Innehållsförteckning för September 2018 från Edge

“I’m working independently and staying independent. I’m not doing anything Star Wars. That project is on the shelf.”Amy Hennig confirms that not only was her EA Star Wars game cancelled – her contract was too “I’m confident we’ll get to a solution which will be accepted by our gaming community, while at the same time supporting our business.”SIEA president Shawn Layden confirms Sony is finally considering cross-play “If it doesn’t help the developer, and it doesn’t help the consumer, then it doesn’t help grow gaming. I wish people could get to play together.”Xbox boss Phil Spencer dreams of a brighter future. Shouldn’t have bought the State Of Decay devs then, should you? “Fill in the blank of your favourite franchise. We’ll announce information close to its launch date versus teasing…

Developer SIE London Studio Publisher SIE Format PSVR Release TBA One of the highlights of our first sit-down with this cockney shootout, at Paris Games Week last year, was a climactic set-piece in which shooting a fire extinguisher afforded a brief spell of slow motion. Now it’s become a game-wide mechanic, activated by pressing both Move buttons simultaneously. We need it; this is a bit of a struggle, not least because of a spotty Bluetooth connection. Enemy dialogue is dynamically chosen based on player performance, and in among all the note-perfect epithets of modern-day London (“I’ll merk ‘im!”) are instances of “This bloke’s shit!” Well, yes, but let’s blame the Bluetooth. Questions remain over how it’ll all hold up over a full game, but a vertiginous climbing section, and the…

Developer Insomniac Games Publisher SIE Format PS4 Release September 7 After yet another on-rails combat sequence at the Sony press conference, we were starting to wonder whether Insomniac’s Spider-Man hadn’t developed agoraphobia. Not so. A later hands-on demo finally lets us loose on an open-world New York City, and the resultant web-slinging session is nothing short of electrifying. We hurtle through the airspace, above streets clogged with honking yellow taxis, with a zen-like precision and ease – sometimes from just one hand. Releasing R2 at the apex of a swing gives us Peter Parker in controlled free-fall, pulling off lazy, languid flips with slight adjustments of the stick; a minimal reticule suggests a spot to which we might attach our next web. We hurtle through the airspace, above streets clogged…

Developer SIE Bend Studio Publisher SIE Format PS4 Release February 22 If the lack of Days Gone at Sony’s E3 press conference suggested a worrying lack of confidence in Bend Studio’s zombie adventure, sitting down with it rams the point home. This is dreary, unremarkable stuff, a repurposing of The Last Of Us’ linear template in an open-world setting with nary an idea to call its own. Most troublingly of all, what once seemed like the game’s greatest asset – the crowd tech that sees hordes of mutants flood toward you as one – may actually be its biggest problem. ‘Freakers’ may have the numbers. But they’re weak, with most going down in one hit, and there’s no limit on carry capacity, robbing the loot-craft-kill loop of essential tension. Bend’s…

Developer Moon Studios Publisher Microsoft Studios Format Xbox One Release 2019 A small number of true Xbox exclusives means that much rests on the tiny white shoulders of this indie darling. But the return of the titular guardian spirit from 2015’s Ori And The Blind Forest sees the familiar hero in a different form: if The Blind Forest was a coming-of-age tale, The Will Of The Wisps shows Ori as a fully evolved fighter. Ori is now more ninja than pet, kitted out with a fresh set of abilities to face a Metroidvania world somehow even more beautiful than the last. Lighting is now hand-painted onto 2D assets and textures to afford a more natural illumination that shifts and changes as you move through the world. Vines sway and the…

Developer The Coalition Publisher Microsoft Studios Format Xbox One Release 2019 It wasn’t exactly a surprise to see a new Gears Of War unveiled at this year’s E3. For one thing, Microsoft led up to the announcement with Gears Tactics and Gears Pop in what must be the most laughable instance of burying the lede that we’ve seen in some time. Eventually, it transpired that, yes, we’d be getting another mainline Gears game – and it would be fronted by an actual human being, not a Funko monstrosity. And a lady one at that. Microsoft relies on Gears as a key franchise to sell its consoles, and so the missive to The Coalition was likely, ‘We need another one, but mix it up a bit.’ Thus, the new entry’s title…

Developer Dlala Studios Publisher Microsoft Studios Format Xbox One Release TBA Every year, without fail, we have our fish-out-of-water moment – the point where we are reminded that, while we are notionally at E3 with pals, peers and colleagues, we are never quite at home. A couple of years back it was the rapturous reception afforded Shawn Layden’s announcement of the Crash Bandicoot remaster, when the Sony crowd lost their minds. A few years before that, during the Assassin’s Creed Unity demo on Ubisoft’s stage, an excitable chap a few rows behind us screamed “Fuck yeah!” at the top of his lungs when the guillotine blade dropped on an NPC. At E3 2018 it was Microsoft’s turn. All of which is to say that we’ve never really understood the love…

Developer Game Freak Publisher Nintendo, The Pokémon Company Format Switch Release November 16 Pitched as “a Pokémon for everyone” – as if previous entries were somehow off-puttingly arcane – this isn’t the home-console RPG many were hoping for. Rather, it’s a hybrid of the handheld games and Pokémon Go, no doubt intended as a kind of gateway drug to full-fat Pokémon for those who’ve only played the mobile game. It’s a sound concept, and no doubt the sales figures will be absurd, but after a brief stroll through Viridian Forest we’re left with the uneasy feeling that Let’s Go is a dilution of both games. The place is certainly busier than before, that’s for sure. The layout will be familiar to those who played Pokémon Yellow (or Red/Blue for that…

Developer Marvelous, First Studio Publisher Nintendo Format Switch Release 2019 You’d have got fairly long odds on Nintendo’s E3 Direct opening with an urgent metal soundtrack and giant cel-shaded mechs battling it out against a blood-red sky. But it’s absolutely a compliment to Marvelous that we briefly suspected PlatinumGames might have been behind this energetic action game. With no sign of From reviving Armored Core any time soon, this could well be the next best thing; indeed, producer Kenichiro Tsukuda and mecha concept artist Shoji Kawamori are both series regulars, while character designer Yusuke Kozaki has worked on the likes of Ouendan and Puzzle & Dragons. In other words, this team knows what it’s doing. It shows, too. This was a confident debut for a game that seems a little…

Developer Intelligent Systems Publisher Nintendo Format Switch Release Spring 2019 For a new entry in a series whose popularity has spiked in recent years, this had a surprisingly low-key presence. Awakening and Fates might have brought the series to wider attention, but visually at least, this has more in common with two other Fire Emblem games. Its muted palette and character design is redolent of recent 3DS remake Shadows Of Valentia, while the battles resemble Omega Force’s Warriors spin-off, as each unit is joined by a small cabal of soldiers, all equipped with the same weapon as their leader. We’re sad to see the back of the 2D sprites from the 3DS games, but the battle transitions are now much smoother, and there are plenty of UI improvements besides. Red,…

Developer Remedy Entertainment Publisher 505 Games Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release 2019 We watch the ritual with a sense of awe, curiosity and relief: finally, Remedy is weird again. The good kind of weird – not the ‘videogame intercut with several dull episodes of a mainstream television series’ kind of weird. Control is a thirdperson action game seen through a distorted lens, subtly shifting shape every minute we spend looking at it. The premise is simple enough at first. Our hero, Jesse Faden, has come to the headquarters of the Federal Bureau Of Control (a secret government agency out to thwart a malevolent force known as the Hiss and find Objects Of Power) to step into her new role as director. It soon transpires, however, that the process won’t…

Developer Automaton Publisher Improbable Format PC Release 2018 Focus on the loot all you want, but stealth is part of the fun of the battle royale too. Mavericks: Proving Grounds takes tracking down the advantage to new extremes: powered by Improbable’s SpatialOS tech, a detailed map means that a player’s impact on the environment is persistent. Bullet casings, blood trails and used med kits provide obvious clues, but eagle eyes can even study muddy footprints and displaced foliage – although wildlife throws up red herrings. After the initial announcement of an ambitious 1,000-player mode, we assumed Mavericks would be just another ill-advised attempt to cash in on a phenomenon. But in promising a full MMO with NPCs, quest lines and even a Destiny-esque social hub with the help of Improbable’s…

Developer/publisher Enhance Games Format PS4, PSVR Release Autumn What’s it like? Well, pretty much exactly what you think it is: Tetris, as viewed through the lens of Rez and Lumines, in VR. And it’s as every bit as wonderful as it sounds. Tetris Effect is an intriguing proposition on paper, and an irresistible one in practice, Tetsuya Mizuguchi combining the things he’s learned about music games, puzzle games and virtual reality to form a terrific spin on one of the most famous names in all of gaming. So, yes, blocks fall while ethereal electronic music plays in the background. Rotating a piece as it falls triggers a sound effect; another plays when a block falls into place, and another still if it forms a complete line. It’s immediately familiar, and…

Developer Treyarch Publisher Activision Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release October 12 Time was when COD was the trendsetter of the FPS genre. Now, it feels like a bandwagon chaser, borrowing ideas from others in its desire to once again be all things to all players. Sure, it’s not the only shooter to introduce a battle-royale mode, but elsewhere it’s pinching tricks from Overwatch, with a focus on character classes and special abilities to encourage more thoughtful team play. Still, they do shake things up a bit: the ability to manually heal with stimpacks lets you stay in the fight longer, though the fast TTK still prioritises sharp shooting over careful strategising. Meanwhile, the addition of riot shields and portable barricades brings a certain Siege mentality to multiplayer. Black Ops…

Developer Bethesda Game Studios Publisher Bethesda Softworks Format TBA Release TBA Bethesda’s announcement of this, the first new IP from Bethesda Game Studios in 25 years, and the project to follow it, The Elder Scrolls VI, was a calculated move. After TESO and Fallout 76, Bethesda realised it might have an image problem. By announcing two singleplayer RPGs, it wanted to reassure players that it wasn’t sacrificing solo play at the altar of the game as service. Little is known about Starfield, a game Bethesda first trademarked in 2013. The rumour mill has been wrong about it before – sources claimed it was going to be announced at E3 2017, and released before the year was out. But there’s a frequent whisper that Starfield is set in the same universe…

Developer FromSoftware, General Arcade Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release 2018 Before FromSoft made gleefully obtuse action-RPGs, the Japanese developer birthed Metal Wolf Chaos, an Xbox-exclusive thirdperson mecha shooter starring the 47th president of the United States. Despite never coming to the west, Metal Wolf garnered a cult following overseas: now, in a characteristic move that’s part mischief, part business savvy, Devolver is preparing to release a fully localised remaster after a half-joking tweet became reality. The goofy original English dialogue remains, as we discover to our delight during a demo in which we strafe about the White House lawn while secretary Jody provides hilariously dry commentary. While the grubby-looking upscaled assets don’t exactly line up with our idea of ‘remaster’ yet, we’re just glad that a…

Developer Avalanche Studios, Id Software Publisher Bethesda Softworks Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release Spring Good heavens, that shotgun. The impact of it leaves us giddy. The poor mohawked chap we’ve just unloaded it on probably isn’t so enamoured, flying backwards into the wall of the facility and splattering into mulch. But we’ve not been this hot and bothered about anything in a long old time. We’re starting to understand what being American feels like. Rage 2 has Id Software’s prints all over it, from the shoulder-dislocating kick of its guns to the industrial pulse of the soundtrack propelling us through its corridors. Things err just on the right side of stupid: the first game’s trademark Wingstick returns, which we fling out indiscriminately and which embeds itself in targeted enemy…

Developer Shedworks Publisher Raw Fury Format PC Release 2019 Even Sable’s creators are a little unsure of it. Its vast desert is so sparsely landmarked that we’re instructed to go in a particular direction, lest we end up somewhere so unknown that the developers must reset the demo to reorient us. Rather than put off, we’re captivated by this sense of danger and romance – and, inevitably, end up having to hand the controller over before starting again. The few customisable hoverbikes we ride are similar only in their staunch refusal to obey us, wobbling and sliding around the sand while often kicking up enough 2D dust to completely occlude our view. Once we’re more accustomed, however, we’re starring in our very own Moebius strip or Ghibli movie, speeding through…

Developer The Coalition Publisher Microsoft Format PC Release TBA Well, a turn-based strategy prequel makes more sense than a Funko Pop spinoff, that’s for sure. In fact, Gears’ chunky characters and cover-heavy encounters feel like such a natural fit for the strategy genre it’s a wonder this hasn’t happened before. At least until you remember Microsoft has been busy doing something similar, albeit in realtime, for Halo. Twice. Indeed, perhaps the underwhelming reception afforded to Halo Wars 2 is the reason this is – for now, at least – a PC exclusive. Set 12 years before events of the first game, it’s Gears XCOM in all but name, as four-man squads tackle a huge alien threat. Derivative as it may be, the Gears dressing does give it something extra. Those…

Developer Avalanche Studios Publisher Square Enix Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release December 4 This was a busy E3 for Swedish studio Avalanche, but of the three games the studio unveiled at the show, Just Cause 4 is the purest expression of the studio’s skillset. Not to take anything away from Rage 2 or the self-published Generation Zero, but Avalanche has made its name on wanton, systems-driven destruction – and Just Cause 4 takes that ethos to ludicrous extremes. The studio has taken Just Cause 3’s reception to heart. Rico Rodriguez’s 2015 outing was a touch repetitive, both in environment – the Mediterranean island of Medici had little to offer in terms of variety – and its content, which pretty much had you doing the same things in hour 30…

Developer 4A Games Publisher Deep Silver Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release February 22 Less an FPS, more a firstperson survival horror with guns, the Metro series has thus far been defined by the relentlessly tense, claustrophobic atmosphere of its mutant-infested subway tunnels. Stepping outside its discomfort zone and going overground might sound like a bad idea, but you can rest assured that the Volga region is every bit as oppressive. The place is still heavily irradiated, so you’ll need to manage your gas-mask’s filter while scavenging for gear and ammo. If we’re a little bored of crafting, it has an obvious place in this world, and it’s more than just a perfunctory this-plus-that-makes-the-other system. You can mod weapons on the fly, making your long-range rifle deadly at close quarters.…

Developer Jo-Mei Games Publisher EA Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release Early 2019 Perhaps loneliness feels like drowning to you, or living in an otherworldly realm, or turning into a monster. It is all these things in Sea Of Solitude: directed by Cornelia Geppert, the game tells the story of Kay, a young girl who has become so lonely as to transform into a shadowy being. On her quest to discover how to regain her usual form, she must explore a partially submerged city and meet other creatures who share her plight. We see tortured giantesses, eagles and anglerfish as Kay steers a small motorboat through waterlogged ruins, or leaps between and dives from rooftops in her pursuit of the truth. Geppert admits it’s a deeply personal game, evidenced by…

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (Montpellier) Format TBA Release TBA Still no confirmation of what we’ll be playing it on, and still no release date for the prequel to Jade and Pey’j’s original adventure: Ubisoft definitely jumped the gun announcing Beyond Good & Evil 2 so early. In fairness, we can see why. The pre-alpha footage of Ganesha is radiant, a metropolis of temples and neon billboards built upon a seedy underbelly, and it’s only a small slice of the seamless open-world RPG Montpellier is creating. Well, Montpellier and a legion of fans. “We are issuing an open invitation to people all over the world,” senior producer Guillaume Brunier said, on stage at the Ubi conference, “to contribute images, music, artworks, and to create original content that players will experience as they explore…

Developer MachineGames Publisher Bethesda Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release 2019 Or, if you prefer, Wolfenstein: Left Behind. Bethesda and MachineGames have noticed the potential of a teen-girl coming-of-age story set in a universe that feels entirely inappropriate for one, and the result is Youngblood. Taking place 19 years after the events of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus, it tells of Jess and Soph Blazkowicz, twin daughters of latter-day Wolfenstein protagonist BJ. The twins are in Nazi-occupied Paris and hunting for their missing father. Details are light, but it’s already an irresistible concept, made even more so by the fact that it will be playable in co-op. MachineGames is one of the more thoughtful FPS developers, and being able to design encounters around two human players could see the studio elevated…

Game Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Developer FromSoftware Publisher Activision Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release Early 2019 VIDEO We are sat in a hotel suite high above the madness of E3 when someone asks the only question about Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice that matters. We’ve just had our first proper look at one of the biggest surprises of the show, a sharp stylistic turn from FromSoftware that is being published by, of all companies, Activision. We’ve seen an entirely new approach to the studio’s signature thirdperson combat that abandons many of the tenets that have characterised From’s work over the past decade. We’ve marvelled at the world, which takes the late-1500s Sengoku, or warring states, period as its stylistic jumping-off point. We’re already in love, but with a caveat. The…

We are still outside in the sweltering Los Angeles sunshine when the news starts coming in. Microsoft has changed the venue for its conference this year. Its new digs are much more favourably located – the newly rebadged Microsoft Theatre, nestled next to the Staples Centre just round the corner from E3 itself, was Nintendo’s home until it ditched the press-conference format a few years ago. It’s a move that makes a lot of sense, not least because it gives Microsoft a colossal space on E3’s doorstep in which to host the Xbox Fanfest, as well as press demos. Yet the change hasn’t run too smoothly. Inside, Phil Spencer is paying smug tribute to the largest audience to ever attend an Xbox conference. No, old chap, we’re stuck outside, along…

Developer Media Molecule Publisher SIE Format PS4 Release 2018 Finally, Dreams is in our hands – and it soon becomes clear why it hasn’t been allowed there before. Half an hour’s noodling isn’t enough to grasp the creative mode’s control system. We repeatedly forget which set of buttons make our sculpture larger and smaller, which makes a copy of it and which pulls up the menu. But slowly, magically, the ice cream-shaped spiral staircase in our head takes form. A simple input produces multiple clones from a single step; we then use the DualShock’s motion controls to wrap our staircase around the cone effortlessly. Another button drops in a character that we scurry to the peak, victorious. We may have to consult a cheat sheet when the promised beta arrives,…

Developer Kojima Productions Publisher SIE Format PS4 Release TBA Well, knock us over with a feather: it exists. A few intriguing cinematic trailers set the tone, but it wasn’t entirely clear whether the Metal Gear Solid creator was actually making a videogame in the hours between breakfasting with Guillermo Del Toro. But Sony’s E3 conference brought footage of honest-to-god gameplay. From what we’ve seen so far, Death Stranding looks remarkably like Hideo Kojima’s eerie take on the walking simulator. Norman Reedus’ playable protagonist is a delivery man of sorts: “Someone with a skill-set akin to a blue-collar worker,” Kojima says. He’s not out to save the world, but to reconnect the remnants of it, we’re told, through his labour. (The name Sam Porter Bridges is, perhaps, a little on the…

Developer Pixelopus Publisher SIE Format PS4 Release 2018 If the concept of childhood had a dial, Concrete Genie turns it all the way up. Its setting is an exaggerated version of every small town: mired in fog, shambling shacks cramped together miserably, bullies roaming the streets looking for fights to pick. Luckily, hero Ash has an amped-up version of his imagination to match, empowered by a magic paintbrush that lets him graffiti living masterpieces. Unlockable animated brushes let you turn dingy corners into places glowing with colour and life. Holding a trigger to paint with a pine tree brush, contorting it with the DualShock’s motion controls, conjures up a Wonka-esque shrub in a forest scene that illuminates the last string of lightbulbs we need to complete an area. The ‘genies’…

Developer Studio MDHR Publisher Microsoft Format PC, Xbox One Release 2019 Studio MDHR’s lavishly animated shoot ‘em up always did have a cute sense of humour, and Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course – or DLC – is set to serve up another helping of inventive visual design for us to feast our eyes on. Sadly, there was no in-game footage to speak of during its announcement at the Xbox conference: the hand-drawn style is, we suppose, time-consuming work. It will add a fourth boss fight-stuffed isle to explore, plus a selection of new weapons and ability charms. And while the real draw of Cuphead DLC is to see what bizarre creations Studio MDHR’s artists can come up with next, new playable character Ms Chalice will apparently offer “a brand-new twist…

Developer Andrew Shouldice Publisher Finji Format PC, Xbox One Release TBA Going into E3, it seemed the industry had changed its attitude to the way it announced games, thinking it better to keep one’s powder dry until a game is almost done. Then Microsoft announced a next-gen Halo, and Bethesda revealed its slate for the next decade. Still, they’re no Andrew Shouldice. Tunic’s creator was showing his game off within two weeks of starting work on it. Not much has changed since his screenshots first started doing the rounds in 2015 (apart from the title, twice). Tunic is in clear creative hock to Link’s vintage adventures, right down to the protagonist’s green garb and the look of the currency he collects. Pacey, involved combat and a sci-fi twist mean this…

Developer 343 Industries Publisher Microsoft Studios Format PC, Xbox One Release TBA For a moment, we wondered whether we were about to hear David Attenborough’s dulcet tones, as sweeping vistas and candid shots of wildlife straight out of Planet Earth filled our view. It came as a genuine surprise, then, when the Master Chief’s helmet popped up on screen. It’s been three years since Halo 5: Guardians’ release, so a new game was perhaps to be expected. But Halo Infinite looks to be something different altogether. Granted, it would have been nice to see a bit more of it. The reveal was merely a demonstration of what 343’s shiny new engine, Slipspace, is capable of. From the looks of it, it can do herds of stampeding wildebeest kicking up dust,…

Developer/publisher GungHo Format Switch Release 2019 It might almost share a name with Arms’ most grab-happy fighter, but you barely need to give GungHo’s latest a passing glance to see what inspired it. As a multiplayer action game featuring youngsters battling with unconventional weapons in bright urban settings, it could hardly be more brazen about its debt to Splatoon. In fairness, its central gum-blowing mechanic – the bigger the bubble, the larger the weapon you’ll produce – gives it a distinctive hook, but we sense the giant inflatable baseball bats the publisher was giving away drew more crowds than the game itself. There is, we suppose, a logic to its existence given Splatoon’s popularity – though surely it would make more sense for GungHo to target platforms on which the…

Developer/publisher Capcom Format Switch Release August 28 A year on from its Japanese release, Capcom has finally done the decent thing. For those who haven’t been keeping count, this is a visually enhanced version of the Japan-only 3DS game, Monster Hunter XX, which in turn was an expanded version of Monster Hunter X, localised for the west as Monster Hunter Generations. If you have a character and save game from Generations, you can transfer it over to this, letting you get to the good stuff quicker. After World, it might take some players a little while to reacclimatise to the old ways – and to the visual downgrade, for that matter – but this does have a much larger roster of beasts, with over a dozen classic monsters that didn’t…

Developer Nd Cube Publisher Nintendo Format Switch Release October 5 Nintendo, it’s fair to say, has had better E3s: when your creative highlight is a Mario Party game, something’s gone pretty badly wrong. But perhaps we’re doing Nd Cube a disservice. It may not be our favourite Nintendo series, but this is the first entry since the developer took over from Hudson Soft that offers something we truly haven’t seen before. Within Toad’s Rec Room, you’ll find a series of activities that support two screens: rearranging them to line up bunches of bananas may only be a fleeting novelty, but it’s a pleasing one all the same. Better still is a 2v2 tank battle, which lets you select two halves of a map before connecting them by swiping across both…

Developer/publisher Capcom Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release Q1 One online wag observed that Capcom’s solution to the Dante problem – series fans really didn’t like Ninja Theory’s interpretation of DMC’s star – was to design the new one as a combination of the Japanese and UK Dantes, and thus please no one. Weirdly, though, that isn’t even Dante in the trailer; it’s Nero, joint protagonist of DMC4, who these days is running a demon-hunting business out of his Transit van. We’ve all been there. There’s no uproar this time, however, chiefly because Hideaki Itsuno, director of DMCs 2, 3 and 4, is back at the helm. Itsuno’s new game is a direct sequel to Devil May Cry 4, and revolves around Nero’s mechanical prosthetic arm, the Devil Breaker. The…

Developer Bethesda Game Studios Publisher Bethesda Softworks Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release November 14 As elevator pitches go, ‘Fallout, but online’ is the sort of immediately understandable no-brainer that would have studio execs reaching for their chequebooks. But it’s been a far tougher task for Bethesda than you might think. The Gamebryo engine wasn’t exactly built with multiplayer games in mind – we’ll avoid the obvious joke here, thanks – and neither is the studio itself. Thankfully, Bethesda’s an increasingly broad church these days, and its Austin dev operation, formerly known as Battlecry Studios, has successfully modified Gamebryo to support online play. The problems don’t end there, however, and series fans are unconvinced by the decisions Bethesda has made to turn Fallout from a singleplayer RPG into a shared-world…

Developer Deadtoast Entertainment Publisher Devolver Digital Format PC, Switch Release 2019 Presumably there are only so many games about cheerful little mascots you can make before you start getting the urge to have a really good go on some guns for a bit. At least, that seems to be the case for former Media Molecule level designer Victor Ågren: having worked on LittleBigPlanet and Tearaway, he’s now the sole developer on My Friend Pedro, a 2D shooter where you play as a balaclava-wearing hoodlum compelled to commit mass murder by an imaginary banana. Each level pits you and your creativity against a building full of goons. While we can jump off walls, roll under furniture and split our aiming of our twin pistols using the left trigger, our enemies aren’t…

Developer Bethesda Game Studios Publisher Bethesda Softworks Format Android, iOS Release Autumn Fallout Shelter showed Bethesda’s talent for shrinking down its huge worlds into mobile form; it was only a matter of time before the publisher’s most popular franchise got a pocket-sized edition. TES: Blades will, undoubtedly, sell like hot sweetrolls as a way for enthusiasts to get their fantasy action fix on the morning commute. It looks very pretty on iPhone X, sunlight streaming through a canopy of ancient oaks, the wind dislodging the occasional flurry of leaves. Touch controls take some getting used to, mind. We’re able to tap to walk or use both thumbs to walk and look around while holding the phone in landscape orientation – although it’s a shame that our digits end up obscuring…

Developer Team Ninja Publisher Koei Tecmo Format PS4 Release TBA Nioh was Team Ninja’s best game in a generation, but the studio wasn’t entirely happy with it. At E3 the developers admitted that several features which had to be abandoned during its development will be included in the sequel. Cards are being kept typically close to chests at the moment, but director Fumihiko Yasuda confirms that the protagonist will be fully customisable this time around. The big gameplay change is hinted at in the teaser trailer, where a fallen warrior suddenly transforms into a demon. That will add an entirely different dimension to the pacey, technical stance-based samurai combat; yokai in the first game were slow, but hit hard. Making that as appealing as the delightful existing battle system will…

Developer Human Head Studios Publisher Square Enix Format PC, PS4 Release TBA Apparently not discouraged by the collective shrug that greeted Remedy’s Quantum Break, Square’s mysterious new project presents a similar blend of live-action cutscenes and thirdperson action. Rather than separating the two, it appears they’ll blend into one another: what begins as a confrontation in a New York alley segues rather neatly into an interactive brawl, with the game’s sullen, floppy-haired hero delivering a brutal slo-mo-enhanced beatdown to a pair of goons. Without Microsoft’s cash to attract a star cast, this appears to be very much in B-movie territory – indeed, it’s designed to be completed in a single sitting – though its lead’s apparent deafness adds mechanical intrigue, as does the identity of its developer: having somehow survived…

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (Singapore) Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release 2019 After the knockabout comedy of Sea of Thieves, Ubisoft’s vision of life on the high seas treats piracy as serious business – up to a point. This is a game where one type of ship merely needs to drop anchor to temporarily launch rapid volleys of cannon fire without needing to reload. Ubisoft Singapore has sacrificed authenticity for entertainment, and its game is all the better for it. The pace of the action is implausibly fast, but sharp presentation gives it a certain heft. The camera snaps to the crew during broadsides and zips down to the bow as you ram opponents, while the yells of your shipmates, the boom of the cannons and cracking of wooden beams make for…

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (RedLynx, Kiev) Format PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One Release February 2019 The show’s best entrance belonged to RedLynx’s frankly bonkers creative director Antti Ilvessuo. “Trials is all about crashing with style and getting up again,” he said, immediately after doing just that: having entered the auditorium on a dirt bike, he milked the applause of the crowd, high-fiving everyone in the front row, before hurling himself into a lectern and destroying it. And yet all of this nonsense was in aid of a new Trials game that has dialled back the gimmicks. Following faulty spin-off Trials Of The Blood Dragon, the series is returning to its roots for its first mainline entry in five years. Which isn’t to say you won’t get into some spectacular scrapes. But rather…

Developer Mobius Digital Publisher Annapurna Interactive Format PC, Xbox One Release 2018 Like a moth to a flame, we are drawn back to Outer Wilds at its E3 demo station this year. An adventure set in a solar system that is stuck in a time loop and destroys itself every 20 realtime minutes, it’s a strangely meditative experience. Our time may be limited, but our chances aren’t: upon hitting our limit a supernova whites out the screen, and we begin another 20-minute jaunt. We’re in no rush. We spend ages testing our lovely, spongy jump – holding the button down longer before releasing means we’re sprung a little higher – and chit-chatting with the space-suited locals. Campfire smoke curls up through the pine trees as we potter around idly, hoping…

Developer DICE Publisher EA Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release October 19 We’d anticipated a slew of battle royale games or modes this E3, certain that publishers would be climbing over one another to leap aboard the bandwagon. As such, it was no surprise when Battlefield stepped into the fray alongside COD. But we didn’t expect it to borrow another trick from Fortnite. If you’re unhappy with your current cover situation, you can erect fortifications in a matter of moments – piling up sandbags, for example, to fire from a position of relative safety. With EA making a point of dropping loot boxes and premium passes, it’s looking for other ways to keep players coming back. Tides of War is the answer: this transforms Battlefield into something like a service…

Developer Id Software Publisher Bethesda Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release TBA Bethesda introduced this sequel to 2016’s stellar Doom reboot by describing it as “Hell on Earth”, which is no longer quite the escapist fantasy it once was. Still, Doom Eternal’s promise of “double the demons” – whether that means double the types of them, or the numbers – means a welcome dose of shotgun-powered catharsis, if nothing else. Details are – yes! – thin on the ground, but it appears the story picks up soon after the reboot left off, when the protagonist was despatched to Hell. It turns out that was a little closer to home than originally thought. The trailer offers a glimpse of the enemy types that have made the journey to Earth, and there’s…

Developer Aurora44 Publisher Annapurna Interactive Format PC, Xbox One Release 2018 Turns out that one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do. It’s odd that Ashen is presented as a singleplayer demo this year – it’s been sold as a Soulslike with puzzles designed to encourage silent co-op with strangers that you meet in its world. But devoid of in-game company, hacking through its hostile lands leaves us cold. Fortunately, there are glimmers of creativity even on this solitary journey: a mask with bone antlers that lets us take extra hits, before slowly regrowing, ready to be used again; a gigantic, god-like whale-dragon floating in the sky; curious monoliths that let players teleport-jump across the map; a glimpse of a dangerous golden world guarded by a Bloodborne-esque boss. Still,…

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (Massive) Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release March 15 This was, for once, an E3 lacking in scandal, but The Division 2 got closer than most to provoking an outcry. Ubisoft’s continued insistence that its games are not intended to be political statements was once again trotted out here. If Far Cry 5’s tale of a hardline religious cult in the American midwest was hard enough to swallow as apolitical, The Division 2’s move to Washington DC – while doubtless greenlit before the current political pre-apocalypse – feels even less like a work of message-free storytelling. CEO Yves Guillemot says he prefers his company to present players with a situation from which they can draw their own political conclusions, which is fair enough in a way. But as…

Developer Midwinter Entertainment Publisher Improbable Format PC Release TBA Scavengers is exactly the sort of game you’d expect from a new studio led by Josh Holmes, ex-343 Industries studio head and one of the creators of Halo 5’s Warzone mode. Set in a huge, frozen wilderness split across multiple servers with the help of Improbable’s SpatialOS tech, it’s a multiplayer shooter with exploration and survival elements. Midwinter is calling Scavengers a “co-opetition” game, as it pits players against players as well as three AI factions – the animalistic Scourge, the humanoid Outlanders, and the super-evolved Salient. Persistent footprints and a destructible environment (think felling trees to create cover) will add texture to ad-hoc fights, while a Game Director program will observe and make decisions. It’s concept art and enthusiastic promises…

Format PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One Developer Tarsier Studios Publisher Bandai Namco Entertainment Origin Sweden Release 2017 One of Little Nightmares’ many blood-freezing moments comes during its final act, chillingly turning the player’s expectations on their head. Creeping around the quarters of an improbably tall, impossibly thin woman – referred to simply as The Lady – tiny, frail protagonist Six must smash a vase to obtain a key. By now, the player has come to expect any loud noises to prompt a clatter of footsteps as someone – or something – arrives to investigate, and will surely have hidden themselves accordingly. Instead, they’re greeted by an eerie silence, The Lady’s insistent, melodic humming having suddenly stopped. Eventually plucking up the courage to step out, Six emerges from her hiding place,…

Sable’s influences are immediately evident: it’s every inch a playable Moebius comic. “The flat colour style we’re using was inspired by ligne claire comics, as well as the works of Moebius,” Greg Kythreotis, one half of indie developer Shedworks, confirms. “It felt like pushing the style in that direction would be a good and unique fit. It also happens that a lot of his work is set in deserts and he was a big influence on Star Wars, which was also on our minds at the time.” You play as Sable, a girl leaving home for the first time astride her beloved hoverbike, off on a journey to explore ancient ruins and meet new people. “We’re a small team, but we wanted to make a game that felt big and…

Developer Sucker Punch Productions Publisher SIE Format PS4 Release TBA There’s a certain sort of art to being the one holding the controller during an E3 demo. You must play flawlessly, certainly, following the script to the letter. Yet the behind-closed-doors player is not just an actor, but the director too, forever coaxing the camera into its ideal position, lining up the perfect shot. There’s certainly plenty of that in our first proper look at Ghost Of Tsushima, a game that wears its Kurosawa influence on its sleeve and is, like so much of Sony’s firstparty output, cinematic to a fault. When protagonist Jin hops on his horse and heads for the horizon, the camera pulls round to frame him and his steed in the bottom corner, to better show…

Developer FromSoftware, SIE Japan Studio Publisher SIE Format PSVR Release 2018 Its title a French word meaning ‘uprooted from its natural environment’, it was perhaps fitting – though no less galling – that FromSoft’s first foray into VR was ejected from Sony’s main E3 conference, announced instead during the post-show livestream. Perhaps there were concerns that an audience baying for Bloodborne might have exploded upon seeing the developer’s logo. Déraciné is a very different proposition, although we leave our demo satisfied that we’ve just played a Hidetaka Miyazaki game. There’s the curious premise, for instance, which casts you as a faerie out to prove your existence to a class of 19th-century schoolchildren. We roam the halls reading notes, solving puzzles and eavesdropping. The place is populated not only by the…

Developer Naughty Dog Publisher SIE Format PS4 Release TBA It started out with a kiss, and to be honest we’d have preferred if it had stuck with it as well. For all Naughty Dog’s self-satisfaction – for once entirely justifiable – at having painstakingly animated the most believable snog in videogame history, that it was used as the set-up for another five minutes of desperate stealth and brutal murder stuck in the craw like a scavenged rusty blade. It felt a little like a studio that wants to have its cake and eat it, the sweet kiss between Ellie and Dina suggesting a game that wants to carry its medium forward, but what followed showing that we’re not really getting anywhere. We’re not complaining about obvious thematic progress – but…

Developer Playground Games Publisher Microsoft Studios Format PC, Xbox One Release October 2 Forza is essentially Microsoft’s Call Of Duty, its Assassin’s Creed; an IP so important to the balance sheet that it is bounced back and forth between multiple studios to ensure a new game is on shelves in time for Thanksgiving every year. And, like COD and Assassin’s, it therefore faces a familiar problem. How do you get people excited about this year’s model? Our answer comes within seconds of the announcement trailer, as a McLaren Senna canes it down a country road past a thatched-roof cottage, a tractor, a pillar box. Merry old England. Forgive us for being parochial, but after gallivanting around western Europe before Forza Horizon 3’s gap year in Australia, there’s something gently heartwarming…

Developer Sumo Digital Publisher Microsoft Studios Format Xbox One Release February You’d have thought Crackdown 3 to be central to the company’s E3 showing this year. Pre-show rumours of a delay to 2019 weren’t as bad as initially feared – it’ll be out in February – but that Microsoft saw fit to limit Crackdown 3’s stage presence to a two-minute trailer is a worrying sign indeed. There are more. Dave Jones, who unveiled Crackdown 3’s jaw-dropping, cloud-powered destruction tech at Gamescom 2015, is no longer attached to the project. Neither is his studio Reagent Games: Microsoft now says that Sumo Digital, originally assigned to the singleplayer component, is now its sole development partner. The Cloudgine tech that powered the Gamescom demo was recently acquired by Epic Games, and Microsoft is…

Developer PlatinumGames Publisher Square Enix Format Xbox One Release Out now Fret not, Xbox owners: 2B hasn’t been replaced by an ugly old man (a little joke for long-term Nier fans there). In fact, don’t expect many changes from the PS4 version at all. The Become As Gods Edition includes Automata’s slightly underwhelming DLC, but that’s your lot. Still, Xbox One X owners do get an enhanced edition, and though the visual improvements are fairly negligible, a userbase that hasn’t had much to crow about can reasonably lay claim to having the definitive version of Yoko Taro’s fascinating, thoughtful ARPG. It may not have been a world premiere nor some tenuous exclusive, but it says much for Automata that Microsoft considered it enough of a coup to put it alongside…

Developer Bandai Namco Studios/Sora Ltd Publisher Nintendo Format Switch Release December 7 Nintendo’s headliner on the show floor took up even more space during its E3 Direct. Dedicating the bulk of its main broadcast at the industry’s biggest show says much for how important Smash has become, but its prominence speaks mostly to the format-holder having little else of substance to show. Shinya Takahashi appeared to remind us that this was but “a small portion of what we’re currently working on” – in other words, don’t panic, there’s good stuff on the way – but after promising a steady stream of games, Smash is not only Nintendo’s headline act this year. It’s pretty much the whole bill. And, let’s face it, this isn’t a totally new game, much as Nintendo…

Developer Bumblebear Games Publisher Liquid Bit Format Switch Release March 2019 A refurbished version of a cult arcade game all your cool friends will claim to have played, Killer Queen Black fuses platforming and strategy in a captivatingly singular package. The 2013 original was a five-on-five game; this Switch version supports two teams of four, who must work together to earn one of three kinds of tactical victory. As with Civilization you can triumph economically, here achieved by using your three drone characters to retrieve a dozen berries. More patient players can ride a slithering snail across the screen, or power up to transform into warrior units, capable of killing the titular queen on the opposing team. Chaotic and immediate, but with room for devious, skilful play, it’s the kind…

Developer/publisher Konami Format Switch Release TBA Following the surprising success of Super Bomberman R – which is, we concede, in better shape now than at launch – Konami is back to exhume another old favourite for Switch. It’s clearly designed to fill a Wii Sports-shaped gap: the 100m sprint involves holding a Joy-Con in each hand and moving your arms up and down. You can use more traditional controls, holding the Joy-Con sideways, while hammering the left- and rightmost buttons. The long jump, meanwhile, appropriates the original’s control scheme, though the javelin throw has been tweaked, with an over-the-shoulder perspective and a moving reticle that you need to centre before you let fly. It feels slightly cut-price – there’s still time to sand off its rough edges, though the charmless…

Developer/publisher CD Projekt Red Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release TBA Our demo of Cyberpunk 2077 is on the second day of the show, and word has clearly got around. In among the usual crowd of journalists and retail buyers we spot a couple of studio heads, a creative director or two and some cast members from a certain Netflix series. It is E3’s hottest ticket, and 45 minutes later we understand why. The demo ends and the room explodes with spontaneous applause. They know they’ve seen something special. We first saw Cyberpunk 2077 a few months after its announcement, when we visited CD Projekt Red for our cover story on The Witcher III (E255). It was a boardgame made out of Post-It notes. Now, it offers a tantalising glimpse…

Developer/publisher Crea-ture Studios Format PC, Xbox One Release 2019 It’s okay, we thought it was Skate 4 too. In fact, it’s something better. Lord knows what EA would do with a skateboarding game in the era of cosmetic microtransactions and loot boxes; Session, however, is being made with pure intentions out of a sincere love of the sport. Creative director Marc-André Houde has been skating since he was eight, and his game, which soared past its Kickstarter goal last November, is a purist’s dream. The analogue sticks control one foot each, with analogue triggers used to shift your character’s weight. It’s hard to get your head around, at least at first, but then so is the sport on which it’s based. The structure is the stuff of skater fantasy, too,…

Developer IO Interactive Publisher Warner Bros Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release November 13 When it comes to the timeworn act of videogame assassinations, the Hitman games have long offered an unrivalled level of creative freedom. Yet for every player enthralled by IO Interactive’s little clockwork murder boxes, many more are deterred. It is a niche idea made, with near immaculate craft, for a certain type of player – one who thrives upon a lack of direction, who pokes at the puzzle until it reveals itself. To others it is like being sat down in front of Spotify and being asked to put some music on, finding themselves paralysed by freedom of choice. Well, they should have played Hitman 2 at E3, where our demo handler would, if you wanted,…

Developer Dontnod Publisher Square Enix Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release 2019 Dontnod has been busy. Besides the just-released Vampyr and forthcoming Life Is Strange 2, here is Twin Mirror, a choice-based thriller which bears a striking resemblance to Quantic Dream’s fare. The trailer introduces protagonist Sam – come home to Basswood, West Virginia, for a friend’s funeral – in a scene reminiscent of Fahrenheit’s opening sequence, as he wakes to discover his shirt bloody, the mystery set to unravel from there. And the uncanny similarities with David Cage’s games continue: clichéd dialogue, a supernatural dreamscape and a flash of Sam punching a ghostly apparition. The marketing line, too, about this being a tale where “the line between truth and deception is blurred” is groan-worthy – but while Dontnod has…

Developer/publisher Techland Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release TBA There were few more telling displays of intent at this E3 than the man Techland put on Microsoft’s stage to announce Dying Light 2. One of the 2015 original’s biggest flaws was its story – so who better to act as spokesperson for the sequel than Chris Avellone, one of the most highly regarded writers in the business? Avellone may be the star signing, but Techland has also brought in several alumni of CD Projekt Red, some of whom worked on The Witcher III’s award-winning Bloody Baron quest. As that, and Avellone’s hiring, implies, Dying Light 2’s is a branching narrative, with a world that offers you choices, then insists you live with the consequences. Our demo takes place around a…

Developer Bungie, High Moon Studios Publisher Activision Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release September 4 So long then, Cayde-6. Nathan Fillion’s wisecracking gunslinger has been, in Destiny, that rarest of beasts: a character with actual, well, character. Yet he is being killed off in Forsaken, the expansion that kicks off Destiny 2’s second year. Upset fans hastily assembled a shrine to Cayde outside the LA Convention Center. Whether the game itself will really miss a character whose one note was played out long ago remains to be seen, but it does at least show us a Bungie that is prepared to make fundamental changes to its game. And it’s entirely in keeping with a game which so regularly asks us to leave something behind; each new expansion or instalment brings…

Developer/publisher Capcom Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release January 19 Hats off, Capcom. Fans had been clamouring for a remake of Resident Evil 2 for years; the publisher drew the ire of its community by issuing a cease and desist against the group of fans making a remaster of their own. E3 finally brought our first sight of a game announced back in 2015, and it contains a terrifying surprise – one designed to subtly troll the players who had so loudly called for the game to be remade. This is no mere visual update. Zombie placements have been subtly remixed, too. We’re told of one cocky journalist who inched carefully down a corridor in the demo build which, in the original, had a Licker on the ceiling. They soon…

Developer BioWare Publisher Electronic Arts Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release February 22 Well, if you’re going to put a jetpack in your videogame, you might as well do it properly. Mass Effect: Andromeda’s effort was little more than a flashy extra. But in Anthem, the jetpack has evolved far beyond anything BioWare has done. “Once it becomes a mobility device, it changes everything,” producer Mike Gamble says. “We had to create the world and the jetpack kind of at the same time, because the jetpack had to play within the world.” The lush crevasse we’re peering into demonstrates this admirably. A click of the left stick launches our javelin exosuit, the Ranger, into the air. Clicking in the right stick lets us hover; another click and we drop back…

Developer Dream Reality Interactive Publisher Rebellion Developments Format PSVR, Rift, Vive Release 2018 An oasis of calm at the end of a hectic day at E3, Arca’s Path VR has us guide a ball through a series of gentle pastel marble runs using only our gaze. Tilting our head with slight motions rolls the ball around corners and onto moving platforms in dreamlike levels: it’s a totem representing Arca, a girl trapped in a virtual world by an evil android witch. The game is the work of Dream Reality Interactive, a UK start-up helmed by former Sony London Studio director Dave Ranyard, who wanted the freedom to continue creating alternative immersive projects. But the two brief opening levels we play of Arca’s Path VR walk a fine line between relaxing…

Developer Adrian Lazar Publisher Team 17 Format PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One Release 2018 Side-scrolling space platformer Planet Alpha is undeniably beautiful: the air is teeming with alien creatures, and bioluminescent flora waves gently in an unseen current. But the process of moving through this mesmeric environment can be infuriating. Jumping is unwieldy, but worse still is the stealth: the capabilities of the enemies we’re trying to sneak past are woefully unclear, some oblivious and others instantly sniffing us out in the tall grass like psychic attack dogs. But the most heartbreaking part of our demo is when we’re stymied by the gorgeous art itself, failing to divine that a branch disguised by pretty leaves – some way back from the suggestive chasm ahead – is the surface we’re actually…

Developer/publisher Ubisoft (Montréal) Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release October 5 Giving Assassin’s Creed a year off between 2015’s Syndicate and last year’s Origins certainly yielded plenty of change, if not exactly dividends. The series began in 2007 as an overambitious open-world action adventure, and re-emerged in 2017 as a more assured, yet still somehow confused open-world action RPG. Odyssey seeks to build on the latter foundation, though as will probably always be the case, Ubisoft hasn’t focused on the things you’d most like to have seen fixed. Combat, for instance, is as clunky as it was in Origins, still lacking the precision and grace of the FromSoftware systems to which it owes such a debt. While the fundamentals are the same, there’s a new twist in how the adrenaline…

Developer/publisher Night School Studio Format PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One Release 2019 We always knew the YouTubers would end up in Hell. In what is surely the ultimate instance of ‘It’s just a prank, bro!’, Afterparty’s latest demo sees Milo and Lola socialising at their high school graduation bash before the walls fall away and a gaggle of gleeful demons reveal that, surprise, the two of them are dead and doomed to an eternity of suffering. An adventure about escaping the Inferno by out-drinking Satan, it continues to look wickedly stylish and funny – the boozy underworld is far livelier than the previous game’s haunted island, and a brief stroll along the neon-lit strip instantly gives a vivid impression of what purgatory’s like in its off-hours. Beer pong seems popular,…

Developer/publisher Square Enix Format PS4, Xbox One Release January 29 Yes, it really does exist. Seventeen years on from the original, a mere 13 since the second game and following more than a dozen offshoots, prequels and spin-offs, the end of the trilogy is finally in sight. There’s much to admire here: we’ve seen Disney and Pixar’s worlds brought to life before but never with this fidelity. Each new kingdom offers something different, too: Frozen sees you engage in ice-skating battles and snow-slide pursuits, while Pirates Of The Caribbean has underwater exploration and ship battles. The realtime combat is dynamic, the art design and production values dazzling. And yet everything stops when the overwrought story kicks in. Can such a generous sprinkling of Disney magic obscure the stench of the…

Developer Eidos Montreal Publisher Square Enix Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release September 14 Crystal Dynamics’ 2013’s reboot was hardly sunbeams and fluffy kittens; sequel Rise Of The Tomb Raider was gloomier still. Yet this is, we’re told, the darkest chapter of the new trilogy. It’s certainly the most brutal: it could easily be retitled Lara Croft: Mass Murderer, with the hapless grunts of returning baddies Trinity being variously throttled, burned and asphyxiated by hanging. As Lara races them to get her hands on a Mayan artifact, she’ll have to “become one with the jungle” – sadly this doesn’t mean gaining an intimate knowledge of the work of Goldie and M Beat, but rather learning animalistic techniques like camouflage. Failing that, she can scare them with ‘fear arrows’. We’d prefer…

Developer Bethesda Game Studios Publisher Bethesda Softworks Format TBA Release TBA Finally. Well, we say that – the next instalment in Bethesda’s beloved RPG series is years off. With the studio’s next project, Starfield, still in pre-production – the bulk of the studio will move onto it once Fallout 76 has shipped – The Elder Scrolls VI is a long way off, and clearly intended for the next generation of consoles. As such, it’s little surprise that Todd Howard didn’t reveal much about the game. That zoomed-out bit of concept art is probably a fair reflection of the state of TESVI at the moment. Yet that hasn’t stopped fan communities from concluding that it’s set in Hammerfell, in the northwest of Tamriel. The far more pressing question, to our mind,…

Developer Ghost Town Games Publisher Team 17 Format PS4, Switch, Xbox One Release August 7 Like an often-unnecessary second helping of something too delicious to stop eating comes Overcooked 2, the sequel to the great couch co-op title. It pits you and up to three friends against a new enemy, the rising Unbread, in yet another battle to save the world – by working together efficiently to chop, cook, bake and serve as much food as possible. The changes aren’t drastic: they don’t need to be. There are fresh recipes to cook, such as sushi and dim sum. You can now throw food across gaps to teammates, an essential skill in one river-rafting kitchen stage. Another hectic level is set in a hot air balloon that crashes halfway through service,…