Tetsuya Nomura says we’ll have to wait “a little longer” for release of Final Fantasy VII Remake and Kingdom Hearts III

Posted on January 10, 2017 by John Scalzo

Like Valve and Blizzard, Square Enix is well-known for taking their sweet time with projects they have in development. Not surprisingly, the publisher is using the same deliberate pace to produce Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy VII Remake, which have been in the works since 2013 and 2015, respectively.

Director Tetsuya Nomura recently offered an update on both titles to Famitsu (translated by Siliconera), and while progress is being made, it might be quite a while before either is released:

Famitsu: What’s the development status on Kingdom Hearts III?

Nomura: The production process is different than what we’ve had up until now, so I can’t just give you a general idea, but I can say that there are worlds that still remain untouched. We’ve advanced on the production of worlds that have yet to be announced, so we can’t show them for now. As far as development status goes, there’s still a ways to go.

Famitsu: What’s the development status on Final Fantasy VII Remake?

Nomura: We’re making steady progress on its production. While we are indeed working on it, I think we’ll have you guys wait a little longer for both Kingdom Hearts III and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

Nomura apologized for the delays, but assured fans that it takes time to create “something that will meet expectations.” Hopefully, we’ll get the chance to see how both games are progressing later this year, as the Director also said he’s looking forward to showcasing both games at at least one event in 2017.

It sounds unlikely that Kingdom Hearts III or Final Fantasy VII Remake will launch in 2017, especially after Nomura said, “[Square Enix has] many titles releasing this year,” implying that neither game will be available by the end of the year. Though he did say that fans should look forward to some “surprises.”

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Square Enix has shipped six million copies of Final Fantasy XV so far

Posted on January 10, 2017 by John Scalzo

After shipping more than five million copies at launch, Square Enix continues to make Final Fantasy XV available to consumers in a big way.

In a press release this morning, Square Enix announced that shipments and digital sales of Final Fantasy XV have now reached more than six million copies total. The publisher didn’t release any additional information about this latest milestone, so we can’t make any comparisons for physical versus digital or PS4 versus Xbox One.

But Square Enix wants fans to stay excited about Final Fantasy XV in 2017, and they plan to make a large amount of post-launch content (both free and paid) available to players. They recently kicked off the game’s second life with the launch of the Holiday Pack and Holiday Pack Plus expansions, which also includes access to the “Moogle Chocobo Carnival,” an in-game event that starts on Tuesday, January 24.

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Bethesda has no plans to remake Oblivion or Morrowind; Skyrim Special Edition was a “one-off”

Posted on January 10, 2017 by John Scalzo

Bethesda will probably forever be linked with the Elder Scrolls franchise, but the publisher has spent the better part of a decade branching out beyond the RPG genre. And after launching games like Dishonored, Doom, and Wolfenstein: The New Order, they’ve begun to present themselves to the public as a place for all genres… and high production values. But according to Pete Hines, this desire to move in new directions make it unlikely that Bethesda will ever look to the past to create remakes of Oblivion or Morrowind.

Speaking to Xbox: The Official Magazine (via GamesRadar), Hines said that the Skyrim Special Edition was a “one-off” born out of a very unique set of circumstances:

OXM: You’ve got some big-name games and you’ve never really fallen into the remake culture that a lot of people are getting into. Skyrim Special Edition feels like a one-off. Would you say that’s true, are you more about moving forward?

Hines: Generally speaking, yeah. We did one for Dishonored but that was a unique case where it was a new IP at the very end of the last generation of consoles. So remastering it and bringing it to this gen wasn’t a ton of work and it made a lot of sense given the proximity of those two. Skyrim was more about the work that Bethesda Game Studios had done in the early days of getting ready for Fallout 4 on this generation of consoles – moving the Skyrim engine and doing some work to run it on this generation of consoles just to see how it worked, and so forth, before they started doing all their Fallout stuff. It’s the most recent thing they did.

Instead of remaking past titles, Hines said that Bethesda’s culture is very much focused on creating “something new”:

Hines:But these things take time, it takes effort and manpower. Generally speaking, our approach has usually been that instead of spending all this time on a thing we’ve already made, why don’t we instead spend that effort on something new, or on the next version of that thing?

One of those new things that Bethesda is working on is The Elder Scrolls 6. However, Studio Director Todd Howard said “it’s a very long way off” back in June.

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Microsoft officially cancels Platinum’s Scalebound

Posted on January 9, 2017 by John Scalzo

Earlier this morning, we heard rumblings that Microsoft was thinking about canceling Platinum’s Scalebound. The game’s “hostile world” and “formidable dragon” were originally unveiled during the 2014 E3 Expo with a cinematic trailer, but the public hasn’t heard much about it since. And now it looks like we never will.

In a short statement to Eurogamer, Microsoft confirmed that Scalebound has officially been canceled:

After careful deliberation, Microsoft Studios has come to the decision to end production for Scalebound. We’re working hard to deliver an amazing lineup of games to our fans this year, including Halo Wars 2, Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2, Sea of Thieves and other great experiences.

According to Eurogamer’s earlier report, it appears that Scalebound was the victim of an overly ambitious design and scheduling problems:

Work on the game took a serious knock last autumn, Eurogamer sources say, when several senior members of the development team were forced to take a month away from the pressure of the project’s heavy workload.

These project members then returned, but Scalebound was now behind schedule. With continuing issues surrounding the game’s engine and overdue deadlines, the decision was made that the project could no longer continue.

As they said in their statement, Microsoft has several other games lined up for release in 2017. Hopefully, we’ll hear more about them soon.

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Daily Scoop: January 9, 2017 – I’m back, baby!

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Nicole Kline

It’s been so long since I wrote my last scoop! I was off from work and totally overbooked myself, ending with the last four days in D.C. for MAGFest. It was a great time, but I’m exhausted!

In between running around, I played a lot of video games, including Dishonored: Definitive Edition for the PlayStation 4. I have to admit: I’m having a total blast with it! But I also have almost 20 games still shrinkwrapped next to my television, so I’m looking forward to continuing on.

There’s less than a day to back the Humble Game Developer Software Bundle. Pay $1 or more for Clickteam Fusion 2.5 Standard, the beta for Pyxel Edit, Spriter Pro, and the Spriter Pro Game Effects Art Pack. Beat the average to unlock HTML5 Exporter, Marmoset Hexels 2.5, a one-year subscription to Todoist Premium, art packs for three different Spriter Pros, and PICO-8. Pay $10 or more to also unlock SpriteIlluminator Lifetime License, art packs for two more Spriter Pros, Voxatron, and a one-year subscription to 1Password Families.

There are 319 new Weeklong Deals at Steam! Red Faction Collection is $11.99, Jotun: Valhalla Edition is $7.49, They Bleed Pixels is $1.99, and The Silent Age is $0.99. The Daily Deal is RWBY: Grimm Eclipse, which is on sale for $14.99.

Hit the jump to see all of today’s amazing shirts!

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2017 IGF Awards nominees include Hyper Light Drifter, Inside, Stardew Valley, more

Posted on January 9, 2017 by John Scalzo

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The Independent Games Festival has announced the finalists for this year’s IGF Awards, and it should come as no surprise that critical darlings such as Hyper Light Drifter and Inside have scored multiple nominations. But leading the way is Variable State’s Virigina, which received four nominations (“Best Audio,” “Excellence in Narrative,” “Excellence in Visual Art,” and “The Nuovo Award”) and an Honorable Mention for the “Seumas McNally Grand Prize.”

Other games in competition for the IGF’s “Grand Prize” include the aforementioned Hyper Light Drifter and Inside, along with Concerned Ape’s Stardew Valley, Blendo Games’s Quadrilateral Cowboy, Ocelot Society’s Event[0], and Ghost Town Games’s Overcooked.

The 2017 IGF Awards ceremony will be hosted by developer Nina Freeman on March 1. Fans will be able to tune in to the Twitch channel for the Game Developers Conference to watch the show, and GDC attendees will be able to test out every nominated game at the IGF Pavilion area on the expo floor.

A complete list of the nominees and honorable mentions for the 2017 Independent Games Festival Awards can be found after the break.

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Warpback: What We Played in December 2016

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Andrew Rainnie

We here at Warp Zoned were all about gaming this month! We played everything from old games in our backlogs to new games, spanning every console possible, including our phones. Hit the jump to check out our full list of games we played… it’s exhausting!

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Posted in Features, Top Story |

Joe Carnahan has finished the script to the Uncharted movie

Posted on January 9, 2017 by John Scalzo

After years in development, Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian, and No Man’s Sky all launched in 2016. With that trio of games now available in stores, we might have finally reached the point where all the vaporware-adjacent video games have either finally been released or officially canceled. Thankfully, the Uncharted movie is the gift that keeps on giving.

The film adaptation was first announced in 2009, and since then, Naughty Dog has actually said “goodbye” to Nathan Drake with the release of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Before that, but after the Uncharted film was first announced, they managed to produce three sequels to the original game and multiple spinoff titles. Several directors and writers have taken a crack at the franchise over the years, and all of them eventually stepped away. But it looks like director Shawn Levy and screenwriter Joe Carnahan will finally be the ones who bring the franchise to the big screen.

Carnahan got on Instagram this weekend and revealed that the script for Uncharted is finished. This is an accomplishment in itself, but he also seems rather proud of his work. Carnahan referred to the script as “a BEAST” and claimed “[there’s not] a more monstrously cool action script in Hollywood right now.”

The Uncharted movie will begin filming sometime this year, and you can find Carnahan’s Instagram post after the break.

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