Year: 2024

Bloober Team is chasing its successful Silent Hill 2 remake launch with an announcement of a new IP and third-person survival horror game — Cronos: The New Dawn. “Our commitment to redefining the horror genre continues with this survival horror title, which represents a natural progression of our creative vision and our studio’s strategy,” CEO Piotr Babieno says in a press release. The nasty time travel adventure is the first original survival horror game from Bloober, whose breakout titles Layers of Fear and  The Medium largely operate in the land of slow, sometimes lumbering, psychological creepiness. But a new cinematic trailer suggests that Cronos: The New Dawn will be more aggressively nauseating than that, with skinny H.R. Giger beasts and a desolate zero-gravity environment. 

Cronos: The New Dawn – Official Cinematic Reveal Trailer – YouTube

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“Cronos: The New Dawn is a twisted time travel story set in an unforgiving post-apocalyptic future in 1980s Poland,” the press release continues. “Players will take on the role of a Traveler, an agent of the enigmatic Collective with a mission to extract selected people who didn’…

WUCHANG: Fallen Feathers – Official Trailer | Xbox Partner Preview October 2024 – YouTube

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Where the developers for games like Black Myth: Wukong and Phantom Blade Zero have come out and said they aren’t making a Soulslike, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a loud-and-proud “Soulslike action RPG” set in a horror fiction take on the late Ming Dynasty. I got this vibe from its reveal earlier this year, and the new trailer fresh from today’s Xbox partner showcase seals the deal with phrenetic bosses and plentiful parries that are ringing my Sekiro alarms. There’s thankfully a lot more gameplay this time. Wuchang: Fallen Feathers is a third-person action game promising a distinctly darker take on the Chinese history and mythology that’s (rather excitingly) becoming more prominent nowadays. Our hero, the female pirate Wuchang, is a one-woman army sporting dual swords, glaives, straight swords, magic clubs, magic flames, a spear gun, a flamethrower, a Sephiroth-esque blood wing, and a shotgun lightning bow. Let’s not forget the feathered arm, either – evidently a sign of Wuchang’s mixed bloodline. The sheer variety of weapons and attacks reminds me a bit of Nioh, a…

Five years after its formation, the 2K studio 31st Union has revealed its debut project: a free-to-play, third-person roguelike hero shooter tentatively titled Project Ethos.31st Union has had an interesting history since its formation in 2019. It was founded by Sledgehammer Games co-founder and former studio head Michael Condrey as 2K Silicon Valley in 2019 and officially named 31st Union in 2020. That’s not all that interesting, but it is pretty weird that the new studio said it would be focused on “a single new IP at the time” and then waited almost five years to reveal it. To be fair, a little something called COVID-19 happened between then and now, but that’s a long time between announcement and reveal regardless.Project Ethos is described in a new press release as “a new free-to-play, 3rd-person roguelike hero shooter and an exciting evolution on the genre.” The roguelike element sounds like an interesting twist on a well-established genre, and it sounds like it’ll revolve around something called Evolutions, which 31st describes as “powerful, semi-randomized, upgrades unique to each hero. Evolve a sniper into a close-range skirmisher, or a support role into a powerful lone wo…

Tekken 8 – despite being a formidable entry in the 30-year-old fighting game franchise – has been getting on fans’ nerves. Its Year 1 Pass did not include the recently released Genmaji Temple stage DLC, a fact that fueled players’ existing disappointment over excessive microtransactions. But now, after fans revolted through aggressive Steam review bombing and impassioned Reddit threads, Tekken 8 devs are trying to make things better. “We apologize for not meeting the community’s expectations for the ‘Playable Character Year 1 Pass’ content and the ‘Genmaji Temple’ DLC release method,” Tekken posted on Twitter. To pacify players, Tekken 8 will automatically add the upcoming winter battle stage DLC to Year 1 Pass owners’ games. Then, it will gift all online Tekken 8 players the cost of Genmaji Temple (500 Tekken coins, or $5) if they log in to the game any time between October 29 and November 26. “All members of the Tekken Project team continue working to improve Tekken 8, and we appreciate your feedback and continued support of Tekken 8,” the developers’ Twitter statement continues. “Actually kind of a huge W,” said one very upvoted Reddit comment. “You guys…

For the time being, the award for “Steam Next Fest demo that killed me the fastest” officially goes to Vividerie, which developer WangleLine proudly describes as “a hard bullet roguelike” that was explicitly “designed for those who crave a difficult game.” I mean, I don’t know what I expected after that sales pitch, but this demo still caught me off my guard. You get three hearts and a stick to bite down on and then it’s off to the bullet-filled dungeon. Punches are not being pulled, but boy is it fun. If you’ve played games like Enter the Gungeon, Nuclear Throne, or Brotato, you have a pretty good idea of what’s coming. But at the same time, you don’t. Fire your cooldown-based weapons at enemies and dodge the zillion projectiles coming your way. Vividerie ups the ante with a zippy dash that can damage enemies and let you pass through shots unharmed, and this allows for clutch finishes as well as clumsy mistakes. A big difference is that, instead of a seemingly bottomless arsenal of weapons, you collect items that augment your primary and secondary attacks, your dodge ability (presumably, though I haven’t seen any yet), and add a special active item to your loadout. That’…

Arma 3 launched way back on September 12, 2013, just five days before the original launch of Grand Theft Auto 5. I’m bringing up this comparison because it might help communicate to you just how long military simulation fans have been waiting for Arma 4, which developer Bohemia Interactive has just announced for 2027. Yes, 2027, as if that’s a real year any of us are going to live to see.A giant title card reading ‘Arma 4 coming 2027’ appeared during Bohemia Interactive’s 25th anniversary concert stream this week, and the devs soon after reiterated the news in a tweet. That’s literally all we know for now, but you’ve gotta respect the audacity of a studio dropping a release window that far off like it’s nothing.Arma is the biggest military simulation series around, built for people who wanna get very serious about tactical maneuvers in their shooters. Arma 3 was a technical wonder when it launched in 2013, but a decade later it’s certainly showing its age, and the stopgap Cold War spinoff Arma Reforger, which launched in 2023, hasn’t fully pulled people away from the last mainline game.Just in case the absurdity of the wait spanning from Arma 3 to Arma 4 hasn’t sunk in yet, here’s …

Assassin’s Creed actor and metroidvania director Abubakar Salim says “too much money is being spent on games people do not want” by figures “who are not in touch with the medium” and are chasing the next live-service hit.Speaking with Dexerto, Salim – who stars in House of the Dragon Season 2, played Bayek in Assassin’s Creed Origins, and last year released indie Metroidvania Tales of Kenzera: Zau – suggested that the process of making his own game “made me have a much deeper appreciation for developers and the work that goes into it.”However, he also suggested that that process had opened his eyes to the fact that “games are still very much treated as a business rather than necessarily as an art form.” That approach, he says, is why “a lot of these big game publishers and companies are going for the games as a service model. They want to try and recreate the next Fortnite because it’s going to make them more money. Games shouldn’t be about that. It shouldn’t be about money, it should be about expression.”Following up on those comments on Twitter, Salim said that “too much money is being spent on games people do not want.” The chase for the next Fortnite, he says, means that “there…

Marvel’s Blade is one of those video games that you just can’t help but be desperate to learn more about. Following its reveal in 2023, this new Blade game has been relatively under-wraps, although a new release from the developers behind Dishonored 2 and Deathloop is always worth waiting for. That’s why Marvel’s Blade is among the most anticipated upcoming Xbox Series X games. While it’s unlikely that this third-person, single-player experience will land as a new game of 2025, it is still worth keeping on your radar. So while we wait for more Marvel’s Blade news – the latest piece included a first tease of the in-game character model – let’s get you caught up with everything we know so far about the adventure. Marvel’s Blade release date speculation Xbox Game Studios is yet to set a firm Marvel’s Blade release date or window. When the team at Arkane Lyon revealed the upcoming Marvel game back at The Game Awards 2023, the team said that it was going “silent for a while” as it moved through the next phase of production. Which is all to say that I’d be shocked to see this one appear before 2026. Marvel’s Blade platforms Marvel’s Blade is coming to PC and …

Project 007 is still something of a mystery, which is fitting given the subject matter. IO Interactive, the studio responsible for driving the Hitman franchise, is hard at work on a brand new James Bond game – an origin story which will work outside of the established canon. The pairing of the studio behind some of the best stealth games of all-time and a franchise that continues to deliver (check out any one of the best Bond movies for a reminder of that) is exceptional, and we are keen to learn more. It’s expected that Project 007 remains in early pre-production, but there are some details out there. So for all the latest news on this new Bond game and the first gameplay teases, keep reading to discover everything we know so far.  What is Project 007? Project 007 is a band new stealth-action game from the genre masters at IO Interactive – the studio behind the beloved Hitman franchise. Project 007 is a working title for this new bond game, which the studio has described as “Featuring a wholly original Bond story, players will step into the shoes of the world’s favorite Secret Agent to earn their 00 status in the very first James Bond origin story.”Project 0…

Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s achievements have been revealed, prompting concerns from one community member about spoilers.This article features a minor gameplay spoiler for Dragon Age: The Veilguard.Achievements trackers scraped the awards for Dragon Age: The Veilguard last night, and it didn’t take long for fans to take note. Unfortunately for many, that involved reading the achievements themselves, leading players to realize that story details about BioWare’s long-awaited fantasy RPG could be gleaned from the descriptions.A thread about the achievements on Reddit warns that the list features “major” Veilguard spoilers. There are plenty of awards that are relatively light on narrative – though they’ll obviously still give away details, so steer clear if you’re hoping to go in entirely unspoiled – but several that do give information away. Many more, however, are directly related to story moments, and they’re not always entirely subtle about what they’re focused on.That’s enough for BioWare YouTuber Kala Elizabeth to warn fans of “actual big spoilers,” and suggested that “I wish I wouldn’t have read” the achievement list. With the Dragon Age: The Veilguard release date now imminent,…