Category: PlayStation

While F1 Manager 23 is lining up on the grid for release on July 31, we’re jumping into a few of the new features that are now included in the most authentic F1 management simulation to date.

Race Replay

Race Replay is a brand-new mode for F1 Manager 23 allowing you to relive every race and pivotal moments from the 2023 F1 season.

Starting Grid is the first way to prove yourself in Race Replay. Choose any team and take on the starting grid and conditions from any real 2023 race and see if you have what it takes to beat the real-life outcome. You’ll need to manage your drivers, tactics, and tyres to produce the optimal performance for the team.

Race Moments let you jump directly into crucial, real-life scenarios faced by teams during the current season. Join Alpine at the Miami Grand Prix, where Esteban Ocon is battling to keep Charles Leclerc behind and choose the perfect time for your pit stops to ensure you beat the pursuing Ferraris. Or, take charge of McLaren after a hectic 29 laps at Albert Park and see if you can lead Oscar Piastri to a points finish at his home race.

With new Starting Grids and Race Moments being added to the game following every race weekend of the 2023 season, Race Replay is your opportunity to get closer to the action than ever before!

Pit Crew Training

New for 2023 is the Sporting Director: a key staff member responsible for trackside operations, bringing with them the ability to manage and improve your pit crew. Your Sporting Director will have their own set of performance ratings that will be crucial to develop to ensure they get the best out of your pit crew during training.

Pit-crew training schedules are set monthly. You can choose between preset regimes or create a custom plan (You can even set morning/afternoon plans per day!). Go balanced or focus on specific areas you need your crew to improve on. Pit Stop Errors will put focus on improving consistency, while Fatigue Reduction will give your crew members more rest days, reducing the likelihood of a fatigue related mistake.

Driver Confidence

Confidence is key when hurtling around a circuit at 200mph in an F1 car and things are no different in F1 Manager 23.

Going into each race weekend, your drivers will have a baseline confidence level for each session. How you set up the car and how much time you give your drivers on-track in Practice will play a fundamental role in your drivers’ confidence and performance for Qualifying and Race sessions. If successful, your drivers will be more confident when the lights go out and be more likely to make that all important overtake. If they’re involved in a failed battle or incident, they will lose confidence! It’s up to you to keep an eye on how your driver is performing before issuing them commands.

Deeper Race Drama

Authenticity to the sport is at the heart of F1 Manager and this year we’ve taken it even further. You’ll see more on-track battles and wheel-to-wheel action going into corners, including that all important sprint to the first corner.

You’ll notice more variety in racing lines as drivers that are pushing hard will be more aggressive on the kerbs, while a driver that is conserving tyres may take a more passive approach to corners. New Driver Tactics will play into the previously mentioned Driver Confidence and influence how each race pans out while the ERS Battle Assist will make it easier to overtake/defend at those pivotal moments.

Get closer with Helmet Cam

And last but not least, a new, more visual way to immerse yourself. Building upon the broadcast-style presentation, where we showcase all the action with real trackside camera angles, we’ve added Helmet Cam to F1 Manager 23.

Introduced into F1 over the last couple of years, you can now get a driver’s-eye view of every corner, every battle and every incident in game.

The immersion is ramped up immediately when you switch to the helmet camera and see your driver’s hands shifting rapidly from left and right as they tackle every apex. Or cut to the car behind and watch from their eyes. It really must be seen in action to appreciate how realistic it looks.

F1 Manager 23 features a plethora of improvements and features, bringing you ever closer to all the drama and action from the real F1 season, while setting you up with all the tools to prove yourself for years into the future. Find out if you have what it takes to be a Team Principal from July 31.

PlayStation players who pre-order F1 Manager 23 will unlock three extra Race Replays. Deluxe Edition purchasers will also gain access to twelve exclusive scenarios for Race Replay.

F1 Manager 23 is available for pre-order now on PS4 and PS5, launching digitally on July 31.

Synapse’s State of Play reveal illustrated a potent combo of sidearm and telekinetic-infused combat. Last month at PlayStation Showcase, developer nDreams used the release date announcement to dig into the story of a lone operative diving into another’s mind to avert global catastrophe, and the reunion of two high-caliber voice talents who find themselves again involved in a black ops-style mission, but this time on different sides of a battlefield. And now, thanks to a hands-on with a specially-curated playable demo, we have a better understanding of how Synapse gameplay unfolds.

Let’s break down the core gameplay loop. It’s driven by tactical combat, using your base abilities of bullets and TK plus interactive objects to clear out multi-leveled arenas of enemies. Those encounters are punchy bursts of action which increase in complexity and intensity. You’re outnumbered, continually outflanked, attackers able to short-range teleport to better position themselves. The odds are put back in your favor through steadily unlocked abilities and randomized buffs, all tools built to nudge you into being as enjoyably, efficiently creative with your skills as possible. Synapse has the DNA of a roguelite.

Let’s dig deeper. A run will have you fight a growing mix of enemy types across multiple levels, the sequencing of those stages randomized and pulled from a large pool of potential locations. Completion of any opens a door to the next, at the threshold of which you’re offered one of two possible two Traits. These add fun modifiers for the rest of your run. Clutch an object with TK to kick in slo-mo. Add a curve to your bullets. Turn TK-grabbed foes into short-term friendlies or targets for other assailants to draw fire away from you. 

Synapse’s mini-map is thoughtfully executed. Flip your TK hand palm up for a radial-style device to materialize upon it. A 3D space floats above it, pinpoints enemy locations and collectables. It’s an interaction with the same simple satisfaction – and muscle memory – as checking your watch for notifications.

Revelations is Synapse’s name for permanent upgrades split across three skill trees, for your TK, weapons and general resilience respectively. These trees are available between runs and will grant you, amongst others, the ability to grab enemies (and toss them around like rag-dolls) or their grenades (catching them mid-throw), increase your weapon loadout. You can activate Shrines that’ll spawn within levels, granting you a health boost or new weapons.

All are unlocked and used during my hands-on, early access granted thanks to a generous dose of XP (called Defiance in Synpase) for the purposes of the demo. But before I step into several arenas to play around with my powers, I need to learn how the core mechanics work. Cue tutorial and the base mechanics.

Movement is an uncompromised first-person shooter, character movement and camera operated by the Sense controller sticks, with comfort settings also offered. You can also pick which of your hands does what. Gun hand is

is self-explanatory but doesn’t work in isolation: guns need to be reloaded by way of partially ejecting them then slamming magazines back into position. You can use your other hand. Or any solid surface, which includes cover points and an enemy’s noggin. Reloads continue to feel satisfying throughout the run.

Your other hand is where multitasking takes off. It can be used to grab cover, your Sense controller movement mirrored in-game to pull you out, up or to the side of whatever you’re ducking behind. As long as you’ve got your finger pulled down on the Sense controller trigger, you’re anchored. It’s a design brought over from nDreams’ previous PS VR title Fracked. A nice feature that gives you mobility options while stationary.

The game’s music is being scored by Paul Weir, who also composed No Man’s Sky. The direction he was tasked to draw inspiration from was the cerebral blockbuster movies of Christopher Nolan, lending a Zimmer-like soundtrack to Synapse.

It’s this hand, along with PS VR2’s eye-tracking, that powers TK. You learn very quickly what is interactive in Synapse: crates, platforms (and later, enemies and their grenades). In a world that’s wholly monochrome, objects made for manipulating are suddenly outlined in vibrant color. Grip with the Sense controller, and you’re free to shift the item as telekinesis intended.

The item’s movement and velocity is dictated by your hand’s movement and speed. Hold a crate steady and close, and you have mobile cover. You could toss a fastball and use this flying box to cannon into – and aimed right, one-shot kill – enemies. The delicacy and precision that TK physics offers is impressive. I’ll admit I spend longer in the tutorial than I need to, just carefully stacking crates or attempting to juggle three in the air, spinning each faster and faster as I catch and release them, tossing them higher and higher.

Two examples of using TK during combat: crates can be held and swiped back and forth, knocking enemies down like skittles. Barrels can be an explosive way to take out foes well hidden behind cover.

There’s smart use of the Sense controller’s adaptive triggers as well, with volatile objects such as barrels and live grenades requiring a lighter grip if you’re to hold them safely. Pull fully on the trigger and you’ll crush them, leading to explosive results. Perfect to toss then squeeze as they arc over the heads of congregating shooters, though a stray bullet from either side can as easily ignite a barrel.

Even in these early encounters, the action ramps up quickly, requiring you to think even quicker, pinpointing possible configurations of useful items, enemy locations, your route through and around any danger. All familiar ingredients of a roguelite, but TK gives Synapse a unique flavor.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t take the time to acknowledge Synapse’s art direction. Monochrome levels with pops of vibrant color initially echo the best showroom OLED TV demos in showrooms, but the more I took time to soak in my surroundings, the more I felt subtly unsettled. The studio points out surrealistic art as an initial inspiration, but I realized what the desolate shoreline and rocky outcrops of this first biome was reminding me of. It’s a black and white starkness that harkened the setting of Swedish fantasy film The Seventh Seal. In that, a knight plays for his life in a game of chess against Death.

Perhaps that parallel isn’t an accident. Synapse’s story is one built around a battle of wits between two minds: The Colonel and his invader’s. In actual fact, it’s three different sources: the Colonel’s mind, your character’s own and the AI in control of the system. I’m curious to see what unfolds visually. nDreams promises a strong narrative to pull you in, stating it’ll take three complete runs to uncover the full scope of its story. And even after its conclusion, the game’s roguelite design is built to entice you back into another mind dive.

Diablo IV’s potential for adventure knows no bounds. With its remarkable replayability and highly customisable gameplay, delving into the depths of diverse builds is an integral part of the excitement. Today, we present three favorite builds personally chosen by the developers themselves.

With the official launch just around the corner, why not try one of these for yourself? Perhaps you’ll find your personal preferred playstyle within Diablo IV’s endless possibilities…

Bad to the Bone-Spirit (Necromancer)

by Adam Z. Jackson – Lead Class Designer

The first build I would like to talk about is what I’m planning to run with for Diablo IV’s launch, which is a Bone-Spirit Necromancer!

Bone Spirit is one of our bolder skill designs in that it both has a long cooldown and removes ALL of the player’s Essence when cast. In exchange, it deals a significant amount of extra damage to enemies for every point of resource spent. The Enhancement for Bone Spirit also reduces its cooldown significantly when it Critically Strikes an enemy, adding an additional goal for players to chase.

Putting this all together, the goal for this build is to get to a place where the player can both increase their maximum Essence as well as their Essence Regeneration to the point where they can cast Bone Sprit on cooldown while reliably being able to generate enough Essence to be full again for the next cast. We’ll be prioritizing Maximum Resource, Resource Regeneration, and Critical Strike Chance as the primary stats to chase. Other stats like Critical Strike Damage or effects like bonus damage to Bone skills are also desirable. One thing that’s also very interesting about this build is that I expect it to change a lot over time as I get more gear and certain Legendaries and Uniques that I’m going to target.

Among the key effects we want is Ghastly Bone Spirit, which grants an additional 10% Critical Srike Chance and helps us reliably Critically Strike enemies that is crucial to the build until our Critical Strike Chance is high enough via gear and other methods to do it without this upgrade. At that point, we can switch over to Dreadful Bone Spirit (generates 30 Essence over the next 4 seconds after each hit) to help with our Essence generation. The Ossified Essence Key Passive causes Bone Spirit to deal even more damage when cast with a lot of Essence (1% increased damage to Bone Skills for each point of Essence above 50).  Since we plan to always cast Bone Spirit at full Essence, this is going to greatly increase the damage that we’ll be able to put out.

For this build, I’m going to try only running a Bone Golem, and sacrificing my Skeleton Skirmishers for extra Critical Strike Chance (6%) and my Skeletal Mages for additional maximum Essence (18).

As far as skills, to start the game I’m going to use Bone Splinters, Bone Spear, Bone Spirit, Golem, Corpse Explosion, and Blood Wave.  This set of skills gives me a way to use Corpses effectively while also having the control tools needed via my Golem and Blood Wave to keep enemies grouped up and at bay while I annihilate them with Bone Spear and Bone Spirit.

Legendaries and Uniques will improve this build further. Blood Artisan’s Cuirass greatly upgrades the build by giving an alternative method of spawning Bone Spirits by collecting Blood Orbs. After getting this Unique, my build will also be chasing spawning Blood Orbs, which now enables new connections, such as the Tidal Doom Legendary power that spawns multiple Blood Waves, which also spawns more Blood Orbs to collect!

For a more end-game setup, I swapped out Bone Splinters and Bone Spear for Hemorrhage and Corpse Tendrils so I can get more Blood Orbs. In this version of the build, I am using Bone Sprit on cooldown to deal massive damage while creating and collecting Blood Orbs to spawn additional Bone Spirits when I can.

Wolfnado (Druid)

by Adam Z. Jackson – Lead Class Designer

A Werewolf Tornado Druid is a fun and powerful build that only gets better over time.

The goal of this build is to fill the screen with as many Tornadoes as possible.  To do this, you should prioritize maximum Spirit, Spirit generation, and effects that reward you for gaining and spending Spirit as much as possible.

One Unique really changes this build is Tempest Roar. Being able to cast Tornado as a Werewolf opens a lot of interactions that previously weren’t available. While the build can work without this item, it enables many powerful synergies that really take it to the next level as you approach the end game. Some other Legendaries that enable this build are Stormchasers Doom which allows Tornadoes to seek enemies and the Calm Breeze Legendary that enables Wind Shear to restore all your Spirit!

Some Skills, Upgrades, and Passives that you should consider are Perfect Storm (grants 1 Spirit and deals 15% increased damage when hitting a Vulnerable, Immobilized or Slowed enemy), which creates a Spirit generating engine by causing enemies to be Vulnerable and then using Tornado on them. Energize gives you a 15% chance to restore 10 Spirit when damaging enemies, and Masochistic is a Spirit Boon that will help with sustain; since Tornado becomes a Shapeshifting skill, it will now heal you 3% Maximum Life when Critically Striking enemies!

As far as which skills to use, there is some flexibility, but a good starting setup is Wind Shear, Tornado, Cyclone Armor, Ravens, Blood Howl, and Cataclysm. This group of skills allows you to heal, gain Spirit, and enables various ways to apply Vulnerable to enemies.

Imbue-llers Day Off (Rogue)

by Charles Dunn – Associate Game Designer, Classes

My favorite build, and the one I will be playing on Diablo IV’s launch is a Rogue Imbuement build.

Imbuements are special skills unique to Rogues that enhance their next 2 attacks with the power of Shadow, Poison, or Cold. There are many ways to mix and match these Imbuements when building your Rogue, but for this build, I will be using Shadow and Cold to take full advantage of the Icy Alchemist legendary power. Cold Imbuement applies Chill to enemies, so I can finish them off with a Shadow Imbued skill, causing lots of explosions and massive AoE damage! There are plenty of other legendary and unique items that work well with this playstyle, including the extremely powerful Word of Hakan unique amulet, which causes my ultimate Rain of Arrows skill to always benefit from all three Imbuements at once.

The Core skill in this build is Twisting Blades. Not only is it a great way to apply my Imbuements to large packs of enemies, but the Advanced Twisting Blades reduces the cooldown on all my Imbuements, keeping me constantly in the action. For mobility, I love pairing Dash with Twisting Blades in this build, since Dash lets me easily get to the other side of a pack of enemies to ensure Twisting Blades hits the maximum number of targets when they return. The Preparation Specialization is also a great way to ensure that I have maximum uptime on my cooldown skills, which leads to a very fast paced playstyle.

One of the most important stats to look for in this build is Lucky Hit Chance. The key legendary for this build, Icy Alchemist, is a Lucky Hit effect, as well as other skills throughout the skill tree like Innervation (10% to gain 8 Energy on Lucky Hit) and Enhanced Cold Imbuement (Cold Imbued skills have a 30% chance to make enemies vulnerable for 3 seconds). But Rogues aren’t known for playing fair, so I tip the luck in my favor with Alchemist’s Fortune (15% increased Lucky Hit Chance on Non-Psychical damage) and Primary Invigorating Strike (8% Lucky Hit Chance, 16% for Crowd Controlled or Injured enemies).  

Finally, the Momentum Key Passive works very well in this build, giving me a bunch of stats that I want like Energy Regeneration to spam Twisting Blades, Movement Speed to maneuver around the battlefield to get all optimal angles for those Twisting Blades, and Damage Reduction which is even more important since I will be in melee range of enemies most of the time. Alternatively, the Victimize Key Passive could also work well with enough Lucky Hit chance to consistently trigger Vulnerable from Enhanced Cold Imbuement.

Since its very first announcement in 2019, Diablo IV has ignited infernal anticipation among players worldwide. In the past couple of weeks, we’ve had the chance to immerse ourselves in a preview build of the game and were ensnared by its exhilarating gameplay, sinister lore, and boundless replayability. Below is an interview we’ve conducted with the minds behind the game, shedding light on the depths of this highly anticipated hellish adventure.

Can we share any features or gameplay mechanics in Diablo IV that you believe will excite some of the longtime fans of the series?

Dorottya Kollo, Lead UI Designer, Diablo IV: I always like to kick it off with the classes, because of how in-depth we went with them. We created a lore to make sure that they’re not just classes, but you actually believe in what class you’re playing as. Like Druid, this is probably one of my favorites, they can talk with animal spirits, they can actually make an offering and get something in return so there’s that transaction. And I love the fact that other players if you are not a Druid, then you cannot actually see them and interact with them. Apart from classes the skill tree is something that we’re really proud of as we put a lot of effort into it. It looked extremely different six months ago. In general when it comes to lore and gameplay, giving players the opportunity to explore the world, to explore dungeons and strongholds.

Adam Z. Jackson, Lead Class Designer, Diablo IV: There’s a series of progression systems that I think a lot of long-term fans will enjoy. You start out with the skill tree, you start out with some very simple itemization, and then as you go through the campaign, you get more and more layers on top of ways to customize your character. Late in the game, you get unique powers that give you even more ways to customize your player, and then the Paragon board comes online. So we start gentle and then there’s more systems and ways to make your character really special and powerful.

How has the studio reapproached its design philosophy for activities outside of the main story campaign in consideration to Diablo IV being an open world?

Jackson: One of the things we did that’s very unique to Diablo IV is the Codex of Power. Normally, in other games it’s a bit random, you’re just killing enemies and hoping to get the gear that you want. The Codex of Power marries two things together, we want to get you invested in this open world that we’ve created, and we also give you some deterministic ways to create the character fantasy that you want. Every dungeon that exists has a Codex of Power legendary aspect attached to it. When you defeat that dungeon for the first time, you get the essence of a legendary power. Then you can take it to a crafter called the Occultist to imbue that power onto your items. You own that power indefinitely. There are still other legendary powers that you’ll have to find through the traditional way of going and killing monsters and hoping that you get the one that you want, but this is one of the ways the open world and our systems interact with each other, to hopefully create an even better experience that we don’t have in our previous titles.

Kollo: Yeah, and with the open world, it was definitely a feel of like, how do we handle the Diablo front when it comes to the actual gameplay, how do we engage players as they explore the world? The team did awesome because you never really know what you’ll find. You start going somewhere, it’s like, oh I’m going to pin this quest, and I really want to do it. But then you constantly get distracted, because there’s so many things going on. You might hear villagers screaming somewhere and now you want to check it out. So it’s all about that unpredictable element in creating the world.

Diablo games, as we’ve discussed, are known for their replayability. What efforts have been made in Diablo IV to ensure that players can enjoy the game over and over again, and are there any new systems or improvements in this regard?

Jackson: We kind of have a path that we expect players to go on, where it starts off a little bit narrower. We present ideas and fantasies to chase, then it gets broader and broader as more and more systems come online for you to interact with. As a simple example, let’s say you’re playing as Sorcerer, we give you very simple, easy to understand fantasies. Right when you log in the first skills you pick from, there’s a fire one, a cold one and a lightning one, right. So we kind of lead you down that path as you go through the campaign. It’s fairly linear. There’s customization within them in the Skill Tree but your general fantasy is straightforward. But then when you get legendary powers coming online and you get your class mechanic coming online, there’s now a lot of nuances like what kind of fire Sorcerer do I want to be because you can be like an incinerate one that burns enemies with a beam, firewall where you spawn things on the ground, a fireball one where you shoot them with fireballs, or a meteor one where you shoot down meteors. Though they’re all fire, they’re very different ways of playing in fantasy. And then even within those as you go further in the game, there’s different legendary powers that make those skills change in different ways and do different things and the nuances of how you play. Being a live service game also just changes a lot of what we’re able to offer to people, there’s going to be ever growing things coming into the game and ways that even the existing pieces are changing and shaping, so that there’ll be a lot for people to do for a very, very long time.

Kollo: Just to add to that, we’ve been doing a lot of testing and got some amazing feedback, and that’s something that we constantly like working towards to improve the game and to consider what else we can offer to players. As Adam said, the Skill Tree is also built in a way that is quite flexible in terms of starting with a certain path, let’s say the fire Sorcerer, and then you were like, okay, I’m bored with this, I want to try something else. Also if you want to try a new class at some point, instead of forcing you to replay the campaign, we give players the option to skip the campaign with that new character. Then they can just literally jump into the final elements of the game and play around with the payouts. It’s a flexible way for fans to enjoy the different classes.

Player versus player (PvP) interactions are a new addition to Diablo IV, could you elaborate on how PvP will work in the game? And what kind of experiences players can expect?

Kollo: Originally, we wanted to create these very obvious areas on the map to make sure you know it’s a dangerous area to enter. We wanted to make it into almost its own thing. The idea is that you can be hostile, but you don’t have to be. There’s two elements to it, one element is that let’s say I’m not going hostile, and I’m just going to kill monsters. There is a specific boss in the area that you can kill. You pick up these unclean shards and you have to go to this ritual area. Now when you do this ritual area, you need to spend x amount of time to convert these unclean shards into actual currencies. Once you get these currencies, it’s yours and you cannot lose them anymore. Then you use this currency to buy some really unique items in town, specifically PvP vendors that nobody else can have. But there’s obviously a chance that while you’re doing this ritual, someone can just come in and kill you, and then you can’t drop shards or spawn from the town so you’ll have to pick them up again. A lot of people end up becoming hostile to avenge themselves, which is fun. Then we have this additional aspect, if you kill a player 10 times without you dying, you’ll obtain the Vessel of Hatred title. If you can hold it for x amount of minutes then you get a special reward for it. But then the problem is that you get marked on the map, and everybody knows about your presence, and they’ll want to hunt you down. So there’s different elements and challenges we’ve brought to PvP. There’s also monsters too, plenty of them.

The resurrection of the demon, Lilith has set the stage for the story in Diablo IV. Without revealing too much, can you provide some insights into the narrative direction? And what elements of the story should players be excited about?

Jackson: The team is very excited about what Lilith represents, and how she has a huge history in the game. Lilith has been around since the beginning of time in this world, but also, we haven’t really interacted with her yet as players. It’s really cool to kind of bring a character like that, that is so influential and important, but we haven’t really seen (we’ve only heard whispers of) and now we actually get to see them be a main focal point. So we’re really excited for players to explore Lilith’s story, as well as to see how everyone else is reacting to the events that happened too. One of our pillars for the team is a return to darkness. We’re really trying to go back to kind of our old roots of seeing Sanctuary as a dark and scary place, and we reflect that in a lot of ways, the story being one of them.

Kollo: I also love how we have this strong female character with Lilith. Like, she’s scary. And I love the impact she had on the game, even if it’s more subtle. For example, the UI and what you actually see with the Gothic style of the game and the materials we use, our research was very heavily affected by the return to darkness theme that Adam mentioned. Originally, for UI we wanted to use materials like leather and paper, but based on how the story was developing on the side, we ended up looking at burn materials and lava rocks, almost reflecting burnt monster skins and stuff like that. So it’s just the idea of really bringing that fantasy into it.

What new options and choices will players have in Diablo IV when it comes to developing and evolving their characters? Maybe there’s something that’s specifically exciting for you and the way you like to play that you can discuss?

Jackson: One I can delve into a little bit more that we didn’t before is the Paragon system. This is our end game progression system that comes online a little bit post-campaign. We’ve got these giant boards, as you level up you still get experience from 50 to 100 and you get to move across these boards. We have different types of nodes: rare nodes and glyphs you can put in that empower nodes around it, and then legendary nodes that give you almost the equivalent of a legendary powers worth the power. You can choose multiple different boards and even rotate/change how they’re oriented to move across them and get stats in the way that you think is optimal for your character. You can chase the different rare glyphs and level them up. There’s a lot to do there, and it’s really meant for players who have been playing this game for a while, that’s why we don’t introduce it at the very beginning of the game.

Kollo: To me the character customization is something that stood out and that I’m personally very proud of. It’s the first Diablo game that has such in-depth customization and gives players the option to create characters that speak to them, to create something they can relate to. We’ve conducted a bunch of testing sessions and to see videos where people tear up or get really touched by the characters they created makes it worth it. Like this is the point of all our work.

With its dark atmosphere, highly customisable combat, and immersive storytelling, Diablo IV promises to deliver a highly replayable and satisfying entry in the series for both newcomers and long-time fans.

This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity. 

Diablo IV launches June 6. Deluxe and Ultimate Edition owners can enjoy Early Access of the game from today. 

Last week, we asked Guardians in Destiny 2 to share epic moments wearing the PlayStation collaboration armor. Here are this week’s highlights: 

Jake__Bellamy shares a Guardian wearing Ghost of Tsushima-inspired armor standing strong.

xelastarkly shares a Guardian wearing Horizon-inspired armor holding up their hand.

xenobitz shares a Guardian wearing Ghost of Tsushima-inspired armor kneeling beside a tree.

piyopiyopop shares a Guardian wearing Ghost of Tsushima-inspired armor using a bird calling emote. 

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: Tropical
SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on June 7, 2023

Next week, we’re headed somewhere warm. Share moments spent in tropical locations from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.

Hi, my name is Erik Odeldahl and I’m the Creative Director at VR game developer & publisher Fast Travel Games. We have just revealed our next game to the world! It is a PS VR2 adventure RPG set in the rich story world of Vampire the Masquerade. In it, you play Justice, a vampire of clan Banu Haqim, who travels from New York to a dark and mysterious Venice, Italy to hunt down the perpetrator of their sire’s final death.

Be a stealthy vampire 

With Vampire the Masquerade: Justice, we set out to make a game that fully immerses you in the role of a stealthy vampire, taking advantage of all the strengths of the PS VR2. One thing that truly excites us about the PSVR2 is the adaptive triggers and the haptic abilities available in both the controllers and the headset itself. As a vampire, you have access to all kinds of tools that help you stay hidden from your enemies, or when necessary, surprise and dispose of them with lethal force. You get to sneak up on your victims to drink their blood, unleash powerful disciplines and tear them to pieces, or fade away into invisibility before their very eyes. You decide how to take on each scenario, and we make full use of the wide range of haptics to fully immerse you in the experience.

Become the apex predator

As a vampire, you do have superhuman strength and speed, but you are not safe from harm. The enemies you encounter will put up a great challenge for you, forcing you to take advantage of your powers. A combination of stealth and fast attacks will take you far, but you can also rely on your powers of persuasion as well. Sometimes in a dialog with an NPC, the threat of violence will unlock new paths for you.

A dark and mysterious Venice 

The Venice we’re inviting you to is not the city of love you see on postcards, but a dark, mysterious place where unseen things happen in the shadows, where plans are hatched and vast conspiracies are perpetrated among the undead. The last few years, there has been unrest among the Hecata, a vampire clan that has Venice as one of its bases of operation. Justice, played by you, is cast into a conflict between fierce vampires who fight for power … and their souls.

Regardless of your strategy, every step you take and undertaking you complete, will bring you closer to the center of the mystery, and allow you to grow in power to eventually become the most powerful vampire.

This title, like all of our games so far, focuses on delivering a strong narrative, but also rewards exploration and experimentation. Me and the team are looking forward to seeing you meet the characters of vampire Venice, and sneak along its dark streets. The game is built from the ground up with an original story and characters, and is a welcoming experience for those of you unfamiliar with Vampire the Masquerade and the World of Darkness, but we hope that we’ve created something special for those of you that have lived and breathed Vampire for a long time too!

We will share more as the game approaches release. 

When we first started with game creation at Frictional Games, we knew we wanted to make immersive horror experiences. We threw in everything we could think of: puzzles, physics, combat, creepy dream sequences – you name it. Those of you who played Penumbra: Overture will remember these elements well. Now, as we approach the launch of Amnesia: The Bunker – coming to PS4 on June 6 – we wanted to take a look back at how we’ve further refined our formula and approach to games.

The real breakthrough arrived with Amnesia: The Dark Descent. We started focusing on key aspects that led to a much more engaging experience. We cut away combat and all other aspects that didn’t directly fuel the horror experience. This led to players noticing more about their environment and becoming more deeply engaged. A simple sound effect, for instance, could trigger intense reactions, causing players to run and hide. Players become immersed with the happenings in a way we hadn’t seen before.

One of the only relatively safe places in Amnesia: The Bunker – the administration office. Check the map carefully, planning your next move is crucial to your survival.

This revelation showed us that we could use such techniques to propel the narrative in new ways. Few games at the time were doing this, and we felt we could still push the boundaries. This is how SOMA was born. We asked ourselves: Instead of scaring players, could you evoke similar immersion in more complex topics? In the case of SOMA it became: can you make them question the nature of consciousness? Five years of work later – turns out you could.

In Amnesia: The Bunker, the revolver is used to shoot off a padlock, showcasing how it can be used as more than just a weapon.

We then aimed to expand our studio into a two-project operation, splitting our team in two. One group worked on Amnesia: Rebirth, where we sought to intertwine gameplay and narrative more tightly, introducing mechanics (like simulating a belly rub) that carried significant story implications. We were proud of the result but felt we could have pushed further. A clear sign of this was that, once players knew the game, they would approach each section in a predictable manner. The gameplay simply wasn’t pushing far enough to truly empower the player.

The lighter. A very important item used to craft various tools, such as a torch that can be used to fend off rats.

With Rebirth launched, and our other project – let’s call it the Super Secret Project – still underway, Fredrik Olsson, who was the creative lead on Rebirth, proposed a simple idea: Why not have one monster, give the player a gun, and unleash them in an open world? This was a smaller, more focused project we could finish before the Super Secret Project. The Bunker was born.

This concept diverged significantly from our recent games, but if we trace back to our origins with Penumbra: Overture, it’s not that far off. In Overture, players tackled monsters in a freeform manner, using weapons, setting traps, and igniting canisters. The Bunker aims to do the same, but to take it up a notch.

Concept of the revolver, first usable firearm ever in a game by Frictional Games.

At a similar time when Bunker was conceived, it was becoming clear that the Super Secret project wasn’t heading in the right direction. Things felt too linear, not open-end enough. Inspired by The Bunker, we decided to steer our other project towards a more open-ended, gameplay-focused direction as well.

When you run out of options, using brute force to gain entry may be the only choice. Careful though, it makes a lot of noise and might attract unwanted attention.

As a narrative-focused company, we strive to create stories in which the player feels like an active participant – it’s a core part of our DNA. The common thread in all our games is the exploration of something (be it the nature of the mind or the experience of pregnancy) from an active, first-person perspective. The Bunker needed to uphold this ethos, despite the project’s limited time and resources. We went with a simpler, more straightforward narrative: “It’s WWI. You’re a soldier trapped in a bunker, and a deadly beast lurks in the shadows. Escape!” The entire game is dedicated to telling this story as effectively as possible. While not as complex as previous entries, it is still very much a story-driven experience.

This marks a new trajectory for us as a company. Or perhaps more accurately, it’s us revisiting an older path and exploring what we can do with it. Starting with Amnesia, we began stripping away gameplay elements to see how far we could push that approach. Now, we’re bringing systems, mechanics, and player agency to the forefront. We’re curious to see how far we can take this. The Bunker is an intriguing first step, being smaller in scope and aiming for a very specific experience.

Despite being small and specific doesn’t mean it was a breeze to create – quite the opposite. A host of interesting challenges arose during development. For instance, the open-ended nature of the game means that there are always multiple ways to get through doors. In our previous games, passing through a door would be carefully scripted with one, or occasionally two, specific solutions available. 

In The Bunker, we simply endow doors with certain properties, provide some tools, and then let the player figure it all out. In a game where we want to curate a certain holistic experience, this is quite tricky. There are certain high-level notes, and this must occur regardless of how the player chooses to play. Solutions include making these beats more system-based (e.g., changes in monster behavior) or setting up obstacles in such a way that there’s always a way to overcome them, no matter what resources the player has.

It will be fascinating to see how players approach the game. We’ve already learned numerous lessons that we’re incorporating into the next project, and even more insights will emerge as we release this game into the wild. We’re eager for you all to try out The Bunker, not just as a new entry but also as the first step in a fresh direction for us as a studio.

One thing that has made Street Fighter such an enduring, legendary game series is its iconic characters. Players fondly remember their first time hitting an opponent with Ryu’s Shoryuken, sending out a Sonic Boom with Guile, or mashing out Chun-Li’s lightning kicks. Many of the series’ favorite characters return in Street Fighter 6, but with fresh designs that still convey the cast’s long-established personalities and skills. We sat down with Capcom to talk about giving old Street Fighters a new look.

Takayuki Nakayama is the game director of Street Fighter 6. He’s been with Capcom since 2012, starting his Street Fighter journey with work on Ultra Street Fighter IV. “Since we’re working on a new numbered series title, this was the chance to redesign all the characters,” he said. “We wanted to give all the legacy characters striking new designs as something of a challenge and make them look significantly different from the past designs of the characters that we’ve seen before.”

Some characters, like Chun Li, were especially challenging: “It took multiple years to land on her final design. Chun Li has been around for a long time as one of the key standout characters. And everyone’s ideal look for her is a little bit different. Because she is such a loved character, folks really have strong feelings about how Chun Li should look in a modern Street Fighter game.”

The RE Engine makes every character model pop on screen. But study them closer and you’ll note each of the 18-strong starting roster have distinct muscle tones. This is the result of experimentation, including 3D photo scanning of people, by a small team at the studio dedicated to more accurately portray muscle definitions factoring in age, gender and fighting style. For example, a sumo wrestler like E. Honda will have a completely different muscle definition to a pro wrestler like Zangief.

But the fighter from the Street Fighter II era whose redesign got a lot of buzz on social media was Cammy White, the blonde bombshell British brawler first introduced in Super Street Fighter II, and who has been a fan favorite for decades.

When Cammy first hit the streets, she was clad in a bright red beret and matching gloves, accenting a distinctive green leotard that showcased her legs–fitting for a femme fighter who could crush opponents with her mighty thighs. This has become her classic look, known as Delta Red, named after the elite special forces unit Cammy was part of in Street Fighter lore.

When X-Men vs. Street Fighter debuted in 1996, she sported a thicker, long-sleeved baby-blue onesie and cap but kept her big red gloves and, most strikingly, her thick pointed bangs, long blonde ponytails, and facial scar. This “Killer Bee” outfit represents the period when she was under the sway of supervillain M. Bison as one of his “dolls”–and, as was later revealed, a female clone bearing most of his DNA.

A lot has changed in the world of Street Fighter 6. Shadaloo is no more, and Cammy’s quest for vengeance against Bison seems to have reached its conclusion–but she’s still out there fighting and doing it with a new outfit. Gone is the slinky leotard, replaced with a bright sky-blue jacket and midriff-baring crop top. Her legs are covered with stretch-fabric workout pants: a sensible choice for an athletically-minded woman.

“Cammy feels that Shadaloo’s end is a new milestone that allows her to chart her own path and live a more normal life. This new look is her civilian outfit, while her old leotard is more of a battle-type outfit,” Nakayama-san explains. “When you first meet her in World Tour, she’s in London. We realized seeing her in her classic outfit might look weird in that context. So we tried to keep things like that in mind when designing the new costumes.”

The most striking change is Cammy’s hairstyle. Gone are the long braids that came with her other standard outfits, replaced with a sprightly new short trim. She’s still got those big sharp bangs, though, and they look surprisingly menacing as accents to her short haircut.

Nakayama-san described the thought process behind her drastic new ‘do. “We thought it would be an interesting challenge to give her a short hairstyle–she doesn’t have her classic braids, which seemed to be a defining point of her design. During the development of Street Fighter V, we had an opportunity to change it–we thought fans might react negatively, but the idea seemed to be positively received, so we decided to go for it in Street Fighter 6. Her hair may be short, but the straps from her jacket are intended to be reminiscent of her classic braids–that’s our creative callback touch.”

So how do you change something so big as an iconic hairstyle and keep a character recognizable?

“The silhouette of the character is very important,” says Nakayama-san. “As you may know, Cammy is rather petite compared to some of the other large-scale characters in the game. So we wanted to keep that essence of the character.”

The design team also kept some recognizable traits, like her gloves and boots, to remain faithful to previous designs and aid in gameplay. “It needs to be obvious when certain attacks hit the opponent. That’s why we maintained her gloves. When an attack connects, it’s easy to tell what happens. The rings on her boots are like an indicator of hit detection points. So it makes it visually more easily discernible when playing the game.”

But if you’re super-attached to the old look, don’t despair: many of the longtime legacy characters have classic costumes available in-game, Cammy included. Get a first look at the outfits below:

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The team also took the opportunity to add many clever little touches. “Whenever a character uses up all their Drive Gauge, they go into Burnout mode. And then, while in that mode, their stance slightly changes. For Cammy, her pose changes to one reminiscent of an in-development sketch of her neutral pose from Super Street Fighter II.” 

There’s a lot more deep-cut fanservice, too. “If you see her win pose after a match or in her Character Select Screen, you’ll notice a little cat that walks by her. That references the ending illustration from completing her arcade mode in Super Street Fighter II Turbo.”

Since Cammy has a new look, it’s only logical that she’s changed up her gameplay a little. “Cammy is historically a hard character to develop. It’s hard to give her new moves because she lacks supernatural powers. Giving Cammy a projectile kind of kills the essence of her character. One idea we toyed around with was using the Street Fighter II anime movie as a reference.” While eagle-eyed players will notice one particular move that plays homage to her appearance in that movie, the studio did deliberate on giving her a projectile attack that fitted with her background.

“We considered, ‘What if we gave her grenades she could throw?’ But that’s not really Cammy’s style, plus it would overlap with another SF series character, Rolento.  Ultimately, we were able to make enhancements to her existing move set in Street Fighter V. We’ve continued that with Street Fighter 6, making it so that she “holds” her specials to apply different attributes to those moves.”

The love that’s gone into the characters of Street Fighter 6 is evident, not only from Nakayama’s words but also from what you see onscreen. Look forward to seeing all of your old favorites–and making your own legendary Street Fighter–when Street Fighter 6 enters the ring on June 2, 2023.