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Death Stranding connects with 7 nominations at the 2020 GDC Awards
It looks like Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding really connected with the judging panel for the 2020 Game Developers Choice Awards. The developer’s latest game, and his first as the head of an independent team, was nominated in seven categories: “Game of the Year,” “Best Design,” “Best Visual Art,” “Best Narrative,” “Best Audio,” “Best Technology,” and the “Innovation Award.”
The remaining “Game of the Year” contenders gobbled up most of the rest of the nominations, as Remedy’s Control and Mobius Digital’s Outer Wilds were close behind with five nominations apiece. Also in the running are House House’s Untitled Goose Game (which collected four nominations) and From Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (which snuck into the conversation with three nominations).
In addition to this year’s slate of competitive awards, Kate Edwards will receive Ambassador Award for her work in “helping video games advance to a better place through advocacy and action.” Edwards is the current Executive Director of Global Game Jam and the former head of the International Game Developers Association.
The 2020 Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony will take place on on Wednesday, March 18, and will be livestreamed on the GDC’s Twitch channel. The full list of nominees, as well as all the Honorable Mentions, can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Control, Death Stranding, GDC 2020, Outer Wilds, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Untitled Goose Game
Latest update for Doom and Doom II adds Add-Ons, Quick Saves, 60 FPS support, more
As promised back in December, Bethesda has updated the recent re-releases of Doom (1993) and Doom II with a bevy of new features.
The biggest new addition to both titles is support for Add-Ons, which will initially include a number of popular semi-official WADs. The Final Doom campaigns (TnT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment) are now available to download for free through either game. Another bonus campaign will be available to Doom players looking to grab John Romero’s Sigil, while Doom II fans will be able to download the previously XBLA-exclusive expansion No Rest For the Living.
More Add-Ons will be added to Doom and Doom II at a later date.
Other new features included in this update are native support for visuals at 60 FPS, a Quick Saves option, and multiple Quality-of-Life Adjustments (including a “Quick Weapon Select feature, improved Level Select function, added Aspect Ratio and Brightness options, a new split-screen HUD, and more”).
You can learn more about everything that was added to Doom and Doom II today by visiting the Patch Notes page on Bethesda.net.
Untitled Goose Game and Slay the Spire lead the nominees at 2020 IGF Awards
The Independent Games Festival, the scrappier sibling to the Game Developer Conference, has announced the nominees for this year’s Independent Games Festival Awards.
Not surprisingly, House House’s Untitled Goose Game stole the spotlight, earning two total nominations (for the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize” and “Excellence In Audio”). However, it was Die Gute Fabrik’s Mutazione that lead the pack. In addition to a nomination for the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize,” the mutant soap opera is also in competition for “Excellence In Visual Art,” “Excellence In Audio,” and “Excellence In Narrative.”
Other games in the running for the IGF’s top prize this year are Mega Crit’s Slay the Spire, Adam Robinson-Yu’s A Short Hike, Zachtronics’s Eliza, and Sean Han Tani and Marina Kittaka’s Anodyne 2: Return to Dust.
The winners of the Independent Games Festival Awards will be revealed on Wednesday, March 18, at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. League of Geeks’s Trent Kusters will serve as the host of the ceremony, which will be livestreamed for viewers at home on the GDC’s Twitch channel.
The complete list of nominees (and Honorable Mentions) from the 2020 Independent Games Festival Awards can be found after the break. (more…)
Dodge Roll confirms that Exit the Gungeon will be released for PC and consoles in Early 2020
Dodge Roll Games started 2020 off with a big news drop (on Twitter) about all their current and upcoming projects.
First up, Exit the Gungeon will escape its exclusivity deal with Apple Arcade and make its way to “PC and consoles” in Early 2020. The developer didn’t specify which consoles the game would appear on, but Enter the Gungeon has found a lot of success on the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, so a wide release strategy seems likely for this pseudo-sequel.
Speaking of Enter the Gungeon, Dodge Roll also announced that their first game has now sold more than three million copies across all platforms. Congratulations to the team on reaching that milestone.
Finally, Dodge Roll revealed that Enter the Gungeon: House of the Gundead, a lightgun-powered arcade cabinet developed by Griffin Aerotech, will also be available in Early 2020. The spinoff will offer two-player simultaneous shooting against the “adorable” Gundead horde when it launches sometime in the next few months.
Dodge Roll recently overhauled their website at EnterTheGungeon.com, and you’ll be able to find future updates about all of these games over there.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Enter the Gungeon, Exit the Gungeon
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice wins “Game of the Year” at the 2019 Game Awards
Geoff Keighley and his co-presenters shotgunned their way through dozens of awards during tonight’s Game Awards, but in between all the World Premiere Trailers, they managed to shine a brief spotlight on a wide variety of titles. Unlike most years when a handful of titles dominate the conversation, this year’s Game Awards spread the wealth among a lot of worthy winners, including Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, this year’s recipient of the “Game of the Year” award.
From Software’s ninja adventure also claimed the “Best Action/Adventure Game” trophy, but it wasn’t able to sway the jury for the other three nominations it was up for. Instead, ZA/UM’s Disco Elysium became the most-honored game of the night, winning “Best Narrative,” “Best Role Playing Game,” “Best Independent Game,” and “Fresh Indie Game.”
Some of the ceremony’s other winners included Kojima Production’s Death Stranding (“Best Game Direction,” “Best Score/Music,” and “Best Performance” for Mads Mikkelsen), Remedy’s Control (“Best Art Direction”), Beat Games’s Beat Saber (“Best VR/AR Game”), Respawn’s Apex Legends (“Best Multiplayer”), and Activision’s Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled (“Best Sports/Racing Game”).
In addition to a rousing speech by their former President, Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo had a great night too, taking home trophies for “Best Fighting Game” (Super Smash Bros. Ultimate), “Best Family Game” (Luigi’s Mansion 3), and “Best Strategy Game” (Fire Emblem: Three Houses).
A complete list of winners from the 2019 Game Awards can be found at Video Game Canon.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Game Awards 2019, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Bethesda will bring John Romero’s Sigil and Final Doom to Doom and Doom II on consoles
Bethesda has promised that Doom and Doom II will soon become a little bit more complete on consoles and mobile ddvices. Yesterday, the publisher hosted a 26th Anniversary Celebration for the seminal first persona shooter on Twitch, and they confirmed during the livestream that four of the franchise’s more famous fan-made expansions will soon be available to download on the PS4, Switch, Xbox One, iOS, and Android.
These expansions will be available to download, for free, through a brand new Add-Ons tab in both games. According to Bethesda, the list of “curated” add-ons will initially include Sigil, which was released just this year as the unofficial “Fifth Episode” for Doom by co-creator John Romero, and No Rest For the Living, a Doom II expansion that made its debut on the Xbox 360 in 2010.
Final Doom, a 1996 retail repackaging of TnT: Evilution and The Plutonia Experiment, will also be available to download in Doom and Doom II as part of the update. Best of all, Bethesda confirmed that more add-ons will be added to both games at a later date.
On top of all that, Bethesda is also planning a few quality of life updates for the shooters, including bumping the graphics to 60 FPS and adding options for additional aspect ratios.
It’s currently unknown when the add-on update or the quality of life update will be available, but Bethesda said that it’ll be “soon.”
Geoff Keighley has announced the nominees for the 2019 Game Awards
We’re getting closer and closer to the end of the year, and that’s means that it’s finally time for the Game Awards. The nominations for the annual awards show were announced earlier today, and Remedy’s Control, Kojima Productions’s Death Stranding, Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds, Capcom’s Resident Evil 2, From Software’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will all be competing for “Game of the Year.”
Host Geoff Keighley isn’t involved in the nominating process, but it still feels strange to realize that he actually appears as a non-player character in Death Stranding. Hideo Kojima’s latest game, and first as an independent developer, ultimately received nine nominations across eight categories (both Norman Reedus and Mads Mikkelsen were nominated for “Best Performance”).
Fans are once again encouraged to vote for their favorite games at the award show’s official website, and fan votes will have a real effect on the outcome, as they’ll count for a 10% share of the voting jury.
The 2019 Game Awards will be held on Thursday, December 12. In addition to all the winners, we can also expect to see a lot of World Premiere Trailers for upcoming games, some of which will be announced in the coming days.
In the meantime, you can find a complete list of all the nominees after the break. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Control, Death Stranding, Game Awards 2019, Resident Evil 2, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, The Outer Worlds
Square Enix’s Romancing Saga 3 is now available in English for the first time
It’s been a struggle for RPG fans in North America and Europe to experience Square Enix’s long-running Saga franchise over the years. While the earliest Saga games were brought West under the Final Fantasy Legend banner, many of the later entries were only released in Japan by the publisher.
Thankfully, Square Enix has recently begun filling in those missing piece with a handful of Saga-related re-releases, including today’s launch of Romancing Saga 3.
Originally released for the Super NES in 1995, Romancing Saga 3 follows eight different protagonists, “each with their own motives and unique personalities.” This HD remaster of the game will give players outside of Japan their first chance to try out the turn-based RPG, which will include upgraded graphics, new areas to explore, and a New Game+ option:
Romancing Saga 3 gives players the freedom to forge their own path, choosing to play through eight different narratives led by eight protagonists, each with their own motives and unique personalities. Developed by industry veterans, including renowned developer Akitoshi Kawazu (Final Fantasy, Romancing SaGa, SaGa Frontier), this HD remaster will feature optimized graphics, a new dungeon called the Phantom Maze to explore, and a New Game+ function. Romancing Saga 3 adds new storylines to the game original game, making it the perfect time for both new and veteran players to experience the SaGa series.
Romancing Saga 3 is now available to download for the PC, PS4, Switch, Vita, Xbox One, and mobile devices. A Launch Trailer for the RPG re-release has been embedded above.