[UPDATE] Sony’s Tokyo Game Show 2017 briefing has ended. You can catch up with some of the big news through the links below. Keep checking back with GameSpot for more.
Sony’s Tokyo Game Show 2017 press conference takes this afternoon in Tokyo. The event starts at 4 PM local time, which comes out to 12 AM PT / 3 AM ET / 5 PM AEST. You can watch the entire briefing through the YouTube embed above.
According to Polygon, the briefing will focus primarily on titles aimed at the Japanese and Asian territories, which is to be expected. Last week, Sony announced that it would have games like Call of Duty: WWII, Detroit: Become Human, and Gran Turismo Sport available at its booth, along with VR titles like Skyrim VR and the Final Fantasy XV VR title, Monster of the Deep. You can see a rundown of all the games Sony will have at TGS right here.
GameSpot has editors on the ground in Tokyo to cover TGS and more. Keep checking back all week for more.
What are you hoping to see at Sony’s TGS briefing? Let us know in the comments below!
Square Enix has announced a new game called Left Alive, and it has some big-name talent behind it. Revealed during the PlayStation Tokyo Game Show briefing, Left Alive is…well, it’s hard to know right now. But while details on the game are a mystery, we do know that Metal Gear veteran Yoji Shinkawa is working on the project. His artwork can be seen in the teaser above and is also featured below.
Shinji Hashimoto, who has worked on the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts franchises, is producing Left Alive, while Toshifumi Nabeshima, director of the Armored Core series, and Takayuki Yanase, mech designer on Ghost in the Shell: Arise, Mobile Suit Gundam 00, and Xenoblade Chronicles X are also involved.
Based on a teaser trailer, it looks like Left Alive takes place in a world ravaged by some horrible catastrophe. The game is due out in 2018 for PlayStation 4 and PC. We’ll report back with more details as they’re made available.
Battlegrounds continues to set records. The uber-popular Hunger Games-like PC shooter recently reached more concurrent users than another other game in Steam history. The title reached 1,348,374 users on September 16, pushing past the 1,291,328 record that Valve’s DOTA 2 reached back in March 2016.
Battlegrounds, which is still in development and is sold through Steam Early Access, is priced at $30. DOTA 2, meanwhile, is a free-to-play game that Valve heavily promotes, making Battlegrounds’ success all the more notable.
In other news about Battlegrounds, creator Brendan Greene recently spoke about how he envisions the game potentially reaching 100 million players someday. He also said he does not plan to raise the price of the game when it exits Early Access, as some games have done.
Bungie is expecting to release the next update for Destiny 2 next week. In the studio’s latest weekly blog post, it said this update–1.0.1.3–will address “some known issues.” One of these is the “harmful imagery” that players recently discovered.
This is a reference to the piece of armor that was found to have a connection to a “hate symbol.” Bungie already started scrubbing this item from Destiny 2, and the new update will remove it completely, it seems.
The new Destiny 2 update should be out “within the next week,” Bungie said. Specific timing hasn’t been announced as of yet, but we’ll report back with the patch notes when they are released.
Destiny 2 being a live service game, fans can expect numerous updates coming down the pipeline in the time ahead. Bungie will also support Destiny 2 will paid expansion content, the first of which, Curse of Osiris, is reportedly coming out in December.
Battleborn, the hero shooter from Borderlands studio Gearbox, is getting one more big update and then that’s it. Creative director Randy Varnell made the announcement in a forum post, stating, “As of this week, there will be no more Battleplans and there is currently no planned content after the Fall Update.”
Though updates are ending, Battleborn is “here to stay,” Varnell said. The game’s servers are staying online “for the foreseeable future.” As for the Fall update, this was announced at PAX West. It’ll include new, Borderlands-themed skins, updated title art, and new Finisher boosts and taunts. Some “minor” balance changes are also included.
Varnell added that he will be transitioning to a role on the team that is currently development Gearbox’s unannounced game, which could be Borderlands 3.
“I’ve been working on Battleborn nearly exclusively since 2012, and in some ways, that work stretches back to 2009 for me,” Varnell said. “It’s been a long labor of love with many of my good friends at Gearbox, and I’m proud to have shared that journey with you, our community. Your spirit and loyalty have been a constant inspiration to the team at Gearbox.”
Varnell went on to say he thanks fans for “giving Battleborn a chance.” The game underperformed for publisher 2K Games, and its multiplayer element was made free.
Battleborn was Gearbox’s biggest investment in its history in terms of production, though it’s certainly possible that the studio’s new, unannounced game could eclipse that if it is indeed Borderlands 3.
Warner Bros. has released a new trailer for Injustice 2, this one showing off the DLC fighter Raiden, who comes to the game in October. The action-packed trailer shows Raiden kicking ass with his numerous moves. It culminates with his finishing move, which is brutal and epic. Take a look at the trailer for yourself in the embed below.
The video also shows that a Black Lightning premiere skin is coming to the game through the Ultimate Edition (more on that below).
Raiden comes to Injustice 2 through the Fighter Pack 2, which launches on September 2. There. There are three characters in all in the Fighter Pack 2; the other two are Black Manta and the cigar-loving action hero Hellboy.
Fighter Pack 2 is included with Injustice 2’s Ultimate Edition or can be purchased separately. Fighter Pack 1 was priced at $20, with its individual characters–Sub-Zero, Red Hood, and Starfire–costing $6 each. So you can expect a similar format for Fighter Pack 2.
It was a big night in the world of TV, as the Emmys took place tonight. If you missed the broadcast or want to catch up with all the winners in one place, you can now see a roundup of all the nominees and winners for every category.
Stranger Things and Westworld picked up multiple nominations but won nothing. A big winner was Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, which took home the award for Outstanding Drama Series, with star Elisabeth Moss winning for Outstanding Lead Actress In A Drama Series. The show also won awards for Outstanding Directing, Outstanding Supporting Actress, and Outstanding Writing.
HBO’s Big Little Lies also had a great night, taking home five awards, including Outstanding Limited Series and Best Actress In A Limited Series (Nicole Kidman).
Additionally, the excellent and haunting drama Black Mirror won its first Emmys this year, starting with Outstanding Writing for a Limited Series, Movie, or a Dramatic Special for the episode “San Junipero.” It also won the Emmy for Outstanding TV Movie for the same episode.
You can see a roundup of all the categories, nominees, and winners (in bold) below, as compiled by The Verge. The awards show aired on CBS, which is the parent company of GameSpot.
OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
Better Call Saul
The Crown
The Handmaid’s Tale
House of Cards
Stranger Things
This Is Us
Westworld
OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Viola Davis, How to Get Away with Murder
Claire Foy, The Crown
Elisabeth Moss, The Handmaid’s Tale
Keri Russell, The Americans
Evan Rachel Wood, Westworld
Robin Wright, House of Cards
OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Sterling K. Brown, This Is Us
Anthony Hopkins, Westworld
Bob Odenkirk, Better Call Saul
Matthew Rhys, The Americans
Liev Scheiber, Ray Donovan
Kevin Spacey, House of Cards
Milo Ventimiglia, This Is Us
OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES
Big Little Lies
Fargo
Feud: Bette and Joan
Genius
The Night Of
OUTSTANDING TELEVISION MOVIE
Black Mirror: San Junipero
Dolly Parton’s Christmas Of Many Colors: Circle Of Love
The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks
Sherlock: The Lying Detective
The Wizard Of Lies
OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE
Felicity Huffman, American Crime
Nicole Kidman, Big Little Lies
Reese Witherspoon, Big Little Lies
Carrie Coon, Fargo
Jessica Lange, Feud: Bette and Joan
Susan Sarandon, Feud: Bette and Joan
OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR MOVIE
Ewan McGregor, Fargo
Geoffrey Rush, Genius
Riz Ahmed, The Night Of
John Turturro, The Night Of
Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock: The Lying Detective
Robert De Niro, The Wizard Of Lies
OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES
Atlanta
Black-ish
Master of None
Modern Family
Silicon Valley
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Veep
OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Pamela Adlon, Better Things
Jane Fonda, Grace and Frankie
Allison Janney, Mom
Ellie Kemper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep
Tracee Ellis Ross, Black-ish
Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie
OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Aziz Ansari, Master of None
Zach Galifianakis, Baskets
Donald Glover, Atlanta
William H. Macy, Shameless
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent
OUTSTANDING VARIETY TALK SERIES
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
The Late Late Show with James Corden
Real Time with Bill Maher
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A VARIETY SERIES
Derek Waters and Jeremy Konner, Drunk History – “Hamilton”
Andy Fisher, Jimmy Kimmel Live – “The (RED) Show”
Paul Pennolino, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver – “Multi-Level Marketing”
Jim Hoskinson, The Last Show with Stephen Colbert – “Episode 0179”
Don Roy King, Saturday Night Live – “Host: Jimmy Fallon”
OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A LIMITED SERIES, MOVIE, OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL
David E. Kelley, Big Little Lies
Charlie Brooker, Black Mirror: San Junipero
Noah Hawley, Fargo – “The Law of Vacant Places”
Ryan Murphy, Feud: Bette and Joan – “And the Winner Is…”
Jaffe Cohen, Michael Zam, and Ryan Murphy, Feud: Bette and Joan – “Pilot”
Richard Price and Steven Zaillian, The Night Of – “The Call of the Wild”
OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A DRAMA SERIES
Vince Gilligan, Better Call Saul – “Witness”
Stephen Daldry, The Crown – “Hyde Park Corner”
Reed Morano, The Handmaid’s Tale – “Offred”
Kate Dennis, The Handmaid’s Tale – “The Bridge”
Lesli Linka Glatter, Homeland – “America First”
The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things – “Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”
Jonathan Nolan, Westworld – “The Bicameral Mind”
OUTSTANDING REALITY COMPETITION SERIES
The Amazing Race
American Ninja Warrior
Project Runway
RuPaul’s Drag Race
Top Chef
The Voice
OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A COMEDY SERIES
Donald Glover, Atlanta – “B.A.N.”
Stephen Glover, Atlanta – “Streets on Lock”
Aziz Ansari and Lena Waithe, Master of None – “Thanksgiving”
Alec Berg, Silicon Valley – “Success Failure”
Billy Kimball, Veep – “Georgia”
David Mandel, Veep – “Groundbreaking”
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Uzo Aduba, Orange Is the New Black
Millie Bobby Brown, Stranger Things
Ann Dowd, The Handmaid’s Tale
Chrissy Metz, This Is Us
Thandie Newton, Westworld
Samira Wiley, The Handmaid’s Tale
OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A VARIETY SERIES
Full Frontal with Samantha Bee
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Late Night with Seth Meyers
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Saturday Night Live
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE
Bill Camp, The Night Of
Alfred Molina, Feud: Bette and Joan
Alexander Skarsgard, Big Little Lies
David Thewlis, Fargo
Stanley Tucci, Feud: Bette and Joan
Michael Kenneth Williams, The Night Of
OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A LIMITED SERIES, MOVIE OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL
Jean-Marc Vallée, Big Little Lies
Noah Hawley, Fargo – “The Law of Vacant Places”
Ryan Murphy, Feud: Bette and Joan – “And the Winner Is…”
Ron Howard, Genius – “Einstein: Chapter One”
James Marsh, The Night Of – “The Art of War”
Steven Zaillian, The Night Of – “The Beach”
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Louie Anderson, Baskets
Ty Burrell, Modern Family
Alec Baldwin, Saturday Night Live
Tituss Burgess, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Tony Hale, Veep
Matt Walsh, Veep
OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A DRAMA SERIES
Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg, The Americans – “The Soviet Division”
Gordon Smith, Better Call Saul – “Chicanery”
Peter Morgan, The Crown – “Assassins”
Bruce Miller, The Handmaid’s Tale – “Offred”
The Duffer Brothers, Stranger Things – “Chapter One: The Vanishing of Will Byers”
Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, Westworld – The Bicameral Mind”
OUTSTANDING VARIETY SKETCH SERIES
Billy on the Street
Documentary Now!
Drunk History
Portlandia
Saturday Night Live
Tracey Ullman’s Show
OUTSTANDING DIRECTING FOR A COMEDY SERIES
Donald Glover, Atlanta – “B.A.N.”
Jamie Babbit, Silicon Valley – “Intellectual Property”
Morgan Sackett, Veep – “Blurb”
David Mandel, Veep – “Groundbreaking”
Dale Stern, Veep – “Justice”
OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A LIMITED SERIES OR TV MOVIE
Battlegrounds continues to set records. The uber-popular Hunger Games-like PC shooter recently reached more concurrent users than another other game in Steam history. The title reached 1,348,374 users on September 16, pushing past the 1,291,328 record that Valve’s DOTA 2 reached back in March 2016.
Battlegrounds, which is still in development and is sold through Steam Early Access, is priced at $30. DOTA 2, meanwhile, is a free-to-play game that Valve heavily promotes, making Battlegrounds’ success all the more notable.
In other news about Battlegrounds, creator Brendan Greene recently spoke about how he envisions the game potentially reaching 100 million players someday. He also said he does not plan to raise the price of the game when it exits Early Access, as some games have done.
Over the last year, Final Fantasy XV has evolved from a rather ambitious entry in the JRPG franchise that may have bitten off more than it could chew, into a expansive game that will soon add a new online game mode, DLC Episodes featuring lengthy adventures with its supporting cast of characters, and general quality-of-life updates to smooth many of the rough edges from the initial launch. With the Windows Edition coming early 2018, the developers at Square Enix are looking to wind things down with FFXV, but are ready to offer PC players the complete experience.
During PAX West 2017, we had the chance to talk with the game’s director, Hajime Tabata, about what’s coming up for Final Fantasy XV, the focus on creating value for the game post-launch, and what could be next for the development team after work on the PC release is complete.
GameSpot: This particular game had the longest development period of any entry in the Final Fantasy series. It initially started as a spin-off, but it eventually became a core entry in the series. What are your reactions to seeing how it’s evolved into what it is now?
Hajime Tabata: From a business standpoint, we’ve achieved over 6.5 million units, and the fact that we’re still going to be putting out content till the launch of the Windows Edition–and then we have the Pocket Edition–this project has been very successful for us. But from a personal level, and from a dev team standpoint, what really resonates with us is the fan feedback we got from the day one release. A lot of the major criticisms was that they felt the story was lacking in certain aspects. So for us, we did our best to give back and supplement those areas where people felt it was lacking.
When those fans who were complaining about the story from the early days are now completely satisfied with the overall experience, that’s the moment when we can say as a team that we’re pleased with what we did for Final Fantasy XV. And obviously, we don’t plan to draw this out forever. At some point we’re going to have to mark the end of the journey for Final Fantasy XV. With that said, we’re still listening to what the fans want and expect for this game.
It’s unusual to see so much post-launch support for a Final Fantasy game that’s not an MMO. What was the mindset the development team had when creating these new updates?
Hajime Tabata: We always had the plan of showing what happened with them in the DLC. Our goal is to give back to the players and give them content that they’re gonna love. When you’re playing as Noctis, your three allies are going through this journey with you, and their experiences throughout that adventure aren’t shown. We tried a lot of new things for this, and it has allowed the dev team to really grow, develop, get stronger, and become more experienced. So in the long run, it all panned out for us. We’re so happy with how it all worked out.
Was the desire to create more content in such a large space what led to the online mode? There are a lot of new features and support happening in FFXV, and an online component is a bit of an ambitious addition.
Hajime Tabata: We always had a plan for the multiplayer expansion. When we announced the DLC lineup, we started really thinking about how do we take on that project, and we needed a mission to have the players really feel like they’re part of the overall story. It takes place during the 10 years that wasn’t told in the main story. So we wanted people to really feel like they had a part in the story. Once we started thinking about the actual multiplayer, it became bigger than what we had initially anticipated.
Even before launch, we worked closely with the community and were open about our plans, addressing fan feedback. That’s sort of what led up to the online service, where XV is a living, breathing world. Our approach was that we wanted to give back to our fan base, and we’re seeing that support pay off. A month after the game had launched, about 30% of the people had beaten the game. Now, after several months, that’s been continuously improving. We saw that rise to 60%. We’re making the game more accessible to people and we’re probably bringing in more fans. So as an overall kind of experience, we like this is a lot, but we still have a lot we learn from doing it this way.
Not including the MMO titles, this is easily one of the larger single-player oriented entries in the series. What would you say was the largest lesson you learned from making a game of this scale?
Hajime Tabata: The biggest takeaway we got from creating an open-world Final Fantasy game is that we understand why the big western developers that make these massive open world games require that much manpower. For FFXV, we made a lot of progress from a technological standpoint. We were able to push the boundaries, but we also streamlined our internal process to keep up with that pace. Looking back, there’s still a lot to look back on, what we were lacking experience in, and what we didn’t have the knowledge for. But there was still a lot that we were able to see and were aware of to make good progress on. When it comes time to work on our next project–taking everything we did–we’re gonna do it even bigger and better, when that time comes.
So are you and the development team on XV planning on pursuing this style of open-world game for your next project?
Hajime Tabata: It’s hard to say at this point if the entire game is gonna be based on an open world. But I would say that the overall experience that users get from playing in a massive area, that overall game experience is something that we’re gonna make sure is in the next project as well.
Well, another Japanese developer came out with a rather notable open-world game this year with Breath of the Wild, which many fans have enjoyed. Have you all gotten the chance to play it, and if so, did anything stick out for you?
Hajime Tabata: So I personally haven’t been able to get my hands on a Switch yet because they’re really hard to find in Japan right now. [Laughs] It’s embarrassing to say. I do have the game; I bought the game already so that I could just pop it in when I do get a Switch. But I’ve heard a lot from the dev team and their reactions to having played it. But just from hearing the stories and the feedback, you know, we can tell that it’s a really complete game. It’s very polished, almost a perfect game in that regard. And our goals are probably to take that experience that players felt with Breath of the Wild, but with our own technology and our own knowhow. We have in our disposal to create a very, very high-quality game with a strong visual element to it, while creating a world that’s really immersive and really beautiful. That’s probably our goals in terms of what we want to be with our next project.
We actually got the chance to check out the PC version of XV, and it’s quite an improvement over the original in terms of visuals. We’re actually seeing more developers in Japan take on PC releases for their games to solid success. What’s impressed you with working on the PC release, and is this something you hope more developers in Japan will dive into?
Hajime Tabata: With the Windows Edition, the platform is already beyond what we did for the console version. Even our in-house engineering with the Luminous Engine has moved up a step in development. So we’re at the next level in terms of our environmental creations. That’s a little bit of a showcase of what we’re capable of, but it’s still something that we’re still continuously working on. We’ve incorporated a lot of improved technologies for physics simulations and made it more natural and realistic. So we’ve tried to kind of elevate our game in a sense.
Obviously, we couldn’t do a simultaneous release for console and PC for FFXV, as we were focused on getting the console version right first. So it’s hard to say if that’s gonna be a trend for more Japanese games in the future.
We saw with Nier: Automata, they released the Steam version pretty much alongside the console version. We saw that they had a massive reaction from their Steam user fanbase. So as a trend, moving forward, we think that means publishers and developers are gonna put focus on the PC and make sure that that’s part of their overall strategy. We’ve made some great strides with the PC release of FFXV. From technical standpoint, to run the Windows Edition at a native 4K and 60 frames per second requires a beefy system. We understand that, there’s certain things that PC gamers hold a lot of value for, like turning up all the graphics options to run the game how you want. But being able to experience this in 60 frames per second, it is really a genuinely rich experience.
One thing that PC gamers are really into is on the modification side of things. Many developers release tool-sets and design kits for their games on PC. While many people are anticipating mods to make the characters nude, there’s likely going to much more than that with actual gameplay creations. What’s your stance on PC mods, and are you OK with fans going at it with the game?
Hajime Tabata: Well, we’ll definitely be allowing user-generated content for players. We know that that’s a common thing. We’ll provide a level editor so that players can create their own quests and their own mini missions. So that’s at least one type of thing that we want to contribute and give to the players. But as far as the other stuff, we’ll look at how the PC audience reacts to the Windows Edition with these and how many of them actually engaging with it. And depending on that, we might start thinking about what to contribute or what other tool sets to provide. We have plans for months, but we we want to see how this takes off first. Before we start thinking about okay, maybe if people seem to like this, so let’s give them this tool set.
So you’re pretty open to what fans plan to make?
Hajime Tabata: We want players to enjoy the experience, and that’s part of the PC gaming world. So we understand that that’s something that people are looking forward to. We definitely have concerns at how extreme people might take the mods, however. But we hope that people take advantage of it in good taste. Depending on how that turns out, is actually going to determine what kind of tool sets we end up providing. We’ll be hands-off and just see what happens. What content that comes from PC mods, it’s there for the players to use. But we’ll be keeping an eye on the Steam workshop page.
Again, work on Final Fantasy XV has been going on for a long time. Looking back on the time you’ve spent with the game, what stick out most to you as something that you feel most proud of accomplishing?
Hajime Tabata: Well, it might not be one particular thing, but the fact that throughout the course of the development for Final Fantasy XV, we constantly made an effort to try new things and try new challenges, and also challenge ourselves to do something at a higher level than what we’d previously done. So being able to do that, you know, through all this time is the one thing that I’m really proud of.
