This Week in Gaming: April 16

Another wrap up of all the past weeks' worth of best news is here. We've got some interesting stories, ranging from Switch ports, a neat fan translation, and maybe even a new Bioshock game getting revealed! So, lets sit back, relax, and let's enjoy some reading.

Industry News

Switch port of indie game saves studio from shutting down

Castle Pixel, a small indie studio, was about to close its doors. With the last of their funds they had, they planned to release their game onto Switch before shutting down. However, they were met with great surprise when Nintendo Switch sales of their game, Blossom Tales, sold over 20 times the amount that it had on its original PC release, saving the company from going defunct. With the revenue that Castle Pixel received from the port, they can now also focus on developing another game in the future, which if this story is anything to go by, will probably mean a release for the Switch.

Source

Ex-Sony CEO to make his own publishing studio to help indie devs

The once-CEO to PlayStation, Jack Tretton, has revealed that he will be opening up a company specifically geared towards funding independent developers of video games. Tretton promises that he will not ask for the rights to the IP that devs create, but instead, he'll fund them based on gameplay "milestones" as they go. Then, once the game launches, he'll request a percentage of income based on how well the game sells. Tretton has not only been the former CEO of PlayStation of America, but he was also the VP of sales at Activision as well.

Source

Steam Spy to shut down due to Steam privacy settings change

Steam Spy is a website that can tell users an estimate of how many games are owned by players on Steam. It can be a useful tool to give sales data when companies do not make their sales public. However, it seems this website will be coming to an end, as Steam/Valve has now changed a privacy setting, making games that you own hidden by default. With this, Steam Spy can no longer accurately make estimations on sales, making it lose its function.

Source

Shovel Knight hits 2 million copies sold

The mega indie hit platformer Shovel Knight has just celebrated a whopping 2 million sales. Released originally in 2014, the game would go on to be released for the 3DS, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Wii U, Vita, and most recently, the Nintendo Switch. Yacht Club Games broke down which platforms sold the most copies, with PC and 3DS accounting nearly 50% of all sales. Beyond that, the third most popular platform for the game is the Nintendo Switch, which has had Shovel Knight on it for the least amount of time, yet has amazingly high sales that are almost on par with the 3DS version.

Source

FTC claims Nintendo and Sony's warranty policy could be illegal

Nintendo and Sony might find themselves in hot water soon, in regards to a policy they have. The Federal Trade Commission states that both companies current policy is against a law that was enacted in 1975. And that policy entails warranty voiding. Normally, if you open up a Sony or Nintendo console to repair it, or use third party components, then your warranty is voided. However, this is illegal, and the FTC is cracking down on those don't abide by it, which means both gaming companies have been sent "warning letters", which means they have 30 days to remove such statements from their policy.

Source

General News

Games with Gold Games for April

The Witness and Assassin's Creed: Syndicate are the Xbox One games that'll be free this month with Games With Gold. Also free are Cars 2 and Dead Space 2 on the 360. So long as you have an active subscription and claim your games each month, you can play the Xbox One titles no matter what. If you cancel your Xbox Live Gold, then you no longer can play those games, although any 360 GWG titles will remain playable.

Games with PlayStation Plus

On the PlayStation side of things, we have Mad Max for PS4, along with Q*Bert Reloaded, 99Vidas, and In Space we Brawl, which are all cross buy with both PS3 and PS4. Lastly, there's Toy Home for the PS3 only. Notably, there are no Vita games offered this month.

Games with Humble Bundle

Though customers don't know what games they get until they pay for the bundle, Humble's Monthly Bundle headlines Dead Rising 4, Kerbal Space Program, and Ruiner as early unlock titles for the month of May. The rest of the games will be revealed early next month.

Ys VIII finally lands on PC

After multiple delays, Ys: VIII Lacrimosa of Dana finally launched on Steam/PC. The game costs full retail, and if you buy during launch week, you get a free digital mini artbook, and a free OST sampler. At the time of writing, the game has only been live on Steam for 15 minutes, so there are no reviews yet.

Source

SEGA AGES might include Saturn or Dreamcast games, one day

During the onstage announcement of the SEGA AGES collection for the Nintendo Switch at SEGA Fes, the senior producer from SEGA went on to say that if the game sells well enough on the Switch, and that there's enough support and demand from customers, that eventually, SEGA would begin porting some of their newer classic games to the Switch from the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast's libraries.

Source

Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition adds new character "Falke"

Street Fighter V is getting a new character added to its roster. Capcom's PR email detailed the character's moveset, mentioning that she uses a staff to fire projectiles as her main way of attacking. This new character will cost $5.99, or, will be included in the Season 3 Character Pass, which costs $29.99. She'll be added to the game on April 24th.

System Shock remake gets its groove back, resumes development

Last month, we talked about the delay and possible discontinuation of the System Shock remake. However, it looks like the team is back on track, and despite people thinking the project was over, it seems that the game will still happen, just much further into the future. The game will have more focus on just being more like the original, rather than adding new features and gameplay elements, which is what threw the project out of its limits originally. They're also moving from Unity to Unreal Engine, discarding all prior work on their prototype build they had. The scheduled launch date is now sometime in 2020.

Source

Stardew Valley's multiplayer patch should be ready by next month

After waiting for quite a long time, players will finally get to try out Stardew Valley's multiplayer mode. The creator of the game, ConcernedApe, Tweeted out that great progress has been made on the multiplayer patch, and that in less than a month, the new mode will be ready to release. PC players will first get the patch, and afterwards, it'll come to Switch, and then after some more time, it'll hit Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Stardew Valley initially released on PC, Linux, and Mac back in early 2016.

Source

Kotaro Uchikoshi (Zero Escape creator) is working on a new game

Kotaro Uchikoshi, the man behind 999 and Virtue's Last Reward has revealed that he's working on a new adventure game. With a zealous claim of "your jaw will drop into the mantle of the earth with great astonishment!", he tells fans to look forward to his upcoming new project that he plans to unveil in the near future. The last game he worked on was the wrap-up to the Zero Escape series in the form of Zero Time Dilemma.

Source

Will Wright talks about his new game "Proxi"

Sims and Spore creator, Will Wright, has announced his latest game, Proxi. It's been a decade since he last made a game, and this time, he's focusing on the mobile market. In this new game, you create AI, where you can influence how the AI develops and turns out. Then, you can share your creations with your friends, and there's a large focus on the social aspect of the game. Proxi is due out later this year for Android and iOS.

Source

Emulation/Hacking News & Fan Projects

Footage from cancelled "Prey 2" game appears

For those that are fans of seeing footage and assets from cancelled games, a new video appeared on Twitter, which showed a minute long snippet of gameplay from Prey 2, a cancelled game that was scheduled to release around 2012, and was developed by Human Head Studios.

Source

Orbital: the very new WIP PlayStation 4 emulator

Orbital is a new experiemental project, led by AlexAltea, who's goal is to create the first dedicated PS4 emulator in the world. He's been working on the emulator for over a month now, which has resulting in the ability to load up the PS4's 5.00 firmware. This doesn't mean we'll be getting commercial games booting anytime soon, but any kind of progress like this is exciting. There's both a Windows and Linux version of his early build at this time.

mGBA update 0.6.3

mGBA, a Game Boy and Game Boy Advance emulator has gotten a new update. This new version, 0.6.3 adds bugfixes, and solves some audio issues that the previous release had. The developer of the emulator states that all users should update to this version due to the fixes made.

Source

Megami Tensei spinoff series game "Last Bible III" gets completed fan translation

Last Bible III is a spinoff game of the Megami Tensei series, which originated on the Super Famicom, and never released in the west. Thanks to the translation team for this project, however, the game has now been fully translated into English, replacing and translating everything from the text, down to the graphics. You can grab the patch down at the source below, if you're interested in trying out this game.

Source

Game Announcements

Iconoclasts comes to the Switch

Though it took more than 10 years to create the indie game Iconoclasts, it'll take much less time for the game to arrive onto the Nintendo Switch. It'll be out on Nintendo's console later this year, with a bonus boss mode and a harder difficulty version. The port will be done by MP2 Games, who's previous experience stems from porting Freedom Planet to all available platforms outside PC.

Source

VA-11 HALL-A will get Switch port

The popular Cyberpunk visual novel VA-11 HALL-A will be coming to the Nintendo Switch, soon. The porting team is the publisher of the game, and the release is targeted for a Christmas timeframe. The plan is for a digital release for all regions except Japan, where there would be a JP/English physical version which can be imported for western fans.

Source

Niche News

Tales of the Rays to shut down

Following the shut down of the other Tales mobile game, Tales of Link, Namco will also be ending support for Tales of the Rays. The game will only be shutting down for western players, as the market in the west was not considered worthwhile, while the game will continue unaffected in Japan. Servers for the game will remain open until May 29th, and as of now, you no longer can make in-game purchases.

Source

One Piece: Grand Cruise gets release date

If you've ever wanted a VR experience in the world of One Piece, then you don't have to wait much longer. One Piece: Grand Cruise will be getting a localized release on May 22. The PS VR title lets you ride on a ship and interact with the crew from the anime series, as well as explore the ship and fight other pirates.

Phantasy Star Online 2 on Switch gets BOTW collab (Japan only)

Though we in the West still haven't gotten an official release of Phantasy Star Online 2 for the Switch, Japan gets to have some fun crossovers, such as this latest one which crosses over with The Legend of Zelda. You'll be able to get a costume which includes Link's hairstyle, the Master Sword, his shield, and his clothes from BOTW.

Sony shutting down servers for LittleBigPlanet Karting and ModNation Racers

We're significantly into the latest generation of gaming consoles, which usually means for the previous gen, there's no more games releasing, and support is dying. That's going to be true for some of Sony's PS3 titles, such as LittleBigPlanet Karting and ModNation Racers. The servers for these games will shut down this July, the same month that the servers for Gravity Rush 2 are set to go down.

Rumor Mill

Rumor: Assassin's Creed "Greece"

Media site "Comicbook.com" was one of the sources of the "Assassin's Creed: Empire taking place in Egypt" leak back before full reveal of Assassin's Creed: Origins. Now, they're making another claim about the series, and this time, they say their insider source is telling them the next AC game will take place in Greece. Since the series is no longer annual, that means we'd also be getting a 2019 launch frame as well. The source on this might seem a little sketchy, but they did accurately report early screenshots of Assassin's Creed: Origins, so thy have a decent track record.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 listing pops up, gets removed

An Italian listing on Amazon.com went up earlier this month, listing COD: MW2 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It was removed shortly, but not before it was screencapped, showing that the game, if real, would release on April 30, and sell for $24.99. However, since it's less than half a month before the game will "launch", and now, it's unlikely Activision would give such little time before releasing it.

Source

Rumor: We might be getting a new Bioshock game

If Kotaku is to be trusted, we might just be seeing a new Bioshock game sometime soon. When Kotaku Editor Jason Schreier decided to write an article about Mafia III, researching the developer, along with the publisher, 2K Games. It was there that he claimed that 2K games is working on a new project, which is an unannounced Bioshock game. He goes on to mention that some developers at the studio working on the game doesn't know what exactly what they're working on, and that those who do know are very tight-lipped about things. Only time will tell if this insider report is right or wrong.

Source

Other Media

Dynasty Warriors still being produced

If you've ever wanted a movie based upon the Dynasty Warriors series, then you're in luck. After hearing nothing from China 3D Digital Entertainment, the movie studio behind the project for quite a while, a new trailer was suddenly released, showing off moments from the film, and proving that it's still in production. This is a live-action movie being made in China, and incorporates many elements from the Musou/Dynasty Warriors series, right down to the crazy hairstyles some of the generals have. Dynasty Warriors: Destiny of an Emperor will release in China in 2019.

Metal Gear movie continues production, gets update

Another movie based off of a game franchise, this time, the Metal Gear series, also proves that production is still active. The film's director, Jordan Vogt-Roberts has been meeting with Metal Gear series veteran Hideo Kojima, in order to make sure his movie is accurate to the franchise. Robert's movie is still very early in production, but he claims the movie is coming along well. There's no release date for this movie, but it won't be anytime soon.

Review Recap

Official Reviews
Extinction
Moss
Infernium
The Alliance Alive
Kirby: Star Allies
Detective Pikachu

User Reviews
Jaipur
Ez-Flash Omega
Kid Chameleon
Top Gear

Trailers

Smach Z hardware trailer

SOTN-inspired Record of Lososs War game

New Pokemon movie trailer

Marvelous Games shows off its 2018 lineup

Layers of Fear: Switch version