Ubisoft has confirmed that it won’t be making a video game based on Marvel’s resident vampire-hunter Blade. News about a potential solo Blade game first hit the rumor mill when YouTuber JorRaptor spotted an Instagram post by actor Edwin Gaffney, which also featured his colleague Alex Martin in the shot.

Gaffney posted in the description that he had just wrapped up work, with Ubisoft, mocap, and performance capture hashtags listed below. A second photo showed Gaffney holding a clapperboard that had the production titled “Marvel” and alongside the image of him holding a sword prop, Joraptor released a video where he speculated that Ubisoft was working on a Marvel game.

With that theory out in the wild, Ubisoft squashed the rumors with a tweet today. “Sorry to slice up the rumors, we’re not making a Blade game but we can’t wait to see what our friends at Marvel Studios are cooking up for next year’s movie,” Ubisoft tweeted.

Sorry to slice up the rumors, we’re not making a Blade game but we can’t wait to see what our friends at @MarvelStudios are cooking up for next year’s movie!

— Ubisoft (@Ubisoft) August 22, 2022

Fans of Blade will have to wait until 2023 to see the Daywalker back in action. Blade is one of the playable characters in Marvel’s Midnight Suns, a tactical RPG being developed by XCOM studio Firaxis, and he’ll be back on the big screen on November 3, 2023, this time portrayed by Mahershala Ali.

Blade originally rose to fame in the 1998 solo film that starred Wesley Snipes as the title character, and went on to reprise the role in 2002’s Blade II and 2004’s Blade Trinity. The first film got Game Boy and PlayStation tie-in games, and Blade II got a PS2 and Xbox game that was considered to be one of the worst games of the year.

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Coinciding with the launch of HBO’s House of the Dragon on Sunday evening, the company released a sizzle reel for some of its 2023 content, and this includes the highly anticipated Last of Us show.

The footage is very short, but it does serve as the first official look at the show. In the couple of seconds of footage, we see Pedro Pascal as Joel, Bella Ramsey as Ellie, and Nick Offerman as Bill.

Neil Druckmann, the writer and director of the video game, teased, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.” Hopefully that means a proper full-length trailer for the series soon.

You ain’t seen nothing yet.

— Neil Druckmann (@Neil_Druckmann) August 21, 2022

The series is written in part by Craig Mazin, who wrote HBO’s acclaimed Chernobyl miniseries. HBO boss Casey Bloys said Mazin is a “fantastic writer and director,” noting that what Bloys has seen so far of The Last of Us “looks amazing.”

HBO’s Last of Us TV series has received a lot of hype, but Bloys doesn’t like the idea of people calling it “the next Game of Thrones.”

“I’ve been here long enough that I’ve been through, what’s the next Sopranos, what’s next Game of Thrones, now what’s next Succession. There is no next Game of Thrones,” Bloys said.

Sony has been making transmedia deals for its franchises left and right lately. Just recently, we learned that a Days Gone movie is in the works, for example.

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At the conclusion of the 2022 Pokemon World Championships in London, The Pokemon Company CEO Tsunekazu Ishihara unveiled a new trailer for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, which focused on battle mechanics and online play.

The trailer opened with the introduction of a new Pokemon, the Dragon- and Normal-type Cyclizar, which showed off a new move called Shed Tail. This move acts like a mixture of Substitute and Baton Pass, creating a Poke Doll substitute before immediately swapping out for another Pokemon in the party.

Meet the Mount Pokémon, Cyclizar. A Pokémon that has lived in many Paldea region households since ancient times, it’s common to see people riding Cyclizar!
Fun fact: It can sprint at over 70 mph while carrying a human! #PokemonScarletViolethttps://t.co/4aXR8qx58p pic.twitter.com/2jzUBYecRH

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) August 21, 2022

The trailer also showed off new battle items coming to Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, including the Mirror Herb, which mimics a stat boost an opponent gives itself and applies it to the holder of the item, and the Loaded Dice, which makes multi-hit attacks have a higher chance of landing the maximum number of hits.

Terastal Pokemon–the new transformation for Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, also appeared in the trailer. The official Pokemon website goes into greater detail, explaining how a Pokemon’s Tera Type is not revealed until the first time it transforms. The reveal also showed off a new move, Tera Blast, which changes type along with a Pokemon whenever the transformation occurs.

Along with the new trailer, the official website also detailed the all-new Battle Stadium mode, which acts as the game’s online battle feature. Both casual and ranked battles will be included from launch, while friendly and official online competition options will also be available. Players will be able to build a team for battle and then share its unique ID, allowing anyone with the ID to use that team as a rental.

Also announced during the 2022 Pokemon World Championships was the Their Sky Ruins arena for Pokemon Unite, the Ash and Pikachu Master Sync Pair for Pokemon Masters EX, and a teaser for the Pokemon Trading Card Game’s first Scarlet and Violet expansion, which includes the return of the Pokemon EX mechanic which debuted in 2003’s EX Ruby and Sapphire set.

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is the ninth core installment of the Pokemon franchise, introducing players to the Paldea region and its two legendary Pokemon Koraidon and Miraidon. The games launch November 18 exclusively for Nintendo Switch.

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Rainbow Six Siege‘s latest season, Brutal Swarm, has just been unveiled by Ubisoft and there’s a lot of news to parse through beginning with a new operator.

Grim, the newest addition to Siege’s ever-expanding roster, hails from Singapore and joins the game as an Attacker. He brings with him the Kawan Hive Launcher, an over-the-shoulder launcher that sends out a swarm of bee-shaped nanobots that mark whoever walks through them. The canister they come in will stick to the surface it’s launched at, and if you’re tagged by Grim’s swarm, the Attackers will be able to track you. Grim will also be a high speed, low health attacker (colloquially known as a “three-speed, one-health” operator), and because of that build, he’ll be packing the 552 Commando assault rifle as well as the SG-CQB shotgun for primary options.

Attackers throughout the game will also be able to take advantage of the new Impact EMP Grenade, which will give them further quick options for disabling enemy gadgets in what might otherwise be one-sided situations. The operators that will be able to use it are:

BlackbeardMontagneDokkaebiNokkGridlockSledgeLionOsaRecruit

Some operators will also be receiving official changes to breathe new life into some stagnant kits. Players who are downed wearing extra armor from Rook, for example, will be able to pick themselves up with 20 health. Dokkaebi’s Logic Bomb gadget is also being adjusted and will be impossible to interrupt.

Ubisoft is also bringing back the 2021 iteration of the Stadium map, which has previously only been featured in the game as part of a limited event leading up to the Siege Invitationals, the premier Siege tournament in the world. It will be reintroduced with some tweaks as Stadium Bravo, a combination of Border and Coastline, and will be a permanent addition to the map pool.

The map ban phase will also display five maps instead of three in order to promote more map diversity and allow more maps to remain in pools. Tactical maps will also be getting tweaked, now giving Attackers more information to make decisions with. They will be able to see available Defender objective locations and the floor map and objectives will show when Attackers find them.

Rainbow Six Siege’s latest operator, Grim.

On a more systemic level, Ubisoft is adjusting how recoil works on both PC and consoles. Most importantly, the two will now be distinct, as console balancing used to be done according to values on PC. This should help the different playerbases experience adjustments that fall in line with their player experience. On PC, Ubisoft has adjusted recoil values to now reflect weapon’s power levels, and have bumped vertical and horizontal recoil during sustained fire in order to make burst-fire the preferred method of engagement. More weapon attachments are coming to a wider variety of weapon types that are being affected by these changes (particularly LMGs) in order to better encourage loadout customization and stress tactical adjustments. While recoil will remain mostly the same as it currently is on consoles, the expanded weapon attachments will be coming to both consoles and PC.

Ubisoft is also introducing additional penalties for abusive players after implementing Reputation penalties last season. If players send an abundance of hateful messages in the text chat, they will effectively be muted. While they can still send and receive messages in the chat, players won’t be able to see them unless the penalized player is unmuted. There will be a grace period when the feature launches later in the season, so that players can get used to it, but once that period is over, players who receive the penalty will be muted for 30 matches.

Beginning with this season, players will be able to gift battle passes to friends so long as they’re friends over Ubisoft Connect for longer than 90 days and are on the same platform. Additionally, with the arrival of a new season and operator, prices for previous operators will be dropping accordingly:

Osa will now cost 20,000 Renown or 480 R6 credits.Zero will now cost 15,000 Renown or 360 R6 credits.Amaru and Goyo will now cost 10,000 Renown or 240 R6 credits.

Finally the Torrid Jungle Bundle will be made available as the season weapon skin and buying it will get players the Weathered Partner skin for both their weapon and attachments. Additionally, the bundle comes with a Smelly Durian charm.

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BioShock is celebrating its 15-year anniversary today, August 21, 2022. Below, we take a look at how the religious commentary in its sequel, BioShock Infinite, lacks the sharpness it needs to resonate.

Playing BioShock Infinite at launch, several things stuck in my mind as a young Mormon. Zachary Hale Comstock, the game’s principal villain and cult leader, is a kind of Brigham Young: a fiery prophet, claiming visions and prophecies while he grasps at power. His floating metropolis of Columbia is a kind of Salt Lake City: a grim capital on the cloud, both a refuge and a prison. Though the game is drawing on a melting pot of historical and fictional inspirations, these parallels have kicked around in my mind for nearly 10 years. Creative director Ken Levine even named Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as inspirations for Comstock in an interview back in 2013. To the game’s credit, these are touchstones rather than full-on parallels. In turn, though, the depiction of Comstock and his religion lacks precision: Rather than haunting resemblance, it plays as frivolous caricature. It is that flatness that fuels the game’s best-remembered false equivalences between the revolutionary Vox Populi and the white sepulchers of Comstock’s floating city.

Part of that caricature is the game’s reluctance to clarify Comstock’s particular theology. We can infer that Comstock’s religion (which never gets a denominational title) believes in modern miracles, as Comstock claims to have spoken to an angel and produced a miracle child. It practices baptism by immersion. White supremacy and racism are woven into every aspect of its doctrine. It uplifts the founding fathers to the level of sainthood. Besides these basic traits, there is no context for Comstock’s religion. There are no adjacent movements or sects. Though Comstock’s journey to become a prophet began with a baptism, the game never makes clear what group he entered. This lack of specificity unties Comstock from any particular historical moment. BioShock Infinite seems to draw more from the conservative Tea Party movement–which, though politically focused, had a devotional character–more than any specific religious group, especially from the time period.

Still, the parallels to Utah and Mormonism remain. Before the game begins, Comstock’s floating city seceded from the United States. After the death of prophet Joseph Smith at the hands of mob violence in 1844, Brigham Young led a caravan to settle in what would become Utah. Thousands of Mormons would follow over the next decades. The territory was then under Mexican control until joining the US in 1850, and was the home of many indigenous peoples, including Shoshone, Paiute, and Goshute.

The key difference is, of course, that Columbia is a dream city floating in the sky. No people could have lived there before, and so Columbia imports, rather than imposes, the sociopolitical structure of a segregated United States. Though the massacre at Wounded Knee features into the game’s plot, there are no voiced indigenous characters and only racist cartoons appear in a propagandistic museum level. Intentionally or not, the floating city means that the game can largely sidestep the issue of colonial occupation.

While Columbia’s lower classes are not explicitly enslaved, they are segregated and overworked. Columbia’s secession from the US enables it to practice “more extreme” forms of institutional racism. In history, Mormons brought slavery from the US to Utah. Three enslaved men–Hank Wales, Oscar Smith, and Green Flake–came with Brigham Young’s party to the Salt Lake Valley. There was an enslaved population in Utah until slavery was outlawed in the territories. Therefore, the history of slavery in Utah is fundamentally connected to the US’s own support of the horrific practice. Although BioShock Infinite positions Columbia as an extremist deviation from the proper United States, the Mormon settlement of Utah is best understood as a particular, if peculiar, instance of the US’s expansionist colonialism.

Columbia is curiously unified outside of the main two factions. There are people who do not neatly fit into either the revolutionary Vox Populi or Comstock’s Columbia, but they are few and far between. Mormonism, in contrast, was subject to a flurry of schisms and divisions, even in its early years. Not every Mormon traveled to Utah. Some of those who remained in Illinois formed a church of their own, under the leadership of Joseph Smith’s son, Joseph Smith III. When the church in Salt Lake City ended the practice of polygamy due to pressure from Washington, paving the way toward statehood, the church suffered a mass exodus of polygamists. The point is that Christianity, as much as any other site of meaning-making, is controversial even among its adherents. Because BioShock Infinite passes by the schisms and conflict that define American Christianity, it cannot offer a holistic criticism of its failings.

To be clear, the issue here is not a lack of “historical accuracy” or “respect for the subject matter.” BioShock Infinite is science fiction through and through; it intends to represent an alternate world. Additionally, institutions as massive as Mormonism and American Christianity can take the hit. However, these gaps between the real history and the fiction serve to distance Comstock’s faith from real-world groups. What criticism it hefts up lacks specificity and bite. What resonance it might have lacks real faith. In fact, the longer the game goes on, the more Comstock’s religion becomes about the game’s internal mythology, a backdrop to its interest in inter-dimensional drama and alternate selves.

While Comstock and crew do have clear inspiration points, the Vox Populi, led by Daisy Fitzroy, have no coherent resemblance to any real revolutionary moment, especially in the United States. They are called Anarchists, but unlike anarchism, they have no vision for a future world. All they get are slogans and blood. The game eventually labels them as too violent and moves on. The way BioShock Infinite can get to a statement like “The only difference between Comstock and Fitzroy is how you spell the name” is through these ideological vagaries. It’s telling, for example, that Columbia’s religious art never depicts Christ and the cross. Even the game’s Ku Klux Khan is clad in dark purple, rather than white. It’s also telling that Fitzroy, even more than Comstock, comes from nowhere, with no clear connection to any real-world history.

It might seem like there is a lot to unpack here and in some sense there is. The history of American Christianity, even of Mormonism in particular, carries the weight and blood of this country’s history. However, BioShock Infinite does not conjure that history, nor its weight or blood. Rather, it is content with faded caricature, with a vision of Christianity that is too fictional, self-obsessed, and distant to truly offend or resonate.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Skull and Bones is the next game from developer Ubisoft Singapore, a studio most well known for supporting Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Quebec when it comes to the mainline Assassin’s Creed games. Notably, Ubisoft Singapore played a role in adding naval combat to Assassin’s Creed, which–for a while–became a staple of the franchise following Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag. And like Black Flag, Skull and Bones is a pirate game with an emphasis on naval combat.

“Skull and Bones was never meant to be a spin-off of Black Flag,” creative director Elisabeth Pellen clarified when talking to GameSpot. “From the start, the mandate that the studio had received was to create their own IP and their own game. But we thought that it would be a good idea to capitalize on the expertise of our tenant who created specifically the naval combat for [Black Flag]. And then they wanted to bring [the naval combat] to a new environment.”

But if Skull and Bones isn’t a Black Flag spinoff, what is it then? Below, we go over everything we know about Skull and Bones, including when it’s coming out, what Ubisoft Singapore’s post-launch plans are for it, and whether it supports multiplayer.

Platforms

Skull and Bones will release for Xbox Series X|S, PS5, PC, Stadia, and Amazon Luna. The game will feature both cross-play and cross-progression support.

Release date

Skull and Bones is scheduled to launch on November 8. Ubisoft Singapore started development on the game in 2013 just after the release of Black Flag, and initially aimed for a 2018 release date. However, Skull and Bones has had a turbulent development cycle that has seen it delayed numerous times.

What we know

In Skull and Bones, you play as the lone survivor of a shipwreck who vows to become a respected pirate captain. Set in the Indian Ocean during the Golden Age of Piracy, Skull and Bones will allow you to accrue Infamy and grow stronger via several different methods, such as fulfilling privateer contracts, looting treasure, building out your fleet, and hiring a crew.

Building on the naval combat first introduced in Black Flag, Skull and Bones primarily takes place on the open water. You can leave your ship and actually play as a pirate, though only at certain points in the game. While on land, you can talk to merchants and other characters, which further fleshes out the historical fiction setting that Ubisoft Singapore has created.

Skull and Bones tracks how well you treat your crew as well. If you don’t keep them fed and happy, they will mutiny against you, encouraging you to be a little selfless with your wealth. Your ships can also be customized with different hulls and weapons to create a wider variety of playstyles–your ship can specialize in speed and firepower at the cost of its overall hull strength and hold space, for example.

PC system specs

Ubisoft Singapore has not yet revealed the PC system specs for Skull and Bones.

Multiplayer details

Skull and Bones will support multiplayer in both PvE and PvP servers. In PvE, you can team up with up to two friends to form a fleet of three ships and take on computer-controlled enemies together. In PvP, every player you run into can be a potential ally or enemy, encouraging you to play more strategically when around other players.

DLC/microtransaction details

As a live-service game, Skull and Bones will launch with microtransactions and will support post-launch DLC. The game’s post-launch roadmap features plans to further flesh out crews, including the addition of unique crew mate natures and a more detailed recruitment mechanic.

“We have a post-launch roadmap with some content coming–some features such as a new activity that should be a game-changer for the players,” Pellen told GameSpot. “We will add a new part of the world, a new character–we started to work on it already so we’re ready to inject new content.”

Preorder details

Skull and Bones is available for preorder.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Zacian will soon be coming back to a Pokemon Go Gym near you for a limited-time appearance in five-star raid battles. This Legendary Pokemon returns after a long absence alongside Pokemon Go’s Pokemon World Championship event. We haven’t seen Zacian in raids inabout a year since it was initially released, so new players and those who might be coming back from a break are likely ready to battle the Warrior Pokemon and add it to their collections. Veterans will also have the opportunity to earn more Candy and Candy XL to power up the ones they may already have.

Zacian Raid Schedule

Zacian will appear as a five-star raid boss starting 10 AM local time on August 18, and will remain in five-star raids until the same time on August 31, but it will be sharing that spot with its “sibling” Zamazenta. Raids do not generally follow a set schedule, and Zacian raids will appear randomly at Gyms around the world during this time period, but you will receive a notification from the game when a raid is about to begin nearby.

Your best chance to find a Zacian raid (or a lot of them) is during the Raid Hours in which the Zacian will be exclusively featured. Every Wednesday from 6 PM to 7 PM local time, the majority of Gyms host five-star raids for Trainers to work together to take down. There are two raid hours occurring during Zacian’s stay in raids, but only the first one on August 24 will feature Zacian. As always, you’ll need your free daily Raid Pass or a Premium Battle Pass to join a raid in person, or a Remote Raid Pass to join a raid remotely.

Can I Catch a Shiny Zacian?

Despite this being Zacian’s second time being featured in five-star raids in Pokemon Go, its shiny form is still not available. This may make some Trainers decide to wait until its inevitable shiny release at some point in the future, but this is still a great opportunity to earn Candy and Candy XL to power up any of the Zacian you may have caught.

Zacian Weaknesses and Counters

Zacian is a Fairy-type Pokemon. This means it is weak to Steel and Poison-type attacks. Some recommended Pokemon include:

Steel: Metagross, Mega Scizor, Dialga, ExcadrillPoison: Mega Gengar, Mega Beedrill, Nihilego, Roserade

A Mega Tip: A Mega Evolved Pokemon boosts the damage of all Pokemon in the raid by 10%, and the damage of all Pokemon using attacks that share a type with the Mega Evolved Pokemon by 30%. Coordinate those Megas with your raid group for added damage. Mega Steelix will boost your allies’ Steel-type attacks, but because of its defensively-oriented stats and lack of a Steel-type fast move, it won’t contribute much damage of its own.

Don’t be afraid of the shadows: Shadow Pokemon deal 20% more damage than their non-shadow counterparts, so the shadow versions of any of the suggested Pokemon that have them can help you win.

Types to Avoid

Zacian’s Fairy-type attacks like Play Rough will deal super-effective damage to Dark, Fighting, and Dragon-type Pokemon, and other moves like Close Combat can provide it coverage against Steel-type Pokemon that are typically strong against it. Also keep in mind that Fairy-type Pokemon like Zacian resist Dark, Bug, and Fighting-type attacks, and double resist Dragon-type attacks. Stay away from these types of Pokemon.

Usefulness

Should you raid Zacian beyond registering it in your Pokédex? That depends on your playstyle and goals. If your main focus is raiding and PvE content, then Zacian might be one to save your coins on. Zacian lacks a Fairy-type fast move, meaning it is mostly outclassed by other Fairy-type Pokemon as a raid attacker that can deal out more consistent Fairy-type damage like Gardevoir and Togekiss. Zacian isn’t useless however; it is a Legendary Pokemon with the stats to match its title, and it can be useful against raid bosses like Giratina, which will take super-effective damage from Zacian’s most useful fast move, Snarl. Zacian also has another form, the Crowned Sword form, which will likely get released in Pokemon Go at some point in the future. This form gets even better stats, gains the secondary Steel typing, and may have a different moveset that could make it more useful in raids.

If you’re a player who is more focused on PvP, however, Zacian isn’t a boss to miss out on. Zacian is a staple of the Master League in Go Battle League. Its wide selection of charged moves such as Wild Charge, Close Combat, and Play Rough give it the versatility to act as a difficult to wall safe swap. It also serves as a strong check to Dialga, the long-reigning king of the Master League meta. Zacian can’t be encountered at a low enough CP to be eligible for Great League, and doesn’t perform as well in Ultra League, but if you’re interested in Master League, don’t pass up your chance to get a good Zacian to add to your roster.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Fallout 76‘s next major update will introduce a new type of content for the online action RPG called Expeditions. These Expeditions will be repeatable story-driven missions that take players away from the core setting of Fallout 76. The first of these Expeditions, The Pitt, sends Fallout 76 to Pittsburgh, a setting that hasn’t been seen in Fallout since Fallout 3. The Pitt is scheduled to go live in September.

Taking place in a brand-new area, The Pitt will feature never-before-seen characters, questlines, and dialogue-driven choices. When your character reaches the bombed remains of Pittsburgh via helicopter, they discover the area has been ravaged by an ongoing conflict between the survivors. The remains of Pittsburgh’s industrial workers are now known as the Union, and they’ve been struggling to outlast repeated attacks from the Fanatics, a group of raiders.

Ahead of the release of The Pitt, GameSpot emailed Bethesda Game Studio design director Mark Tucker to ask about what players can expect from the upcoming expansion, as well as how the team aims to expand upon Fallout 76’s story and then ultimately conclude it one day. Our correspondence is detailed below.

GameSpot: How will The Pitt Expedition change the experience of playing Fallout 76?

Matt Tucker: The new Expedition Missions are the most obvious change–players will have access to an ever-growing library of exciting, repeatable, and randomized story missions to play long after they’ve completed the main questlines, beginning with The Pitt. They’ll allow players to explore outside of Appalachia in this unique time period in Fallout lore and meet all sorts of new and interesting characters. Whitespring Resort has also been converted into a true player hub, filled with Daily Quests, unique Random Encounters, a new vendor, and additional Legendary Exchange and Gold Press machines. The Pitt is just the beginning! We have plans for more locations in future updates–some of which have never been seen before in a Fallout game!

As previous Fallout games were single-player, they had established endpoints for their respective stories–is the same true for Fallout 76?

Bingo! You are touching on one of the coolest parts of working on a live-service game. Do we create all of our questlines and stories to have fulfilling endings from the player’s perspective when we put them into the game? Yes, that is always the goal. That said, we often have thoughts and ideas for how we could expand or continue our stories in future updates when we add them to the game.

For example, (and I am being intentionally ambiguous here so as not to spoil it) we have a story in the game that we have always intended to tell over a longer time span. Matter of fact, we have subtly expanded on it already–the players just aren’t aware of it yet. When we finally get around to wrapping it up, I think it will be a fun surprise.

In addition to that, we have a lot of mystery and unanswered questions in our game that, so far, may not have had as much story associated with them. These minor plot points or lore bits are also fun for us to explore and expand on. For example, The Mothman Equinox Seasonal Event that debuted in our Night of the Moth update was a fun way for us to explore a bit deeper into The Cult of the Mothman and share how a group splintered off to create The Enlightened. Of course, in doing that, we created more questions that we might choose to explore further one day.

A lot of the richness of our world comes from the intersections and overlaps of the different characters and their stories. So even if we don’t continue a story directly, we also consider how a different story, from a different perspective, might also shed light and expand on one we have already told. That doesn’t even have to be limited to 76. Since we are a prequel, some things we do, at times, tie into the stories from the previous Fallout titles. For example, our two updates, Steel Dawn and Steel Reign, provided more insight into the early days of the original, west coast Brotherhood of Steel, as did some of our original quest content that shipped with the launch of the game. The game is never finished, it’s a living, breathing world with old stories to continue and new ones to add.

How do you come up with the themes for each season? Are y’all simply exploring parts of Fallout 76’s world you haven’t touched on before, or is there more to it than that?

The creation process for every season’s theme has been different, but we always start with the same key objective–every theme should be someone’s favorite. Fallout is a very diverse IP, with humor, sadness, action, and a whole world of alternate history to explore. We like to keep things fresh and continue to explore new aspects of the franchise while also paying homage to its long history. For new in-game fiction, we have a phrase we like to use to test if the idea is solid: “Does this evoke nostalgia for something you’ve never seen before?” It’s a good test of whether or not something is pulling the right levers. When we leverage some of the amazing existing in-game fiction, we always make sure we are doing it justice. We’re Fallout fans as much as anyone and getting a chance to explore more of the pre-war society is a real joy.

How has the Fallout 76 team learned from other developers beneath the ZeniMax Media umbrella when it comes to designing a live-service game?

The great thing about Zenimax and BGS is that we can share tech and ideas across teams pretty easily–it’s just a call or a message away. While it isn’t something we do on a super regular basis, it does happen. For example, part of our multiplayer networking libraries for 76 was built from the iD Tech networking code. Another example is that we have had a few conversations with ZOS Production leadership over the years to learn how they structure and manage their team to handle their update cadence, which has some similarities to ours. Those conversations really helped to guide us in how we have approached things for 76. Of course, it’s not just us learning and getting help from them–we’ve helped other teams as well. For example, our monetization design team has helped multiple teams across Zenimax with their monetization strategies and features, including The Elder Scrolls Online.

It is also worth noting that the senior leadership team we have working on Fallout 76, along with most of the senior developers on the project, all have experience working on live-service and multiplayer products previously in their careers. So, for a lot of us, this is not our first rodeo.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

So there I was with a brand-new Steam Deck in hand, ready to finally see what all the fuss was about when it came to PC gaming. Like many a console gamer, I’d heard the stories–that Steam supposedly housed tens of thousands of games, with all manner of quality–and I was ready to discover that for myself. But before I got to the good stuff before I delved into the likes of Neon White, Valheim, or Frostpunk for the first time, I had to know: Does Steam have any good volleyball games?

As it turns out, Steam has a lot of volleyball games. I would not use “good” to describe most of them–horny is probably a better term, which I’ve since learned from my friends who play a lot of PC games is an apt descriptor for a lot of what you can find on Steam. And, granted, horny has its place, but that’s not what I want from a volleyball game right now. No, I want the exhilaration of pulling off a combination attack, the satisfaction of performing a quick that unsettles my opponent, and the joy of reading an attacker well enough to dig up a spike and keep a rally going. When it comes to volleyball, there’s no greater delight than the mind games of it.

And wouldn’t you know, I found it. It was like a dozen games down, but I found it: Spikair Volleyball. It’s an upcoming volleyball simulator set to launch in early access later this year. There’s a free demo on Steam where you can play quick games against a computer-controlled opponent that typically last anywhere between two and six minutes.

Thankfully, the opposing setter wasn’t right next to the net so I didn’t have to worry about a dump attack.

I’ve put over 22 hours into the demo as of this writing. It’s easily my most-played game on my Steam Deck.

Developed by Choc Abyss–a studio of two: Clément Chardevel and Joé Chollet–Spikair Volleyball is one of those easy-to-learn-but-difficult-to-master games. “I wanted people to play our game,” Chollet told GameSpot. “We have little mechanics which take longer to learn. But the basics–like setting the ball up–are simple. You just press A.”

In Spikair, each match is four-vs.-four, and you control all four players on your side of the court. Much like real-world volleyball, your goal is to make the ball hit the ground on your opponent’s side of the court with an attack, scoring you a point. An attack can only begin if you manage to receive the ball and successfully pass to your setter, allowing you to then direct your setter to get the ball to the middle blocker, back row receiver, or outside hitter–all of whom can spike the ball.

Merely pressing the required buttons in the right order is enough to play, but correctly timing those button presses can change the speed of the ball, allowing you to pull off more advanced attacks, like a hard-to-block quick spike. You have to be careful, though, because the opposite is true, too–a slight mistiming will lead to a bad pass or weak attack, and completely getting the timing wrong will cause your players to miss the ball entirely.

Chollet and Chardevel looked at plenty of other volleyball games when designing Spikair, with 1992’s Hyper V-Ball being a primary inspiration. “[Volleyball] is a mind game,” Chollet said. “It’s not a game of sport. It’s a game of the mind. And so we were talking about a 6v6 vs 4v4 format, and we chose 4v4 because it was much easier for us to do and because Hyper V-Ball only has four players, and still managed that 6v6 indoor [volleyball] feeling, which is all mind games–the block versus the set and the spiker versus the defender.”

In Spikair, there are three potential attackers you have to watch out for while on defense (four if you count a setter dump, in which the setter just tips the ball over the net themselves instead of passing it to a spiker). But the game makes the process more complex by allowing each spiker to spike in three different ways: There’s a normal spike, a short spike, and a long spike. Plus, the spiker can forgo a spike to instead tip the ball over a block in three different ways: a normal tip, a short tip, and a long tip. The spiker can change the timing of their attack as well, purposely hitting a smidge early or late–not so much that they miss, but enough that the ball is hit at a different speed.

There are multiple serves in Spikair as well.

So even though there are only four moves you need to remember on defense–block, short receive, normal receive, and long receive–there are actually dozens of outcomes you have to prepare for. Your middle blocker can block, and then your back row player can stand in place to receive the ball normally, dive for the ball if it’s being spiked straight down or being tipped short, or step back to bump up the ball if it tips off the blocker or is being spiked/tipped long. And once you commit to an action, you have to wait a second before doing something else. So you’re making split-second decisions and hoping for the best. If it looks like the opposing spiker is going short, for instance, diving too early may be the difference between keeping the rally going and your opponent scoring.

This largely means that your job on offense is to use your setter to trick the defense into committing to blocking the wrong spiker and then use your spikers to hit it to a spot that the back row player won’t reach in time. On defense, you’re trying to use your blocker to pressure the opposing setter into rushing into a bad setup to avoid your block and then reading the opposing spiker’s approach to correctly position your back row player to receive the attack. It’s two people trying to one-up one another in back-to-back matches of Rock, Paper, Scissors, and whoever manages to do better (or get lucky) nabs the point.

Spikair also takes heavy inspiration from Haikyu, a very popular shonen volleyball manga/anime (that you should read/watch if you haven’t yet). “The full animation of the spike, the attack of the player in our game, is based on [Haikyu’s] Ushijima,” Chollet said. “I watched frame-by-frame of the anime and I was like, ‘Okay, this is perfect,’ for a side view from Ushijima attacking.”

In Haikyu, the game in which protagonist Shōyō Hinata goes up against Wakatoshi Ushijima can even be somewhat emulated in Spikair as well. In the Spikair demo, you can face off against computer-controlled opponents in five difficulties, each of which sees different teams face off. Normal difficulty sees you play as the United States as you go up against Italy, for example, while playing on Extreme has you play as Brazil and face Poland. If you play on Final difficulty, you’ll play as Hinata’s team, Karasuno High, and your opponent will be Ushijima’s Shiatorizawa. Fully stopping Ushijima with a well-timed block from middle blocker Kei Tsukishima feels as rewarding to do in-game as it is to see in the manga/anime.

Currently, computer-controlled opponents are all you get in Spikair. The full game isn’t out yet, so the demo is the only way to play. Choc Abyss is planning to launch the game in early access later this year, and with its release, a lot more of it will be available, including offline player-vs-player matches. Online multiplayer may come later down the line, but the studio is focusing on other aspects of the game first, like a career mode, player customization (including the option to have female players on your team), and player characteristics.

Characteristics will inform how well each individual player on your team performs, ranging from how effectively they can spike to how much wiggle room they have for pulling off an ideal pass. As of the demo, all players in Spikair control and behave the same, so you don’t have that added consideration to worry about. But when it is finally added, it will certainly create an even greater level of complexity to the mind game of the sport.

Until then, I’m just going to keep playing the Spikair Volleyball demo. I’m sure I’ll get to all the other games on my Steam Deck at some point, but for now, this is enough for me. Maybe I’ll jump back into Switch Sports for a bit though, so I can keep yelling at everyone that they’re playing Switch Sports Volleyball wrong and need to use read blocking.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Formally announced at 2022’s Final Fantasy 7 25th anniversary celebration, Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is the second installment in the remake trilogy and, between you and me, is where things start to get really interesting. While Final Fantasy 7 Remake led us on a new journey through the familiar slums of Midgar, Rebirth sees us leaving the corrupted city in search of greener pastures–and Sephiroth.

There’s a lot we don’t know about Rebirth, including what events it will cover, how faithful it will be to the original game, what its open world will look like, and just how handsome Vincent Valentine will be. While we wait for these questions to be answered, here’s a roundup of everything we do know, including trailers and how to preorder the upcoming game.

Release date

While Square Enix has yet to reveal the release date of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, it did offer us a window: Winter 2023. For those keeping track at home, this is nearly three and a half years after the first part in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy was released. While no release date for the third and final installment has been mentioned, this could mean we’ll be waiting quite some time before we get to see how this reimagining ends.

Platforms

As of right now, Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth appears to be a PlayStation 5 exclusive. While not particularly surprising (the current-gen console will have been out for just over three years by the time of release), this might be disappointing for fans who played the first entry in the Remake trilogy on PlayStation 4.

Once the game’s timed exclusivity is up, it’s likely the game will also be released on PC. However, considering the first entry in the series is still not available on Xbox, I wouldn’t expect to see Rebirth make its way over there.

What we know

Not much, which is honestly what makes this game even more exciting! Those of you who played Final Fantasy 7 Remake know this series is not a direct remake of the original game, but rather a reimagining that exists parallel to it and explores fate and determinism in a pretty interesting way. Not to delve too deeply into spoilers, but after the events of Remake, our ragtag team is no longer bound to repeat the same events–meaning the game isn’t necessarily doing so either. While it seems safe to assume the game will still be very similar to the original and revisit the same locations, exactly what will unfold is not entirely clear.

Interestingly enough, creative director Tetsuya Nomura says players don’t need to play Final Fantasy 7 Remake to understand and enjoy Rebirth. Back in June 2020, the official Final Fantasy 7 Twitter account shared a tweet stating, “Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is being designed so that people can enjoy this game whether they know the original game or not. In fact, new players might even enjoy starting their Final Fantasy 7 journey with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Cloud and his friends embark on a new journey in this game, and I believe that the scenes that they witness after leaving Midgar will give players a fresh, new experience.”

However, assuming the game does follow the original’s trajectory, the next stop for our party is Kalm, a sleepy town located northeast of Midgar. We can also assume Rebirth will be a lot more densely packed than Remake, as Remake only covered about the first seven or so hours of the original game, leaving the final two entries a lot of ground to cover. I would presume Rebirth will end just after the City of the Ancients, meaning we’ll get a chance to see the new and improved Junon, Mt. Corel, The Golden Saucer, Cosmo Canyon, Nibelheim, and Rocket Town–as well as a potentially devastating scene. We’ll also most likely get the chance to add Yuffie, Vincent, and Cid to our party, rounding out the original Final Fantasy 7 team.

Trailers

So far, there is only one trailer for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. Revealed during 2022’s Final Fantasy 7 25th Anniversary Celebration, this trailer briefly follows Cloud and Sephiroth as they embark on their final mission together as SOLDIERS. It then poses the question, “What is fact and what is fiction?” before jumping to a new scene: Zack carrying an incapacitated Cloud towards Midgar. Based on this trailer, it seems like Rebirth will follow the events of Final Fantasy 7 very closely, as it alludes to some pretty big reveals and iconic moments. It’s also worth noting this trailer shows off a noticeable improvement in graphics, proving Square Enix is making good use of the PlayStation 5’s upgraded hardware.

Development

Shortly after the first trailer was revealed, producer Yoshinori Kitase confirmed the remake series will be a trilogy. Kitase shared this news and how it impacted Rebirth on Twitter, writing:

“Making the middle part of a trilogy has its own challenges, but there are plenty of classic second installments in the world of film that are defined by stunning story twists and deeper explorations of their characters. Often these second installments become a favorite amongst the fans. In the same vein, we are aiming to make Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth an even more gripping and memorable experience than Final Fantasy 7 Remake.”

On June 16, 2022, director Naoki Hamaguchi confirmed Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is in “full production,” so fingers crossed the company can keep that winter 2023 release date.

How to preorder

Trust me, I am every bit as ready as you to play this game, but unfortunately Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth is not yet available to preorder. Rest assured, once preorders go up we’ll put up a guide on how and where you can reserve your copy, as well as any extras you might receive for doing so.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News