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Red Dead Redemption 2 leads the way with 7 nominations at 2019 GDC Awards
It looks like Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man, and God of War will be taking over another awards show, as the three games lead the way at the 2019 Game Developers Choice Awards. Rockstar’s “Cowboy Game” secured the most nominations with seven, but Sony’s Spider-Man and God of War were close behind with six apiece.
As you might have guessed, all three games are in the running for the coveted “Game of the Year” trophy, and they’ll be competing against Lucas Pope’s Return of the Obra Dinn and Matt Makes Games’s Celeste.
A handful of other games will attempt to push their way into the spotlight at this year’s GDC Awards, including Mountains’s Florence (four nominations), Enhance’s Tetris Effect (three nominations), and Nomada Studio’s Gris (two nominations).
In addition to the main awards ceremony, the GDC Awards will also present a Lifetime Achievement Award to Amy Hennig, the creator of Naughty Dog’s Uncharted franchise.
The 2019 GDC Awards ceremony will take place on on Wednesday, March 20, at 6:30 PM (Pacific Time). The full list of nominees, and all the Honorable Mentions, can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Celeste, GDC 2019, God of War 4, Red Dead Redemption 2, Return of the Obra Dinn, Spider-Man
Return of the Obra Dinn was nominated in five categories at 2019 IGF Awards
Papers Please, Lucas Pope’s puzzle game about censorship in a dystopian dictatorship, was a huge hit when it was released for the PC all the way back in 2013. And thanks to today’s announcement of the finalists for the Independent Games Festival Awards, it looks like his latest project, Return of the Obra Dinn, will reach similar heights.
Return of the Obra Dinn is an “innovative and uniquely stylized murder mystery” set aboard an abandoned ship in the early 1800s. Using “1-Bit” graphics reminiscent of early Macintosh games, players had to explore the ship and discover what happened to the crew. These elements helped Obra Dinn receive nominations for the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize,” as well as “Excellence In Audio,” “Excellence In Design,” “Excellence In Visual Art,” and “Excellence In Narrative.”
Return of the Obra Dinn will be competing against five other games for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, including Zachtronics’s Opus Magnum, Nolla Games’s Noita, Fictiorama Studios’s Do Not Feed the Monkeys, Hypnospace Outlaw (developed by Jay Tholen, Mike Lasch, Xalavier Nelson Jr., and Corey Cochran), and Minit (developed by Kitty Calis, Jan Willem Nijman, Jukio Kallio, and Dominik Johann).
A complete list of the nominees and honorable mentions from the 2019 Independent Games Festival Awards can be found after the break. (more…)
Sony Santa Monica’s God of War wins “Game of the Year” at 2018 Game Awards
In what is surely to be the first of many accolades, Sony Santa Monica’s God of War won “Game of the Year” at the 2018 Game Awards. Kratos’s latest adventure also picked up statuettes for “Best Game Direction” and “Best Action/Adventure Game.”
But the biggest winner of the night was Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, which picked up four wins last night. The publisher’s “Cowboy Game” collected some shiny hardware for “Best Narrative,” “Best Score/Music,” “Best Audio Design,” and “Best Performance” (for Roger Clark’s work as Arthur Morgan).
The all-mighty Fortnite picked up two awards, “Best Ongoing Game” and “Best Multiplayer,” but the most surprising news of the night might be that Insomniac’s Spider-Man was completely shut out. Best of luck next time to the ol’ webhead.
More than a dozen different games went home as winners at the 2018 Game Awards, and you can find them all after the break. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, Celeste, Dead Cells, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Florence, Fortnite, Forza Horizon 4, Game Awards 2018, God of War 4, Into the Breach, Monster Hunter: World, Overcooked 2, Overwatch, Red Dead Redemption 2, Return of Obra Dinn, The Messenger
Gone Home will be added to the iOS App Store on December 11
Annapurna Interactive and The Fullbright Company have announced that Gone Home will be available to download for iOS devices through the iOS App Store beginning on December 11.
June 7th, 1995. 1:15 AM
You arrive home after a year abroad. You expect your family to greet you, but the house is empty. Something’s not right. Where is everyone? And what’s happened here? Unravel the mystery for yourself in Gone Home, a story exploration game from The Fullbright Company.
Gone Home is an interactive exploration simulator. Interrogate every detail of a seemingly normal house to discover the story of the people who live there. Open any drawer and door. Pick up objects and examine them to discover clues. Uncover the events of one family’s lives by investigating what they’ve left behind.
The award-winning narrative adventure will be priced at $4.99 on Apple’s platform, and Gone Home’s new iOS-centric trailer has been embedded above.
Multiple nominations for Red Dead Redemption 2, Spider-Man, and God of War will make this year’s Game Awards an EPIC event
It’s been a big year for super-sized games like Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2 and Sony Santa Monica’s God of War, and it looks like they’ll be front and center (alongside a few other epic titles) at this year’s Game Awards show on December 6.
Rockstar’s western and Sony’s Norse fable tied for the most nominations (eight apiece), and they’ll both be competing for “Game of the Year” against Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, Insomniac’s Spider-Man, Capcom’s Monster Hunter: World, and Matt Thorson’s Celeste.
This year, fans will be able to make their voices heard in the balloting by joining the official The Game Awards Discord server, and voting for their favorites in all categories. Voting through the Discord server is now open and will be available through December 5.
The Game Awards will kick off at 9:00 PM (Eastern Time) on December 6, and fans can watch the show through their favorite video streaming service or at TheGameAwards.com. As usual, we can also expect to see “exclusive game world premieres” and “new game announcements.”
The full list of nominees can be found after the break.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, Astro Bot: Rescue Mission, Celeste, Dead Cells, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Florence, Fortnite, Forza Horizon 4, Game Awards 2018, God of War 4, Into the Breach, Monster Hunter: World, Overcooked 2, Overwatch, Red Dead Redemption 2, Return of Obra Dinn, Spider-Man, The Messenger
Fortnite will add NFL-themed Outfits on November 9
Are you ready for some Football Royale? Epic Games and the NFL have announced that NFL-themed Outfits will be available to download in Fortnite beginning this Thursday, November 9, at 7:00 PM.
According to an update on Epic’s official website, jerseys will be available for all 32 NFL teams, plus an additional Fortnite-styled jersey:
Each Outfit can be swapped to any of the thirty-two NFL teams, plus an additional unique Fortnite team. You’ll also be able to choose any number from 1-99 to place on your jersey to complete the official NFL look.
A trailer for the “Fortnite X NFL” crossover has been embedded above.
Blizzard co-founder reiterates that multiple Diablo projects are currently in the works
Diablo fans hoping to get a glimpse of Diablo IV at this year’s BlizzCon did not react well after the developer unveiled the mobile-exclusive Diablo Immortal on Friday. Angry fans pushed into BlizzCon’s Q&A sessions to vent directly to the development team, while others flooded the company’s social media channels with comments in an attempt to be heard.
Needless to say, no one from the company expected such a vitriolic response, though Blizzard co-founder Allen Adham told Kotaku that the backlash wasn’t a complete surprise:
“We know our audience here is passionately PC- and console-focused,” he said. “We’ve also seen this before. We saw a similar response when we announced that we were bringing Diablo to console, and we saw a similar response to the announcement of Hearthstone.”
[…]
“That being said, we knew our audience here desperately wants to see and hear about one thing in particular.”
Later in the interview, Adham calmly reiterated that Blizzard has multiple Diablo projects currently in development, which is something we’ve all known for a long time:
“At Blizzard, we don’t announce things until we’re ready. It’s all about game quality, less about timing, all about delivering an overwhelming experience to our players,” he said. “We tried to get ahead of that a little bit with the blog post to let that group know that we are working on multiple things and continue to work on multiple things.”
[…]
“There are actually two distinct teams,” Adham said. “That’s something we tried to communicate. I know our community here, there’s a concern that we are focused on this instead of that. The truth is that we have multiple Diablo teams working on multiple unannounced Diablo projects even after announcing [Immortal].”
So there you have it. Diablo Immortal is in development for mobile devices and Diablo IV is unofficially (though definitely) in development as well. We’ll continue to learn more about both games in the future, as soon as Blizzard is ready to talk about them.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged Diablo 4, Diablo Immortal
Blizzard announces Diablo Immortal for mobile devices at BlizzCon
It’s BlizzCon time, and Blizzard has used their annual convention to announce a rather unexpected new entry in the Diablo franchise. We all know that Diablo IV is in the works (the developer more or less confirmed the existence of a new numbered sequel back in August), but Blizzard threw us a curveball today with the announcement of Diablo Immortal for mobile devices.
In development at NetEase, Diablo Immortal is described as a “Mobile Massively Multiplayer Online Action Role-Playing Game” (or MMMOARPG for short), and players will be able to join the fight against evil as a Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, or Wizard. Don’t worry if your favorite isn’t listed, more playable classes will be added to the game in a future update.
Diablo Immortal takes place between the events of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction and Diablo III. The “Herald of Terror,” Skarn, is massing an army to resurrect Diablo, and players must band together to stop him. To do this, they’ll need to master the game’s new touchscreen controls:
The transition from mouse-and-keyboard or controller to mobile touchscreen device was designed to feel completely natural, intuitive, and fun in Diablo Immortal. Directional controls make it easy to move heroes around the world, and activating a skill is as easy as holding a thumb down on a skill to aim, then releasing it to unleash hell on your foes. And reinforcements are always only a tap away thanks to the native Blizzard Battle.net UI designed specifically for Diablo Immortal, which allows you to chat and form groups with ease in the middle of the most frantic battle.
Diablo Immortal is currently in development for iOS and Android devices, and prospective players can sign up for updates about special rewards and a Beta Test for the game at DiabloImmortal.com. After its release, Blizzard and NetEase plan to support the game with “new storylines, new playable character classes, new loot, and all-new challenges” on a regular basis.
Finally, you can sneak a peek at a Cinematic Trailer and a Gameplay Trailer for Diablo Immortal, both of which are available after the break. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News
Tagged Diablo Immortal