Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2023 i Edge

One of the most striking things about Light & Magic, Lawrence Kasdan’s captivating documentary series about the early days of the special effects house behind Star Wars, is how differently artists were forced to work back then. It was one thing to have an idea about how a space battle might look on the screen, but getting it up there could involve literally inventing new physical technology in order to facilitate capturing the shot. ILM pioneers such as John Dykstra and Dennis Muren had to be as much engineers as artists, which makes the visual qualities of George Lucas’s original trilogy all the more remarkable. Little wonder that it remains such a key reference work throughout movies, TV and indeed games. Nowadays, achieving high-quality visual effects isn’t exactly easy, but…

You might expect a big new game studio emerging in 2023 to be caught up in the buzzwords of the moment, especially since the very idea of forming a heavyweight development company requires investors to come on board, and investors have the unfortunate tendency to obsess over trends. UK-based newcomer Maverick Games, however, is sticking to what it knows, and that means shunning talk of, for example, the Metaverse. “I’m not sure the idea of a Metaverse is that clearly defined,” says co-founder Mike Brown. “For us, we want to make games that are a destination for players to visit and a place to share experiences. Some might call that a Metaverse, but it’s what we’ve been doing in the game industry for many, many years.” How about blockchain games?…

Among the more fun psychology and neuroscience practical experiments I was involved with at university were those investigating the limits of human perception. Unlike the worthy but extremely dull lectures on membrane potentials in neurones, these saw us putting on headphones to see how high a pitch we could hear, or taking visual tests like those at opticians, to measure how fine we could see. Mixed in with these tests were concepts such as the Nyquist limit, which essentially states that, if you’re recording audio or displaying an image, there’s little value in using a resolution that’s more than double what humans can see. Since the human hearing range stretches from 20Hz to 20,000Hz, that means there’s no point in sample audio at beyond double that range, which is partly…

Developer/publisher Awaceb Format PC, PS4, PS5 Origin New Caledonia Release Spring We’re sure it’s not intentional, but our generous preview build of Tchia offers compelling evidence for more videogames skipping the preamble and beginning in medias res. On startup, an introductory video briskly walks us through various features and mechanics while getting us up to speed with we’re at in the story. But when we’re dropped onto this idyllic group of islands (based on developer Awaceb’s home in New Caledonia, a small archipelago between the northeastern coast of Australia and Fiji), we’re essentially left to figure out everything else ourselves, from the game’s controls to our next destination. Within moments of being given control, while playing around with Tchia’s ‘soul jump’ mechanic – which lets our eponymous lead temporarily possess…

Developer/ publisher Triple Topping Format PC, PS5, Switch, Xbox Series Origin Denmark Release TBA Forget the tired trope of the strong female protagonist; just what constitutes a feminist game? It’s a question we posit to self-proclaimed feminist indie game studio Triple Topping, which also prides itself on feminist storytelling. “Like, wouldn’t it be obvious that when you’re creating a game studio, you want it to be inclusive and welcoming and equal to all genders?” studio director Astrid Refstrup responds. “But after a couple of years as a woman in the game industry, you realise that there are hurdles you have to deal with that my male colleagues don’t. So we decided, why not be a bit upfront, a little bit activistic and call ourselves a feminist game studio? Then, of…

As the recurring opening disclaimer of the Assassin’s Creed games reminds us, every videogame is a conglomeration of disparate parts, almost always built by more than one person, often dozens and sometimes hundreds. Getting everyone singing from the same hymn sheet, then, must represent one of the biggest challenges of development. To ship a game involves ensuring that the finished product carries a memorable tune with as few bum notes as possible. The theme of harmony runs through much of this issue’s Play selection – though January’s biggest game, Fire Emblem: Engage, isn’t exactly Good Vibrations or California Dreamin’ in that respect. Sure, those attack animations are better than ever, while the return of a dozen heroes from previous entries is welcome. But it lacks Three Houses’ holistic blend of…

Developer/publisher Scavengers Studio Format PC, PS4, PS5 (tested) Release January 31 Knowing that everything around you is coming to an end, what do you choose to carry into the future? And what are you willing to let go? These questions are right at the heart of Season, from its very first scene. You play a young woman from an isolated mountain village, the residents of which do not leave its bounds. But now, you’re told, the season is coming to an end – an unspecified kind of apocalypse that looms over every character. And so you are about to become the exception to that rule, to record the world before it ends. There’s a reason, though, that the others don’t leave home. The valleys below are awash with Dream Sickness,…

Developer Niceplay Games Publisher TinyBuild Format PC Release Out now Somewhere deep inside us all is the desire to own, and run, a tiny shop. For this reason, Potion Craft, with its mellow atmosphere and tactile crafting system, serves as a satisfying form of wish fulfilment. Part shop-management sim, part science experiment, it’s a laidback game about serving customers and tinkering with potions to develop your craft. In the early stages, this makes for a rewarding crafting loop that inspires exploration and the careful refinement of your skills. Yet once the immediate effects of this soothing environment start to wear off, you may find the experience begins to feel slightly under-brewed. At the centre of Potion Craft is, of course, its crafting system, which takes an innovative approach to elixirmaking…

This year could be a watershed moment for the videogame industry, as issues that have been rumbling along for far too long, including concerns over data privacy, online safety and loot boxes, look set to come to a head. “We’re going to start seeing a lot more implementation of legislation that’s been talked about,” says Anna Poulter-Jones, an associate in the Computer Games and Digital Media groups at law firm Sheridans. “We’re going to be seeing more of this actually coming into play and impacting companies.” There’s a sense that the videogame industry has largely managed to avoid intense scrutiny from regulators over the years but now, according to Peter Lewin, senior associate at law firm Wiggin, all eyes are firmly fixed in its direction. “You’ve got the CMA [Competition…

“In the middle of Jordan Peele’s Demolition Man, could I not simply say ‘let me play now’, and immediately take control of Millie Bobby Brown as officer Spartan?” Assassin’s Creed: Codename Hexe director Clint Hocking envisions some AI-powered entertainment media of the not-too-distant future ”You can’t even survive as a business, yet you’re chilling on the weekends, playing ball.” As Tencent’s fortunes take a dip, CEO Ma Huateng suggests that Saturdays aren’t for switching off ”Imagine a society where politicians were as happy to be with developers and esports stars as they are to meet those from film and TV.” Skillfull’s Gina Jackson has a dream. A hugely unlikely one, sure. But a dream nevertheless “The fact that they kept it so grounded, and really made you feel – Ihad…

Dialogue Send your views, using ‘Dialogue’ as the subject line, to edge@futurenet.com. Our letter of the month wins an exclusive Edge T-shirt. Curse correction Although I really like your magazine, I disagree with some of the opinions on your pages about cloud gaming. The Edge curse seems to have sealed Stadia’s fate and I’m sorry to see the harsh words about this cool gaming system from both your editors and readers. As a huge fan of Stadia, I enjoyed the convenience and simplicity of the service. I had no issues with the stream quality (I’m lucky to have a good network at home), and the business model was perfect – Imean, wallet-friendly – for my gaming habits. I just wonder what happened to the gamers? The players who were famously…

We’re enjoying a cheerful wander around Ija Nöj in Tchia when we’re belatedly struck by a fact revealed in its intro video. This utterly convincing sun-kissed setting was built by just nine people. How, we wonder, did they manage it? And then we realise: it works so well because the team at Awaceb didn’t have to fake it; it is, after all, where they’re from. Sure, technically this archipelago is fictional – but it’s a place that has a firm grounding in the real world. Tchia is a love letter to New Caledonia, a South Pacific island the studio’s co-founders call home. Awaceb doesn’t boast the resources afforded most developers of open-world games, and in its introduction it’s at great pains to point out that certain elements are fictional –…

Developer Doinksoft Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC, Switch Origin US Release 2023 At nine letters, that title may be the most economical pitch in the history of videogames. Think for a moment how an umbrella that is also a gun might function, and you have a reasonably good idea of what you’re going to be doing in this followup to monochromatic Metroidvania Gato Roboto. “It’s kind of a like a chicken-oregg thing whether the name or the idea of the weapon came first,” Doinksoft’s Cullen Dwyer begins. “But you just say ‘Gunbrella’ and [people] kind of get it immediately.” Technically it is not the first of its kind – and what does it say about the medium we love that someone else already got there? As in Splatoon, this powerful…

Making an entire game as a springboard for your next one might seem like an odd creative decision. Yet this is exactly what Bohemia Interactive is doing with Arma Reforger. Released into Steam Early Access in May 2022, Reforger isn’t a direct sequel to the Czech studio’s military sim Arma 3 but rather a curious combination of hardcore multiplayer shooter, technological testbed, and martial Garry’s Mod, all built in a brand-new proprietary engine named Enfusion. Even from a studio that once made a game entirely about helicopters, it’s an unusual move. So, what is the reasoning behind it? “Freedom,” says Ivan Buchta, creative director on Arma Reforger. “Freedom is super-important if you want to push things.” While they won’t commit to anything specific, the team’s ambitions for Arma 4 itself…

Developer Intelligent Systems Publisher Nintendo Format Switch Release Out now Outside the ramifications it has for both Fire Emblem’s mechanics and its narrative, Engage’s titular hook says everything about the contemporary fixation with the notion of the expanded universe. The franchisification of this particular series is unusual, since as recently as 2012’s Awakening it was unpopular enough to have Nintendo considering pulling the plug for good – until that game’s expanded social elements helped Intelligent Systems’ tactical RPG reach a wider audience. As such, its one big idea – to bring back heroes from past entries as summons of sorts – represents an unusual kind of fan service. You could say it’s admirable that Engage caters to Fire Emblem’s most loyal supporters – or those who have revisited the older…

Developer Superbrothers, Pine Scented Publisher Superbrothers Format PC (tested), PS4, PS5 Release January 31 Wilful, slippery, defiantly peculiar: 2021’s Jett: The Far Shore was, in the words of its own creator, “a grower”. Its unorthodox design created purposeful friction we (mostly) found appealing but which proved irritating to others. As director Craig D Adams noted with refreshing candour, QA reports suggested the average player could get to grips with the jett’s handling within around 12 hours – hardly ideal for a campaign lasting just over ten. But a bigger problem for many was the way it established an inviting new setting with a reactive ecosystem and gave you little time to play around with it. Instead, it ferried you from set-piece to set-piece, encouraging you to progress the story rather…

New Year’s Day 2023 marked the tenth anniversary of Mike Bithell realising he could quit his day job and start developing games independently. Thomas Was Alone had launched the previous June, but it wasn’t until January 1, 2013 that it passed the sales milestone he’d decided would allow him to follow his dream. A decade on, Bithell Games is currently working with on its seventh game, Tron: Identity, a choice-driven visual-novel adventure due to launch from Disney later this year. It’s a project informed, in some way, by just about every game in the studio’s catalogue to date. “I’m an established sellout now,” Bithell laughs, “whereas with John Wick Hex it was a surprise to everyone.” You’ve been doing this now for just over ten years. Did you have any…

As I write this in the dog days of 2022, my thoughts naturally turn to my personal highlights of the year in games. If you’d asked me a year ago I would have confidently predicted that my top game of 2022 would be the rerelease of Advance Wars 1 & 2, but Nintendo – in a display of geopolitical sensitivity that one might consider excessive but the likes of which are at least literally unheard of among giant videogame corporations – delayed their release because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Savvily, Ukraine’s own official communications channels went on to exploit the power of videogame-style imagery by tweeting COD-style top-down monochrome footage of gunships destroying Russian tanks, to rousing soundtracks of rock and hip-hop. My highlight of the year in…

Developer/publisher Mimimi Games Format PC, PS5, Xbox Series Origin Germany Release TBA 2023 After making its breakthrough with a game about ninjas (2016’s Shadow Tactics) and a followup about cowboys (2020’s Desperados III), for this spiritual successor Mimimi has turned once more to the childhood dressing-up box for inspiration. At least, that’s how we initially assume the German studio landed on pirates as the stars of Shadow Gambit. However, head of design Moritz Wagner tells it a little differently. “When we were starting out, there were many different projects that we were pitching internally,” he says. Pirates won out in part because of how well a lawless life on the high seas chimed with the theme of player freedom. The motley crew of eight you lead can be assembled in…

Developer/ publisher Sonka Format PC Origin Poland Release TBA We all have little tasks we’ve been putting off for a while: that picture that needs straightening, the crockery that hasn’t been put away, the stack of paperwork that now teeters precariously. An hour in the Jankowski residence, however, makes us feel like Marie Kondo. Beyond the upturned chairs, fallen plant pots and strewn toys, there are mysterious bloodstains in several rooms – not to mention the charred hand in the fireplace. Most troubling of all, there are strange growths everywhere, otherworldly tendrils sprouting from slimy, sticky, yellow-brown patches on the floor and walls preventing us from accessing most rooms. They might not seem like much in static shots; rather, it’s the way they react to light that unsettles, shrinking when…

Developer LookingGlass Technologies Publisher Origin Systems Format PC Release 1994 FIRETEAM Developer Multitude, Inc Publisher Cryo Interactive Format PC Release 1998 DEUS EX Developer Ion Storm Publisher Eidos Interactive Format PC, PS2 Release 2000 Harvey Smith grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast among chemical plants and shrimpers – an industrial milieu analogous to Dishonored’s setting of Dunwall, with its lightning-oil companies and whaling trawlers. “By my standards today, it’s not a place I would live,” he says. “And I knew that when I was 20 years old.” After graduating high school, he and his partner “got the fuck out of Dodge”. Smith joined the United States Air Force, working as an electronics technician and in satellite communications, which enabled him to travel across the country and to Germany, where…

STILL PLAYING Nintendo Switch Sports Switch Holiday season is always Nintendo season, though the recently introduced golf gets short shrift, online multiplayer making a leisurely pastime feel too hurried, while we’re gently encouraged to move on to more immediate sports for local play. Besides the perennial family favourite that is bowling, winnerstays-on badminton and volleyball prove the biggest hits, the latter getting especially raucous after a few servings of grog. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Switch You begin to wonder if Nintendo needs to bother with a ninth entry. There are few more reliably enrapturing multiplayer games suited to all ages, even if this does cause the most impassioned arguments of the festive period: “Stop calling it Christmas Town – it’s Merry Mountain”; “3DS Rainbow Road is the best Rainbow Road”;…

As aretainer to Elusian princess Ivy, Kagetsu was once an opponent. Now, however, the samuraigarbed swordmaster has become one of our most trusted and capable allies. And so we think little of it when we send him on a solo mission down a separate path from the rest of the group to open a pair of chests – only to leave him within the attack range of five enemy units. We could, of course, use our Draconic Time Crystal that lets us rewind and retry our actions, but our gut tells us we should see how this plays out. We’re glad we do. First, Kagetsu nimbly sidesteps an incoming blow from a wyvern rider, who is dispatched with a powerful counter. None of the other four learn from their ally’s…

Developer/publisher Squanch Games Format PC, Xbox Series (tested) Release Out now Have you heard of Tammy And The T-Rex, the 1994 Denise Richards movie about a teenage girl whose boyfriend’s brain is transplanted into the body of a dinosaur? We hadn’t, before spotting a poster for it hanging in High On Life’s home base, a woodpanelled bungalow that hops through the galaxy like a suburban TARDIS. We dismiss it as a throwaway parody of the kind of shlock produced in the VHS era – before turning around to find the actual live-action film playing on the living-room television. All 82 minutes of it. This realisation prompts the single biggest laugh over the eight or so hours High On Life takes to complete. A quiet chuckle at the audacity of spending,…