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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…)

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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.

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Untitled Goose Game stole our hearts in 2019… and sold more than one million copies

Thanks to fun gameplay, a beautiful art style, and an absolutely inspired title choice, House House’s Untitled Goose Game managed to charm the entire Internet in 2019.

But while all the memes are nice, the game’s publisher confirmed yesterday that Untitled Goose Game also a massive hit. According to Panic’s Cabel Sasser (via Twitter), the game has sold more than one million copies in the last three months:

Sassler would go on to thanks the Goose’s many fans in a subsequent tweet: “The reaction was beyond anything we could have imagined. The fan art, the writing, yes the memes, protest signs, Chrissy Teigen, Muppets?! It feels once-in-a-lifetime. We hope we brought some joy into your life, because you brought so much into ours. And we’ll never forget it.”

Untitled Goose Game was originally released for the PC and Switch back in September, but the final push to become a million-seller likely came from it’s recent launch on the PS4 and Xbox One on December 17 (it was also added to the Xbox Game Pass library on the same day).

Presumably, “Sell Two Million Copies” is next on the Goose’s To-Do List.

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WB Games is here to remind you (with a new trailer) that Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will be released in 2020

Happy Star Wars Day! You can head down to your local theater anytime this weekend to catch a showing of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the final film in the “Skywalker Saga.” But WB Games and TT Games also want to remind you that Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will be available for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One in 2020.

The new trailer embedded above features a short glimpse at Lego-ized scenes from all nine Star Wars films, while also promising that fans who played the previous titles in the series will get to experience a “New Game” sometime next year.

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Batman: The Telltale Series gets new graphical style with the launch of the Shadows Edition

The Dark Knight is getting a little darker as we head into 2020.

That’s because the resurrected Telltale Games has partnered with Athlon Games to launch Batman: The Telltale Series – Shadows Edition for multiple platforms. Available to download for the PC and Xbox One today (and coming to the PS4 on December 20 and the Switch in the near future), the compilation includes both Batman: The Telltale Series and Batman: The Enemy Within, as well as a brand new noir-style visual filter known as Shadows Mode, which you can see for yourself in the trailer embedded above.

“We’re excited to be able to build and continue the legacy of an iconic Telltale Games franchise by launching Batman: The Telltale Series – Shadows Edition,” said Brian Waddle, the Chief Revenue Officer at Telltale Games. “This is just the beginning in a much more expansive plan to build on our catalog of Telltale Games titles, which we hope to discuss in further detail in the coming months.”

Batman: The Telltale Series – Shadows Edition will be priced at $29.99, but Batfans who already own the games can purchase the Shadows Mode filter as downloadable content for $4.99.

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Gears Tactics will be released for the PC on April 28, 2020

Gears Tactics was first announced at E3 2018, but it’s been shrouded in mystery ever since. Microsoft didn’t bring the tactical spinoff to this year’s E3 Expo, nor did it have a showing at the consolemaker’s recent X019 event. Thankfully, that all changed at this year’s Game Awards.

Unveiling a trailer that mixes cinematic moments with gameplay footage, The Coalition and Splash Damage have attempted to bring the spirit of the Gears franchise to the turn-based genre. Here’s what they had to say about their collaboration on Xbox Wire:

Developed by The Coalition and Splash Damage, Gears Tactics is set 12 years before the first Gears of War. Cities across the planet Sera are beginning to fall to the monstrous threat rising from underground – the Locust Horde. With the government in disarray, a squad of survivors emerge as humanity’s last hope. Outnumbered and fighting for survival, players must recruit and command a squad to hunt down Ukkon, an evil mastermind who makes monsters.

Gears Tactics features an immersive and character-driven story, one that follows the defiant soldier Gabe Diaz, voiced by Noshir Dalal, to rescue and build up a squad in a journey of leadership, survival and sacrifice. Playing as Gabe, you’ll customize your squad and equipment to prepare your troops to face tough enemies, upgrading squad skills and outfitting them with loot collected in challenging missions.

Microsoft also confirmed that Gears Tactics will be released for the PC on April 28, 2020. An Xbox One launch will follow at a later date.

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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.

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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare repeats as the best-selling game of November 2019

Not even the combined might of two new Pokemon games could stop Call of Duty: Modern Warfare from holding on to its position as the best-selling game of November 2019… but Nintendo and Game Freak certainly made it interesting.

According to The NPD Group’s Mat Piscatella (via Twitter), three Pokemon games actually managed to crack the top five last month. Pokemon Sword sliced its way to #3, while Pokemon Shield built a stronghold at #5. Sandwiched in the middle at #4 was the Pokemon Sword + Pokemon Shield Double Pack, which was counted as a separate game by the tracking firm.

If you were wondering what would have happened if all three games were combined onto a single line, Piscatella said that the combined sales of Sword, Shield, and the Double Pack would have landed at #2 for the month (though who knows what the sales charts would have looked like if Nintendo contributed eShop sales to the dataset). Even with that caveat, new releases dominated last month’s ranking, with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (#2), Death Stranding (#7), and Need For Speed Heat (#9) in the top ten. Going further down the list, you’ll also find Just Dance 2020 at #14.

Overall, the game industry collected $2.3 billion in sales last month, a 19% drop from November of 2018. Unsurprisingly, the Nintendo Switch was once again the best-selling console during the month, and it remains the best-selling console for all of 2019.

You can find the full list of best-selling games from November 2019 after the break. (more…)

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