Innehållsförteckning för April 2017 från Edge

Certain game series exist on a plane one notch above everything else, their new entries seeming to make the world stop for a moment. It’s a minuscule category, reserved for only the most storied of thoroughbreds. Plenty of heavyhitting names – Uncharted, for example, along with Halo and Call Of Duty – don’t make the cut. We’ve narrowed this exclusive club down to just three, in fact. First, there’s Rockstar’s irrepressible Grand Theft Auto. Then there’s Mario (in the proper Mario game sense, that is). And then there is The Legend Of Zelda, whose latest instalment has been consuming our lives lately. In the process of reviewing Breath Of The Wild we became the first people outside of Nintendo to finish the game. Playing this way is unusual nowadays. More…

Freestyle Games is no more. The studio behind DJ Hero and Guitar Hero Live lives on, albeit scaled down, under new ownership and the name of Ubisoft Leamington. That deal only went through in January, by which time it had already been a year since co-founders Jamie Jackson and Dave Osbourn had decided it was time to walk away. Activision, then Freestyle’s owner, put the studio through a restructure, cutting headcount and having those who remained support development of other Activision titles, rather than making their own. Freestyle’s Guitar Hero Live had sold in excess of two million units. It wasn’t enough. “For me and Dave to stay there didn’t make an awful lot of sense,” Jackson explains. “We were too top-heavy for something that wasn’t making games by itself…

“It’s a tough job, but if I can help create at least one more unique thing for Nintendo to bring to the world, I think I’ll be really happy.” Five words for you, Nintendo president Tatsumi Kimishima: The Wand Of Gamelon: Revengeance Luigi Novi “I dunno, in my movies, people just sit around and talk to each other. There hasn’t been a lot of stuff I’ve done that would lend itself to games.” Clearly Kevin Smith hasn’t heard our idea for Mallrats: The Game “I’m going to have a different approach for the next game. What I really want to avoid is, like you see in some games, characters with big breasts with no backstory.” If Hideo Kojima’s going to do big breasts, they have to have some narrative attached…

WEBSITE Zkillboard bit.ly/zkillboard A melancholy atmosphere descends after a few minutes spent watching Zkillboard’s EVE Online live map. Red blobs sporadically burst into life and then fade across the cool blueand- white interactive star map of EVE’s New Eden. Each temporary spot of heat represents a ship’s destruction, and by extension a pilot’s death, as thousands of explorers, traders and interstellar ne’er-do-wells go about their business in this vast universe. Each kill is accompanied by the victim’s profile, through which you can learn more about the pilot’s stats, including ships destroyed, ships lost and who most recently brought their life to an end. You can flick between a full map of New Eden or its wormholes, or filter to Hisec, Lowsec or Nullsec areas. A strangely relaxing, if rather morbid,…

The kid, in case you were wondering, is still appalling at Mario Kart. I spent the first three years of his life longing for the day when he’d ask me if we could play a videogame, but now it is merely the latest addition to an ever-increasing list of things I’ll tell four-years-ago me about becoming a father when they finally invent time travel. It’s a weird sensation: he barrels over to me (boys of this age can only barrel; no other verb quite captures their ungainly, wayward, terrifyingly powerful hurtle) with steeringwheel controller in hand, asking if we can play A Mario Driving Game; my heart suddenly swells with pride, then almost immediately deflates when I remember what’s about to happen. I am going to sit and watch him…

T here’s an abiding sense of familiarity to Conan Exiles. On the one hand, it’s a return to the lands of Hyboria for developer Funcom, which originally built out Robert E Howard’s low-fantasy world of barbarians, breasts and beasts for its 2008 MMOG Age Of Conan. It’s not exactly the same world – Exiles is set in a new location, the Exiled Lands, a land of desert and oases encircled by a boundary called the Cursewall. But it’s still a place of high peaks and monumental stone constructions, fit for rippling pecs and flashing swords. On the other hand, there is a lot here that feels familiar, with remarkable similarities to Ark: Survival Evolved. It might lack dinosaurs to tame, farm and ride, but the resource gathering, crafting and building…

When Bungie modelled Destiny’s control system not on that of its own Halo but on Call Of Duty’s, it felt instructive. This was a game designed to appeal to fans of the biggest-selling shooter on the market, that had designs on claiming that title as its own. It may not quite have worked, but it had nothing to do with which button you hit to reload. This month’s Play crop has us thinking once again about the hidden messages behind the humble button config. Take, for instance, The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild (p104), the first of Link’s adventures to be set in a truly open world. Is it coincidence, then, that its control system shares an unusual mapping for jump – X, the uppermost face button –…

T hat light. Milky peaches and pinks seem to bathe the world rather than simply illuminate it, while searing reds, yellows and blues assault the screen every time you point the camera vaguely in the direction of the sun in what must be the most unapologetically overwrought lens-flare effect ever committed to a videogame. At night, limestone greys and damp-mossy greens dominate while ghostly, moonlit silhouettes are picked out in the rolling mist. It’s immediately obvious that Horizon Zero Dawn shares DNA with Guerrilla’s Killzone series via the Decima engine, which powers both, but the tech finds even greater potency in this new, more naturalistic setting. And what a setting. Horizon’s post-apocalyptic wilderness is sprawling but intricate, taking in vast deserts, dense forests, ruined cities, and snow-covered mountains. It’s an…

The second option you’re presented with on starting Sniper Elite 4, just after gamma adjustment, is whether or not to use the series’ now-infamous Kill Cam. Squeamish players can shield themselves from the game’s unflinching depiction of fracturing bones, spiralling brain matter and ruptured testicles even before choosing to invert their Y axis, then, but to do so wouldn’t be in keeping with the game’s spirit of perfectionism, and you would deprive yourself of some of the most satisfying payoffs in any videogame. The Sniper Elite series has always been about patient refinement, both in the sniper roleplay fantasy it presents to players and in the way Rebellion candidly admits its relative lack of resources but soldiers on with incremental improvements in each instalment. And with Sniper Elite 4 the…

I f Dexed seemed to come out of nowhere, that’s because to all intents and purposes it did. Conceived during an internal game jam at Ninja Theory, it was assembled by a team of eight within a month and then polished for the next two before being announced and released. You can see why it won, just as the short development time will come as no surprise once you’ve clocked its four levels and single boss stage well within an hour. It’s a rail shooter, yet acknowledged influences including Ikaruga and Panzer Dragoon suggest an intensity Dexed consciously lacks. Instead, it’s conducted at a relatively sedate pace, as you’re gently carried along on a translucent current through four elemental biomes. You’re armed with two types of shot – fire and…

Namco founder Masaya Nakamura died aged 91 on January 22, leaving a vast legacy of coin-op and console hits, along with one of videogaming’s most iconic characters. Nakamura established the company in 1955, but it was the advent of the arcade that made the Namco name famous worldwide, first with Galaxian and then, in 1980, with Pac-Man. The pelletgobbling character proved such a draw, in fact, that Nakamura came to question the knock-on effects of the game’s popularity. “I am a little concerned about the way some young people play it so much,” he said in a 1982 interview. “It’s not a very happy thing to see people spending so much time on it. Once it goes beyond a certain level, it is not good for young people.” But Nakamura…

Hardware VR Sense Manufacturer Tecmo Virtual reality’s disruptive assault on the amusement business continues apace with the announcement of this new VR cabinet, devised by console publisher Koei Tecmo. At first, it seems as if the Dynasty Warriors maker’s involvement has been marginal, since the cab is powered exclusively by Sony hardware – inside you’ll find a PlayStation VR headset, a PS4 Pro and a pair of Move controllers – but VR Sense, as the name implies, has more to offer than just a place to sit down. Koei Tecmo has announced three games for Sense – GI Jockey Sense, Horror Sense and Dynasty Warriors VR – and said more will follow if the system’s popular. Yet the real draw is a host of cabinetpowered special effects: a moving seat…

Dialogue Send your views, using ‘Dialogue’ as the subject line, to edge@futurenet.com. Our letter of the month wins a year’s subscription to PlayStation Plus, courtesy of Sony Interactive Entertainment Lie low on Switch In the past, I have written sprawling letters to Edge on intellectual topics, embellished with cultured references and literary flourishes. Today, after reading your feature in E303, I find myself in the grip of an existential crisis that calls for a more primitive, plaintive howl: to Switch or not to Switch? Although utterly enamoured with the company’s hometown of Kyoto, a detail not as irrelevant as it seems, I’ve never been a big fan of Nintendo. I had a brief love affair with the Wii (who didn’t?) and enjoyed a handful of games on the New 3DS…

Videogames may be synonymous with innovation, but a great many traditions also endure in them, too: rigid genres, particular ways of doing things, unwritten rules that we all take as read after years of familiarisation. This month’s Hype section provides a cross-section of games that straddle, to varying degrees, these apparently opposing positions. Take Yakuza 6 (p40), for example, a game steeped in the traditions of both the culture it portrays and decades of Sega history. Its series proudly flaunts its disinterest in modernity as one of its most appealing aspects, but even Yakuza Studio has now softened its stance on a few aspects that were maybe trailing a little too far behind the times. Thimbleweed Park (p48) is even more obsessed with nostalgia, reviving the spirit of one of…

Developer Publisher Format Origin Release The Farm 51 Bandai Namco PC, PS4, Xbox One Poland May 26 As has already been well established, Get Even isn’t a firstperson shooter or puzzle adventure, and it certainly isn’t a survival-horror game. But it is built on the foundation of its creative director’s deepest fear. “The very basis of the game is what I’m scared of most,” Wojciech Pazdur explains. “I’m a father, I’m 30-something, so I’m not afraid of zombies or aliens. I’m afraid that someone could do something bad to my kids and I wouldn’t be able to help them.” That sense of helplessness, and parental lament, is reflected in protagonist Cole Black’s obsession with the girl he may or may not have rescued from the hostage situation he has patchy…

The park, or at least what’s left of it, is a surreal sight buried under 50 feet of snow. Now hollowed out into a frozen cave, it has become a network of chilly, gloomy chambers in which we’re searching for components that can be used to build a basic heater for the abandoned church that we, and four other survivors, have commandeered as a shelter. Mid-search we happen across an injured man who begs us to bring him medical supplies. We agree, triggering a new event, but our inventory is stuffed full of breeze blocks, metal pipes and scrap metal. Deep down, we know we’re not coming back. On the arduous return trip to the church a notification pops up to tell us that the event can no longer be…

Developer/publisher Red Hook Studios Format Mac, PC, PS4, Vita Origin Canada Release 2016 An RPG in which heroes grow more potent and more unstable with experience, Red Hook’s Darkest Dungeon is both a brilliant corruption of its genre and a sly piece of workplace satire. The premise blurs HP Lovecraft with Diablo and Ultima – it tasks you with reclaiming your family manor from a tide of evil unleashed by the wayward Ancestor, a process you work through by hiring and training adventurers at a nearby hamlet. But in its representation of stress as a stat that creeps up as warriors push deeper into the shadows, peaking in an affliction that may see characters sabotaging each other or spurning your orders, the game also channels something a little closer to…

Developer/publisher Nintendo (EPD) Format Switch, Wii U (both tested) Release March 3 T he shrines, it turns out, are just the beginning. Ever since our first play of this sprawling adventure, we’ve been working to the assumption that these short, taut puzzle dungeons would be Breath Of The Wild’s focal point. And that’s true, to an extent. Nintendo has studded its largest-ever game world with over 100 shrines; they’re self-contained, subterranean chambers that are a vital component of Nintendo’s first open-world game, serving as tutorials, pacing devices, fast-travel points, signposts, landmarks – and puzzles. Yet they are by no means the sole expression of Breath Of The Wild’s desire to tax the grey matter. There are puzzles, by the dozen, above ground too. That hoary old open-world cliché now needs…

Eighteen years on from the release of Planescape: Torment, this spiritual successor picks up the cult RPG’s legacy and brings it to a new setting. Moving away from Planescape – a multidimensional spinoff of Dungeons & Dragons – Torment: Tides Of Numenera is set in the Ninth World, the focus of Monte Cook’s more modern pen-and-paper roleplaying game, Numenera. That transition is important because, like its tabletop counterpart, Tides Of Numenera actively pulls away from D&D and its influence. This new system places heavy emphasis on flexible storytelling and player agency, giving no special precedence to combat, loot, dungeons or monsters. It’s a system where fighting and killing are optional, companion characters are only necessary if you decide that they are, and where loot is only useful if it solves…

And we thought Yakuza 0 was going to be the weirdest game we’d play this year. This delightful oddity from Little King’s Story and Chulip creator Yoshiro Kimura centres on a lonely, disillusioned 36-year-old salaryman, Yamada, who quits his job at a social-gaming company to be a bedroom coder. The game he makes is the one you play: a dungeon-crawler that accrues new features as he receives inspiration from an array of visitors including former workmate Yasu and his furious ex-boss (we’ve had a few insults hurled our way by game villains in our time, but “bumbling turdbag” is a new one on us). More importantly, there’s his new neighbour Maria, with whom Yamada falls instantly and hopelessly in love. His affection can seem uncomfortably ardent, but a terrific localisation…

D evelopers searching for inspiration now have a new resource thanks to the creation of an organisation dedicated to showcasing the cities and landscapes of Italy. Called the Italian Videogame Program, or IVIPRO, the institution is amassing an enormous database to represent some of the country’s most evocative and culturally rich locations. IVIPRO, staffed by five people, is building its collection with the help of tourist boards and cultural institutions, but founder Andrea Dresseno knows that certain locations will be of more interest than others. “Ancient villages and villas, fortresses, abandoned buildings, and monuments,” he suggests. “Local folklore mixing in with history and legends can further contribute to the characterisation of a location.” IVIPRO will also present the histories behind the locations. “A place is not only architecture but also…

Old Man’s Journey is a contemplative journey through a person’s life, inspired by a picture of rolling hills fading into the distance. Each beautifully drawn 2D landscape contains paths to wander along, but you’re also able to switch between layers of the landscape by using a trick of perspective that recalls the worlds of Fez. “That picture emitted a strong sense of depth, distance and, essentially, of wanderlust,” Felix Bohatsch, of developer Broken Rules, tells us. “After I talked with Clemens [Scott, creative director], we came up with the idea of shaping hills, walking on their silhouettes and switching between them at intersections.” That initial sense of wanderlust inspired the pair to think about why the protagonist was on his journey, and the concept of family surfaced as a common…

Steve Aoki is a musician, DJ, producer and the founder of Dim Mak Records. He also set up the Steve Aoki Foundation to support research into degenerative brain diseases, and regularly streams charity matches on Twitch. More recently, he bought esports organisation Rogue, and created a Dim Mak imprint called New Noise, which aims to provide royalty-free music to Twitch streamers. Why did you buy an esports team? I might not be great at gaming, but I’ve been a gamer since I was a little kid. I’m always looking at what inspires me, so it’s not just about music – it can be any sort of entertainment. With the rise of gaming turning into an actual sport, this was an exciting venture to get involved in. I was researching different…

So my friend and I are walking down the street, punching and kicking everyone we meet, and occasionally throwing car tyres at them or stabbing them with broken bottles. This is such fun that we decide to do the same thing in a videogame. Happily, Double Dragon 4 has just been released on PS4. As it turns out, though, we spend all of 15 minutes on it before deciding that it is terrible and switching to the highly satisfying Neon Chrome, a moodily lit sci-fi Roguelike twin-stick shooter that uses around a billion times as many pixels and more than four frames of animation. On another recent weekend, I book tickets to see La La Land in the cinema, not because I expect to enjoy it but because I know…

Developer Slighty Mad Studios Publisher Bandai Namco Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Origin UK Release May 6 The first time we take 27R, Fuji Speedway’s opening corner, in a Mercedes-AMG GT3, we brace ourselves for the usual anxiety-stricken nightmare of slowing for and negotiating a tight turn in a simulation game. The tarmac will feel like it’s slicked with oil, accurately and consistently meting out power to the rear wheels will be a nightmare using the trigger, and the car will inevitably punish us for even entertaining the idea of relying on those four rubber contact patches for grip. To our surprise, though, the GT3 remains confidently planted the whole way around the bend. This is too easy. On the second time around we push a little harder, and still…

Publisher Bandai Namco Developer FromSoftware Format PC,PS4, Xbox One Origin Japan Release March 28 We can’t help but feel a little sombre as we take our first steps into The Ringed City, the second and final expansion for Dark Souls III. This is, if Miyazaki is to be believed, the last time we’ll set out into new territory in the Souls series as we know it. The opening location for this final adventure is The Dreg Heap, which appears to be in the fallen city seen in Dark Souls III’s concluding area, Kiln Of The First Flame, and sits above the titular Ringed City. Swathes of a once-towering city now sit at 45 degrees to the rest of the world amid a sea of ash, crumbling towers jutting out like…

The panorama has long been one of the big sells of huge 3D open worlds. It typically manifests as an unbroken view over a huge landscape, which may or may not be traversable. It’s all about creating the impression of grand scale. When Todd Howard presented Skyrim during E3 2011 he exemplified the effort: pointing to the fantasy land’s horizon, he said, “See that mountain? You can climb it.” Many others, including most notably No Man’s Sky, The Witcher III and The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild, commit wholeheartedly to the same promise. But there exists a quiet rebellion among smaller videogame studios of late. Together, they reject the panorama, and have instead found cause to revive the diorama. It was practicality that birthed the videogame diorama. The…

The founders of Drinkbox Studios admit that it took some time to locate its niche. The Toronto-based indie was born from the ashes of developer Pseudo Interactive, best known for vehicular combat games Cel Damage and Full Auto and their sequels. In 2008, the Ontario studio was working on several games simultaneously, but when the axe began to fall for Eidos Interactive, its biggest ongoing project was cancelled and it was forced to close its doors. As soon as it became clear that the shutters were about to descend, a team of programmers discussed starting a new company. Ten staffers attended the first meeting. Gradually, that number whittled down to three as the rest dropped out. There were a few people that you’d hope to work with because you’d been…

L et’s hear it for the Koroks. Early on in Breath Of The Wild, as you head up the hill to a village, you happen across a sobbing spirit, upset because its maracas have fallen silent. Bandits, it transpires, have stolen the Korok seeds from inside them; seek one out, the spirit pledges, and it will expand your inventory by way of thanks. Storage space is at a premium early on, so while you’re amassing sidequests from passers-by at a lick, this one feels worth prioritising. When you reach the village, you spot something curious at the entrance of the elder’s house: a row of statues, each with a ceremonial dish at their base. All but one have an apple inside. You forget about your quest for a moment –…

F ifteen hours in, finally something clicks. We’re on a hill approaching a sacked Japanese castle, steeling ourselves for an encounter that has already gone against us four times, against a hulking, purple, stretchy-tongued giant. Until now we have largely played Nioh as if it is a new FromSoftware release – understandable, given the extent to which this game pays homage to the Souls series and Bloodborne. We have maintained respectful distance; we have baited and punished, as is tradition. It is a tactic that has served us well, for the most part, up until now – but this giant’s having none of it. He’s fast, strong and, worst of all, smart. We decide on a change of approach, switching from a rangy spear to a sword, from the slow,…

T he Rez comparisons are as unavoidable as they are misleading. Like Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s masterpiece, Aaero is a rhythmic rail-shooter, where your actions are inextricably bound to the beat, and where you target enemies and their projectiles by sweeping a large reticle over them, locking onto a maximum of eight before pulling the trigger to destroy them. But there’s a minor point of difference even here: you highlight these insectoid aggressors with the right analogue stick before squeezing RT, rather than holding, locking on and then releasing. More importantly, your lasers will fire straighter and truer if you launch on the beat or just before; this means that not only do you have to wait less time before shooting again, but you’ll also gain a score boost for your efficiency.…

What makes a game satisfying? I mean, some games are astonishing, some are chilling, many are immersive and beautiful, but more than any other attribute, I want to be satisfied. I want a game to engage me and impress me, but more than anything, I want it to feel… righ Confused? Read on, because I’ve done some thinking here. The first thing that satisfies me is knowing the game world. Actually being told, concisely and, this is just me, with a hint of humour, what the situation is and what I need to do. I want to face a problem to rectify, and to have my imagination fired up so that before anything else happens, I’m thinking of ways to sort it. Even if I’m jumping the gun with my…