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Konami will add Japanese variants to Castlevania Anniversary Collection in a free update after launch
Konami will make the Castlevania Anniversary Collection available to download for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One beginning tomorrow, May 16, for $19.99. The compilation will include the North American versions of eight games from the early days of the franchise, as well as The History of Castlevania: Book of the Crescent Moon, a behind-the-scenes look at the franchise in an ebook-styled format.
The publisher famously released different variants of their games in each region during the NES era, and they typically offered different difficulty options (Japanese gamers often got an easier version to play) and graphical styles. Though sometimes the changes were made to comply with Nintendo’s discomfort for religious imagery and references at the time.
Fans hoping to test out these different versions with the Castlevania Anniversary Collection were originally out of luck, but Konami has apparently had a change of heart. Writing on the PlayStation Blog, Brand Manager Benjamin Kinney said that these Japanese will be available in a free update “shortly after launch”:
Lastly, important news: we heard your calls and Konami will add Japanese title variants as a free update shortly after launch. Keep your eyes peeled for more details!
The Castlevania Anniversary Collection will include Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, Super Castlevania IV, Castlevania: The Adventure, Castlevania II: Belmont’s Revenge, Castlevania: Bloodlines, and the never-before-released-in-the-US Kid Dracula. It’s currently unknown which games in the compilation will receive Japanese variants in the future.
Take-Two executives discuss big sales for GTA5 and Red Dead 2 while looking ahead to 2019 lineup
Take-Two Interactive delivered another celebratory quarterly financial report last night as the publisher’s latest releases have proven very popular with players.
Leading the charge is Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2. More than 24 million copies of the game have been shipped to stores since its launch last October. Take-Two executives also revealed that they’ve shipped more than nine million copies of NBA 2K19 in a similar timeframe.
But the most surprising reveal from yesterday’s report might be the news that Take-Two shipped more than ten million copies of Grand Theft Auto V during the quarter, bringing its lifetime total to 110 million copies after six years on the market.
While the company was happy with their retail performance in 2018, they’re also looking ahead to 2019 with gusto.
According to CEO Strauss Zelnick, 2K Games has already committed to launching NBA 2K20 and WWE 2K20 this Fall:
Also this Fall, 2K will launch new installments of our highly successful annual sports franchises with the releases of NBA 2K20 and WWE 2K20. As always, the development teams behind these games are hard at work to deliver our trademark array of exciting new features and innovations that keep players coming back year after year. 2K will have more to share about these titles in the coming months.
Zelnick later confirmed that Obsidian’s The Outer Worlds and Patrice Desilets’s Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey will be available for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One sometime this year through their Private Division label:
Developed by Obsidian Entertainment, the Outer Worlds marks the reunion of Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, the original creators of Fallout, who are introducing an entirely new single player sci-fi RPG experience. The Outer Worlds will be showcased behind closed doors at E3 to select media and influencers, and more details about the game will be revealed over time. Last month, Private Division hosted press events for Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, where attendees got to play the game and meet its creators at Panache Digital Games, including the studio’s co-founder, Patrice Desilets, who was the original creative director of Assassin’s Creed.
More information about Take-Two Interactive’s full lineup for 2019 (including the previously-announced Borderlands 3) will be announced at this year’s E3 Expo in June.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, Borderlands 3, E3 2019, Grand Theft Auto V, NBA 2K19, NBA 2K20, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Outer Worlds
Multiplayer-focused Predator: Hunting Grounds will come to the PS4 in 2020
The Predator will stalk its prey on game consoles once again in 2020 as Sony Interactive Entertainment and Illfonic have confirmed that Predator: Hunting Grounds is in the works the PS4. The two companies also announced that if it bleeds, we can kill it.
Predator: Hunting Grounds will be a multiplayer-focused asymmetrical contest where some players will take control of a group of commandos while another will strap on the infrared visor (and other assorted high-tech gadgets) of The Predator. The game was first unveiled today during Sony’s State of Play broadcast and the announcement was recapped on the PlayStation Blog:
One group of players will control members of an elite Fireteam who pack state-of-the-art conventional firepower, from shotguns and SMGs to sniper rifles and more.
Meanwhile, one player will control the Predator: a stealthy, acrobatic killing machine bristling with exotic alien technology such as the infamous Plasmacaster.
As the Fireteam attempt to carry out paramilitary missions – annihilating bad guys and recovering important items – the Predator will be closing in, using its advanced vision mode to track and ambush its prey.
Illfonic will work closely with 20th Century Fox to create an authentic Predator experience, but the team has also been empowered to “create something new for fans, while expanding the lore of The Predator.”
Predator: Hunting Grounds is still pretty early in development, but a teaser trailer has been embedded above.
Here’s a new look at Final Fantasy VII Remake ahead of a larger reveal in June 2019
Final Fantasy fans have been salivating for any scrap of information about Final Fantasy VII Remake ever since Square Enix announced it all the way back at E3 2015. But the publisher has been fairly quiet about its progress after confirming later that same year that “dramatic changes” would be be coming to the game’s combat and that it was being designed as a “multi-part series.”
That all changed today during the latest State of Play broadcast from the PlayStation Blog. A short teaser trailer for Final Fantasy VII Remake was the highlight of the show, and Square Enix’s Yoshinori Kitase even promised that we would see more of the game in June:
We hope you enjoyed the footage shown during State of Play. It was quite short, but hopefully you enjoyed seeing Cloud and Aerith brought back to life with such realistic graphics.
And oh my god! Did you notice [Sephiroth] was there too…?
This year’s E3 Expo will be held from June 11th through the 13th, so that seems like the most logical place for the publisher to unveil their next Final Fantasy VII Remake tease. Square Enix has said that the game will arrive on the PS4 “first,” and will presumably land on other platforms sometime later.
Of course, when Final Fantasy VII Remake will be released for the PS4 is still anybody’s guess.
Posted in News, PS4
Tagged E3 2019, Final Fantasy VII
Bithell Games announces the “fight-choreographed chess” of John Wick Hex
John Wick will return to theaters on May 17th in the highly-anticipated John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, but Keanu Reeves’s third most-popular character is also thinking of coming back to the world of video games in the not-too-distant future as well.
Mike Bithell, the creator of Thomas Was Alone and Subsurface Circular, will bring John Wick Hex to the PC/Mac (exclusively via the Epic Games Store) and consoles. No release date was announced, but the developer describes the game as “fight-choreographed chess,” and players will need to tap into their strategic side if they hope to survive each encounter:
Created in close cooperation with the creative teams behind the films, John Wick Hex is fight-choreographed chess brought to life as a video game, capturing the series’ signature gun fu style while expanding its story universe. Players must choose every action and attack they make, while considering their immediate cost and consequences. Every move in John Wick Hex feels like a scene from the movies, and every fight contributes to your progress on the job and requires precise strategic thinking.
Perform well and progress in the main story mode (which features an original story created for the game) to unlock new weapons, suit options, and locations. Each weapon changes up the tactics you’ll use and the manner in which you’ll play. Ammo is finite and realistically simulated, so time your reloads and make the most of weapons you scavenge on the job.
Ian McShane and Lance Reddick will reprise their roles from the film series in the game, and publisher Good Shepherd Entertainment plans to show off a playable version of John Wick Hex at this year’s E3 Expo.
Employing a “unique graphic noir art design,” the first trailer for John Wick Hex has been embedded above.
Bruce Campbell says Evil Dead’s Ash won’t come to Mortal Kombat 11 as DLC fighter
The latest game in the long-running Mortal Kombat franchise, Mortal Kombat 11, made its way onto store shelves in late April, but we got a possible peak at the game’s upcoming downloadable characters shortly after it launched thanks to dataminers over at Reddit. At the time, the game’s code pointed towards the addition of series stalwarts Fujin, Nightwolf, Shang Tsung, Sheeva, and Sindel down the road, as well as guest characters The Joker, The Terminator, Spawn, and Evil Dead‘s Ash.
However, Bruce Campbell creatively debunked the rumor on Twitter earlier this week. According to the actor (who has starred in three Evil Dead movies and the recently-concluded Ash Vs Evil Dead cable series), he won’t be appearing in the game as Ash:
Consider this my finishing move against a certain internet rumor. pic.twitter.com/6vKPZvTfQu
— Bruce Campbell (@GroovyBruce) May 6, 2019
This is disappointing news (and it throws the rest of the DLC slate into question), but I guess Evil Dead fans will just have to be content with the character’s recent addition to Dead By Daylight.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to dig out my copy of Mortal Kombat: Armageddon and perform a few Fatalities with my Kreate-A-Fighter version of Ash.
Just Shapes & Beats: Hardcore Edition will be released for PS4 on May 10
The PlayStation Store is about to get a little more radical this week, as Berzerk Studio has announced that Just Shapes & Beats: Hardcore Edition will be available to download for the PS4 on May 10.
Just Shapes & Beats originally launched for the PC and Switch in 2018, and it’s probably best described as a “dodge ’em up.” Players are attacked from all sides by a variety of Shapes, but as long as they survive until the end of each level’s chiptune-like Beat, they’ll move on. You could watch the new trailer embedded above, or see how Berzerk’s Mike Ducarme tried to explain it to the PlayStation Blog:
Just Shapes & Beats is a musical bullet-hell-ish? It’s weird to explain… you play a shape, you dodge beats, which are also shapes, you can play with up to three friends, who are also shapes. It’s not a bullet hell in the pure sense of the term since it’s a lot more based on dodging and surviving than attacking. It’s more like a dodge ‘em up I guess?
As you might have guessed from the new subtitle, Just Shapes & Beats’s PS4 debut will introduce Hardcore Mode, which ratchets the difficulty up to “dog owners not cleaning up behind their animal” level. Again, I’ll let Ducarme explain:
Of course, my good sir, you’ll be happy to know that the PS4 release also introduces HARDCORE MODE. We made our designer watch videos of things that anger him, like people cutting in line at the coffee shop because they know the staff, and dog owners not cleaning up behind their animal, and then let him loose in the wild. Every stage has been redesigned in some form or another to give you a whole new experience that will make even seasoned Souls-like players weep, longing for their mother’s warm embrace.
According to Berzerk, Hardcore Mode will be coming to the PS4 “first,” so PC and Switch owners will (hopefully) be able to try it out sometime soon.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch
Tagged Just Shapes and Beats
Platinum Games plans to self-publish two unannounced games so they can control the sequel rights
Platinum Games rose from the ashes of Capcom’s beloved Clover Studio, and the developer has gained quite the large following over the years thanks to a game catalog built on unique ideas and wild concepts. But the vast majority of those titles were produced in collaboration with larger publishers, and even though Platinum has been interested in revisiting those worlds in sequels and spinoffs, the contracts they signed have prevented them from doing so on their own.
This conundrum was on Executive Director Atsushi Inaba’s mind when he recently sat down for an interview with Video Games Chronicle. According to Inaba, Platinum Games has decided to begin self-publishing some of their future projects so they retain control over the sequel rights:
“It’s absolutely the truth that there are cases where you want to do a sequel but if you don’t own the IP, you can’t do it,” Inaba explained.
“It’s that simple, and quite frankly in the case of Bayonetta it took a lot of time and energy to get it to the point where sequels could be made. It wasn’t as simple as picking up the phone and asking, ‘hey, can we do this?’ There were a lot of pieces that needed to fall into place and a lot of negotiating that had to occur.
“That’s a pain. That’s a hassle. For us as creators, we want to get to the point where self-publishing allows us to own our IP and do what we want with it, including making sequels. So the faster we can have that freedom, the better if will be for all the creators here.”
Platinum Games is currently developing Astral Chain for Nintendo as a Switch exclusive, but Inaba confirmed that the company also plans to self-publish two unannounced games at some point in the future. The veteran developer later said that one of these titles goes beyond the typical Platinum weirdness and is “unlike anything else”:
“Right now we’re in the middle of designing something that has never been done before. I know a lot of people say that, but the game we’re working on truly is unlike anything else,” he said.
“Even for our varied history of veteran game developers, this is something that has never been designed before. So from a game design perspective, we’re very excited right now.”
Hopefully we’ll learn more about Platinum’s upcoming projects very soon.