Death Stranding connects with 7 nominations at the 2020 GDC Awards

Posted on January 9, 2020 by John Scalzo

gdcawardsIt 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.

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Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX coming to the Switch on March 6

Posted on January 9, 2020 by John Scalzo

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company announced today that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX will be coming to the Switch on March 6. The latest Pokemon game is an enhanced remake of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team, a pair of titles that were originally released 2006.

Featuring updated visuals and a “picture book” art style is a new take on the dungeon-crawling spinoff series:

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX revisits the classic Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Red Rescue Team and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team, which were originally released in the US in 2006. Now exclusively on Nintendo Switch systems and with updated visuals and a stunning picture-book art style, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX launches on March 6, 2020.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX is set in a world inhabited only by Pokemon. When players first open their eyes, they see a Pokemon in front of them, and they can understand what it’s saying. Upon closer inspection, players will realize that they themselves have become a Pokemon. According to the Pokemon they meet, natural disasters have suddenly started occurring all over this world, causing all kinds of problems. Players and their partner Pokemon decide to form a rescue team to go help Pokemon that are in trouble.

The first trailer for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX has been embedded above, but why not give it a try for yourself? A demo of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX is now available to download through the Nintendo eShop.

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Studio MDHR serves up a first look at The Art of Cuphead

Posted on January 9, 2020 by John Scalzo

Dark Horse Comics originally announced The Art of Cuphead all the way back in March of 2019, and they planned to publish the 160-page book (featuring “early concepts, production work, and early ideas” from the game) this past October.

Unfortunately, the book’s release was eventually pushed back to the Spring of 2020, but Dark Horse had a good reason for the delay. With the extra time, the publisher was able to expand The Art of Cuphead to a whopping 264 pages, including content from the game’s upcoming expansion, Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course:

Each page of this curated collection of artwork is designed to capture the vintage look and feel of the 1930’s. Take a gander at the game’s traditional hand-drawn frame-by-frame animation. Peek at the early concepts, production work, and early ideas that went into the making of Cuphead’s characters, bosses, stages and more including never-before-seen content from the upcoming DLC!

Relive the most cherished and challenging moments of Cuphead and Mugman’s adventure to reclaim their souls from The Devil, all in a way you’ve never seen before! Guided by personal insights from game directors Chad and Jared Moldenhauer, take a one-of-a-kind trip through the Inkwell Isles and discover an all-new appreciation for Cuphead’s animation style and challenging retro gameplay.

The Art of Cuphead will now be released on March 17, and the game’s developer, Studio MDHR, shared a sneak peek at the book earlier this week on Twitter:

In addition to The Delicious Last Course, Studio MDHR is also working with Netflix to produce The Cuphead Show! Perhaps some concept art from the animated series will make its way into The Art of Cuphead as well.

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Latest update for Doom and Doom II adds Add-Ons, Quick Saves, 60 FPS support, more

Posted on January 9, 2020 by John Scalzo

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.

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Untitled Goose Game and Slay the Spire lead the nominees at 2020 IGF Awards

Posted on January 8, 2020 by John Scalzo

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.

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Dodge Roll confirms that Exit the Gungeon will be released for PC and consoles in Early 2020

Posted on January 8, 2020 by John Scalzo

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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Sony unveils logo for PlayStation 5

Posted on January 7, 2020 by John Scalzo

Jim Ryan, Sony Interactive Entertainment’s President and CEO, took the stage at CES yesterday to talk a bit about the PlayStation 5. During his speech, the executive even unveiled the console’s logo… and it looks about how you’d expect.

But if you’re looking for more substantial PS5 news, you’re going to have to keep waiting. Though Ryan did reconfirm that the console will launch this Fall, and he briefly mentioned that the PS5 will support 3D Audio Sound, Haptic/Adaptive Triggers, Hardware-Based Ray Tracing, an Ultra High Speed SSD, and an Ultra HD Disc Drive.

Ryan actually had more to say about the PS4, and he was happy to report some great numbers for Sony. More than 106 million PS4 consoles have been sold since its launch in 2013, along with 1.15 billion games (for an average, or tie ratio, of 10.84 per console). Sony has also sold more than five million PlayStation VR headsets since the peripheral debuted in 2016. Finally, Ryan revealed that Sony has signed up more than 38.8 million users for their PlayStation Plus subscription service.

Will the PS5 be able to match those figures? Perhaps, but we’ll have to wait until this year to learn more about the next-generation console.

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NIS America will release Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories on April 7

Posted on January 7, 2020 by John Scalzo

NIS America has announced that Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories will be released for the PC, PS4, and Switch on April 7. If you’re unfamiliar with the Disaster Report series, the publisher also passed along a few new details about the game, which was originally released in Japan in 2018:

About Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories
A calm summer day turns into catastrophe when a massive earthquake strikes your city, throwing buildings and lives into chaos. In order to survive, you must navigate familiar locations under unfamiliar circumstances. The fellow survivors you meet and crucial decisions you make will affect the course of your experience and ultimately determine how your journey through this crisis will end.

Features

  • Stop! Think! Then Act! – Evaluate each perilous situation and make decisions that will impact your own safety as well as that of others.
  • Torn From the Headlines – Interact with realistic scenarios within a Japanese city devastated by an earthquake, including scenarios designed in collaboration with the Kobe City Fire Bureau.
  • Danger Around Every Corner – Navigate a multitude of crises—from collapsing buildings to raging fires—in a city aplomb with peril.

The Disaster Report series has had something of a shaky history in the US (the third game was never released outside of Japan), but hardcore fans will be able to pick up a special Limited Edition of Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories for the PS4 and Switch. The Limited Edition will be available exclusively through the NIS America Store, and include a copy of the game, the Official Soundtrack, an Emergency Backpack, and an Identification Tag.

In addition to announcing a release date and the Limited Edition, NIS America also revealed a brand new Gameplay Trailer for the survival sim, and it’s been embedded above.

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