For fans of Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, it’s been a painfully long wait to hear more about the RPG’s season pass. It was more than four months after the game’s release before we got any kind of information, and even that was worryingly vague. However, Bandai Namco has at last coughed up another sliver of detail on the first of the two main add-ons.
The first DLC pack, supposed to be releasing this winter, is now called ‘Labyrinth of the Ghost King’, according to the latest Weekly Famitsu. The story focuses on King Lamikyl, the leader of Endrance, who players will be tasked with taking down. New equipment will be included, as will a new battle mechanic called the Gokui System. Unfortunately, we’re still missing a concrete release date, but it shouldn’t be too far off now.
The soul still burns, but it does so from a trashcan in Japan these days. SoulCalibur VI endured a disastrous opening in its native Japan, selling a feeble 24,049 copies on the PlayStation 4. That’s way down on previous entries, and with the sequel also struggling in Western territories like the UK, it’s not looking great for this epic series of swords and shields.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, meanwhile, is having a whale of a time. The first-person shooter topped the Japanese sales charts for a second successive week, shifting another 95,572 units, bringing its total up to 321,347 units. That’s a really impressive number when you consider the country’s usual tastes, and we’re eager to see whether Red Dead Redemption 2 can replicate this kind of success. The marketing’s certainly looking good.
During Fortnitemares, you’ll face off against Cube Monsters and experience battle royale in a whole new way. Wield new weapons to fight back against these creepy creatures, like the Six Shooter and Fiend Hunter Crossbow.
The Fortnitemares event comes with its own set of free challenges each week. Complete each challenge set to unlock a new in-game cosmetic.
For this first week, you’ll have to destroy Storm Monsters, deal damage with assault rifles or pistols to Storm Monsters, visit a Corrupted Area in different matches, and dance at different Halloween objects
Come back every few days for a new set of challenges and new rewards! If you complete the final set of challenges, you’ll be rewarded with the spooky train glider!
Dive into Fortnite Battle Royale, the completely free 100-player PvP mode in Fortnite. One giant map. A battle bus. Fortnite building skills and destructible environments combined with intense PvP combat. The last one standing wins. Download now for free and jump into the action. Happy Haunting, Fortnite fans!
If you still have your PS3 kicking around, you might want to take advantage of a freebie that’s been spotted in the Sale of the Dead Halloween offer on the US PlayStation Store. inFAMOUS: Festival of Blood can be picked up for zero cents if you’re a PlayStation Plus member, so if you’ve never had the chance to play it, now’s the time.
Originally released as DLC for inFAMOUS 2, the standalone Festival of Blood infests New Marais with vampires, and our electrical hero Cole is, of course, bitten. It’s pretty short, but it’s the perfect little game for the Halloween season, and no one can complain about getting it gratis. The Sale of the Dead offer ends on 2nd November, so if you’ve still got your last gen machine, get it downloaded.
We’ve not heard a great deal from the Trine series for a while, have we? Trine 3: The Artifacts of Power didn’t really go down all that well, and the series has remained dormant in the years since. It looks like that’s all about to change, though, as Frozenbyte has confirmed that it’s working on Trine 4, and it’ll arrive on PS4 next year.
The developer is partnering with Modus Games, who will publish the new title. It’s all sounding pretty positive; a press release from Frozenbyte CEO Lauri Hyvärinen says the follow-up is “going to be the best in the series.” He continues: “We have rekindled our love for the franchise, heard and seen the fan feedback, and our hearts are set on exceeding those expectations. Trine is back!”
In 2017, NBA Playgrounds came out of nowhere and slam dunked its way onto the PlayStation 4, giving basketball fans a solid alternative to the ultra-realistic simulation the NBA 2K series offers. It was something we hadn’t seen since NBA Jam’s last entry in 2010, and while it wasn’t perfect it did provide a lot of fun. It seems that Saber Interactive got set to working on a sequel almost immediately, however a major delay of the release coupled with publishing being taken over by 2K Sports showed signs of trouble. Could NBA 2K Playgrounds 2 suffer from the dreaded sophomore slump?
The original gameplay loop of playing matches to earn in-game currency and buy card packs to unlock new players is still here and has been majorly beefed up this time around. The player roster has increased significantly, and practically any player you could ever want to see in cartoon form is here, from Michael Jordan to World B. Free. With the first game there was a serious lack of players, and we found that once we had played through the entire single player mode we had unlocked most of the best cards. Here that isn’t the case and players who enjoy the loop of unlocking new players will have a lot of fun. For those that are impatient or just can’t seem to find the players they want, there is an option to buy a special card pack that unlocks the game’s entire roster, and you can buy individual players too if you’re just after one specific guy.
Battlefield V is set to arrive in just under a month’s time on 20th November, and EA has mapped out some of the updates coming to the game post launch. Interestingly, this includes Firestorm, the WW2 shooter’s equivalent of the wildly popular Battle Royale. The mode, which is largely being developed by Criterion, won’t be present when the game is released, but will arrive a few months later, in March of next year.
“During spring, DICE and Criterion start the fire with Battlefield V’s battle royale experience,” EA states. “Firestorm elevates the mode by bringing in the best of what Battlefield is known for. Mix a shrinking playing field with trademark Battlefield elements such as team play, powerful vehicles, and destruction, and you get many unique Battlefield moments coming your way.”
There was concern about Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age, as the anticipated JRPG didn’t exactly release at an ideal time. Launching just three days prior to PlayStation 4 juggernaut Marvel’s Spider-Man with next to no marketing at all, fans expected the worst for the latest entry in Square Enix’s iconic franchise.
To be frank, this is probably for the best. Sony is renowned for its unwillingness to support the portable console – which saw a lack of exclusive games, ridiculously expensive proprietary memory cards and a failure to adapt to mobile gaming trends. With the advent of the Nintendo Switch, Sony also has no plans to succeed its best backwards-compatible console, which seems a huge shame.
In the wake of this decision, Sony also announced the incoming release of the pocket-sized PlayStation Classic, a mini console in the same vein as the Nintendo NES Classic & SNES Classic Mini, for December 3 – and just in time for Christmas.
It’s a clever fiscal decision from Sony, but a non-committal solution to a pressing problem. The controller for the PlayStation Classic lacks analogue sticks, there is no online functionality and the console will come with a mostly-undisclosed (at this point at least) 20 games all for the not inconsiderable price of £89 / $149 / AU$149.
PlayStation Classic will be launching globally on December 3
Great if you’re looking for a nostalgic paperweight, but for that price, you could buy a Vita in pretty good condition and open yourself up to a catalogue that boasts hundreds of classic titles, as well as games that you can also (quite crucially) take with you on the go.
Of course, buying a pre-owned console is not for everyone. It’s natural to be worried, especially if you’re picking up one of the original Vita models that came out six years ago – though the LCD screen of its PS Vita Slim successor wasn’t a patch on the earlier model’s superior OLED screen. You’re also definitely not going to be receiving any new games on it anytime soon, beyond a precious few indies.
But besides the Sony PS3, there is nothing comparable for veteran PlayStation gamers looking for a nostalgic fix.
I picked up a Vita in 2018 for this exact reason, in order to play gems from my childhood on my daily commute. I was pleasantly surprised by the entire package, down to the satisfying page-peeling user interface and, most importantly, its catalogue of classics.
From critically acclaimed titles like Spyro the Dragon and Resident Evil 2 to the more obscure but still memorable Disney’s Hercules and 40 Winks, the Vita’s online store is jam-packed with PlayStation games, including the ones you hold fondly for no particular reason. Even if you don’t want the games that are set to get remasters of their own within the year – like the aforementioned Spyro and Resi – there’s still something here for you.
Spyro Reignited Trilogy launches on PS4 and Xbox One on November 13
Better than a curated list of 20 crowd-pleasers, you can enjoy the games that will most likely make it on to the Classic and still have room to spare for lesser-known gems.
Trawling through the listings I found countless titles I’d forgotten about since I was a child: instinctive nostalgia purchases like Mickey’s Wild Adventure that don’t boast critical acclaim but certainly have a special place in my heart. I imagine there is something for everyone in that regard, and the lack of a set menu means you can pick and choose whatever games you fancy.
If you’re a gamer looking to catch up with the highlights of a bygone era, many bucket list classics are also present, which you may have missed and want to catch up on. Games like Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII provide a perfect entry point to some of gaming’s most revered series, and they’re all readily available on this forgotten misfit console.
Remappable controls improve the accessibility of old-school gems too, meaning you’re not stuck with a pre-Dualshock dinosaur of a controller and a short wire, something nobody is really used to nowadays. The Vita’s touchpad back panel easily remedies archaic control schemes, breathing life into tank controls, among other unfortunate realities of early PlayStation games.
Persona 4 kicks back for some nostalgic Vita play
If you can brave it, you also open yourself up to a few landlocked exclusives that are well worth the price of admission. Atlus dropped a much-loved port of 2009’s Persona 4 on the platform, and Golden is still thought of as one of the finest JRPG’s ever made, with the Vita being the best way to experience it in its finest form.
So even if you are picking it up for nostalgia, that won’t prevent you enjoying forgotten titles like Tearaway and Gravity Rush, as well as indie darlings Spelunky, The Binding of Isaac and Grim Fandango Remastered – all charming titles that don’t suffer from any noticeable downgrades on the handheld console.
To the PS Plus subscribers who instinctively download every free offering each month, I have more good news: you may be surprised at just how many Vita games you own already.
Beyond platform exclusives, many of the titles Sony has offered in its monthly packages are crossplay, meaning you can pick up where you left off from your main system on the go.
This extends to AAA PS4 games too. The immense fidelity of Marvel’s Spider-Man doesn’t exactly go one for one in your hands, but Remote Play has been going from strength to strength in recent years, meaning you’re certainly able to finish off side quests in a tidy fashion as long as you leave your main system running at home.
Ultimately it’s a question of comfort. It’s probably a little easier to wait out the Classic console and get a pristine experience without needing to scratch the surface a little. But if you have the courage and know-how to do so, the PS Vita can still be a worthwhile pickup, even in 2018 with the console going out of production.
Sony’s lacklustre approach to backwards-compatibility means that the value proposition of the console still stands, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to provide an answer for this problem anytime soon. Until they do, long live the classics – and long live the PS Vita.
No Man’s Sky is about to launch another titled update for its high-profile space exploration sim – one that seems to be inspired by the spooky Halloween season.
No Man’s Sky: The Abyss was announced in a blog post by Hello Games founder Sean Murray, and promises to bring out some of the “eerier elements” of the game.
It comes three months after the widely publicized ‘Next’ update, which was largely credited with turning No Man’s Sky into the game players had expected at launch – adding new aliens, character customization, and the long-awaited inclusion of online multiplayer.
Release of The Abyss update is expected “next week”, presumably the day of or just in time for Halloween on Wednesday 31 October.
While there’s as yet no details on what The Abyss might include, the title may hint at some sort of underground (or underwater) exploration, or even the likes of a wormhole or another dimension.
The font in the publicized image seems to echo that of the supernatural Netflix thriller Stranger Things, hinting at ominous forces beyond the alien creatures and enemies we’ve seen already.
No Man’s Sky has built its world – and its reputation – on its ability to procedurally generate environments for players to explore. The choice to possibly curate more of that content in seasonal events and updates in the vein of Fortnite, could do much to attract players and turn No Man’s Sky into a game worth extending your stay in.
