Ghost of Yotei, the sequel to 2020’s samurai open-world game Ghost of Tsushima is doing what every good sequel should: giving the main character a gun. Announced at the PlayStation State of Play this week, Ghost of Yotei sets out to tell the tale of new female protagonist Atsu’s journey in 1603 – more than 300 years after the events of Tsushima. Of course, with sequels comes iteration on gameplay mechanics, and what better way to do that than by introducing firearms into the mix. According to The New York Times, players will “be able to master firearms in addition to melee weapons like the katana,” which sounds like it could be the type of escalation an open-world samurai game could use to spice things up. Keeping things from feeling repetitive is something creative director Jason Connell is acutely aware of.As Connell tells the New York Times, “One challenge that comes with making an open-world game is the repetitive nature of doing the same thing over and over.” He continues on, “We wanted to balance against that and find unique experiences.” I’d say giving players the option to bust down the door with some new weaponry is one way to combat this problem, but it re…

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As Ubisoft works to turn things around after a few bad years, CEO Yves Guillemot reckons making good, “solid” games won’t cut it.On the heels of the Assassin’s Creed Shadows delay which has made Ubisoft’s 2024 noticeably lighter, Guillemot discussed plans for the future. Bear in mind, this past February Guillemot described Assassin’s Creed Mirage as a turning point for the studio’s output as it works to regularly put out good games again – in his words, “the beginning of our turnaround to consistently creating and delivering high-quality, long-lasting games.” Speaking on an investor conference call today, Guillemot reckoned that good just ain’t good enough. “In today’s challenging market and with gamers expecting extraordinary experiences, delivering solid quality is no longer enough,” the CEO said. “We must strive for excellence in all aspects of our work. This will enable the biggest entry in the [Assassin’s Creed] franchise to fully deliver on its ambition, notably by fulfilling the promise of our dual protagonist adventure with Naoe and Yasuke bringing two very different gameplay styles.” This stance – which warrants the immediate counterpoint that, perhap…

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Ubisoft has seemingly again commented on the backlash to Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Black protagonist, this time saying it isn’t pushing any specific agenda.In case you’re among the lucky few to have missed it, Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been through the ringer since it was announced back in May. Certain corners of the internet pounced on it for a perceived lack of historical accuracy and forced diversity. Meanwhile, its reveal sparked a heated debate over whether its Black protagonist, Yasuke, was actually a real-life Samurai (he was), and completely unrelated to all of that, Ubisoft also had to apologize for the unauthorized use of a flag in Shadows’ concept art.Ubisoft has responded strongly to the controversy, with Assassin’s Creed executive producer Marc-Alexis Côté hitting back at Elon Musk for “feeding hatred” in June and CEO Yves Guillemot denouncing “hateful acts” toward its developers a couple of weeks later. In July, it defended itself against the historical accuracy complaints by reminding fans that, “while we strive for authenticity in everything we do, Assassin’s Creed games are works of fiction inspired by real historical events and figures.”In a c…

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A God of War Ragnarok PC mod intended to let players bypass the controversial PlayStation Network sign-in requirement has been taken offline by the mod author.First reported by PC Gamer, iArtoriasUA’s NoPSSDK mod was designed to disable the PSN account-linking overlay and mimic a fully offline mode. PC Gamer’s own testing was successful, but others reported still having to deal with the PSN linking prompt. Regardless, it’s now been taken offline and you’ll simply see an error page if you head to the old URL on NexusMods.When the mod first disappeared, there was a lot of suspicion online about the reason for it being pulled and the party responsible. However, NexusMods itself has since shared a screenshot of a conversation it had with Artorias in which the modder admitted to taking the mod offline. It turns out coverage from sites like PC Gamer and IGN made Artorias worry that Sony might take legal action, even though the mod didn’t change any actual content in God of War Ragnarok.”Hello, that was my personal decision because the mod got too much attention … thus I thought that it would be better to remove it from public to remove any potential threats from the Sony side,” said Ar…

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