Hello, our tiny No Man’s Sky team has a Halloween treat for our PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PlayStation VR players.
Our last update saw players enjoying a nice chill time, as we added fishing to No Man’s Sky. Our next update couldn’t be more different. As we approach Halloween, we want to scare and surprise players, and The Cursed is an unexpectedly creepy update for No Man’s Sky.
The Cursed is a weird and unsettling gameplay event, where you’ll fight to keep a grip on reality while haunted by visions and voices from another dimension.
Taking place in a sort of twilight universe, The Cursed straddles the boundary between one reality and the next. Here, time can shift unexpectedly, spinning from day to night at a vertigo-inducing rate.
The new Boundary Herald Starship is your safe haven in this haunted universe. Our first flying saucer, is a gorgeous Giger-esque coil of tubes, pipeworks, and engines.
Players must protect themselves against the weakening of the boundaries of reality. Your exosuit comes fitted with a specialized Anomaly Suppressor – maintaining this is the key to surviving while the universe begins to break down around you.
As players struggle to navigate these haunted worlds, they may come face to face with the ghostly beings that drift across the boundaries. Sometimes these spectral anomalies merely observe, and sometimes they can turn much more hostile. These encounters provide players with new challenging enemies and boss battles, at a scale not seen before in No Man’s Sky.
Travellers will not have access to hyperdrive technology, meaning no warping between star systems. Instead, interstellar travel requires careful planning and use of the ancient portal network.
Haunting voices, leaking through from another dimension, will provide guidance, information, strange blueprints,and mystery. It is up to you to decide who these voices belong to, where they are coming from, and if they are to be trusted.
The Cursed brings with it a host of exclusive spooky rewards, including a Cthulhu-esque Horror Exosuit customization, bioluminescent pets, and the ultimate reward, retrieved from the reality collapse, the UFO-like Boundary Herald Starship.
Travel beyond the boundaries and fortify your mind against spectral anomalies – or succumb to the call of the world of glass. The expedition begins today, free for existing PlayStation players and will run for approximately two weeks.
Our last update Aquarius, brought fishing to No Man’s Sky and proved very popular. For us, 2024 continues to be one of our most popular years since launch. In the coming weeks, we have several more surprises, including a specific release to take advantage of the incredible power of the PlayStation 5 Pro at launch.
We’re deeply grateful for your enthusiastic support following our announcement of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered. Your passion and dedication have been instrumental in revitalizing this beloved series, so today we wanted to share some new information on the game, with a first look at the game’s bosses in their remastered glory, as well as more details on the game’s brand-new map system which is a collaboration between us, the original creators and the community.
Remastered Boss updates and reveals
Each boss encounter in Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered is designed to challenge the player’s mastery of Raziel’s abilities. Our goal with the character models was to improve the textures as much as we could while ensuring that they blend in with the apocalyptic world.
Melchiah received a full texture overhaul with darkened skin and a slimier body-feel. The bones and skeletal mapping are now more realistic and gory and his eye color was adjusted to match the original look.
Melchiah–The first of Kain’s lieutenants Raziel must defeat. This battle takes place in the Necropolis where Melchiah chases Raziel down while phasing through gates, making the spectral realm no longer safe. Strategically use the environment to expose Melchiah’s vulnerabilities and use his own devices against him.
Zephon was too desaturated, so we’ve completely repainted his face.
Zephon–Fought in a dilapidated cathedral, Zephon has evolved into an insect-like creature, fusing with this towering structure. You’ll need to ascend to the highest chambers and become willingly ensnared to be able to confront him. Search the room for any elemental advantages which could aid you in this endeavor.
Rahab’s head has been remodeled, so the eyes now have a reddish glow which gives him a menacing look. We’ve also altered the fangs to look more vampiric and made his skin color a little more gray.
Rahab–This battle occurs in a flooded abbey. Rahab is fully immune to water, which is lethal to Raziel. Use Raziel’s agility to avoid Rahab’s deadly close-range and long-range attacks by jumping and make use of your newly gained Telekinetic projectile ability to exploit Rahab’s extreme vulnerability to sunlight.
Dumah’s armor is now a lot dirtier and has patches of mold and blood all over it (considering he was impaled for centuries).
Dumah–In a desolated fortress, Dumah awaits reanimation. Just like his other brethren, Dumah is invulnerable to any attacks, so Raziel has to be cunning and lure him to a flame powerful enough to melt even the hardest metal, all while avoiding tremendous earthquakes caused by Dumah’s incredible strength.
The models for Kain in both Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2 needed to be completely re-designed to mitigate textural issues. With the increased polygon count we felt it was important to bring his look a lot closer to the Kain we got to see in the original FMVs, which was a lot more detailed and showed more-or-less what the original intent was for the character. The original model in SR1 was especially limited so now both games have a Kain that looks consistent between the two titles.
Kain–Raziel first confronts Kain at the Pillars where he must be swift and strike Kain three times to gain the Soul Reaver. The second encounter takes place in the Chronoplast, where the tiered arena makes evasion even more challenging. Track your target’s movements closely and make haste to strike him with the Soul Reaver. If you cannot reach him in time, use your Telekinetic projectile to stop Kain from using his powerful lightning attack. The encounter is intense and dramatic, but we won’t spoil how it concludes. Pre-order to find out!
Map & Compass details & gameplay
In the original versions of the games, players often found themselves wandering the vast, twisting landscapes of Nosgoth, relying heavily on memory and environmental cues to navigate.
The introduction of the Map and Compass marks a thoughtful enhancement that blends modern gameplay conveniences with the preservation of the explorative experience the original titles were known for. The Compass gently nudges the player in the right direction without giving away specific details of where to go or what to do next and the Map is more of a reference tool than a guide.
We also included a collection tracker for any Health and Energy power-ups so that you know if you’ve gotten all of the collectibles within each area. All of the major Nosgoth features are present and accurately condensed based on the setting and gameplay.
For fans who might feel that these additions are a major departure from the original games, we’ve made sure to incorporate a toggle-off function for the compass.
In addition to its gameplay utility, the map is also a wonderful art piece that was created in collaboration with our development team, community advisors, artists, and designers at Crystal Dynamics. We knew accuracy was paramount, so we worked hard to pull from the original source art, design documents, and clues from game lore. We also incorporated community reviews to ensure nothing had been missed.
Thanks to these efforts, the map is accurate enough to feature in the new lore reader bonus menu – identifying the location of each lore entry.
For design direction, Crystal Dynamics designers used a heavily inked approach that sits beautifully with the existing art, creating a stunning new way to visualize the world of Nosgoth.
The Map and Compass are there to serve as welcome tools for exploration, ensuring that the remastered versions remain both a tribute to the classics and a modernized, more player-friendly experience.
The Aspyr Team looks forward to sharing more information before the launch of Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver 1 & 2 Remastered on December 10, 2024!
The wait is almost over and we’re beyond excited for PlayStation VR2 players to seize their Sense controllers and dive into the explosive world of Vendetta Forever on October 24. The debut game from visionary indie developer Meatspace Interactive, published by nDreams, this frenetic puzzle-shooter pays bombastic homage to classic action cinema, set to a pulsing synthetic soundtrack. Alongside what makes Vendetta Forever so special, today we want to show off some new PS VR2 gameplay and reveal the features players can enjoy when the title launches this Thursday on PS5.
Come on baby, do the Lo-Kill-Motion
Shoot to kill. Kill to move. Lo-Kill-Motion is the new mechanic that propels players acrobatically through Vendetta Forever’s maze-like arenas. Take down enemies, seize their weapons in mid-air, and take their place. Rinse, repeat, and reload. Each scene is loaded with iconic weaponry, spanning the all-time classics to the deviously improvised. Whether you’re scoped in with a sniper rifle or flinging a humble pencil (seriously), you’ll always have an outrageous arsenal at your disposal.
Harnessing the immersion of PS VR2
We loved digging into the possibilities of the PS VR2 hardware and Vendetta Forever is full of features to maximise your stylish shooting immersion. Feel subtle differences between some of the least subtle weapons in the business. Every weapon in the game – from agile silenced pistols to hefty rocket launchers – will handle differently thanks to the Sense controller’s adaptive triggers. Immersion is maximized through the Sense controller haptics and headset feedback, allowing you to feel incoming damage and death-defying explosions. PS VR2 players can enjoy a few visual perks as well. Your view is mirrored on the TV at 4K, with a stabilized camera for optimal spectating and streaming your wildest moments. In-game you can enjoy real-time shadows, dialed-up lighting, and post-processing.
A behind-the-scenes peek at some early scene compositions
Vendetta Forever comes from the idiosyncratic game design brain of MeatSpace Interactive’s founder and solo indie developer, Zander Dejah. Zander’s well familiar with the power of PlayStation hardware. Having worked on Star Wars: Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge and Vader Immortal: A Star Wars VR Series, he’s experienced at crafting immersive VR worlds. For Vendetta Forever, this is a labour of love that goes all-in on gunplay purity. It’s unapologetically the game this VR fanatic dreamt of making – focused entirely on making the player feel really damn good.
“From day one, the goal with Vendetta Forever was to craft all-action scenes that put player power at the centre of everything, rather than lengthy cinematics or dialogue scenes. This game is about fulfilling that ultimate player fantasy of starring in their own action movie show-stopping vignettes. It’s fast-paced, rewards strategic thinking on the fly, and achieves that sense of shooter flow state in VR.
After working on some narrative heavy hitters in the past, this game has really been the opportunity to make the hyperactive shooter experience I’ve always wanted to play. It’s VR-first and when it comes to immersion, ‘feel’ beats ‘real’ for me. I think it’s an experience frenetic shooter fans have been craving and I can’t wait for PS VR2 players to dive in.”
– Zander Dejah, MeatSpace Interactive
10% off pre-orders with PlayStation Plus
Get prepped for cult action paradise with a 10% pre-order discount, exclusively for PlayStation Plus members! Come launch acrobatically blast your way through 60 unique scenes with 20 modifiers, 50+ iconic weapons, and 50+ achievements to shoot for. Vendetta Forever launches on October 24 on PS VR2.
Rejoice PlayStation players, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is almost here. In fact, we’re so close to launch that starting today, if you’ve pre-ordered the game – you can begin pre-loading to make sure you’re ready for day one.
Ahead of launch, we wanted to go a little deeper today into MP and Zombies to make sure there are no details you’re missing. Let’s break down some key components around what to expect.
The multiplayer experience
From new maps and modes to new weapons and equipment, Black Ops 6 gameplay will be an experience unlike any other. There will be the core 6v6 modes you’ve come to know and love from Call of Duty, plus an all-new core 6v6 mode, Kill Order, where you must eliminate the enemy High Value Target (HVT) while protecting your own. In addition to these, jump into 2v2 Gunfight, as well as Face Off Alts of several of the 6v6 modes. Finally, looking for a challenge where your matches only have a limited HUD, friendly fire is enabled, and your health is lowered significantly? Then, prepare for Hardcore, scheduled for launch on certain playlists.
We will have 16 brand-new maps at launch split into two main categories: twelve brand-new Core 6v6 maps and four brand-new, compact-sized Strike maps designed to be played in either 6v6 or 2v2 configurations. We know you got to see several of the maps in the Beta, such as Scud, Rewind, Skyline, Babylon, and Derelict, but you can expect to find incredible action-packed moments on maps you have yet to experience.
There’s Lowtown, a dockside neighborhood with a boat house, fishing shed, lattices to climb, and a canal to swim in. There’s also Vault, a large, lush playspace set within a desert landscape adorned with monuments, sculptures, a central palace, and even an opulent atrium. And this just scratches the surface, there are many more maps to explore from October 25 and on, not to mention the bevy of maps coming in post-launch seasons.
There are over 20 Black Ops 6 Operators to choose from at launch, with some allied to the Rogue Black Ops Faction, and others allied to Crimson One. To give you a little background on these operators. Rogue Black Ops is on the run and being hunted by their former employers. This team seeks to uncover the truth regarding the infiltration of the CIA and expose the conspiracy. As they no longer have state backing, much of their equipment is either improvised, supplied by contacts from other intelligence services, purchased from criminals, or supplied on the promise of IOUs.
They know who’s hunting them and refer to them as “Crimson One.” Crimson One represents the CIA operation initiated to hunt down the Rogue squad. The team is officially sanctioned by the CIA and has access to all intel and tools to complete the job.
By now, you should have heard plenty about the brand-new Omnimovement system coming to Black Ops 6, the most fluid boots-on-the-ground Call of Duty movement system to date. Omnimovement will go across all game modes, but make sure to utilize it in Multiplayer to live out those spy-thriller action-hero moments you’ve always dreamed of.
Weapons & equipment
When it comes to the weapons you’ll be using in Multiplayer, it all starts where you choose your loadouts: the Weapons Menu, which has been streamlined in Black Ops 6 for an approachable, intuitive experience as you level up your weapons over time. Black Ops 6 is set to bring an exceptional arsenal of weaponry and equipment to the game – including returning favorites from the Black Ops universe and weapons all new to the franchise. The primary and secondary weapons slots are going to be your bread-and-butter, but for the first time you have a dedicated third slot to equip a melee weapon, so that knife or bat is always an option when things get heated in close-quarters combat.
Finally, Perks and Wildcard slots in your loadouts will change the way you play, so make sure you’re thinking strategically as you make your choices. Then, tactical and lethal equipment, as well as Field Upgrades and Scorestreaks will round out your arsenal with an array of choices unlocking as you level up and progress, with some new options such as the exciting War Cry Field Upgrade that rallies your team, improves nearby teammates’ movement and health regen speed for a short time. Get ready to gear up!
Zombies
Round-Based Zombies is back in a massive way, with Treyarch delivering the goods across gameplay, narrative, and maps in Black Ops 6 Zombies.
Check out the previous PlayStation Blog post for the full details of Round-Based Zombies, but there are a few key things we wanted to remind you of. There’s a dedicated crew that are the heart of the story for Black Ops 6 Zombies, which continues the Dark Aether storyline that started in Black Ops Cold War. While you can jump into Zombies with any MP operator you’d like, the characters of Weaver, Grey, Carver, and Maya make up the Terminus team, drive the narrative forward, and are the gateway to the most robust experience you can have with this mode.
Then there are the maps, which are basically characters unto themselves. There will be two Round-Based maps at launch, Terminus and Liberty Falls, with additional maps coming in the post-launch seasons. We also went into details on these maps in a previous Blog post, so check that out for more details, but know there will be no shortage of unique and harrowing environments as you and your squad battle into higher and higher rounds.
Finally, the zombie-fighting tools at your disposal will be robust as ever with the return of Perk-a-Colas, Field Upgrades, Wonder Weapons, GobbleGums, Ammo Mods, and the introduction of Augments, which allow you to customize your Perks, Ammo Mods, and Field Upgrades.
One more thing! For the first time in Call of Duty Zombies history, if you’re playing Zombies solo you can elect to save your solo match at any time and return to it later, provided you’re at full health, aren’t downed, dead, or actively engaged in an exfil. (A relief for many, to be sure).
Progression & prestige
Black Ops 6 marks the anticipated return of a more traditional Prestige system, back in Call of Duty and bigger than ever. Players who reach and complete Max level 55 can choose to Prestige and restart their Leveling over again (while losing some already unlocked items), but this time with the chance to earn exclusive rewards along the way – – we know it’ll be worth the effort. But Prestige isn’t the only Progression system that’s gotten a major upgrade this year.
The Treyarch team has set out to build the most rewarding Progression and Challenge systems ever delivered in a Call of Duty game in Black Ops 6 and there’s a ton of unlockable content packed into the game on Day one. Earn XP from by performing well, playing the Objective, earning Medals, and completing challenges, like Calling Card challenges and Reticle challenges.
Additionally, brand new for Black Ops 6, every Weapon, Equipment, Field Upgrade, and Scorestreak in your loadout has a set of MP and Zombies Master Badges to progress through as you master each piece of Gear.
Those are some of the high-level details you can expect for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Don’t forget to pre-order and pre-load starting today so you can hop right in on October 25 and experience it for yourself.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is officially coming to PC! Announced on Marvel’s stage at New York Comic Con today, our latest entry in the critically acclaimed Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise arrives on PC January 30, 2025 via Steam and the Epic Games Store – wishlist now.
Once again, we’re happy to share the PC version is being developed and optimized by our friends at Nixxes Software in close collaboration with Insomniac Games, PlayStation, and Marvel Games.
“Bringing Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales to a new audience on PC together with Insomniac and Marvel Games has been a great experience for us at Nixxes,” says Julian Huijbregts, Community Manager at Nixxes. “We are excited to continue this collaboration and bring Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to PC with a suite of enhanced features, including enhanced ray-tracing options, to take full advantage of a variety of setups and configurations. Stay tuned for more details on features and recommended specs closer to launch.”
Speaking of launch, two editions of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be available when it launches on PC, including the Standard Edition and Digital Deluxe Edition (DDE). Players will also have the option to upgrade to the DDE content, similar to our upgrade paths on PS5. Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s included in each:
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – Standard Edition
The complete game
All the latest updates since Marvel Spider-Man 2’s PS5 launch, including:
14 new suits
New Game+
Ultimate Levels
New Symbiote Suit Styles
Time of Day options
Post-Game Achievements
Action Figure Mode in Photo Mode
Screen Reader and Audio Descriptions
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 – Digital Deluxe Edition
The complete game with updates listed above
5 exclusive suits for Peter Parker
5 exclusive suits for Miles Morales
Early unlock for the Arachknight Suit (Peter)
Early unlock for the Shadow-Spider Suit (Miles)
Early unlock for the Web Grabber gadget
+5 skill points
Additional Photo Mode items
“Showcasing our characters to as many fans as possible, in the coolest ways possible, are some of the reasons they are so beloved. In that spirit, we’re excited that our Spider Heroes, their friends, and their Super Villains are coming to PC in the critically acclaimed Marvel’s Spider-Man 2,” says Eric Monacelli, Executive Producer for Marvel Games. “Collaborating with Insomniac Games and PlayStation produced a timeless Super Hero video game classic that, thanks to Nixxes and the support of all teams involved, players can now experience on PC with thrilling enhanced features.”
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a continuation of our Peter Parker and Miles Morales story featuring iconic foes such as Venom and Kraven, as well as many returning favorites. We introduced all-new abilities and traversal options such as Symbiote Surge and Web Wings, and we’ve also expanded Marvel’s New York with new boroughs and side missions to explore. While we have no additional story content planned for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, we’re delighted to bring all of our previously released post-launch content to the PC version, including New Game+, new suits and color variants, Photo Mode features, and more. We’re also delighted to announce that the Fly N’ Fresh Suit Pack, our charity collab with non-profit Gameheads, will be available for PS5 players in October and PC on launch at no additional cost.
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In the year since launching Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on PlayStation 5, the game has received critical acclaim, numerous awards and nominations, and praise from fans all around the world. For us, it’s an honor to see players around the world share their love for our original take on Spider-Man and continue to share their favorite moments as they experience the game the first, second, and third time.
“Our amazing partners at Nixxes have once again done an incredible job bringing the world of Marvel’s Spider-Man to PC players,” says Mike Fitzgerald, Core Technology Director at Insomniac. “Our team put a lot of love into this game, and we’re excited that it will soon be enjoyed by a whole new audience with keyboard and mouse controls, ultra widescreen support, and numerous graphical options that make it feel at home on their platform.”
As we approach the PC launch of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, we want to thank players for their support of our games and studio, especially amid Insomniac Games’ 30th anniversary celebrations. Together, we’ve flown to distant realms, explored galaxies, discovered new dimensions, and saved entire cities. Our players have been a key constant throughout three decades, so on behalf of Insomniac Games…. thank you!
Howdy, y’all! This week we got to sit down with Treyarch Associate Creative Director Miles Leslie to discuss Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Plus, the team continues the spooky game spiel by diving into Until Dawn, Silent Hill 2, and more.
Stuff We Talked About
Next week’s releases:
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 | PS5, PS4
Sonic x Shadow Generations | PS5, PS4
Fear the Spotlight | PS5, PS4
Astro Bot new speedrun level and Special Bots
PlayStation The Concert – World Tour 2025-2026 announcement
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered enhancements
Until Dawn behind-the-scenes of new soundtrack
Interview with Miles Leslie (begins at 15:19)
Until Dawn
Metaphor: ReFantazio
Neva
Silent Hill 2
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.]
Last week, we asked you to show your favorite gaming characters cowering in fear using #PSshare #PSBlog. Here are this week’s scared highlights:
Javik_12 shares Astro shaking with fear in a spooky themed level of Astro Bot.
SithMorrison shares Joel’s daughter Sarah looking shaken in The Last of Us Part I.
JLunarTraveler shares Talion leaning back and yelping in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor.
silentgear1 shares Ashley hiding her face as she moves through a dark space in Resident Evil 4.
Defalt368 shares a orange and black cat reacting in horror in Gori: Cuddly Carnage.
lunar9pshares Amicia and Hugo fending off rats with fire in A Plague Tale: Innocence
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: Costumes SUBMIT BY: 11:59 PM PT on October 23, 2024
Halloween’s around the corner and we’re looking for inspiration. Next week, share characters that would make a perfect costume from the game of your choice using #PSshare #PSBlog for a chance to be featured.
Hey everyone, you may be familiar with Nixxes as the developer behind PC ports of PlayStation games, but behind the scenes we have also been hard at work on a project of a very different nature. Working closely with our friends at Guerrilla, we set out to create Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered for both PS5 and PC.
In our announcement last month, we shared details of improved features and technology, such as the completely revamped sound mix by Guerrilla’s audio team, support for DualSense controllers, and new motion capture for conversations. Today, I’d like to introduce you to some of the team members at Nixxes to give you more insight into some of the enhancements that have been made in the remaster.
Overhauling nature
Foliage plays a big role in portraying the lush, overgrown ruins of a long-lost civilization in the world of Horizon. Our team of Environment Artists considered the foliage in Horizon Zero Dawn to be an industry standard, and Horizon Forbidden West added to that with significant improvements in visual quality. For the remaster, the team wanted to give the foliage the same care and attention.
Patrick Blankenzee, Senior Environment Artist: “To bring the foliage in the remaster up to the same level of quality as in Horizon Forbidden West, we enhanced the shaders, textures, geometry and foliage interaction. We assessed all the foliage assets in Horizon Zero Dawn and upgraded them with all these new features. We did this for hundreds of plants, bushes, flowers and trees.”
“We looked at the biomes in the original game and compared them to the concept art. We found places that we could enhance and bring closer to the original intent, with the rainforest biome being a good example of this. With powerful procedural technology, we injected new foliage and raised the quality and density to new heights. The riverbanks have also been upgraded with more biodiversity to bring them closer to the original intention as seen in the concept art.”
Julian Hofman, Environment Artist: “Working with the original team over at Guerrilla, we were able to ask questions, and directly compare their latest work on Horizon Forbidden West to the work we were doing for the remaster. This gave us some very specific goals to work towards, like the fresh generation of moss that you can now see Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.”
“For me, the foliage changes make the game feel more alive and make it live up to the incredibly high standards of the Horizon games. The result is a coherent world to replay or experience for the first time.”
Enhancing the living world
The Design team at Nixxes made several key improvements to Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. One of the most significant changes is the enhancement of the living world.
Brian van Nunen, Senior Technical Game Designer: “To achieve this, we reviewed all villages, outposts and cities, identifying areas that felt empty or where we could improve realism and immersion.”
“Building the game for PS5 allowed us to leverage the increased amount of memory available, enabling us to significantly boost the number of non-player characters. We added many more places for NPCs to stand, sit, work and fulfil their needs. We gave them more varied schedules to increase movement and liveliness in different areas. We also tried to make creative use of existing animations. For example, there is now a woman feeding geese at the well in Meridian, reusing an existing sowing animation. Additionally, on the bridge to Meridian, we’ve made significant strides in improving the atmosphere and sense of activity.”
Improving terrain and building blocks
Our Tech Art team used the library of next-gen materials that were created for Horizon Forbidden West to enhance the quality of assets used for terrain, objects and buildings significantly in the remaster.
Sander Bronkhorst, Senior Technical Artist: “We began by replacing all the Horizon Zero Dawn terrain materials with their new Horizon Forbidden West counterparts. This was only the first step, as the sequel’s terrain materials didn’t always align with the original aesthetics. To address this, we carefully tweaked and polished each individual terrain material to closely match the look and feel of the original game, while maintaining the visual fidelity of the terrain materials in Horizon Forbidden West.”
“In addition to updating all the terrain textures and materials, we incorporated features like deformable snow and sand. Snow deformation was first introduced in the Frozen Wilds expansion, but in the remaster, you will find this feature outside that area as well.”
“In settlements like Meridian and Daytower, the ground required a more unique aesthetic. Previously, Guerrilla used custom meshes and materials for the floors in these settlements, exclusive to these locations. For the remaster, we initially followed this approach, exploring the possibility of increasing texture resolution and adding parallax mapping to areas such as brick floors. However, after initial tests we concluded that in these specific cases this wasn’t going to give us the visual quality that we were aiming to achieve. Therefore, we decided to completely remake the floors in Meridian and Daytower from scratch. This involved creating new high-resolution textures, setting up new materials, painting blend maps, and creating new high-resolution geometry supporting the shapes from the textures used in the material.”
“Another aspect of the upgrades to the game environment in the remaster are Building Blocks. To give a bit of context here: Building Blocks are the individual assets that are used for set dressing the world of Horizon Zero Dawn. Think of objects like rocks, plants, utensils and even buildings.”
“Building Blocks can be divided into two categories: natural and man-made. For both types, we increased the resolution of the textures and adjusted the level of detail (LOD) ranges to ensure higher mesh fidelity.”
“We performed a separate pass on all the man-made Building Blocks, creating new high-resolution geometry for assets that would benefit from this. We found that buildings greatly benefited from having more detailed geometry, as most were using brick-like textures on the walls without the shape of the bricks being reflected in the geometry.”
“To address this, we developed custom tools for generating more detailed geometry for these buildings. The artists used these tools to create new geometry, then manually tweaked and adjusted each individual building for the best visual result.”
Lively conversations
A big change in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is the addition of over 10 hours of additional motion-capture data for characters, directed and captured by Guerrilla at their motion Capture Stage in Amsterdam, making the game’s conversations much livelier and in line with those in Horizon Forbidden West. Implementing this additional data was handled by our technical artists and animators.
Mark Bazelmans, Senior Technical Artist: “Horizon Zero Dawn has almost 300 conversations and well over 3100 dialog options, so we needed to find a way to easily integrate this huge number of updated animations into the conversations. We created a tool with Python to process the almost 2500 mocap files that Guerrilla provided to replace the original animation in the conversations, removing deprecated events and replacing those with the mocap and setup.”“We then focused on creating a pipeline in Maya for our animators to easily load, edit and re-export the individual mocap files for any other edits that were needed, such as finger animation, art direction feedback and fixes. Animators could select the conversation and subsequent dialog option from a list which created the scene from scratch, or simply opened it if it already existed.Our tool referenced the characters and imported the dialogue audio, so the animators could time the movement better and create the camera cuts and layout. Later, we extended this pipeline to also include existing animations for both conversations and cinematics, as some of these also required edits. Our animators could then go into Guerrilla’s DECIMA engine and edit or change the updated conversation.”
Alexander Georgiev, Animator: Since all mocap footage comes from actors with different height or gender, there was a lot of data that needed to be covered and checked. For example, characters looking up or down too much, shoulders not matching the rest of the pose, arms clipping though clothing and fingers that are too static.”
“To solve this efficiently, we created tools to help us. With these tools we visualized helpers that brought a closer connection between working in Maya and the DECIMA engine. One example was that we could not see the eyes moving the same way as in the DECIMA engine, as that was a complex, automated system. With the toolset we created a head and eye aim helper that made it clearer where the characters were looking, and with that we knew how much we should adjust the head of a certain character.”
“We made small, automated scripts to fix shoulders and arms clipping. All these tools gave the animators a way to focus more on enhancing the acting of the characters to support what they want to say. By developing these tools, we created a strong workflow and were able to significantly speed up our iteration time per conversation.”
Mark Bazelmans, Senior Technical Artist: “Alongside the updated body animation, new facial animations were captured for the conversations. Initially this was deemed a straightforward ‘overwrite and replace’, but after seeing some of the results we decided to build a pipeline to be able to edit the updated facial animations.”
“We created tools in Maya that could process a facial animation file in proprietary format into a Maya scene with literally a talking head including audio. We also wrote our own exporter that could then export a Maya scene back to the same proprietary format.”
“Next to updating the animations in conversations, we did a pass on the camera and lighting setup for both conversations and cinematics. For the cameras, we batch updated the camera setup and values. In most conversations, the automated pass didn’t quite give the desired result because the contrast between the original movement and the new mocap was too big. The new body animations allow broader movements, often leading to characters stepping out of frame or being completely offscreen. Therefore, a manual pass was done by our Camera Layout Artists, aided by our custom DECIMA tools to easily edit cameras and settings.”
“We updated the lighting toolset to be closer to that in Horizon Forbidden West, which allows for editing settings of character and environment lighting across similar shots using a visual representation of shots. Lighting was controlled by a single setup for each character in a conversation that would apply to all dialog options in a conversation. Then our lighting artists could do their magic on a particular shot type and all similar shots of that character would be lit the same, with of course room to edit individual shots if needed. This way lighting had maximum control with as little tweaks as possible.”
Shining new light on Horizon Zero Dawn
The work for world lighting and cinematic lighting was divided between Guerrilla and Nixxes Lighting artists, with Guerrilla providing direction and technical support. The Atmospherics team at Guerrilla recreated the sweeping cloudscapes from Horizon Zero Dawn in the new Nubis cloud system from Horizon Forbidden West. The cherry on the cake was the creation of the set piece volcano cloud in the Frozen Wilds expansion, using a combination of the latest innovations in voxel cloud rendering, first pioneered in the Burning Shores expansion for Horizon Forbidden West, and traditional particle VFX.
It was important to retain the strong mood lighting in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, ensuring a seamless transition when playing both games back-to-back. Nixxes’ Senior Lighting Artists Myvanwy Broers, Niels Iburg, and Lighting Artist Thomas Schrama talk about their approach and workflow:
“A lot of the world lighting had to be rebalanced or re-lit from scratch to reach the same mood and to bring it in line with the slightly updated art direction. Horizon Forbidden West has some workflow improvements that we used for the remaster, making the process quite enjoyable!”
“To use the improved features to their fullest potential, we revised all the atmospherics settings that control the biomes within the game world. This included changing the light intensities to Physically Based Rendering values. This is true for the sun and the moon itself, but also detailed lighting in areas such as caves and ruins that players can explore. Think of fog, the color of the sun, glow intensities and so forth.”
“This meant that after rebalancing the light intensities into PBR, it was necessary to relight entire areas to create the best visual fidelity possible. It was a joy to revisit these iconic environments to do so!”
“To speed up our workflow, we used Guerrilla’s prefab system – an object which contains geometry, particles, sound, and lights that we can place anywhere. All these assets exist as referenced content within a prefab, which means that if the value of a torch light needs adjustment, this will simultaneously happen for every torch in the world. This enables large scale changes, and high iteration speed.”
“Light bakes are an important aspect of the lighting – a system that is versatile enough for each time of day, yet providing the detailed light bounce that Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered needs. The quality of such bakes is adjustable per volume that we set as lighters, which is great when we require the light bounce to be more detailed in an area without affecting the rest. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered uses the improved baking system from Horizon Forbidden West, resulting in at least twice as much detail in the light bounce compared to the original.”
“With lighting in cinematics and conversations, we wanted to match the art direction and visual quality of Horizon Forbidden West. This, combined with all updated animations, motion-capture and camera shots, meant we built all the cinematic lighting in the remaster from scratch. We used a lot of new technology and workflow that was created for the cinematic lighting in Horizon Forbidden West.”
“Horizon Zero Dawn used a lighting rig around each character with roughly two lights. For the remaster we used the upgraded lighting rig from the sequel, which uses five lights in total: one key-light, two profile-lights and two rim-lights. These lights are then tweaked on a per shot basis changing position, orientation, color and intensity.”
Detailed characters
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered features significant upgrades to character models and how they react to lighting. Many enhancements in areas such as detail, skin tones, hair quality, and outfits have been carried over from Horizon Forbidden West.
Patrick Blankenzee, Senior Environment Artist: “Working on the varied cast of characters in the remaster was a big undertaking. We enhanced various shaders to improve the visual quality and made changes to ensure the models react better to the new lighting in the remaster. We gave Aloy’s model – both adult and child – the full cinematic treatment, including peach fuzz, upgrades to hair, eyes and materials.”
“We looked at the original concept art of Aloy as a child and aimed to make changes to her outfit, hair and skin, to match the look envisioned in the concept art, as well as bring the model up to par with the quality of the improved model for adult Aloy.”
“In Horizon Zero Dawn, only the character model for Aloy reacts to environmental elements like weather. For the remaster we wanted to give all companion characters the same level of interaction to bring that cinematic feel to the whole world. For example, you will now see both Aloy and her companions react to warm and cold weather.”
On behalf of the teams at Nixxes and Guerrilla, we cannot wait for you to experience Aloy’s journey (again) with all the visual enhancements, upgraded features and tech improvements.
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is available for pre-order now and launches on October 31 on PS5 and PC (Steam, Epic Games Store). Account for PlayStation Network required on PC.
Existing owners of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition can upgrade to the digital version of Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered for $9.99. Check out the previous announcement PS Blog post for all the upgrade details.
Hi everyone, I’m Jenn, Lead Writer and Voice Producer on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Since revealing the game in June, we’ve been blown away by its reception (and impressed by the eagle-eared listeners who identified the voices in the trailers). It brings us great pleasure to finally reveal our English voice cast and share some more information about our characters and their world.
We’ve lived and breathed these characters for the past few years, so it was surreal and an honor to witness our incredible voice cast bring them to life.
The actors were phenomenal to work with (and just all-around great people). We had a lot of fun during the recording sessions. The cast beautifully conveyed the complexity of the characters, who have each been shaped by the harshness of their world. Every character has been affected by deep and constant loss and has dealt with this in their own way.
Previously, we introduced four of the characters.
Charlie Cox (Daredevil) is the voice of Gustave, the lead engineer of Expedition 33. Gustave grew up in Lumière under the Paintress’ shadow and has devoted his life to safeguarding the city. With his final year ticking away, Gustave is hell-bent on defeating the Paintress and reclaiming a future for Lumière’s children.
Jennifer English (Baldur’s Gate 3) plays Maelle, a shy loner eager to escape the constraints of Lumière. Orphaned as a child, Maelle has always felt like an outsider. Her only connection is with Gustave, her foster brother. She is the youngest member of the Expedition, at 16, and sees this as her chance to finally explore the world beyond.
Kirsty Rider (Sandman) voices Lune, the chief researcher of the Expedition. Lune is intensely driven in her quest to defeat the Paintress and complete the work of her parents. She feels keenly the weight of responsibility and the gravity of the stakes involved.
Shala Nyx (The Old Guard) voices Sciel, a calm and cheerful warrior unfazed by the obstacles ahead. Overcoming her past has allowed her to accept the odds against them. They will do all in their power, and it will either be enough or it won’t.
In our latest trailer, we introduce two new characters.
Many of you astutely identified the voice of our beloved Ben Starr (Final Fantasy XVI), who plays Verso, a dangerous stranger tracking the Expedition’s every move.
We asked Ben how he’d describe Verso, and he said, “lost, lonely, and dangerous,” and that he expects players to feel “every emotion imaginable” as they get to know his character.
Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings, Black Panther) plays the role of Renoir, a man relentlessly driven to save his family. He knows that victory demands sacrifice, and he’s ready to pay the price.
We also have the wonderful Rich Keeble and Maxence Cazorla playing two of our favorite characters. We’ll share more about them soon.
Developing the characters was a multi-part process, which included charting a detailed history of Lumière and each character’s family history and thinking through how prior generations responded to the Paintress. These factors all played a role in who each character is and what they are trying to overcome.
In many ways, the process of writing is the ultimate RPG. It’s an extended thought experiment where we place our characters, with their backstories, in these particular situations, and step into their shoes. What do they do? How do they feel? How have their past experiences shaped them, and how does that influence their choices today?
Cast and characters aren’t the only new elements in this trailer. Attentive fans may have recognized new locations, alongside new enemies. Golgra and The Tisseur are two fearsome adversaries who will test your reflexes in our reactive turn-based combat.
We’ve also highlighted more traversal elements within the game. The pictos-powered grapple allows members of the Expedition to summit heights and clear gaps, increasing the speed at which you can explore the world.
Developing the world, the story, and the characters has been deeply satisfying (and fun and engrossing and maddening). We are proud and excited to share the game with everyone when it releases in Spring 2025.
We hope you enjoyed today’s reveals! Stay tuned for more information about Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. We have a great deal more to show you, including elements about the world, the gameplay, other characters, and sneak peek Behind the Scenes.
Wayfinders! I’m AJ, an Executive Producer at Airship Syndicate and I’m incredibly excited to talk about the upcoming release of our game, Wayfinder! Today we’re focusing on two big new additions coming alongside our October 21 launch!
For those that might not know, Wayfinder is an ARPG where players assume the roles of various Wayfinders to push back a hostile force called the Gloom. With a single player campaign that can be played solo or with up to two friends, as well as endless replayability through randomized dungeons and end game activities, Wayfinder is packed with content for you and your friends to enjoy; all for one price with no microtransactions.
Our 7 Wayfinders are distinct & different, each with their own backstory, gear, abilities and (pun intended) ways-to-find new experiences across the world. You start out with one hero and quickly rescue the full roster from the Gloom so you can level, customize, and swap between them at will. But you don’t need to fight alone! Two others can join you for 3-player online, drop-in cross play co-op as you fight through Evenor collecting over 3,000 weapons, armors, housing decorations and more!
We’ve been in Early Access for the past year, fine-tuning the game based on player feedback we’re seeing from our super engaged community. I want to give a huge thank you to Wayfinders old and new from all of us at Airship– you make the game better each update.
Leaving Early Access and moving into the game’s full release will bring a ton of new content to the game. A brand new playable character, new Lost Zones (our version of repeatable, and randomized dungeons), new armor styles and loot to collect and a whole lot more.
But today we’re here to talk about a huge brand new open world area– The Crucible! This lush, yet dangerous area has quests, mini bosses, and is packed with secrets (and monsters!) lurking around every corner.
The final battle begins in The Crucible. The Eldren have occupied a shattered region known as The Crucible—a city-sized machine built by The Architects, reclaimed by nature and lost to time. In search of a powerful secret at The Crucible’s center, the Eldren intend to finish the war their gods started, and pen the world a dark fate.
Players may have a mount already, but the Crucible is enormous and filled with verticality & multiple areas to explore. With that in mind, we developed an entirely new traversal tool: the Hookshot! We think you’ll love this thing. It’s super fun to use, and allows you to easily get around the massive new area, as well as avoid dangers in situations you may find yourself in when exploring the Crucible!
Alongside the game’s release, we’re also introducing The Critical Role Supporter Pack, which brings the world of Vox Machina into Wayfinder with over 50 unique items. This Supporter Pack directly supports Airship Syndicate and Critical Role, two indie companies bringing their worlds to life with the help of their passionate player base. This pack will go on sale October 21, but we’re thrilled to show off the first in-game teaser featuring Venomess as Vex! Can you spot all the Critical Role inspired items?
“We are huge fans of Critical Role, so we’re super excited for this collaboration, which we hope is the first of many.” said Joe Madureira, CEO of Airship Syndicate and Marvel Comics alum. “From the start, we wanted the Vox Machina personas to feel uniquely Wayfinder, while still capturing the magic that makes these beloved heroes of Exandria so special. Our team of artists and animators were very passionate about making it happen, and I think it shows.”
Wayfinder has changed for the better so much over the last year in Early Access! Our fans have told us that the experience today is more polished, more rewarding and most importantly, more fun. We can’t wait to welcome all the new PlayStation 5 Wayfinders on October 21!
