This year’s The Elder Scrolls Online adventure will take players to a never-before-seen location with the new High Isles chapter, along the way diving deep into a culture that has yet to be explored in much detail in the lore.

The upcoming yearlong adventure is called Legacy of the Bretons, and will encompass multiple pieces of new DLC content over the course of 2022. The biggest addition in Legacy of the Bretons is the new High Isle chapter. Legacy of the Bretons will see players travel to the Systres Archipelago, a Mediterranean-inspired island region that is home to the High Isle itself.

A story of political intrigue awaits players on the island. Delegates from the three factions that are battling it out in the game’s Three Banners War have come to discuss peace terms on the island getaway, but a secret society known as the Ascendant Order has other plans. Players will unravel the mystery of the Ascendant Order, its motives, and its leaders in a story that The Elder Scrolls Online creative director Rich Lambert described as a return to the storytelling roots of the Elder Scrolls franchise.

“It’s definitely that more politically focused storyline rather than the cosmic daedric lords are going to invade, take over and enslave everybody,” Lambert said. “It’s a fresh new take, it’s something we haven’t done in a very long time, and it’s something we really wanted to dig into and kind of go back to our roots on.”

Breton culture is inspired by the feudalistic European society fans of Western medieval fantasy are no doubt familiar with, one filled with lords and ladies, knights in shining armor, and majestic castles. While that might sound like something many fantasy fans have seen before, Lambert stressed that the High Isle and Breton culture still has that signature Elder Scrolls style.

“It’s the Elder Scrolls angle,” he said. “There isn’t a single source of truth. We are definitely a lot more focused on the politics and showing that. It’s a novel thing in Elder Scrolls, and Bretons and their culture have never really been explored before.”

Fans of the franchise have been endlessly debating on the setting for The Elder Scrolls VI, which some believe based on the game’s initial teaser trailer to be centered around the Breton province of High Rock (Hammerfell is another likely possibility). If that is the case, High Isle could potentially step on some toes in regards to whatever Bethesda Game Studios is cooking up. While Lambert had little to say on that subject, he did talk about how ZeniMax Online works closely with Bethesda Game Studios to keep the world and lore of the Elder Scrolls universe consistent.

“We can just have frank discussions,” Lambert said. “‘Hey, this is what we’re thinking, this is what we want to do. These are the reasons why. Steer us in the right direction, make sure we’re not going afoul of lore or going afoul of other things.’ And they work with us really closely with that kind of stuff and help us navigate those waters, which is amazing.”

While High Isle will bring all the usual content included with a new chapter–new public dungeons, world events, delves, and more–it will also see the introduction of a whole new distraction within the world of Tamriel: a playable card game.

Called Tales of Tribute, the card game is a resource-building focused on strategy. Each player selects two decks, which are then all shuffled together. Players then play from that shared pool of cards to build resources and acquire more victory points than their opponent. Because decks are shuffled together, players who have unlocked or upgraded more cards won’t be at a distinct advantage over new players. Lambert said the inspiration for Tales of Tribute came less from collectible card games and more from games you might play at a tavern or pub while you are waiting for your friends to show up or just killing time.

“What would you do when you were waiting on a boat or what would you do when you were sitting at a pub drinking?” Lambert said. “You’d play games, you know? That was kind of the inspiration.”

Players will be able to challenge each other in Tales of Tribute directly or in taverns, and players who want to find an opponent quickly can also find a match using the game’s group finding system. There’s a single-player component too, with a unique Tales of Tribute storyline that sees players challenging various NPCs throughout the world. Tales of Tribute will have its own rewards for players to unlock through playing, including new decks, upgraded cards, and items of use outside the card game like housing items, cosmetics, crafting materials, and more. Lambert said there are 12 decks to collect, with players earning four decks after completing the card game’s tutorial.

Of course, launch is just the beginning, and Lambert said if there is demand among the community for more cards and decks that the team will continue to add more. Lambert said that ZeniMax Online has continued to support various game systems that have proven popular with players, using the game’s Antiquities and Companion systems as examples, and Tales of Tribute will be no different. Speaking of the Companion system, Legacy of the Bretons will introduce two new recruitable companions for players to team up with in the form of Ember and Isobel. Ember is a street-smart Khajiit with a “knack for magic” while Isobel is an aspiring Breton knight.

Overall, Lambert said the High Isles includes roughly 30 hours of new quest content, including side stories where players will get to learn more about Breton culture and lore. Like other ESO chapters, players won’t need to grind through old content to experience High Isle. Players can instead jump right in and start leveling with the latest chapter.

“There’s really something here for all types of players, and we are super excited obviously for the trading card game,” Lambert said. “We can’t wait for players to start digging in.”

The Elder Scrolls Online: High Isle chapter which will launch June 6 for PC, Mac, and Stadia and arrive on Xbox and PlayStation consoles June 21.

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Despite rumors circulating that Hogwarts Legacy might be delayed until 2023 and fears that Gotham Knights could meet the same fate, it seems like both games remain on track for a 2022 release.

The announcement comes from WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar, who mentioned both games as he laid out the company’s 2022 media strategy via Twitter. According to Kilar, Warner Bros. fans can expect even more stories from the company to be delivered with “a sense of urgency,” including a “full slate of highly anticipated games.” While neither Gotham Knights nor Hogwarts Legacy were mentioned by name, Kilar included photos of the games in his tweet, implying both titles are on their way.

While neither game has an official release date as of yet, both are slated to come out this year after having their original 2021 release dates pushed back.

In Gotham Knights, players take on the role of either Nightwing, Batgirl, Robin, or Red Hood as they traverse an open-world Gotham City fighting crime after the apparent death of both Batman and police commissioner James Gordon. Last October, WB Games Montreal revealed the mysterious Court of Owls are the antagonistic organization behind Gotham’s decline, and shared a closer look at the title’s gameplay and seamless cooperative mode.

Similarly to Gotham Knights, Hogwarts Legacy also offers an open-world experience set in the universe of a long-running franchise we know and love: Harry Potter. In Hogwarts Legacy, you take control of your very own witch or wizard attending the fabled school and hone your skills as you embark on a journey to be the brightest sorcerer of your age. While there’s been a fair bit of controversy surrounding the game following Harry Potter author JK Rowling sharing statements viewed as transphobic, the game is still slated to come out later this year with “no involvement” from the writer. However, this does not mean Rowling will not receive a cut of the profits, as she still receives royalties “from the Wizarding World IP in its entirety.”

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Capcom has recorded yet another profitable business streak, as the company reported a 35.9% increase in revenue in its consolidated financial report for its third quarter that ended on December 31, 2021. This makes the entirety of 2021 the ninth consecutive year of operating income growth for Capcom, as well as its fifth year in which it achieved record-setting profits.

New titles such as Resident Evil Village and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin saw massive sales after launch, with digital sales playing a large role in Capcom’s growth for 2021. Other legacy titles such as Resident Evil 7 continued to sell well, and with another million sales in 2021, the older survival-horror game reached a 10 million sales milestone back in October 2021.

Game software sales were up by 30.3% year-on-year and exceeded 25.8 million units sold over the nine months that Capcom reported on while operating income for the company rose by 43.9% during its third quarter.

An interesting note from the financial report is that Capcom noticed that success at award shows resulted in further growth of its user base for the titles that were met with critical acclaim. The company’s mobile division also generated healthy profits, while its arcade operations have also slowly begun to recover after being hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic over the last two years. Looking to the future, Capcom has two big known projects in development.

Street Fighter’s 35th anniversary began this year, with Capcom kicking off the celebrations by telling fans to look forward to the “future development” of the series. In 2020, Capcom also announced the development of Pragmata as part of a strategy to focus on new and existing IPs.

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Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires, the long-running franchise’s first next-gen game, now has a free demo available on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5, as well as the PS4 and Xbox One. The demo will let players get experience with the game’s new castle siege gameplay, as well as a feature that lets players customize their officers prior to battle.

The demo will give access to what Koei Tecmo calls a “challenging tutorial,” which will let players navigate both offensive and defensive scenarios in the new castle siege gameplay. The two types of gameplay featured in the demo are Invasion Battles, which task players with capturing enemy castles, and Defensive Battles, where they must defend against an invading force.

In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Koei Tecmo’s Akihiro Suzuki also warms that the demo is set to a much higher difficulty than the final game, which will let players select their difficulty of choice. While the demo includes plenty of tutorial points, it promises to be a challenging introduction to Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires’ new features.

When trying these demo battles, players can choose to play with one of the game’s standard officers, or can use the edit mode to make their own officers for battle. Anyone who ends up buying the full version of the game on the same platform as they played the demo will also be able to transfer their custom officers into the final game.

Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires will release on February 15 on Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, PC via Steam, and Stadia, as well as on the PS4 and Xbox One.

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