This week’s release of Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown will decide the future of Sega’s fighting game franchise, as Sega’s chief producer Seiji Aoki commented on the game and what its release means for a potential Virtua Fighter 6.
“Nothing has been decided yet regarding Virtua Fighter 6, so I cannot make any statement,” Aoki said in an interview with Famitsu Magazine that was translated by SiliconEra. “But if you ask me whether I want to create it or not, I do want to create it. This title [Ultimate Showdown] will let us know whether there are demands and potentials for Virtua Fighter. We want to hype it up so it can connect to the next one.”
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Now Playing: Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown Full Arcade Run
The upcoming PS4 release has been completely remastered using Yakuza studio Ryu ga Gotoku’s Dragon Engine and features high-definition upgrades for all 19 fighters, arenas, and cinematics. There’s even a downgrade option available if you’d prefer to play the game with 1990s graphics instead.
Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown released on June 1 for PS4 and PS5 through backwards compatibility, and is available as a June PS Plus game alongside spy adventure Operation Tango and space combat game Star Wars: Squadrons.
For more insight into the game, you can check out our Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown interview with Aoki, in which he talks about the enduring legacy of the fighting game franchise.
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Nintendo has confirmed its plans for E3 2021. The company will host an E3 2021 Nintendo Direct on Tuesday, June 15, the final day of E3 2021.
The showcase begins that day at 9 AM PT / 12 PM ET. It’s expected to run for about 40 minutes, and it will feature information focused exclusively on Nintendo Switch games for 2021 and beyond, though most of the titles discussed will be 2021 games.
After the event, there will be a Nintendo Treehouse Live showcase that will include about three hours of gameplay footage, presumably from the games shown off during the Direct.
This is all standard stuff for Nintendo, as the company historically hosts its own E3 briefing on the final day of E3 after Microsoft, Ubisoft, and others. The Treehouse series is also something that Nintendo has been operating for years. It normally features developers and hosts talking about the latest Nintendo games and showing off gameplay.
It’s almost time
The announcement specifically says the Nintendo Direct at E3 2021 will focus on software–the teaser text makes no mention of hardware. Normally, this wouldn’t be noteworthy, but there are ongoing rumors that Nintendo will announce a Switch Pro model before E3. That could still be the case, or it might not be; we’ll just have to wait and see.
Nintendo has a number of exciting upcoming games, including The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, Splatoon 3, Metroid Prime 4, and more. Whether or not those games show up at the event remains to be seen. Nintendo is also known to surprise, so fans should expect the unexpected.
E3 2021 runs June 12-15. The schedule so far includes Geoff Keighley’s Kick Off event on June 10, followed by Ubisoft Forward on June 12. The Xbox/Bethesda briefing is slated for June 13, with Razer’s event following on June 14. Sony is not expected to show up at all. An E3 2021 awards show will cap things off on June 15.
You’ve got the gaming rig of your dreams: a processor like lightning, an overclocked GPU, and even a clear case with those custom water cooling and RGB that lights up like something out of an 80s science fiction movie. There’s just one thing missing: a chair and desk to go with your setup.
Right now you can grab one of the hottest deals out there for gamers: the Goplus Gaming Computer Desk & Massage Gaming Chair Set for only $355 (normally sold online for $549). That means you can save almost $200 on a top-tier chair and desk that will do your gaming justice.
Not only does the 48”x23” desk give you plenty of space for your gear, but there are also hooks on either side for your accessories and a power strip built right into the monitor stand so you don’t have to deal with a tangle of cords getting in the way. The desk is built with premium steel craftsmanship so you can be sure you never have to worry about the weight of your setup.
The Goplus Massage Gaming Chair is the second half of this great deal and certainly lives up to the name. A sleek design lets the chair fit in with any aesthetic, while the racer color scheme builds the excitement when you sit down and boot up your favorite game. An ergonomic design that curves with the human body ensures you will be comfortable no matter how many hours your marathon lasts. And when you’re finished, let the relaxing massage mode soothe any tension out of your muscles so you don’t develop any knots in your back.
You’ll be looking forward to the Goplus Gaming Computer Desk & Massage Gaming Chair Set day after day. “I bought this gaming chair for my husband’s home office and he told me it’s one of the best chairs he’s ever used,” one customer comments. “Not only is it stylish, it’s also extremely comfortable. It even came with a back massager which is a nice touch.”
When it comes to crime solving, Sherlock Holmes Chapter One does not mess around. Whether I was investigating a crime scene, interviewing a person of interest, or drawing conclusions that would determine someone’s guilt or innocence, Chapter One absolutely never held my hand. If I missed some critical pieces of evidence and accused the wrong person? Oh, well! An innocent man goes to prison and I get to walk around thinking I’ve delivered justice. If I found someone committed murder but decided to let them go free anyway? That was totally my prerogative. This complete lack of any kind of safety net or morality system to nudge me in one direction or another was a breath of fresh air that made my short time with Chapter One far more interesting than a straightforward adventure game.
It makes sense! After all, I’m supposed to be the world’s most brilliant mind and a masterful detective: why shouldn’t I be expected to put the pieces together myself or fail in the effort? Even though Chapter One takes place during Holmes’ early days as a 21-year-old upstart, Sherlock seems ever-confident in his knack for observation and reasoning in the section I played, and the short introductory quest immediately required me to put those skills to the test.
With my childhood friend Jon at my side, I dove into a murder mystery involving a mystifying seance and characters with secret pasts and hidden motives. In one section I used my enhanced talent for observation to discover which person in a crowd had a military background, and in another I eavesdropped on some gossip to learn about a scandalous affair. Many steps and clues in the investigation were missable if I didn’t notice a detail or made an error in logic, which could lead me down a path to unknowingly identifying the wrong killer. And unless I made a habit out of saving and reloading as often as possible, Chapter One did nothing to nudge me in the right direction. And I appreciate that about it.
That said, sometimes Chapter One’s odd way of presenting information and somewhat clunky menus led to errors that felt unearned, while others happened organically as I missed a beat somewhere along the way. Either way, I was expected to figure it out or suffer the consequences. And that’s the beauty of Chapter One. Nailing a puzzle and feeling like an erudite sleuth is awesome precisely because it feels so well-earned. On the other hand, making a mistake often left me in disbelief at just how little the game cared if I was successful or not. All the while, Jon followed me around making notes in his diary as his opinion of me shifted based on my performance.
The fact that Sherlock is young and perhaps a little more cocky than he should be serves Chapter One well, because either he’s young and still brilliant as ever or he’s overconfident and has a lot to learn. With my own success or failure, I got to decide which Sherlock I was. In a world where lots of games make you feel like you’re bowling with bumpers on, this level of freedom was incredibly refreshing, even when it felt a bit harsh.
The small glimpse I got of Chapter One’s open-world island of Cordona felt equally unrestrictive. With optional side quests, locations, and events I can take in at my own pace, the prospect of a brutally darwinistic open-world crime solving game is incredibly appealing. But because my time in the open-world aspect of Chapter One was so limited, it remains to be seen if something so ambitious can even work. I’m sure a lot of learnings from the developers’ previous game, The Sinking City, will be applied. Either way, it’s piqued my curiosity quite a bit and I’m excited to see if they can pull it off.
Movie theater giant AMC has announced a new campaign aimed at thanking the many “retail investors” who bought up stock in the company to help improve its outlook.
AMC Investor Connect is described as an “innovative, proactive communication initiative” that will allow AMC executives to speak directly to individual retail shareholders. AMC noted in a press release that its retail shareholder base has now grown beyond 3 million people, which is why the movie company is taking this new approach.
One of the benefits that AMC is giving its retail investors is a free large popcorn for their first movie screening at AMC this summer in the US. Beyond that, AMC will offer investors other free or discounted items, along with invitations to “special screenings.”
Investors will also get to hear directly from AMC CEO Adam Aron about the latest developments to AMC’s business approach, while they will additionally get “interesting information about AMC and its place in the movie ecosystem.”
Stockholders can register for AMC Investor Connect at this website.
“AMC Investor Connect will put our Company in direct communication with a retail investor shareholder base that owned more than 80% of AMC at last count,” Aron said. “Many of our investors have demonstrated support and confidence in AMC. We intend to communicate often with these investors, and from time to time provide them with special benefits at our theatres.”
Aron added: “With AMC Investor Connect, that effort in relationship building will continue apace even if our shareholders now number in the millions. After all, these people are the owners of AMC, and I work for them.”
Anyone around the world who owns AMC stock can join the AMC Investor Connect event, but the free large popcorn is only available at US theaters. The cinema chain said it’s now considering options for international markets on a country-by-country basis.
AMC’s stock price went below $2 per share earlier this year but it rallied mightily thanks in part to internet investors who bought up shares in an effort to stick it to short-sellers who were betting against AMC. A similar situation played out with GameStop.
It has been less than a year since Nvidia launched its RTX 30-series, but the company is already making improvements on its latest Ampere architecture with both the RTX 3080 Ti and 3070 Ti. The former, which is the focus of this review, has been tasked with carrying the moniker of “flagship gaming card” too, as Nvidia continues to market its more powerful, and more expensive, RTX 3090 for workstation use. But there’s no denying that the RTX 3090 presented a compelling case for the best gaming performance on the market when it launched–a title that the RTX 3080 Ti mostly matches in every regard.
The RTX 3080 Ti ($1,200) is positioned to sit between the RTX 3080 ($700) and 3090 ($1,500), but the card is clearly designed to deliver near-3090 levels of performance without needing to have additional memory that, often, isn’t utilized by even the most demanding titles of today. What that means is that you get top-tier gaming performance for $300 less without any compromises for that specific use case. Getting one becomes even more complicated when you reconcile that Nvidia’s MSRP of $1200 isn’t what you’re likely going to purchase the RTX 3080 Ti for–the semiconductor shortage and lack of GPU supply has plagued the market for months now–which casts an entirely different value proposition on the new SKU. What isn’t debatable is the card’s raw performance, which delivers in spades across the board.
Technical Details
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Nvidia supplied us with a Founder’s Edition model of the RTX 3080 Ti for review, ahead of its launch on June 3. The card is identical to the RTX 3080 before it–it is a dual-slot design that features three DisplayPort outputs and a single HDMI 2.1 output. The Founder’s Edition retains the new dual-fan design that redirects warm air upwards into the case as well as exhausting through the rear, which has worked extremely well for the cards that launched last year. The illuminated GeForce RTX logo on the side and minimal lighting on the top are still nice touches, and the mandatory 12-pin power adapter on the side still requires the use of an included splitter that will still ruin the clean, clutter-free look inside your case.
The biggest changes are inside. Nvidia has significantly beefed up every aspect of the previous RTX 3080 with this Ti variant featuring additional CUDA cores, Tensor cores, RT cores, and more. Its boost clock is lower as a result, with the new peak of 1665Hz (bringing it closer to the RTX 3090.) The biggest upgrade is its VRAM, which has been increased from the criticized 10GB in the RTX 3080 to 12GB of GDDR6X for the 3080 Ti. That, in combination with a wider 384-bit memory bus, gives the RTX 3080 Ti a memory bandwidth of 912GB/s, a massive increase over the 760GB/s of the RTX 3080. This bandwidth is just shy of the capabilities of the RTX 3090, but that card still features far more VRAM with its 24GB GDDR6X configuration.
RTX 3090
RTX 3080 Ti
RTX 3080
GPU Clusters
82
80
68
CUDA Cores
10496
10240
8704
RT Cores
82
80
68
Tensor Cores
328
320
272
ROPs
112
112
96
Boost Clock
1695 MHz
1665 MHz
1710 MHz
Memory
24GB GDDR6X
12GB GDDR6X
10GB GDDR6X
Bus
384-bit
384-bit
320-bit
Bandwidth
936 GB/s
912 GB/s
760 GB/s
TDP
350W
350W
320W
Price
$1,500
$1,200
$700
Methodology and Test Bench
Our testing methodology for this card is slightly different from the one used for previous graphics card reviews, mostly due to a different system being used for the tests. As a result (and due to the other GPUs we had on hand to run additional testing on) the results we’ve gathered directly compare the RTX 3080 Ti to the Founder’s Edition RTX 3090. Tests were all run using Nvidia’s pre-release 466.47 driver. Testing was done on the following system:
MSI Mortar B550M Motherboard
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 6-core/12-thread CPU clocked at 4.65GHz
It’s worth noting that while the AMD Ryzen 5 5600X is far from the flagship in AMD’s CPU lineup, it’s unlikely to have an appreciable effect on tests at 1440p, and no effect at 4K, as both of these scenarios are GPU- rather than CPU-limited.
Testing was done across nine modern games, all of which feature elements of ray tracing, DLSS support, or various other graphical flourishes. These include Cyberpunk 2077, Control, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition (which makes some substantial changes to the game), Borderlands 3, Gears Tactics, Forza Horizon 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, and Hitman 3. Where possible, in-game benchmark tools were used, otherwise FRAPS was utilized for measuring an in-game run of a section (which was done for Control and Cyberpunk 2077).
Given the cards being tested, the results represent performance at 1440p and 4K, with 1080p omitted due to its irrelevance at this price point. Additionally, all games were run at their maximum presets, including ray tracing options when they were offered. DLSS was kept off for most of the runs but is represented in later tests to show the performance uplift when compared to native rendering.
With that out of the way let’s dive into some, surprisingly, very similar numbers.
Benchmark Results
Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition
Metro Exodus was recently updated with developer 4A’s comprehensive rework of the game’s engine, allowing for one of the most impressive showings of ray tracing to date. It’s the perfect workload for Nvidia’s best cards, both of which manage to achieve nearly identical metrics across the board.
There’s nothing splitting the two when looking at 1440p, but at 4K the RTX 3090 takes a slight lead with about 7% more performance, or just 3 frames per second.
Control
Control is still one of the best ray tracing showcases out there, with Remedy’s impressive reflection work really bringing the Oldest House to life. Working through an early portion of the game, performance metrics were captured with FRAPS while trying to keep as close to identical playthroughs as possible.
Again, in what will be a running theme in ray-traced workloads, there’s very little splitting the two cards. In fact, Control represents one of the first instances where the RTX 3080 Ti starts pulling ahead, with around 8% more performance at 4K and near a negligible difference at 1440p.
Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk 2077 is still receiving numerous patches to address its performance (among other issues) which makes a great stress test for powerful GPUs. Roaming through the game’s Downtown area along a fixed path, FRAPS was used to capture the run and record metrics.
Unsurprisingly, Cyberpunk 2077 with all its ray tracing at Ultra and no DLSS is a tough task for both cards, and one that the RTX 3090 is slightly better suited for. But again, the differences are small enough to be within margins of error, putting both nearly on par with each other regardless of the resolution.
Horizon Zero Dawn
The former console exclusive has been steadily updated on PC to make up for its less-than-stellar launch, and right now Horizon Zero Dawn is a pretty performant game across a range of hardware. The game’s benchmark isn’t the best test of the engine, but it does provide us with a consistent run that both cards were tested on.
Here, without any ray tracing to speak of, the RTX 3090 does take a slender lead with the rasterization-exclusive workload, but again it’s within a frame or two at both 1440p and 4K that the differences are within margins of error.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Shadow of the Tomb Raider was one of the earliest games to implement its ray-traced shadows, and it’s still an intense workload for modern cards when taking them through the game’s numerous benchmark scenes.
At 1440p the RTX 3080 Ti takes a slight lead and manages to break triple digits in terms of average frame rate, but there’s nothing to split the two when looking at 4K.
Borderlands 3
Borderlands 3 and its art style might not immediately suggest a performance heavy title, but its “Badass” preset still manages to stress both cards considerably at higher resolutions.
The advantage of the RTX 3080 Ti is slightly more pronounced here at 1440p but, again, both cards are neck and neck when increasing the resolution up to 4K. Irrespective, you’re getting higher than 60fps in both cases, which is great.
Hitman 3
Hitman 3 is one of the most recently released titles in this suite of tests, but also one of the games that seems to be a breeze for both flagships even at 4K. Sweeping through the game’s Dubai benchmark produces amazing results that will really make a high refresh rate monitor come in handy.
Like Borderlands 3, the differences between the two cards go in favor of the RTX 3080 Ti, with a near 8% performance uplift at 1440p. At 4K things are more even, with both cards capable of breaking triple digits.
Forza Horizon 4
Forza Horizon 4 remains one of the best-looking racing games out there. It’s especially great on PC where you can improve image quality across the board compared to console, making it a great test for both cards.
Here the RTX 3080 Ti takes a lead at 1440p, with around 7% better performance over the RTX 3090. Surprisingly, the tables turn at 4K, with the RTX 3090 taking a 10% lead.
Gears Tactics
Gears Tactics is intense on both your GPU and CPU, and its randomized benchmark is great at measuring bottlenecks across both. With all of the details set to their maximum it’s a technically impressive showcase, too.
Here the RTX 3090 enjoys its biggest lead across the suite of testing, with a large 16% improvement over the RTX 3080 Ti at 1440p. That’s even wider at 4K, with the difference sitting at 18% between the two cards.
The impact of DLSS continues to be pronounced
Nvidia’s cards feature a range of proprietary software tools that add a lot of value to each GPU purchase, from the AI-powered noise-cancelling of Nvidia Broadcast to the resource-sensitive ShadowPlay gameplay capture. None of these, however, are as impactful as Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS, which continues to provide large performance gains while continually improving the visual enhancements with each iteration.
If you’re unfamiliar, DLSS is a supersampling and anti-aliasing technique that allows a game to render at a lower resolution (improving performance) while making up for the loss in detail with predictive AI-powered corrections to the image. It’s become especially important in many titles that support ray tracing, and even more so at 4K, both of which are serious drains on performance. DLSS allows games to run faster without a very noticeable degradation in image quality, especially with the latest 2.1 iteration.
The RTX 3080 Ti, like all other cards in the RTX series, supports DLSS, and you can see from the graph above how crucial it can be to obtain better frame rates in the most demanding modern titles.
In summary (if it wasn’t already clear), Nvidia’s RTX 3080 Ti does live up to its billing as the company’s next gaming flagship, with mostly identical performance to the RTX 3090 in purely gaming workloads. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise either, considering how the RTX 3080 Ti features almost identical specs to its much larger counterpart.
The changes to the memory bandwidth and the TDP (up to 350W from 320W) are clear indicators of this, and this testing shows that right now games are preferring the faster memory over just stacks more of the same. The 24GB of GDDR6X memory in the RTX 3090 doesn’t give it any appreciable performance advantage across these games and at these resolutions, suggesting that Nvidia’s addition of 2GB for the RTX 3080 Ti might have been the perfect sweet spot.
Thermal Performance
One point of concern early on was with regards to cooling. The RTX 3090 is a massive card because of its much, much larger cooler when compared to the Founder’s Edition RTX 3080. Given that the RTX 3080 Ti consumes more power than the RTX 3080 and thus expels more heat, having the same cooler could have been a potential thermal throttling issue.
Throughout testing, the RTX 3080 Ti never reached temperatures higher than 78 degrees Celsius, which was just a bit higher than the average 73 degrees Celsius of the RTX 3090 in the same chassis. What was more impressive was the readings on the memory junctions, which were a problem on Nvidia’s RTX 3080 and RTX 3090 cards with memory modules reaching, and throttling, at 110 degrees Celsius. This has forced some owners to open the card and replace Nvidia’s stock thermal pads with something that dissipates the heat better, but that might not be required for the RTX 3080 Ti. I didn’t measure any memory junction temperatures above 95 degrees Celsius, which is almost on par with the current running temperature of my RTX 3090 after having its thermal pads replaced. It’s a small but important improvement.
The card is quiet enough at this temperature, with the fans ramping up to 2000 RPM but remaining relatively silent. What was pronounced was a very audible, and annoying, coil whine, which has been an issue across Nvidia’s Founder’s Edition cards throughout the RTX 30-series. This was far more noticeable than the fans and was a high enough pitch that it pierced through my headphones during play sessions.
Verdict
So, the RTX 3080 Ti is undoubtedly a tangible improvement over the standard RTX 3080, and a fantastic value proposition when compared to the RTX 3090 (which costs $300 more). But in the incredibly unpredictable climate of buying GPUs right now, it’s almost impossible to predict if you’ll even be able to find one at Nvidia’s proposed MSRP of $1,200. At that price, you still must consider your entire setup and really ask yourself if you’re going to need the full brunt of this card, or if you’ll be able to take advantage of its improvements enough to justify the $500 premium over the RTX 3080, an already incredibly powerful offering.
But it’s difficult to make those decisions when GPU prices are in flux and continue to wildly fluctuate well-above retail. There’s no telling what the real-world difference will be between Nvidia’s three premium cards in terms of price, so it’s harder still to try and value them according to those metrics alone. Right now, if you can find an RTX 3080 Ti for a price that makes sense for your budget and setup, it’s arguably the best gaming card on the market. But don’t feel the need to pay an additional premium for it just for that.
With its next title peeking over the horizon, players now have a way to jump into the last modern Battlefield game for free. Amazon Prime members can claim a free copy of Battlefield 4 for Origin until June 20, the latest of Prime Gaming’s monthly giveaways.
Prime Gaming is an extension of Amazon Prime for Twitch. The service originally launched as Twitch Prime but rebranded this past August. To receive a free code for Battlefield 4, users need to have an Amazon Prime subscription and a linked Twitch account.
Keep in mind that the code you’ll receive through Prime Gaming is for Battlefield 4’s standard edition. That means you won’t be able to access any of the game’s five DLC packs: China Rising, Second Assault, Naval Strike, Dragon’s Teeth, or Final Stand. That being said, the standard edition of Battlefield 4 still offers a wide array of content, including some of the game’s best maps.
Along with Battlefield 4, Prime Gaming members can also claim rewards for Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout, FIFA 21, Valorant, Rainbow Six Siege, and Apex Legends. A number of other games are also free to claim this month, including Batman: The Telltale Series and Mugsters.
Amazon’s Prime Day is also around the corner, which may explain why Battlefield 4 was just included as a Prime Gaming offer. Amazon has recently confirmed that the massive sales event will take place on June 21 and 22. Gamers can expect to find deals on games for every platform, as well as discounts on peripherals and computer parts. For more details on Prime Day and how to take full advantage of the sale, check out our guide on the event.
In other Battlefield news, EA has announced an official reveal date for the next entry in the franchise. The next Battlefield game will have its first trailer launch on June 9 at 7 AM PT / 10 AM ET. Supposedly, the upcoming title will feature a modern setting, making it the first entry in the franchise to do so since the launch of Battlefield Hardline in 2015.
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After initially only supporting the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S via backwards compatibility, the hyper-stylish first-person action game Ghostrunner will be getting native versions for the systems on September 28. These new versions will be free for existing owners in the same console family and will include significant technical upgrades.
On the next-gen (or is it current-gen now?) consoles, Ghostrunner will support post-processing HDR, 3D audio, 4K resolution with 120fps gameplay, and a ray-tracing fidelity mode–presumably at a lower frame rate or resolution. The PS5 version will also support the haptic feedback on the DualSense controller, and all post-launch modes will be included in these versions when they release. That includes the Kill Run time attack mode, photo mode, and the upcoming Assist and Wave modes.
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The PS5 and Xbox Series X versions of Ghostrunner will cost the same as the current versions, though because of the free upgrade, it seemingly makes more sense to just purchase the PS4 or Xbox One version for maximum compatibility. There will also be a physical Nintendo Switch release coming on June 29, with the game currently available via the eShop on the platform.
Though Ghostrunner plays well on the older consoles, it’s clear the visuals could use the boost offered by newer hardware. A silky-smooth frame rate to go along with that should make the action even more impressive, and it might make the one-hit death gameplay less frustrating, too.
In other Ghostrunner news, a sequel is currently in development. Publisher 505 Games is doubling its investment for the sequel when compared to the first game, as it was a big commercial success. In our Ghostrunner review, Mike Epstein praised the “parkour-driven first-person platforming” and said, “the rush you feel in the moment as you perfectly run a room is worth the grit.”
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Far Cry 6‘s protagonist, Dani Rojas, can be either male or female. According to narrative director Navid Khavari, the choice of the protagonist’s gender was important for developer Ubisoft Toronto.
“The choice of gender with Dani in Far Cry 6 was important to us in the sense that we kept it as a unified experience for Dani,” Khavari said in a video posted on Far Cry’s Twitter account. “After talking to several members of our team, something that was clearly important was not to try and create two different storylines. If you pick male or female, that choice is for you to make, and that journey of Dani will be one and the same.”
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I’m not totally on board with Dani’s story being “one and the same” regardless if they’re a man or a woman–I feel like their gender would play a role in the challenges they’d face in a country inspired by late 1950s, early 1960s Cuba. Especially if you’re going to say that Far Cry 6 is, in fact, a political game that discusses topics like fascism, imperialism, forced labor, LGBTQ+ rights, and free elections. We’ll have to wait and see how Ubisoft Toronto balances the story so that it makes sense for the protagonist to be male or female.
Another interesting note in the video is that Khavari also says that Dani “was born and raised in the capital city of Esperanza on the island of Yara,” and that “it was really important for us to have someone who is from Yara, is local to Esperanza.” So how will such a character background impact Ubisoft’s traditional open-world format of finding towers to unlock parts of the map? Past Ubisoft games have traditionally dropped their protagonist into unfamiliar territory, explaining the need to defog the map; Dani breaks that trend.
Maybe we’ll learn more at the Ubisoft Forward, scheduled for June 12, right at the start of E3. Far Cry 6 is set to launch for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, and PC on October 7.
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The new Sonic and Dr. Eggman statue is available to preorder at Amazon.
To commemorate Sonic the Hedgehog’s 30th anniversary, premium licensed merch manufacturer Numskull has created a limited-edition statue featuring Sonic and Dr. Eggman. The new statue is available to preorder now at Amazon for $80 ahead of its October 6 release date. It’s just one of the numerous new Sonic products announced to celebrate 30 years of the Blue Blur.
Numskull is known for making high-quality merchandise, and this new Sonic statue certainly looks like a winner. The colorful statue is made out of vinyl and depicts Sonic dashing away from the nefarious Dr. Eggman. The statue’s dimensions are 8.6 x 7.4 x 9 inches, so it shouldn’t be too challenging to find a spot for it on your shelf.
The Sonic and Dr. Eggman 30th anniversary statue joins a growing lineup of new games and merch that have been revealed for the special occasion. Sega recently announced multiple Sonic games, including Sonic Colors: Ultimate, a new game from Team Sonic that releases next year, and a compilation containing five classic Sonic games. Longtime fans of the Sega mascot will also want to check out Sonic the Hedgehog Encyclo-speed-ia, a new compendium chronicling Sonic’s history. It’s available to preorder now for a steep discount at Amazon ahead of its November release.
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