TWIG Sept 20 - lootbox investigations, and Vita hack h-encore now open source
Industry News
THQ now has the rights to Alone in the Dark
Major publisher THQ Nordic has acquired both the Alone in the Dark and Act of War franchises. This continues their recent trend of buying out older IPs, including Kingdoms of Amalur, which they also got earlier this month. Alone in the Dark started out as a 1992 horror game for the MS-DOS, which would go on to spawn six other entries throughout the years, as well as inspire multiple other survival horror series.
European Gambling Regulators have joined together in a meeting to talk about lootboxes and betting on competitive games
Tensions are increasing with regards to the new gaming evil, lootboxes. While Belgium's government is currently trying to sue EA because of them, fifteen other European country's gambling regulators have joined together, alongside one American regulator, in order to put together an investigation and study about gambling in video games. The countries involved are as follows: Austria, Czech Republic, France, Gibraltar, Ireland, Isle of Man, Jersey, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, and Washington State USA. Their first goal is to look into third party website that allow people to gamble on popular competitive game items.
SourceNobuo Uematsu, Final Fantasy composer, takes temporary leave from work due to health issues
The famed composer for the Final Fantasy series, Nobuo Uematsu, will be taking a leave of absence for a few months. The reasoning for this is because his health has declined due to overworking himself as of late, and he feels his needs to take a break for mental and physical reasons. He'll be on break for the rest of the year, and doesn't have a planned timeframe as to when he'll return to composing, but he promises his fans that he'll be back soon enough.
SourceEmulation and Hacking News
mGBA now available on the Switch
While we've had mGBA usable on the Switch for some time now, thanks to RetroArch, the developer of mGBA, endrift, has decided to port a standalone homebrew app of his GBA emulator, which can better take use of system resources. You can check out the early build, which is now available, or wait for official version 0.7.0, which will be the first version to support the Switch as a platform. mGBA has become a new player on the GBA emulator front, being known for having the most accurate emulation compared to the other competition.
SourcemelonDS emulator ported to the Switch
The Switch scene continues to grow, with homebrew ports and creations releasing every week. One of which is a port of the DS emulator, melonDS to the Switch. Before now, DeSmuME existed on the Switch, but eventually, efforts on working on it were halted and were then revived later on. If you've been wanting an alternative, then you won't have to wait any longer, as GBAtemp user Hydr8agon has created a simple port of melonDS. You need your own dumped BIOS files, and there's no hardware renderer yet, but there's definite promise here.
SourceHackers rig up NES game injections into Switch Online NES titles
If you weren't a fan of Nintendo's official lineup of NES games that come with their new online service, then fear not, as hackers have your back. It appears that the NES titles are set up very similarly to the way the NES Classic handles things, which allowed for some users to inject their own .nes files and play them instead. Of course, if you're interested, you'll want to proceed at your own risk, seeing as how it's an online feature, you need a hacked Switch, and Nintendo is likely watching.
SourceYuzu Switch emulator progress report #3
One of the notable Nintendo Switch emulators, Yuzu, has made some drastic improvements as of late. The team has documented some of the changes they've made, in a progress report below. A summary of some of the changes include porting over some features from Citra to Yuzu, adding a buffer cache and lessening the impact the emulator has on GPUs, fixing texture issues, and making tweaks to the point of Super Mario Odyssey can now be booted and can render certain elements, albeit with many issues yet to fix.
SourceTheFloW open-sources his h-encore exploit, new PlayStation Vita 3.69 firmware patches known hack method, but doesn't patch major bug
Sony has released a firmware update to the PlayStation Vita. Obviously at this point, it's to contract the new h-encore exploit, which has now been patched. Of course, Vita scene hero, TheFloW mentioned that while the main part of the kexploit was patched, Sony didn't fix the other existing bug. While this could potentially still lead to an exploit, TheFloW will not be that person, as he refuses to work on anything involving 3.69. But, there's two bonuses to this; he has released the source code and did an extensive write up for h-encore. While he won't be focusing on the new Vita firmware, he will instead be taking some time to go potentially poking around in the PS4 scene.
SourceGeneral News
The Burnout devs are in charge of Battlefield V's battle royale mode
If you like Burnout, well, don't get your hopes up for a new game just yet. But, if you like their previous work, you may be interested in knowing that the developers and creators of Burnout are currently working on Battlefield's new battle royale mode, Firestorm. To keep this battle royale mode from being like others before it, EA plans to make vehicles a major focus of this game mode, hence why they hired Criterion on to help. Players will fight it out in 16-team squads in order to secure enough gear and remain as the last one standing.
SourceAmazon listing hints at Halo 5 PC port, 343 denies claims
In a rather confusing series of events, Amazon and other retailers began listing Halo 5: Guardians with a new boxart, stressing the fact that it was no longer an Xbox One exclusive, but instead a console exclusive. This led many to believe that 343 and Microsoft would finally be backporting past Halo entries to the PC. However, a few days later, the franchise director of the series claimed that he had no idea why the boxart had suddenly changed, and that the development team has no future plans to bring older Halo games to PC, for the foreseeable future.
Killua, Kurapika, (HunterxHunter) Yusuke, Toguro (YuYuHakusho) and Yami Yugi added to Jump Force's roster
A new litany of anime characters have joined the fight in Bandai Namco's 3D fighter, Jump Force. The latest additions include the main characters from series like HunterXHunter, Yu Yu Hakusho, and Yu-Gi-Oh. Also revealed was that players will be able to create their own custom fighter, similar to the Dragon Ball Xenoverse feature. A closed beta will take place on October 12-14th and you can register now. Jump Force launches in February 2019.
SourceAndroid #17 becomes the final DLC character for Dragon Ball FighterZ
Rounding out the roster additions to Arc System Works' Dragon Ball FighterZ is Android 17, the final DLC character for the game. This will be his Dragon Ball Super incarnation, and he'll be available on the same day that other DLC character Cooler is, on September 27th. If you have the FighterZ Pass, you'll get both for free when they launch.
Halo Infinite WILL have lootboxes, but they won't cost real-world money, PC version will have extensive anti-cheat measures in place
Although we might not be getting Halo 5 on PC, Halo Infinite being on PC is a certainty. A new job application over at 343 mentions two major things about the game; that they want social elements and incentives to keep players coming back in the long term, and that microtransactions are going to be in the game. At this point, it's not entirely known what these microtransactions will consist of, but if it's like the previous installments in the series, it'll be cosmetic items. Anti-cheat will also have a large focus in development, in order to prevent the PC version of the game from being overrun by hackers and cheaters. It appears a third party anti-cheat client software will be used for the online portion. If you were concerned about lootboxes, then don't worry, as they will be in the game, but 343 stresses that players won't be actually paying real money to unlock them.
The Last Remnant gets Remastered version after original gets pulled from digital storefronts
After Square Enix informed fans that their JRPG, The Last Remnant would be no longer be able to be purchased digitally, it was assumed that would be the end of things. However, the day after it was pulled from digital storefronts, Square Enix announced that they'd be remaking the game for PS4. While the original was made with Unreal Engine 3, this new version will move things to Unreal Engine 4, while also improving textures, lighting, and other visual effects.
SourceTrailers
TGS 2018 Trailers
Review Recap
Official:
Yakuza Kiwami 2 (PS4)
SecretLab Titan Chair (Hardware)
Senran Kagura Reflextions (NS)
Little Medusa (NES)
SNK Heroines: Tag Team Frenzy (PS4)
User:
Comfort Grip (N2DSXL)
Mega Man X Legacy Collection (NS)
Release Calendar
September 21
Broken Sword 5 (NS)
Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna - The Golden Country (NS)
September 25
Valkyria Chronicles 4 (XB1, PC, PS4, NS)
South Park: The Stick of Truth (NS)
The Walking Dead: The Final Season - Episode 2 (PC, XB1, PS4)
This is the Police 2 (XB1, PS4)
The Escapists: Complete Edition (NS)
New GUNDAM Breaker (PC)
September 26
Killer7 (PC)
September 27
Life is Strange 2: Episode 1 (PC, XB1, PS4)
September 28
Dragon Ball FighterZ (NS)
Namco Museum Arcade Pac (NS)
October 2
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise (PS4)
Forza Horizon 4 (XB1, PC)
Mega Man 11 (XB1, PS4, PC, NS)
October 5
Assassin's Creed Odyssey (XB1, PS4, PC)
Fans of JRPGs on the Switch should be excited for the new expansion pack for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and those who love the genre on all platforms should equally be hyped to see the release of the fourth Valkyria Chronicles game this month. Both have been receiving high praise through critic reviews and eastern players who already have played both titles. To close out the month, we have Life is Strange 2 giving us another character-driven story consisting of the plight of two brothers. If you prefer more action in your life, Dragon Ball FighterZ is hitting the Switch, and runs just as well as on other console platforms. A mere few days into October are certain to be packed with the Yakuza-studio's Fist of the North Star game, Microsoft's big fall release of Forza Horizon 4, and the first new Mega Man game in quite some time. The more RPG-esque take on the Assassin's Creed franchise is certain to change up the formula, but the question is if it'll be for the better or worse?
