Category: Gamespot

I’ve been a bit of a slow convert to From Software’s work throughout the years. While I’m still learning to love Dark Souls, Bloodborne remains an all-time favorite of mine and the first (and only) game from the studio that I ever beat. Its moody gothic setting and speedy tactical combat resonated with me more than the slower, more defensive Dark Souls. But it seems the studio’s latest, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, just might dethrone Bloodborne for me in 2019.

I won’t lie to you, I’m a big fan of feudal Japan as a setting, so you can imagine why the mere sight of Sekiro has me excited. I can’t wait to experience From Software’s fantastical interpretation of Sengoku-era Japan, as well as see how it chooses to reimagine both history and myth. In addition, the premise of playing as a nameless shinobi with a weaponized prosthetic arm seeking to save his lord and get revenge appeals to me in its resemblance to ancient Japanese myths and legends.

Similar to Dark Souls and Bloodborne, Sekiro challenges you to make repeated runs through dungeons packed with fierce enemies and hidden traps. But what I find alluring about Sekiro is how it appears familiar but totally reevaluates all the mechanics you generally associate with From Software games. Absent are many of the RPG elements you’d expect, such as character creation, classes, and equipment upgrades. Instead, Sekiro is an entirely new experience set apart from the studio’s previous work that emphasizes action, stealth, and platforming.

It’s thrilling to see your progotanist use a grappling hook to string together acrobatic jumps from one ledge to the next. The emphasis on split-second attack deflection and hit-and-run assaults in combat is refreshing and exciting. Sneaking around and stabbing foes while their guard is down provides variety to your modes of attack. And then there’s the new resurrection mechanic where you can purposefully die to trick enemies, and return when their backs are turned to inflict a lethal surprise strike. There’s a bold confidence in the new mechanics From Software introduces in Sekiro, displaying a willingness from the studio to step away from its near-decade-old Soulsborne formula.

Not much more has been revealed about Sekiro since its most recent showcase at Tokyo Game Show 2018. One of the most notable news stories to come out about the project was the fact that it started life as a Tenchu game, From Software’s long-dormant stealth-action ninja series. This fact alone was more than enough to seal my interest in Sekiro, as I have many fond memories playing Tenchu in the early 2000s. Regardless, more news is bound to come in the new year–likely once we get closer to the game’s March 22 launch.

For a brief rundown on everything there is to know about Sekiro, be sure to read our feature highlighting all the essential details.

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Ever since its reveal back at E3 2018, Devil May Cry 5 has continually impressed me with every new trailer and detail we learn about it. Sure, it’s sticking close to the classic formula of battling legions of demons with gloriously over the top and somewhat impractical weapons, but Capcom’s action game series has always been in a class of its own when it comes to high-flying, stylish combat. This all works thanks to its likeable cast of characters, including lead protagonist Dante and his familiar devil-may-care attitude that’s just too fun to roll your eyes at. That sort of confidence in its identity, even after all these years, is something I’ve always loved about the series, and Devil May Cry 5 certainly aims to make up for lost time by offering the most refined and visually stunning outing yet.

Of course, fans who’ve been keeping up with the series will no doubt notice the obvious elephant in the room when looking at this game. Ninja Theory’s 2013 reboot, DmC: Devil May Cry, was a valiant effort that offered an interesting twist on the DMC mythos, but Capcom decided that there’s still more to be said with the original series. Though DmC is among my personal favorites–and I wish more players would give it a fair shake–there is something rather special about seeing classic Devil May Cry back in action, especially when many of the trailers and playables demo show that it hasn’t missed a beat since its hiatus.

With three playable characters in Devil May Cry 5–Dante, Nero, and newcomer V–and a larger campaign that can bring them all together for co-op gameplay, the next game will be upping the ante in a more extravagant way. It’s also especially satisfying to see that DMC5 has taken several cues from the stylish and modern flair that Ninja Theory brought to the series. This is most apparent with the return of dynamic battle themes that ramp up based on performance topped off with the slick slow-mo finishes to the end of an intense clash.

One of the things I’ve been really enjoying from our early looks at Devil May Cry 5 is that it seems to be keenly aware of its place in the series. Directly referencing the original games, the anime and manga, and even acknowledging the black sheep Devil May Cry 2 in some form–the next entry is aiming to be the title that brings many of the events and characters from past games full-circle. It all seems fitting for Capcom’s next stylish-action game to look back on its lineage as a whole, as it plans to finish the main story of the Sparda saga. Whether it’ll close things proper, or if it’ll lead into the next phase of the series remains to be seen, but Devil May Cry 5 will no doubt revel in the time it has–and it’ll definitely look good while doing it.

If you’re in need of a refresher with what’s new in DMC5, check out our feature on everything we know about the game so far.

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A lot of video game stories stumble when it comes to endings, often because the preoccupation to set up sequels works against definitive, satisfying conclusions. Marvel’s Spider-Man handled both competing interests pretty deftly, wrapping up its main story while leaving enough plot threads from which to hang a second game, as well as its three-episode DLC expansion The City That Never Sleeps. But while developer Insomniac Games helped Spider-Man stick the landing in the main game, the conclusion of the expansion feels more like it rolls to a slow stop.

Chapter 3 of the expansion, Silver Lining, wraps up the story of Spider-Man battling Hammerhead, a mob boss who consolidated power in New York. He’s become a supervillain by stealing tech from the private sci-fi army from the base game, Sable International. Each of the previous chapters saw ancillary characters close to Spider-Man turning into collateral damage in the war against Hammerhead. Black Cat, Peter’s former paramour, was caught up in working with Hammerhead in the first episode, and Yuri Watanabe, Peter’s friend on the NYPD, was personally devastated by the mob’s war on New York in the second. The third episode focuses on yet another woman, Silver Sable, who runs Sable International and returns to New York to try to stop Hammerhead from misappropriating all her ridiculously dangerous military gear.

What made the first two chapters of The City Never Sleeps so engaging was the way they ratcheted up stakes while keeping things personal. Black Cat’s episode, The Heist, had Peter trying to save his anti-hero friend from mafia bad guys, while she threw a monkey wrench into his rekindled relationship with Mary Jane Watson. In the second release, Turf Wars, it felt like Spidey was embroiled in a full-on war against Hammerhead’s consolidated mafia army as the enemy struck devastating blows against the police, and Yuri in particular, which pushed her character to the brink. The time spent fleshing out Black Cat and Yuri, while putting Spider-Man in a position to fail both his friends, made the story powerful and important, just like the one in the original release.

The trouble with Silver Lining is that the plot threads from the first two episodes never really get resolved in a satisfactory way. Both the women around whom the previous episodes centered have been pretty much removed from the story. Where the first two chapters felt as though they were driving toward putting Peter on his back foot as he struggled to save his friends from Hammerhead’s wrath and corrupting influence, the third episode basically drops those ideas in favor of a few fun moments of Peter and Sable warming up to each other a bit. Their goal is to stop Hammerhead, and all the interesting interpersonal stuff gets shoved into underdeveloped hooks for sequels and expansions that may or may not ever exist.

With so much good writing in the first two episodes, Silver Lining is just a letdown. It’s interesting, at least, that Silver Sable’s character gets rounded out a bit, but after Turf Wars made everything feel so effectively dangerous and personal for Yuri, a character we’ve been spending time with through the entire base game and much of the DLC, it’s incredibly frustrating that her tale gets left for some later potential wrap-up. That’s to say nothing of how The City That Never Sleeps resolves what’s happened to Black Cat way back in The Heist–because it doesn’t.

The rest of Silver Lining also feels a little lackluster compared to previous episodes. Screwball’s challenges return one last time before you wrap up that story, but they’re another few riffs on things you’ve done in the past. Neither the challenges, nor Screwball and her story’s conclusion, are especially inspired. Along with more Hammerhead bases to clear and more crimes to stop in a few of Manhattan’s southern districts, they come off as a little bit of filler to keep you busy for a few more minutes before calling it quits on Spider-Man for good. Unlike in Turf Wars, there aren’t really many new story insights to be gleaned from completing the side material. Finishing it all is more rote than rewarding.

On the bright side, Silver Lining is challenging for the seasoned Spidey. Hammerhead’s goons are tougher than ever with their Sable gear, and there are now jetpack guys, jetpack guys with shields, mini-gun guys, and machine gun guys all fighting you at the same time. Some of the fights are downright annoying as you get blasted by huge attack after huge attack, but at least Insomniac has continually worked to make the expansion fights harrowing for people who’ve been continually playing Spider-Man since way back in September and have probably unlocked all of the abilities and gadgets in the game long ago.

For a game as strong as this one, Silver Lining feels like a stumble. The beginning and middle of The City That Never Sleeps were both great reasons to return to Spider-Man in the months after its release. Silver Lining can’t pay off that earlier promise, though, and so one of the best games of the year goes out with a whimper. The final chapter of Spider-Man’s planned expansions is mostly fine–the core game is strong enough that any chance to revisit its mechanics is going to be fun–but with no other expansions officially on the way, this feels like another classic case of a good game story burdened with propping open the doors for potential sequels. The original version of Marvel’s Spider-Man was better than that, and The City That Never Sleeps should have been as well.

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With 2019 right around the corner, we’ve polled GameSpot’s staff to find out what games they are looking forward to most in the new year. To be eligible, a game must simply have a release date currently planned for 2019. Of course, we all know nothing is set in stone; there’s always a chance some games could slip into 2020. When you’re done reading this entry, follow along with all of our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best of 2018 hub.

Animal Crossing Switch was revealed during a Nintendo Direct this past September, and you might remember that the announcement followed a bait-and-switch in which Isabelle was announced as a fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. As much as I like playing as Isabelle in Smash now, I was deeply disappointed in the moments between the two reveals. I knew my town in New Leaf was a neglected disaster; I needed a fresh start, and Pocket Camp just didn’t do it for me.

If I had to guess, I’d say that I have over 1,000 hours logged across all the Animal Crossing games to date–and that’s a conservative estimate. My phone background is Animal Crossing (springtime for the lock screen, night sky for the home screen), my makeup bag is Animal Crossing (for some reason), and I have a Chrome extension that plays Animal Crossing music in real time (K.K. Slider songs only on Saturdays from 8 to 12 PM). Most embarrassingly, I bought a second copy of Wild World a few months after I got that game so I could borrow my brother’s DS and trade fruit with myself.

All this is to say that even though we know next to nothing about Animal Crossing on Switch, I am incredibly excited for it. But I do have actual reasons! And none of them are “I have sold my soul to Tom Nook.” I promise. Actually, it starts with an Animal Crossing game you probably haven’t thought about in a while: Happy Home Designer.

If you didn’t play Happy Home Designer on 3DS, it’s all the fun of decorating your Animal Crossing house with none of the debt, though it doesn’t have the same pull as a main Animal Crossing game. The best thing about Happy Home Designer is how it refines the process of decorating; rather than manually pushing, pulling, and rotating furniture around a room, Happy Home Designer lets you stay in one place and manipulate furniture on the touchscreen. You can highlight and move multiple pieces at once instead of, say, dragging a chair across the room so you can move a table one space to the right, for example. It’s honestly revolutionary.

I don’t know exactly how that would work on Switch, given that it only has one screen, but that screen is a touchscreen, and I have faith that Nintendo would never let me clumsily shuffle my decor around again. The point is that small tweaks to the existing Animal Crossing formula–changes that I didn’t know I wanted–are both possible and welcome, and I’m excited to see what else is added in the new game.

Like I said, we know very little about Animal Crossing on Switch except that it’s coming out sometime in 2019. But I can’t wait to jump back into the laidback, friendship-focused, chore-filled world of Animal Crossing, and I’m sure I’ll practically explode with excitement when we do learn more about it.

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With 2019 right around the corner, we’ve polled GameSpot’s staff to find out what games they are looking forward to most in the new year. To be eligible, a game must simply have a release date currently planned for 2019. Of course, we all know nothing is set in stone; there’s always a chance some games could slip into 2020. When you’re done reading this entry, follow along with all of our other end-of-the-year coverage collected in our Best of 2018 hub.

As a longtime fan of Resident Evil that had felt let down by the fifth and sixth entries in the series, Resident Evil 7 was a welcome return to form. It showed that, when it wanted to, Capcom could deliver a heart-pounding survival-horror experience that is worthy of the Resident Evil name. From top to bottom, Resident Evil 7 was a masterful execution of the genre, and it seems Capcom is readying another expertly crafted Resi experience with the remake of the second game.

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The star of the show, based on what I’ve played, seems to be the Tyrant/Mr. X, a seemingly unstoppable force of nature that stalks the halls of Racoon City’s Police Department, and who is ever advancing on you. The sheer terror of turning a corner or peering down a hallway and seeing his towering silhouette emerge into view was, in the moment, overwhelming. But even after time has passed, memories of that monstrous pursuer are still hair-raising. He leaves a lasting impression, and for fans of survival horror that is a very enticing prospect.

Capcom has pulled the entire experience apart and tinkered with it to heighten the horror, tension, and action

Of course, Resident Evil 2 Remake offers more than just a trenchcoat-wearing terror to get excited about. The gunplay feels snappy in a way modern games should, but at the same time you’re not overly empowered by it. Instead, it’s a means for getting out of sticky situation, as opposed to wiping out any and all zombies that appear in front of you. Puzzles, meanwhile, are also present, giving the thinkers among the Resi fanbase plenty of food for thought. And based on early impressions it all feels well balanced and paced. If what I played is representative of the overall experience, Resident Evil 2 Remake could be special.

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Season 7 of Fortnite rolls on with a new set of challenges to complete on PS4, Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and mobile devices. As usual, if you manage to finish all of the tasks from a given week, you’ll complete a corresponding Snowfall challenge–this season’s equivalent of the Hunting Party challenges from Season 6. In turn, you’ll unlock a special loading screen, which not only features a cool piece of artwork, but also a subtle clue pointing to a free item hidden somewhere in the game.

Just as in Season 6, the item in question is either a free Battle Star (which levels your Battle Pass up by one tier) or a Banner (which you can use as a profile icon) depending on how many weekly sets of challenges you’ve completed. If you’ve finished three weeks’ challenges, you’ll be rewarded with the loading screen pictured below. It depicts a group of characters standing in the hangar of Frosty Flights, one of the new areas introduced to Fortnite’s map at the beginning of the season.

If you look closely at the furthest hangar, just to the right of Sgt. Winter, you’ll be able to make out the faint silhouette of the Battle Star atop a stack of boxes, giving you a clear indication of where you need to go. Head to Frosty Flights at the beginning of a match, find the easternmost hangar, and the Battle Star will appear inside. Collect it as you would any other item to level your Battle Pass up by one tier, putting you one step closer to unlocking the new Ice King skin.

As is the case with other free Battle Stars, the usual caveats apply. You won’t be able to find the item unless you’ve completed three weeks’ sets of challenges and unlocked the aforementioned loading screen. The Battle Star won’t appear on the map if you haven’t first finished all of the necessary steps, so you won’t simply be able to go to the right location and collect it unless you’ve done the required work.

Developer Epic Games recently rolled out Season 7’s Week 3 challenges. This particular batch of tasks is fairly straightforward, although the one that may give you the most trouble if you aren’t familiar with Fortnite’s map asks you to search between three ski lodges. You can find all of our tips and guides in our complete Season 7 challenge roundup. You can also find our guides on this season’s free Battle Stars and Banners below.

Fortnite Season 7 Snowfall Challenge Guides

• Fortnite Secret Battle Star Location: Week 1 Snowfall Challenge Guide
• Fortnite Secret Banner Location: Week 2 Snowfall Challenge Guide
• Fortnite Secret Battle Star Location: Week 3 Snowfall Challenge Guide

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