It's time for another wrap-up of the going-ons of the game industry. Let's check up on the smaller things that have been announced these past couple of weeks. I'll be covering news up until February 21, and the game release calendar will reflect releases up until the end of March.
Bill Trinen Defends DLC in "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild"
One of last week's biggest controversies was the fact that Nintendo's upcoming Legend of Zelda game
was to have paid downloadable content. Now that things have cooled down on the subject, Nintendo of America's Bill Trinen has spoken out on the matter. He stressed the fact that Breath of the Wild's development was completely finished and quite close to the deadline by the time everything had wrapped up. Afterwards, Nintendo had discussed that it would be a waste of such a great game to just let that be the end of things, so the development team decided to keep working on adding new content to the game, so that players could keep coming back and be able to look forward to more BOTW in the future. During the end of the interview, he states that perhaps if the announcement was able to be put out earlier, there wouldn't have been as much backlash.
And if you’re a Zelda fan buying Nintendo Switch at launch and really you’re buying it for Zelda, I mean how happy are you to know that hey, I’m going to be able to play more Zelda in this world again later this year?
SOURCE
Capcom Renews "Deep Down" Trademark Yet Again
Deep Down was a game that was supposed to launch with the Sony PlayStation 4, and was announced back in 2013 as a free to play title created with a brand new engine to show off the power of the PS4. During TGS 2013, the producer of the game, Yoshinori Ono claimed the title would be releasing sometime in 2014. It is now 2017, and absolutely nothing has been heard about the game...until now. A quiet renewal of the "Deep Down" trademark took place recently. Capcom hasn't spoken out about the game's status, nor the trademark as of the time of writing. Deep Down's progress still remains in limbo, but it's clear that Capcom at least cares enough to pay attention to the game's legal status.
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Nintendo Switch System Previews Go Live on Feb 23, BOTW Embargo Lifts Mar 2
If you're interested in knowing what the media thinks of the Nintendo Switch, and its games, then prepare yourself, as the full review embargo for all games media outlets will lift on February 23, for the Switch itself, and March 2, for Zelda. Short
previews for the game and console will be available on on February 23, and 24, respectively. This means that larger publications have access to both the console and most of the Switch lineup right this very moment.
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Court Throws Out Digital Homicide v Jim Sterling Case
In 2014, video game critic Jim Sterling made a video bashing developer Digital Homicide's title, Slaughtering Grounds. Sterling called the game "an absolute failure", and branded it as one of the worst games he played that year. Digital Homicide, upsetted by this, claimed that Sterling had not played the game correctly, and falsley advertised the game was worse than it actually is just to gain shock value for entertainment purposes. The company filed a DMCA takedown against the video, and it was temporarily removed from YouTube for a short time, though it was later allowed to be reuploaded. This wasn't the end of things, as in March 2016, Digital Homicide decided to take legal action against the critic, filing a case in the Arizona District Courts on claims of libel, slander, and verbal assault. The lawsuit demanded 10 million dollars in damages. While this particular case was making its way through the system, Digital Homicide also attempted to sue anonymous Steam users for negative reviews on Steam. Now, as of February 2017, both of these cases have been dismissed by the district court.
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Rogue Legacy Developers Announce New Game "Full Metal Furies"
From the creators of Rogue Legacy comes a new game, called Full Metal Furies. The game is a multiplayer co-op brawler, set to release on Windows 10 and Xbox One, which means the game will be cross-save and cross-buy. Full Metal Furies is set to launch sometime in 2017.
Bethesda Has Five Unnanounced Games in Development Right Now
During an interview with IGN, Todd Howard of Bethesda Game Studios revealed that the company has 7 titles currently in active development as of 2017. Two of these titles have already been announced in the past, Fallout 4 VR, and Skyrim for the Switch. That leaves five unannounced games from Bethesda. In a previous interview with Glixel, Howard claimed that one of Bethesda's working titles is a mobile game, which is a follow-up to Fallout Shelter. Additionally, Bethesda will be once again having their own conference at E3, hinting that they might just have some big announcements for June.
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Dark Horse Comic's Super Mario Encyclopedia Coming West
Back in 2015, when it was still the 30th anniversary of Super Mario, Japan got a celebratory Mario encyclopedia that has all sorts of information on the series in it. However, the west didn't get the same treatment. 2 years later, though, and Dark Horse Comics Publishing is ready to bring the 256-page book to North America, with Amazon pegging the release for June 15.
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Pokemon Go Gets Around to Adding Gen 2 Pokemon
Months after release, Niantic's mobile game, Pokemon Go has received an update which adds in all the Pokemon from the 2nd generation of the series. Thanks to this update, Pokemon Go has now climbed its way back up to the top 3 highest grossing Android titles, and is even topping the iOS store's storefront.
SOURCE: GBAtemp Press Inbox
Xenoblade 2 to Get New Localization Studio
8-4, the localization studio behind Fire Emblem Awakening, Xenoblade Chronicles, and the very controversial Xenoblade Chronicles X will not be returning to localize the upcoming Xenoblade Chronicles 2, according to a Tweet from the head of 8-4, the studio is far too busy localizing other titles this year, and will not be working on XC2. At the time of writing, there's no confirmation on who actually will be localizing the game, which is set to release sometime in 2017.
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Lock's Quest Getting a Current Gen Port
THQ Nordic will be bringing Lock's Quest, a cult classic Nintendo DS game to current gen platforms later this year. Lock's Quest initially release on 2008, and garnered a loyal fanbase, despite the game selling poorly. The title is getting remastered visuals, and will be making its way to Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC thanks to developer Digital Continue.
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Resident Evil 7 DLC "Banned Footage" Out Now
Capcom's latest Resident Evil title has just gotten some DLC. Titled "Banned Footage" Vol 1 and 2, this content pack delves into the past of the Baker family.
- Nightmare: Trapped in a basement full of unknown horrors, you must fight for your life.
- Bedroom: Tied to a bed, you must try to escape while avoiding Mother's watchful gaze. Includes the highly difficult extra bonus content Ethan Must Die.
- 21: Take part in a twisted card game where the stakes are your life.
- Daughters: Experience the events that unfolded on the night it all started, when the downfall of the Bakers was set in motion.
Includes the extra bonus content Jack's 55th Birthday.
Source: GBAtemp Press Inbox
King of Fighters XIV Getting New Content
King of Fighters XIV will be getting a few more patches and updates throughout 2017, SNK revealed during the King of Fighers World Championship. First off will be a "classic Iori" costume, which will release on Feb 23, followed by 4 more costume DLCs in March. There's also going to be new free stages as well as new characters, which will be revealed in the coming weeks.
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Metal Gear Movie is Still In the Works
Last time, we discussed how the Uncharted movie's script finally reached completion after years of muddled development. This time, it's Metal Gear Solid's turn. According to an interview on
Collider with filmmaker Jordan Vogt-Roberts, he's been working on the movie since 2014. In the article, he talks about the difficulties of adapting the series into a movie, and how important the Metal Gear Solid series is to him. You can read more below.
It’s so interesting because unlike a comic book that’s had 40 writers or 100 writers over the course of a decade or two decades or whatever, for decades now Metal Gear Solid has essentially had one voice. So you’re dealing with a highly, highly specific property that’s idiosyncratic to one persona and one person’s point of view and the way in which they interpret sort of culture and Western culture and twist that back around into this super pure amazing property that has a tone that I think is unlike anything else that is out there. I actually think that when people see [Kong] they’ll realize like, ‘Oh tonally there are things that sort of line up with this’ where this can be incredibly serious and dark and intense or it can also be incredibly goofy and kind of take the piss out of itself and be slapstick at times, much like Metal Gear. Luckily there are amazing producers on it, but that’s a property that is so pure and important to my soul, because it’s something that I grew up on, that I would love to shepherd into the film that it needs to be. I think it’d be a massive film, I think it’d be an incredible film, but it needs to be done in a way that completely honors what Metal Gear is because it’s a classic and it’s a seminal work not just in video games, but in media
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Nioh Getting PVP, Boss Rush, High Difficulty Bonus Missions
Koei Tecmo's samurai styled take on Dark Souls, Nioh, will be getting some extra content soon. There will be two free updates, one consiting of 10 "high-difficulty" missions, as well as a boss rush type mode. These will become available sometime in "late March". In April, a PVP mode is set to be added to the game. Finally, Nioh will be getting a DLC expansion pack, which will add new weapons, new scenarios, new characters, new stages, and more. This pack will also release in April. Koei Tecmo also announced that they plan to have two more DLC expansions release by the end of 2017.
GBAtemp gave Nioh a 9/10. You can read the full official review of the game here.
SOURCE: GBAtemp Press Inbox
Nier Automata's PC Port Could Be Delayed
Things aren't looking so good for the PC version of Nier Automata. The game was initially scheduled to launch on March 7th, alongside the PS4 version, but from the looks of things, it might be delayed by just a bit. During a stream with the game's producer, Yosuke Saito, he said that the Steam port might face a delay, as both Platinum Games and Square Enix are worried about potential piracy of the title. He later goes on to say that releasing the game on PC won't take long at all, but it almost certainly will not launch with the console version.
UPDATE: The PC version is indeed delayed, but only by 3 days, to March 10.
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Ex SNK Staff Making New Physical SNES Game
A couple of ex-SNK developers have gone off to create their own fighting game, Unholy Night, and they're determined to make it authentically retro, going to the point of creating the game for the Super Nintendo! And now, the team wants to create physical cartridges for the game, taking to Kickstarter in hopes of hitting the project's goal of $52,500. Should Unholy Night get a physical release, the cart will be able to be played on an original SNES console, or any third party/clone hardware. The cartridge will also only be available in NTSC format.
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Fans Mod Minecraft to Include An 80 Hour Long Pokemon RPG
Phoenix Projects, a modding team, has just released a huge mod for Minecraft. Titled Cobalt and Amethyst, this Minecraft mod adds in in the ability to fight, capture, and train little blocky versions of Pokemon, 136 of them to be specific. They even add in an entirely unique storyline which takes upwards of 80 hours to complete! Check it out below, on the Minecraft forums.
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Fullmetal Alchemist: Stray Rondo's Fan Translation is Complete
Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, also known in the west as Fullmetal Alchemist had a number of game adaptations released for it back when the anime originally aired in Japan. Most of these would never see an English release, but thanks to a translator named "mz", we can now play Fullmetal Alchemest: Stray Rondo, a 2004 Game Boy Advance game, in complete English. You can download the xdelta patch in the source below.
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Grandia Developer Interviews Translated
A blog called "Shmuplations" has gone to the huge effort of translating a number of interviews from the Japan-only Sega Saturn Magazine, back from 1998. The interviews pertain to the Grandia series, an RPG from the late 1990s, which had talent like Noriyuki Iwadare (of Ace Attorney fame), and the series creators, Hidenobu Takahashi and Takeshi Miyaji. The interviews feature them talking to magazine writer about the game's world, music, and characters. The blog also did a full translation of a pre-development interview with the same people in 1997,
here.
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Cemu 1.7.2c Bayonetta Gameplay
The Wii U emulator, Cemu is coming along, and we can see that Bayonetta 2 is in a playable state, as well as being upscaled to 4K resolution. There are, of course, numerous glitches, but the emulator is definitely making insane progress.
RPCS3 DX12 Build Ni No Kuni Gameplay
The PS3 emulator is also progressing, albeit much slower than Cemu. Ni No Kuni is shown off here in this video, definitely booting and running the game, but not without horrible slowdown, and inability to emulate many of the assets and character models.
The Legend of Zelda: BOTW - In This Destiny
The Silver Case
Birthdays the Beginning
Into the Breach (From the FTL Devs)
Desire
Yoku's Island
March 3
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (NS, Wii U)
I am Setsuna (NS)
Just Dance 2017 (NS)
Super Bomberman R (NS)
1-2 Switch (NS)
World of Goo (NS)
Human Resource Machine (NS)
Little Inferno (NS)
March 7
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon (XBO, PS4, PC)
Nier Automata (PS4)
Lego Worlds (XBO, PS4, PC)
Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 (PC, XBO)
March 17
Danganronpa 1&2 Reload (PS4)
March 21
Mass Effect Andromeda (XBO, PS4, PC)
Toukiden 2 (PS4, PSV, PC)
March 27
Dark Souls III: The Ringed City (XBO, PS4, PC)
Operation Abyss: New Tokyo Legacy (PC)
March 28
Rivals of Aether
Kingdom Hearts 1/5+2.5 ReMIX (PS4)
MLB 17: The Show (PS4)
