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An enhanced version of 'Metro Exodus' is coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S
The next Metro game is in the works and it could have a multiplayer component.
'Shenmue III' delayed -- again -- until November 19th
If you've been waiting patiently for the arrival of Shenmue III, you'll have to temper your excitement a little longer. The long-awaited third installment in the classic series has been delayed yet again. Ryo Hazuki is now expected to return to your screens November 19th.
'Metro Exodus' will be an Epic Games Store exclusive for a year
PC gamers planning to explore the post-apocalyptic world of Metro Exodus will have to go through the Epic Games Store. Publisher Deep Silver announced today that the upcoming game will be available exclusively through the Epic Games Store at launch and will be pulled from Steam. The announcement is a major win for the Epic Games Store, which has been attempting to poach titles from its biggest competitor since launching just over a month ago.
'Shenmue III' makes its long-delayed debut on August 27th, 2019
The long-awaited, crowdfunded Shenmue III was originally supposed to arrive by December 2017, but that clearly never came to pass -- delays have pushed it back two years. The developers at Ys Net appear ready to hold their ground, though. They've announced that the third installment in Ryo's martial arts saga will launch on August 27th, 2019. The studio hasn't shed much more light on the story in the process, but the accompanying trailer (below) reiterates the prophecy that Ryo and Ling Shenhua would join together on a "rocky path."
Survival shooter 'Metro Exodus' delayed to early 2019
If you were hoping to play Metro Exodus this year, bad news: the first-person shooter has been pushed back to early 2019. The third instalment in THQ's nuclear-ravaged survival series was announced at E3 2017 during Microsoft's press conference. The trailer started in a snowy wasteland — a staple of the Metro franchise — before switching to an underground tunnel swarming with ghoulish creatures. The hero later battled his way to the the surface, revealing a new woodland location filled with broken buildings and telephone masts. A second cinematic trailer was then shown at The Game Awards last December. As with previous entries, the game is loosely based on the Metro novels penned by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky.
'Crackdown 3' lives in the shadow cast by 'Agents of Mayhem'
Microsoft's biggest hurdle with Crackdown 3 isn't its rumored troubled development cycle, it's that Agents of Mayhem exists and is coming out first. Both share a similar premise: You're a superpowered human given free reign over a cartoony open world. There are plenty of physics-based shenanigans that result from shooting harpoon rifles at snipers and black hole guns at gang members in both, and each has a familiar structure of taking out a crime syndicate from the bottom up. The difference lies in the execution: There are a lot of cooks working on Crackdown 3 -- some brand new to the franchise -- while Mayhem's team is a group of seasoned open-world veterans.
EU probing Valve and five publishers for geo-blocking games
The legislative body of the European Union is launching an antitrust investigation into regional pricing and geo-blocking practices on Valve's Steam store. In a statement, the European Commission says it's investigating "bilateral agreements" between Valve and five publishers: Bandai Namco, Capcom, Focus Home, Koch Media and ZeniMax. The investigation is focused on activation keys, whose primary function is as an anti-piracy tool. After buying a physical copy of a game, users need to submit an activation key to prove they own it and add it to their Steam library. Once done, the game is then available on any device that the user is logged into.
NPD finally adds digital tracking to its game sales reports
For years, the NPD Group has tracked and reported video game sales figures. Every month, the company issues an email to the media detailing the top ten selling games for the month prior, total amount spent on games, hardware and accessories and year-over-year and generation-over-generation growth or decline. The glaring hole in those reports is that they didn't account for digital game sales from places like Steam, PlayStation Network or Xbox Live. But that's changing and with this month's data, we'll finally have steps toward a true, comprehensive picture of how much a particular title has sold, both from retailers and digital distribution.
'Persona 5' and other Atlus games are coming to Europe
If you're a fan of the Persona series and its stylised take on the JRPG formula, good news -- Persona 5 is coming to Europe. The region was notably absent when the game was announced for the US last month. Now we know why -- Atlus and Sega are relying on Deep Silver, the publisher of Homefront: The Revolution, to distribute the title across the continent. It's an unusual move given that Sega is a publisher in its own right, and perhaps indicative of a wider business decision. Aside from the occasional Sonic game, there's little for the company to get behind these days.
Former 'Dead Island 2' developer can't pay its bills
The situation with Dead Island 2 and developer Yager took another turn today as the company announced it's filing for insolvency. Yager Productions, the team formed to work on the zombie sequel, can't pay the money it owes to debtors. "At the moment, there are different options to be assessed while wages for employees have been secured for the upcoming months," a company statement reads. The filing is a direct result of being removed from Dead Island 2's development, managing director Timo Ullmann writes. Insolvency helps protect the company's staff and will allow "time to sort out the best options for reogranizing this entity," he says. The rest of Yager, including the team working on the sci-fi, ship-to-ship combat game Dreadnought are in the clear however and are "independent and remain unaffected" by today's news.
'Dead Island 2' needs a new developer
Dead Island 2 is dead. For now at least. Publisher Deep Silver sent out an update today announcing that it's no longer working with the open-world zombie-massacre/absurd-weapon-crafting simulator sequel's developer, Yager, on the title. "With Dead Island 2, Deep Silver has always been dedicated to delivering the sequel that Dead Island fans deserve," the statement reads. "After careful consideration, today we announce the decision to part ways with development partner Yager." The email goes on to say that the publisher will "continue working towards bringing" its vision of the game to life and will have more info in the future. Deep Silver and Yager showed a very early version of the game off at E3 in 2014, but it wasn't all that impressive and the game didn't look anywhere close to the intentionally cheesy cinematic trailer that premiered during Sony's media briefing, either.
'Mighty No. 9' release blasted back to September
Mighty No. 9, the new, Kickstarted game from Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune, is now due out on September 15 in the US, delayed from a spring 2015 launch window. Inafune's team, Comcept, announced the delay in a Kickstarter update, along with another nugget of news: Deep Silver -- the publisher behind Saints Row, Homefront and Dead Island -- will publish Mighty No. 9. Comcept promises that the delay will allow the team to add Japanese and French voiceovers, extra subtitle languages, and an extra level, boss and playable character.
These are the biggest third-party games at E3 2014
Sure, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft all have their own internally developed games, but there's so much more to E3 than what The Big Three show off for their respective platforms. Even better, almost every game from the likes of Activision and Electronic Arts will appear on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One so there's almost no need to choose which platform to buy if you want to play a specific title, either. Let's get down to business, shall we?
Saints Row IV banned in Australia due to 'unjustified' evil
For every tearful accountant at Saints Row HQ, there must be a gleeful marketing person punching the air, playing mini golf and doing whatever else marketing people do when they're full of glee. Conflicted emotions aside, however, game publisher Deep Silver can now claim the notorious distinction of having its latest title, Saints Row IV, rejected outright by the Australian Classification Board (ACB). It's the first such refusal since the ACB implemented a new R18+ rating, which is meant to allow for adult themes within games but which evidently couldn't cope with Saints Row's peculiar depictions of sexual violence (which were "not justified by context") or its drug-themed reward system (which is "prohibited by the computer games guidelines"). According to The Guardian, this effectively means Saints Row IV is banned from sale in retail stores in Australia, but Joystiq has received word from Deep Silver saying it intends to create a "reworked" version of its open-world game specifically for that country. Meanwhile, the regular version has been given PEGI 18 and ESRB M ratings elsewhere, and it looks to be on track for an August release date.
UK Pub Deep Silver to bring S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky to North America
With S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky shipping worldwide on August 29, Deep Silver has announced that it will handle publishing duties in North America for developer GSC Game World's upcoming prequel to 2007's S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. We think it's particularly interesting that Deep Silver, a UK-based studio that only established a US footprint last month in Los Angeles, has been trusted to steer the game's North American debut instead of THQ, which handled the original game's release last year. As the latest in GSC's considerable plans for the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. universe, the game promises a "what-if" look at the events leading up to last year's FPS/RPG hybrid, and according to Deep Silver was "created as a warning to mankind against mindless play with technologies" -- especially, we assume, any tech that can give rise to hordes of radioactive beasties.
