NIS America delays RPG Maker MV for consoles to “later in 2019”

Posted on January 4, 2019 by John Scalzo

NIS America’s RPG Maker MV was expected to make its PS4, Switch, and Xbox One debut on February 26, but the publisher has confirmed that the game creation tool will now be released “later in the year.”

Citing “ongoing issues with development,” NIS America decided to delay RPG Maker MV to make sure they were able to deliver “the best possible product to our fans.”

NIS America has been regularly updating RPG Maker MV’s official website, and they’ve promised that more information regarding the game’s new release date will be announced soon.

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Return of the Obra Dinn was nominated in five categories at 2019 IGF Awards

Posted on January 3, 2019 by John Scalzo

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.

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Fitness Boxing, Catastronauts, KoF 2002, more coming to Nintendo eShop this week

Posted on January 3, 2019 by John Scalzo

It’s January 3, have you already broken your New Year’s Resolutions? If not, Nintendo has a perfect new game for the Switch for you in this week’s Nintendo eShop update.

Like Wii Fit, Fitness Boxing is a game that wants to get you active. Players will be able to workout with a variety of routines in Fitness Boxing, all of which feature “boxing-based rhythmic exercises set to the instrumental beats of songs by popular artists.”

Also available to download for the Switch this week is Catastronauts, a fast-paced party game that asks players to “repair systems, extinguish fires, arm the torpedoes, avoid deadly solar flares, destroy your friends, and clone them back again.”

Finally this week, Hamster Corporation will bring The King of Fighters 2002, a classic from SNK’s NeoGeo days, to the Switch eShop

You can read more about these three games, and the rest of the new releases now available to download through the Nintendo eShop, after the break.

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Freja and the False Prophecy is fully funded on Kickstarter

Posted on January 2, 2019 by John Scalzo

Unsigned Double Collective is a South African development team that looked to Kickstarter in December to help fund their next project, Freja and the False Prophecy. The Norse-themed side-scrolling platformer also recently earned a spot in our Kickstart This column, so it’s nice to see that the game reached its crowdfunding goal over the New Year’s holiday.

Seeking $22,000, Unsigned Double Collective was able to convince 686 backers to pledge $22,622 towards Freja and the False Prophecy. The developer thanked fans earlier today in a Kickstarter Update:

What an amazing end (and a new beginning) to our journey. After a roller coaster we all pulled through to fully fund Freja And The False Prophecy. Give yourself a big round of applause, you are amazing.

If all goes according to plan, Freja and the False Prophecy will be released for the PC sometime in 2022.

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Infinity Ward might be teasing an upcoming announcement for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 or Call of Duty: Ghosts 2

Posted on January 2, 2019 by John Scalzo

The Call of Duty franchise’s rotating carousel of developers will point towards Infinity Ward this Fall, and it looks like the developer’s Ashton Williams has begun dropping hints about what they have in the works. For the past week, the Senior Communications Manager has been posting several cryptic images on her Twitter account, including a skull with glowing eyes, a skeleton with a sniper rifle, a baby demon, a coven of witches, an adult demon, the Grim Reaper, a few ghosts, and another skull.

There’s always the possibility that Infinity Ward is teasing something brand new, but there’s also reason to believe that this imagery is slyly referencing an upcoming announcement for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 or Call of Duty: Ghosts 2.

The case for Ghosts 2 is pretty obvious, as all of these images tie back to the supernatural in some way (including more than one literal “ghost”). But the Modern Warfare 4 link is also pretty strong, as Simon “Ghost” Riley (and his distinctive skull mask) was one of the main characters from Modern Warfare 2.

Again, it’s possible that Infinity Ward might be in a completely different direction for Call of Duty 2019, though it’s easy to assume they’re working on a sequel to one of their past hits. But with less than a year to go before the game’s (probable) launch, we’ll all find out for sure soon enough.

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Who is the new character in Mortal Kombat 11’s New Year’s teaser?

Posted on January 1, 2019 by John Scalzo

Mortal Kombat fans have been speculating about the possibility of time travel shenanigans in Mortal Kombat 11 ever since the fighter’s Announcement Trailer at the 2018 Game Awards featured a pair of Scorpions and a brief glimpse at a mysterious woman standing in front of a giant hourglass. Ed Boon and company gave us a closer look at this new character yesterday as they were counting down to New Year’s Day on Twitter:

Is she a playable character? If so, who is she? And if not, what role will she play in Mortal Kombat 11’s storyline and the stalemate between “Evil” Liu Kang and “Evil” Raiden?

Thankfully, we won’t have much longer to wait for answers to these questions as NetherRealm Studios is planning a “Community Reveal Event” for Mortal Kombat 11 on January 17. And the fighting game will launch shortly after that on April 23 for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.

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Steam’s Top Sellers for 2018 include PUBG, GTA5, Rocket League, more

Posted on January 1, 2019 by John Scalzo

After more than a decade of dominance as the most-popular digital storefront for the PC, Steam was challenged on all sides in 2018 from both established players (GOG, Origin, and the Humble Store), as well as shiny upstarts (Discord and the Epic Games Store). But Valve’s online shop still sold a lot of games this year, and they recently shared their Top Sellers of 2018 with the public. But instead of ranking the games, Steam chose to split the list up into four tiers “as measured by gross revenue this year.”

As you might have guessed, you’ll find plenty of heavy hitters among the 12 games featured in the Platinum tier. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds was slightly overshadowed this year by other “Battle Royale” shooters, but it made the cut, as did new releases like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and Monster Hunter: World, and perennial favorites such as Grand Theft Auto V, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, and Rocket League…

Steam’s Top Sellers of 2018 – Platinum Tier

  • Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey
  • Civilization VI
  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
  • Dota 2
  • The Elder Scrolls Online
  • Far Cry 5
  • Grand Theft Auto V
  • Monster Hunter: World
  • PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
  • Rocket League
  • Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
  • Warframe

Steam partitioned off the next 12 games as the Gold tier, and followed that up with 16 more games in the Silver tier. The remaining 60 games were included in the Bronze tier.

There’s plenty of recognizable titles at every level, including Ark: Survival Evolved in Gold; Subnautica, Final Fantasy XV, and Shadow of the Tomb Raider all in Silver; and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Dark Souls Remastered, and Nier: Automata in Bronze.

All the titles from Steam’s Top Sellers of 2018 can be seen on… you guessed it… Steam.

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JoyMasher is ringing in the New Year with a new Gameplay Trailer for Blazing Chrome

Posted on January 1, 2019 by John Scalzo

It looks like JoyMasher is here to make sure we all have a Happy New Year. The Brazilian developer is currently hard at work on Blazing Chrome, and they rung in January 1st with a new Gameplay Trailer for their side-scrolling shooter.

Leaning heavily into the Contra formula that JoyMasher is gleefully riffing on, this new trailer is a showcase for Blazing Chrome’s wide variety of weaponry, as well as the many robotic enemies you’ll need to take down to survive. But viewers will also be introduced to the Speed Bot, an item that really amps up the game’s tempo for a new generation of players.

Blazing Chrome will launch in Early 2019 for the PC, PS4, and Switch.

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