Update : We all got collectively freaked out by the initial trailer and demo footage for Bramble: The Mountain King back in December last year and now Merge Games has announced that the title will be crawling its way onto Switch on 27th April.
This news was shared alongside a new release date trailer which gives a closer look at the kind of chills that will be coming our way in a couple of months. This trailer does come with a warning that it may be inappropriate for some users, so take care when watching (if you’re old enough, that is).
Today, we are excited to announce the Xbox Wireless Controller – Stellar Shift Special Edition as the newest member of the Shift Special Edition series. The Shift series debuted with Aqua Shift, inspired by the deep sea, and Lunar Shift capturing the awe-inspiring aura of the moon, but we knew that the Stellar Shift had to take it one step further. The Stellar Shift controller features a striking color shifting blue-purple shimmer that gives it a mesmerizing feeling of deep space vibes. Each controller has unique swirl grips that allow you to hold onto all of your gaming action.
Explore new adventures with textured grips on the triggers, bumpers, and back case that provide a better hold of the controller. Alongside is a hybrid D-pad that gives the Stellar Shift an accurate yet familiar input. While you are out making discoveries, you can utilize the dedicated Share button, which can seamlessly capture and share content with all your other friends like video and screenshots on the Xbox Accessories App. Using this app, you can also create custom controller profiles and remap your buttons to your liking. The 3.5mm jack allows you to connect any of your favorite headsets. Feel free to take your controller beyond the Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles, with Bluetooth technology that allows for wireless gaming on your PC and mobile devices.
One special feature of the Stellar Shift Xbox Wireless Controller you won’t want to miss out on is the unique dynamic background that is only unlocked once you connect your new controller to your Xbox Series X|S console. Dynamic backgrounds are animated augments that bring your Xbox dashboard to life. Bask in the deep purple and blue swirling design as you venture off to wherever your Xbox takes you. To access this feature, click the Settings button on your console dashboard. Under the General tab, hit the Personalization button and find the “My Background” button. Once there, you’ll be able to see Dynamic Backgrounds and can pick between this or multiple other fantastic dynamic looks to customize your Xbox experience even further. Once you have your background applied, you will retain it until you swap it for a new design. To restore this background, simply connect the Stellar Shift controller back to the console and navigate to the menu to reapply.
The Xbox Wireless Controller – Stellar Shift Special Edition is available today in select Xbox markets worldwide for $69.99 USD MSRP. Check your local retailer or xbox.com for more information.
Feel-good gem Garden of the Sea combines world exploration with farming, creativity and much more. If you are looking for progression and adventure, you will find it. If you are looking for relaxation, stay where you are and let the world gently take its course. The wholesome game launches on PlayStation VR2 February 22.
Make gardens and craft everything you might want to customize them, from bamboo, coral, woods, stone, plant parts, and more.
Pet and feed the many kinds of animals with homegrown veggies and cuddle their babies
Expand and decorate your home by crafting items, furniture and paint
Go fishing for new friends to hang out in your pond
Take your boat for a ride to discover new land and environment types
No violence – all tend and befriend
Complete quests to unravel each island’s hidden mystery
Garden of the Sea invites you to head out across the ocean as playful sea creatures swim along, to discover new land and treasures, make a home and fill it with the best of the best from your adventures.
Meet the developers
Linnéa, Christoffer and Flippy of Neat Corporation.
We spoke to two of the developers: Art Director Christoffer Svenningsson and Artist Filip “Flippy” Tengwall.
What led up to the start of Garden of the Sea’s development?
Christoffer: I had been wanting to make a specific type of game for a long time, like a more fantasy version of Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon. Something bright, imaginative and wholesome with lots of creativity, farming and places to explore. On a boat!
Flippy: It’s a genre a lot of us at Neat enjoy playing ourselves so when we heard the idea it was easy for the mind to go “What if this in VR?”
Christoffer: As the idea caught on we found ourselves sneaking in work on Garden of the Sea even while the first Budget Cuts game was still in production. It lay in the pipeline for a long time so the concept got to evolve slowly and organically while we explored as many of our ideas as possible. It was just a lot of fun to work on and a relaxing contrast to the dark corridors of Budget Cuts, so it was hard to stop ourselves. Someone snapped a photo of me during a break just lying on a pouf playing GotS like a happy loaf of man with a huge smile on my face. That one’s definitely found its way onto our instagram at some point.
What was the core of what you wanted to create?
Christoffer: The original pitch is actually quite different from what the final game ended up being, even though much of it’s still in there. I wanted to explore a world that feels familiar at some levels but still different from everyday life. From the beginning we were toying with many ideas, like the islands floating in the sky and exploring them on an airship but in the end we landed (no pun intended) with the boat in an archipelago. We hadn’t seen much of animals in VR, so the care-taking aspect was also new for us to explore. There aren’t many VR farm-simulation games in general. Coupled with that we felt that these types of games were the most interesting to us personally, we got really excited about the project. I’ve been following this genre for a long time so as a fan it felt very natural to bring it to the VR scene. And it turned out that it works really well.
I can confess I played Stardew Valley the first time when on sick leave for insomnia and stress, and for a while it was the only way I could find a sense of relaxation to pass the time when I was too exhausted to do much else. And as I read some Garden of the Sea player reviews I came across a few that mentioned mental health and how Garden of the Sea has helped them in various aspects of their lives.
Flippy: From the top of my head there is a fairly recent review that mentions feeling less lonely when playing. It reminded me of when the pandemic hit. We had the game open for purchase and playing to collect feedback from players before we finally made an official release in January 2022. There were obviously a lot of unknowns and fear in general society and we were all working from home, as most people who could were. We kept in contact with the player community for feedback and a lot of people also reached out to us in private just to tell us how the game was helping them cope. Even though it’s a single player game, many people felt it helped them through the isolation and other struggles too.
Christoffer: I can recognise that too from my own life, having grown up in the countryside on a farm with lots of animals around. It does feel more lonely here in the city, where many people don’t have the space at home to keep pets. I definitely feel an emotional connection to the GotS animals even though they’re digital, which surprised me a bit.
Flippy: I think VR as a medium generally amplifies immersion times a hundred. Since many games out there are action- and conflict-driven, VR in entertainment has proved to give us stronger adrenaline kicks and more realistic scares. But it was cool to discover that we can use that immersion boost to work with other emotions as well, such as what folks usually refer to as “positive” emotions. It was especially clear to us when we saw people playing the game. Their reactions to the cute animals were often surprisingly strong, like “whoa, that’s cute!”
Garden of the Sea will be a launch title on the PS VR2, February 22.
Update 02/07/2023: Nintendo has revealed that Pokémon Scarlet and Violet have now sold through more than 18 million units, with more than 20 million units sold to retailers.
As revealed in Nintendo’s latest earnings report, 18.2 million customers bought a copy of Pokémon Scarlet and Violet by the end of December 2022, up eight million from the previously announced ten million units sold as of November 23.
In terms of units sold through to retailers, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet sitting at 20.61 million units puts it straight onto the Nintendo Switch’s top ten best selling games list. Currently in seventh place, it sits behind Super Mario Odyssey, Pokémon Sword and Shield, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Animal Cross: New Horizons, and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in first, which sits at 52 million units.
Original Story 11/23/2022: Not only has Pokemon Scarlet and Violet sold an impressive 10 million combined units within the first three days of launch, they also account for “the highest global sales level for any software on any Nintendo platform” within that time frame.
Pokemon Scarlet and Violet launched globally on November 18, 2022, and these sales figures from Nintendo include both packaged and downloadable versions.
The newest entries in the legendary Pokemon franchise mark the second outing of the mainline franchise following Pokemon Sword and Shield. For comparison, Sword and Shield sold over six million units in their first week, which was a record for the fastest-selling Switch title at the time.
The Switch has seen plenty of Pokemon titles since 2017, including Pokemon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Let’s Go, Eevee!, Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, and Pokemon Legends: Arceus.
In our Pokemon Scarlet and Violet review in progress, we said, “After a few years of experimentation on the Switch, Game Freak has finally stumbled upon an open world formula that successfully reinvents how Pokémon is played, while remaining true to the nostalgic childhood vision of exploration, adventure, and cute monster collecting.”
“It is, in almost every way, the transformation I’ve been waiting for – but the grievously poor performance that has come along with it significantly mars this otherwise exciting design evolution.”
Apex Legends? Allow me to assuage it with exciting news about what the devs have been working on instead. Namely – a complete rework of the Legend classes and perks system; a new top-tier burst Assault Rifle; a rotating playlist of limited time modes, including the new Team Deathmatch mode; improved onboarding for new players; and much more.
Read more about all the major changes coming with Apex Legends Revelry on Tuesday 14th February below, and join me as I aggressively chew the walls in anticipation of the five new character classes that are about to shake up the Legend meta.
Dwarf Fortress has sold over 600,000 copies in its first two months on the market according to a new post from publisher Kitfox Games on Medium.
“In the first two months, which ended yesterday, we’ve now sold exactly 606,342 copies of Dwarf Fortress, almost exactly 5,000 of which are from itch.io,” wrote Kitfox Games co-founder Tanya X Short on behalf of the development team.
Prior to release, Kitfox Games posted the projections of an analyst who used the Steam wishlist numbers of previous titles to forecast that Dwarf Fortress would sell around 160,000 units in its first two months. According to Short, that same number of games were sold within 24 hours of its December 6 launch.
The success of Dwarf Fortress reportedly netted the game’s original creators, Zach and Tarn Adams, a healthy January paycheck of $7 million – a figure which dwarfs December’s pre-release earnings of $15,635.
Kitfox Games also posted the Steam traffic stats for Dwarf Fortress, revealing that the store page received a staggering 26.81 million visits in the first two months following its release.
Dwarf Fortress’s Steam release brought much needed graphics, UI and control improvements to the beloved cult classic from 2006, making it accessible to a new generation of gamer, and the game currently has a 95% positive score from 17,478 user reviews on Steam.
In our review of Dwarf Fortress IGN described the game as “infinitely explorable in its complexity and equally as rewarding in the depth you’ll find there, this is the quintessential world simulation and building management game”.
Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer
Check out our Hogwarts Legacy vs Harry Potter movies comparison. Hogwarts Legacy lets us walk around the iconic magical school from the Harry Potter series, but just how accurate are its ancient passageways and sprawling towers compared to the movies? From Hogwarts’ familiar grounds to the quaint Hogsmeade Village, and even the depths of Gringotts Wizarding Bank, we’ve visited various locations from the Harry Potter films and compared them with the new action RPG. We also ran into some familiar magical creatures along the way!
Bayonetta 3 is the latest Switch exclusive to join the 1 million club. In Nintendo’s latest financial report, the company reports that the long-awaited sequel from PlatinumGames just squeaked over the line with 1.04 million units sold.
Launching early-ish into Q3, those sales figures are pretty decent for the Umbra Witch’s third outing. The Switch version of Bayonetta 2 managed to hit 1.04 million units by December 2021, while it struggled to even reach 400k on the Wii U. The first Bayonetta has seen multiple releases, first launching on the PS3 and Xbox 360, and managed 2 million copies between those systems.
Darkest Dungeon 2 has been in early access since 2021, and it’s finally taking the roadtrip to a full 1.0 PC release on May 8th. We originally thought the nail-biting roguelike would see a 1.0 release this month, but developer Red Hook haven’t left us empty-handed. Darkest Dungeon 2 currently has a demo available on Steam and the Epic Games Store until the end of Steam Next Fest on February 13th. Red Hook say the demo will feature the four starting heroes as you take them around one full region and explore either the Sprawl (city) or the Foeter (farms.)
Apex Legends? Allow me to assuage it with exciting news about what the devs have been working on instead. Namely – a complete rework of the Legend classes and perks system; a new top-tier burst Assault Rifle; a rotating playlist of limited time modes, including the new Team Deathmatch mode; improved onboarding for new players; and much more.
.jpg/BROK/resize/1920x1920>/format/jpg/quality/80/witchy-life-story-(2).jpg”></p><p>Although my favourite type of witch is a spooky old crone, who cackles at the top of her lungs and lives in a swamp crunching rat bones and squeezing crow blood into her cauldron, the laid-back cottagecore witch is a close second. What’s not to love? Living in a cute little thatched roof house, tending to your garden, baking bread, sipping magical teas, reading old tomes on the front porch – absolute bliss.</p><p>Witchy Life Story is all about this lifestyle. It’s a fluffy, cosy visual novel where you play as a mischievous witch who is sent to live in a new town called Flora to prove themselves after royally flubbing their training. The town is preparing for a festival and, as the newly appointed town witch, you need to pull your weight by brewing potions, giving tarot readings, and even leading a guided meditation session or two.</p><p><a href=)
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Darkest Dungeon 2 has been in early access since 2021, and it’s finally taking the roadtrip to a full 1.0 PC release on May 8th. We originally thought the nail-biting roguelike would see a 1.0 release this month, but developer Red Hook haven’t left us empty-handed. Darkest Dungeon 2 currently has a demo available on Steam and the Epic Games Store until the end of