it simple: the newest addition to the Icon Series, Khaby Lame. The most popular creator on TikTok breaks into the Battle Pass to help the team take down Thorne.