Category: Gameinformer

In the wake of Telltale’s closure, its games have are being delisted from major online retailers. Not even its most popular and best-selling game, Minecraft: Story Mode, will escape this fate.

Mojang yesterday posted an official announcement that on June 25, both seasons of the game will disappear from online retailers. The company wasn’t able to find a way to keep the games for sale, it seems, and is advising players to download the games while they have the chance. “We’d recommend checking you have all the episodes downloaded!” This likely means that, if even if you’ve purchased either season, you will no longer be able to download it on the 25th.

While we weren’t too hot on the games by the end of their run, it’s still unfortunate fans will no longer be able enjoy them after June ends.

For more on Telltale’s closure, check out our extensive feature on how it happened.

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As the weather heats up in anticipation of E3 (just kidding, the weather just does that), we have a number of competitive events going on this weekend.

This weekend’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive major is the DreamHack Masters event in Dallas, which holds a $100,000 for first place. (Stream / Schedule)

DreamHack also includes events for a number of other games, including:

• Fighting games includding Super Smash Bros. Melee and Ultimate, Mortal Kombat 11, and more (Streams and Schedule)
• Halo 5: Guardians with a dash of Halo 3 (Stream / Schedule)
• Rocket League (Stream / Schedule)

For more Smash action, there’s Smash’N’Splash 5, which has more of the game’s top players in attendance. (Stream / Schedule)

Dota 2 is also have major this weekend in Birmingham, England, and it’s the first big event where you can see the game’s recent 7.22b patch in action. (Stream / Schedule)

Gears of War‘s competitive scene has Gears 5 to look forward to, but there’s still more Gears of War 4 action to be had. This weekend, there’s a two-on-two event to watch. (Stream / Schedule)

The League of Legends Championship Series is back this weekend, with a total of ten matches going on this weekend. (Stream / Schedule)

The Hearthstone Grandmasters season continues! Watch more matches from some of the game’s best players all weekend long. (Stream / Schedule)

The Overwatch Contenders league is having its Atlantic Showdown, so if you’re looking for something to watch while waiting for the return of the OWL, this is your best bet. (Stream / Schedule)

There’s also some PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds going on this weekend over in Europe, and you can tune in right here, in America. What a world! (Streams and Schedule)

Games Done Quick is having a Mega Man event for the next few days, as four teams will race to beat the entire (original) series in a relay race as quickly as possible. (Stream)

If you’re up late or early, you can watch some Daigo Umehara-centric action starting at midnight (Central) tonight featuring some top Street Fighter V competitors in Japan. (Stream / Schedule)

That’s it for this weekend! Let us know if we missed an event, or if there’s a scene you’d like us to cover, in the comments.

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Square Enix has announced that Star Ocean First Departure, a PSP remake of the first Star Ocean game, is now headed to PlayStation 4 and Switch with an additional letter in its name.

Star Ocean First Departure R is a hi-res update to the original PSP game. Gematsu is also reporting the title will include “additional features.” No release date or price has been announced.

This isn’t the first time a Star Ocean game has seen the re-release treatment. The fourth game in the series recently saw a 4K update for PlayStation 4 and PC. That one was priced at $20.99, which hopefully means First Departure R will launch for a similar price, and that it will come to Steam at some point down the road.

[Source: Square Enix on Twitter, Gematsu]

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The World Heatlh Organization (WHO) voted today to adopt the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11), an update to what the WHO views as a serious diseases that includes a new entry called “Gaming disorder.”

Gaming disorders are now part of a pair of “Disroders due to addictive behaviors” that also includes gambling disorders. While the WHO previously recognized gaming disorders as a disease back in June, today’s vote officially adopts the ICD-11, making it the standard members of the WHO (which includes the United States along with much of the world) must use when making their own decisions about healthcare, treatment, prevention, and more going forward. Member nations must begin reporting health data using the ICD-11 by January 2022.

For reference, here is the official entry on gaming disorder in the ICD-11.

Gaming disorder is characterized by a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour [sic] (‘digital gaming’ or ‘video-gaming’), which may be online (i.e., over the internet) or offline, manifested by:

1. impaired control over gaming (e.g., onset, frequency, intensity, duration, termination, context);
2. increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities; and
3. continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences. The behaviour pattern is of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.

The pattern of gaming behaviour may be continuous or episodic and recurrent. The gaming behaviour and other features are normally evident over a period of at least 12 months in order for a diagnosis to be assigned, although the required duration may be shortened if all diagnostic requirements are met and symptoms are severe.

Also last June, the ESA responded to the WHO’s recognition of gaming disorders as a disease with a statement opposing it, citing that “its inclusion remains highly contested an inconclusive.”

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This morning Atlus releases a teaser trailer for the much rumored Persona 5 R. The teaser carries a PlayStation logo at the front, but there are no other details about additional potential platforms, like Switch. Billboards in the teaser have the words, “New Projects” displayed, which could potentially mean Atlus is working on multiple Persona 5 projects.

The website offered at the end of the teaser, p5r.jp, doesn’t offer any additional information, but does say “Next Information” with a March 2019 date after it. Presumably this means we will learn more in March, as opposed to the game – whatever it is – releasing in March. You can check out the Japanese teaser trailer below.

Click here to watch embedded video

For more on Persona 5, you can read our glowing review here.

[Source: Atlus on YouTube, p5r.jp]

Our Take
I think it’s safe to assume that Persona 5 R will be something like Persona 4 Golden, which improved Persona 4 in ways both small and dramatic. Persona 4 Golden was also a game released on a handheld platform (the Vita) which makes me hope (using questionable, tenuous logic) that Persona 5 R will be coming to Switch. That is what we have all been assuming since Joker was announced to be a fighter in Smash Bros. and rumors started swirling about Persona 5 R. This teaser doesn’t not any kind of Switch hints, but I really hope it makes it to Nintendo’s console.

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Click to watch embedded video

Bethesda games are known for three things: Expansive worlds, glitches, and Easter eggs. Youtuber Shesez’s latest episode of Boundary Break higlights the latter in Fallout 3, as he moves outside of the game’s normal boundaries to find some cool Easter eggs and secrets.

Some of the cool things Shesez is able to find within Fallout 3’s assets are how the game renders the train car sequences, how your mother looks in the segment in which your character is born, and what Tranquility Lane looks like in color. It’s an interesting video that offers insight into how Fallout 3 was developed and some neat trivia at the same time.

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Valve has released its charts of the best-selling and most played games on Steam in 2018, and while new releases like Monster Hunter: World and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey has breakout years it was games with regular content drops that seem to be doing most well.

Though Valve doesn’t disclose specific sales or revenue numbers in its charts, it does stratify games into distinct tiers, giving us a glimpse into how groups of games did relative to each other.

First up: Best-sellers. While 2018 titles like Monster Hunter: World, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, and Far Cry 5 made the platinum tier of titles who grossed the most revenue (allowing free-to-play titles with microtransactions to compete), nine of the twelve titles in that tier were games actually released before this year, but received regular or major content updates this year. The twelve best-selling titles are:

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

Older titles were also popular as you go down the tiers, as games like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Assassin’s Creed Origins, Dead By Daylight, and more dominate the gold tier. The silver tier has more new titles, however, as Dragon Ball FighterZ, The Forest, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and a few other new titles make a name for themselves there.

When it comes to the most played games, we get a little more specific information. The titles in the highest tier managed to exceed over 100,000 simultaneous players on Steam. Only 10 titles accomplished the feat. They are:

Monster Hunter: World
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Path of Exile
Team Fortress 2
Dota 2
Grand Theft Auto
Rainbow Six Siege
Realm Royale
Playerunknowon’s Battlegrounds
Warframe

 Several titles, like Valve’s own Artifact, Warhammer: Vermintide II, Kingdom Come Deliverance, and early access game The Scroll of Taiwu all exceeding 50,000 players.

You can also see a breakdown of the best-selling games stratified by month, as well as the most popular games that left early access this year, and the best-selling VR games.

You can read Valve’s full post on the charts here.

Although they don’t represent the entire PC market and leave out the console market entirely, these charts further point towards what many of us had suspected: Game developers are chasing the dream of having popular titles players can spend hundreds of hours with and spend money on throughout the year because these titles sell incredibly well, even as new games come and go.

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Yesterday Capcom stealth-launched a new crossover event for Monster Hunter: World, this time crossing over with the Assassin’s Creed series.

The “SDF: Silent, Deadly, and Fierce” event, which lasts until January 10, has players facing off against “nimble, fierce, and impetuous monsters” to earn Senu’s Feather. The event features a new armor that makes players look like Bayek from Assassin’s Creed Origins, and the Assassin’s Hood tool, which resembles the outfit Ezio wore in Assassin’s Creed II and grants additional damage when attacking monsters out of stealth, as well as additional movement speed while running, climbing, and crouch-running.

The event is currently not available on PC, but will arrive “at a later date.”

Click here to watch embedded video

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This year, most of the talk surrounding From Software was focused on the reveal of its new title, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (and, to a lesser extent, Déraciné). However, the studio behind games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne has apparently been even busier than it seemed.

In an interview with 4gamer (and translated by Gematsu), From Software’s Hidetaka Miyazaki says that the company has two unannounced games in the works – though fans will have to wait a bit for any details. Apart from saying that the games would be in the style of From Software’s previous work, Miyazaki did not reveal any specifics regarding either project.

Despite the lack of info, this leaves some interesting room for speculation. Maybe that Bloodborne sequel exists after all? Maybe another Souls game is coming? Or maybe there’s a new franchise brewing? Whatever the titles end up being, From Software has a legion of loyal (if sometimes masochistic) fans eager to throw themselves at the challenge.  

[Source: 4gamer via Gematsu]

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When Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night originally met its Kickstarter funding goal back in 2015, the plan was for the game to release on PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, Vita, Windows, Mac, and Linux. Since then, the Wii U version changed to Switch instead, and the Vita version was canceled outright – and the list of planned platforms just shrunk a bit more. In the latest development update, creator Koji Igarashi announced that the Mac and Linux versions have also been canceled.

“We have made this tough decision due to challenges of supporting middleware and online feature support and making sure we deliver on the rest of the scope for the game,” Igarashi says. If you were a backer hoping to get the game on Mac or Linux, you can send the team an email to change to a different platform.

Not all news out of Bloodstained is grim. Igarashi also says: “Development has reached its peak — we are currently checking the performance of Bloodstained on each platform. Overall, we are done with enemy placement and entering the adjustment phase.” After some delays, it seems like the 2019 release is attainable – especially with the recent news that developer WayForward is assisting on the project.

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