Mortal Shell, in the first trailer we saw and in follow-up analysis, looks a lot like a From Software game–specifically Dark Souls and Sekiro, depending on whether you’re focusing on the aesthetic or the nuances of combat. Now a new gameplay trailer has been released, and while it still looks very similar to the works of From Software, we can see some of the elements that might differentiate it.
In the trailer below, we see how Mortal Shell features multiple “shells” that change your fight style. We also get a good look at the enemy designs, which are a mix of humans, monsters, and things in-between.
We can also see that the game is skewing in a different direction with some of these designs–note the bondage gear worn by some enemies, and the rags worn by others.
Mortal Shell will come to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC later this year. PS5 and Xbox Series X versions have not been announced, although it’ll be compatible with both systems, as the Series X is fully back-compatible and Sony requires all PS4 games going forward to work on PS5.
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
No more delays! At long last, we’re playing The Last of Us Part 2, and we’ll post our review – written by our own Jonathon Dornbush – tonight, on Friday, June 12, at 12:01AM Pacific Time. That’s almost a full week before it the whole world gets to play on Friday, June 19 (or Thursday, June 18, depending on where you are/how late you like to stay up) – you’ll have plenty of time to read, watch, and make your informed decision about if and when to jump in yourself.
As you can see from the slideshow below, there’s good reason to be excited whenever Naughty Dog releases a new game. Between the Uncharted series and the original The Last of Us (among others!) it’s earned a reputation as one of the crown jewels of Sony’s first-party development studios. We’re hoping that hot streak continues with The Last of Us Part 2, and that one of the last big games of the generation sends the PS4 out with a bang!
On today’s Save State, Persia talks about the PlayStation 5 reveal event. We got our first look at the console with its tall, two-toned design and got a chance to see dozens of titles that we’ll get our hands on when the PS5 is finally here.
Persia also talks about Call of Duty Season 4 details, which include new multiplayer maps, game modes, and more for both Modern Warfare and Warzone.
E3 might not be happening this year, but we’ve got you covered. This summer, GameSpot is hosting Play For All, a multi-week event that is going to be the best place for you to get all the latest gaming news, features, interviews, and livestreams.
Not only that, but we’re also partnering with Direct Relief to raise funds for healthcare workers risking their lives daily on COVID-19 relief efforts, as well as Black Lives Matter. We’ll have over 100 hours of awesome content featuring the GameSpot team, as well as friends from across the industry, including the Giant Bomb crew, Kinda Funny’s Greg Miller, NoClip’s Danny O’Dwyer, and many more we’ll be announcing over the coming weeks.
It happened, folks. Sony finally lifted the curtain on the PlayStation 5 in an online presentation this week, revealing a curvy two-toned console that looks like it came from some parallel dimension where our inevitable cyberpunk reality is more bright and optimistic than it actually is. 2020 is the year video games move into the next generation. The way we play games is going to change irrevocably. I definitely heard the phrase ‘paradigm shift’ dropped like a cannonball in the ocean.
The future of gaming is here, again. We are witness to it, right now.
Anyway, the whole thing opened with Grand Theft Auto V, a game from 2013 that you’ll also be able to play on the new PlayStation. Cool.
But before they revealed the hardware, Sony showed a diverse selection of games we can look forward to playing on the console as soon as the end of this year, and as far out as 2022. There were nine games from PlayStation Studios, Sony’s new branding umbrella for first- and second-party developers. We also got a good look at close to 20 other games from third-party publishers, almost all of them for the first time. There was a lot to see, and it was exciting to keep seeing trailer after trailer, wondering what the next surprise would be.
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Full Sony PS5 Reveal Event
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But looking back on it, leading with GTA V framed everything in a way that says, “Those games you love are never going to go out of style.” And looking more closely at a lot of the games that were revealed, it’s very easy to imagine the feel of playing a lot of these experiences right now, technical prowess aside, of course.
The reveal of Insomniac’s Ratchet And Clank: Rift Apart is the best example of this push and pull of old and new. It was an impressive showing: Start with a wild, world-tripping cinematic and then show how all of that actually exists and works in the game itself. The impressive loading speeds touted by the company can be seen practised in the way Ratchet flies between completely different worlds in a blink. The debris flying everywhere as enemies and the environment are demolished is wonderfully chaotic, and the lighting design that ray tracing allows helps give this fake cartoon world a beautiful edge for sure. I have an idea of what the PlayStation 5 is capable of on a technical level, and that’s great.
But I can also pick up my DualShock 4 while watching the video and mimic exactly what is happening on screen. That’s how familiar it feels. It is a much more beautiful version of what I know I like to play. There are some hints of how these games might fundamentally change in a mechanical sense–hopefully, the portal hopping will exercise my brain in brand new ways later on in that game–but not enough for me to stand up and yell “paradigm shift!” to no one in particular.
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Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Full Presentation | Sony PS5 Reveal Event
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There were a lot of other exciting reveals. Most of them were sequels. Sequels of things that I like, but sequels nonetheless. I can’t wait to see how Miles Morales’s story unfolds in the next Spider-Man game from Insomniac. Really looking forward to traversing an even bigger open world in Horizon Forbidden West and taking a bunch of screenshots. Excited to play another Hitman game, another Resident Evil game, another Oddworld game, and just straight-up play Demon’s Souls again. But I’m getting excited to buy a new console so I can play more of the same stuff.
There were brand-new properties in there that piqued my interest, sure. Housemarque’s Returnal intrigued me with its setup, and I love its dumb name. Kena: Bridge of the Spirits and Project Athia also raised an eyebrow. Ghostwire Tokyo and Deathloop are games that seem incredibly up my alley. But I still came away with a sense of knowing how all these games play.
Then, there were the ones that I didn’t quite get a true sense of, the ones that really got me to sit up. Goodbye Volcano High, Jett: The Far Shore, Little Devil Inside, Solar Ash, Stray and even the utterly strange Bugsnax were really the only projects that got my mind wandering a little bit, wondering, “How is that going to translate to an actual game?”
I guess that’s the feeling I’m always looking for whenever we move onto a new generational cycle. The look of the box? I think it’s interesting enough, it’s fine. But I’m chasing the feeling that reminds me of opening up a copy of EGM as a kid, looking at screenshots of Mario 64 for the very first time, thinking: “Wow, that looks amazing. I have no idea how it’s going to work.”
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Jett: The Far Shore Trailer | Sony PS5 Reveal Event
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Perhaps unsurprisingly, those games, the ones that came closest to getting that reaction out of me during the PlayStation 5 presentation, were independent games from publishers like Annapurna, from developers like Superbrothers and Heart Machine. And you know what? I love the fact that all these games were exhibited proudly, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Horizon and Resident Evil and Demon’s Souls rather than being corralled into a specific indie section of the show or worse, a montage. These are the games we’re going to get our truly new gaming experiences from.
Do I absolutely have to get a PlayStation 5 to get those experiences? Judging by all the multiplatform announcements that happened after the show, probably not. We always kinda suspected that the next console cycle would be more of a step than a leap. Maybe the next generation of gaming has been here all along. They just needed a place to be seen.
Hot on the heels of the PS5 reveal event‘s announcement of Resident Evil: Village, Capcom has announced that the Resident Evil franchise has surpassed 100 million units sold worldwide.
The Resident Evil series debuted in 1996 with Resident Evil, though it’s grown in size and scope over the years. The Resident Evil 3 (remake) is the most recent entry in the franchise, though that will soon be dethroned by Village which is projected to launch in 2021.
According to a Capcom press release, more than 80% of the 100 million units sold globally were in markets outside Japan. Capcom’s games are available in over 250 different countries and regions, and the Resident Evil series is the first to break 100 million units sold for the company.
The press release attributes this to the recent remakes of classic hits like Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 3, as well as marketing strategies that have introduced similar legacy titles to modern audiences. Resident Evil 2 Remake sales, in particular, did exceptionally well, with the game shipping 3 million copies in its first week. Comparatively, Resident Evil 3 Remake shipped more than 2 million units within five days of its release. As per related data from Capcom, Resident Evil 5 remains the best-selling game in the series though it may soon be overtaken by Resident Evil 7.
Resident Evil is one of Capcom’s most well-known properties, though the company is also famous for the likes of Monster Hunter and Street Fighter. The PS5 reveal event only had news about an upcoming Resident Evil game, but it wouldn’t be all that surprising if the launch of the PS5 means more titles in Capcom’s other popular franchises are still to come. We have a full rundown of all the games revealed at the PS5 event, plus console specifications.
Welcome to GameSpot’s Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
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The Pathless, which was announced at The Game Awards 2018 by Abzu developer Giant Squid, is coming to PS5 with numerous enhancements. While the game will also be available on PS4, a new post on PlayStation Blog makes it clear that the PS5 version will be superior.
In the post, creative director Matt Nava explains that the game is on course to release in late 2020, and that the PS5 and its DualSense controller will make the game a more immersive experience. Nava says that the controller’s haptic sensors will “let you feel the heartbeat of our world,” and that things like the tension of a bow and arrow, or the “rumbling of a distant boss readying to attack,” will be felt through your controller.
The system’s advanced audio processing will also accommodate the game’s 3D sound, and because of the PS5’s SSD, the game’s open world setting will not feature any loading screens. “Slowly filling progress bars are a thing of the past; the only thing you won’t be able to do is check your phone,” Nava promises.
GameSpot has officially kicked off Play For All–a celebration of all things gaming. Join us as we bring you the summer’s hottest news, previews, interviews, features, and videos, as well as raise money for COVID-19 relief efforts and Black Lives Matter with the help of our friends from around the gaming world. Check out the Play For All schedule for more.
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Season 7 of Call of Duty: Mobile has begun with the latest update, and as promised it’s brought with it a new Battle Pass and some significant changes. This season of Call of Duty: Mobile is called Radioactive Agent, and it not only adds some new maps and modes, but also significantly expands the game’s Battle Royale map.
Tunisia and the Gulag have been added as new maps in this update, meaning that players can now fight in the post-death arena from Call of Duty: Warzone. Gulag is playable in the 2v2 Gunfight mode (previously known as Showdown), so you’ll be dropped in with a random loadout that changes every two rounds and forced to fight in close quarters. Tunisia is a more traditional map, with a pleasant seaside setting.
A new scorestreak, Cluster Strike, has been added too–it’s an air-to-ground strike that can do major damage. Zombies are also making a bit of a comeback in the new Attack of the Undead mode, which takes ten players and casts one as a member of the undead, who them has to start infecting the others. The aim is to survive until the end–but once you turn, the objective changes and you’ll want to try and kill your former teammates.
The Battle Royale map is growing in this update by almost 50%, with seven new zones being added. They are Black Market, Harbor, Downtown, Sanitarium, Ski Town, Heat, and Frigid Wetlands, and they’ll give you more places to hide, fight, and scavange. A new class is being added, the Smoke Bomber, who can disorientate enemies with smoke bombs. Other additions include a new vehicle (a tank) and a new boss enemy (the Butcher).
This update will also change how the optional Battle Pass works. Players will now only have one stream of content to progress along, but players who buy the Battle Pass will unlock new stuff at every new tier, while free players will only unlock on some of them. The Cluster Strike unlocks at Tier 14 for everyone, for example, but Battle Pass players will get new weapons from Tier 1 onwards.
Season 4 has also arrived for the two Call of Duty games on console and PC, Modern Warfare and Warzone. Just be wary of the enormous patch if you’re playing Modern Warfare.
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Sony is releasing two PlayStation 5 consoles this year. One has a disc drive and the other doesn’t. In a new interview with GameSpot sister site CNET, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan explained why Sony is releasing the disc-free console.
He explained that it’s a reflection of what many consumers want these days. Basically, people are consuming more and more digital content as opposed to physical media, and Sony is releasing a new PlayStation console for those who align more with this vision for the future. “We’re just acknowledging here that as time passes our community is becoming more digitally orientated,” Ryan said.
The executive pointed out that, in the first quarter of 2020, a whopping 66 percent of PlayStation games sold were digital. This uptick in digital game sales was no doubt driven by the fact that people are staying home during the COVID-19 crisis, but in any case, the percentage of digital game sales at Sony–and other game companies–is growing.
“People increasingly, as they are with their music and their video, they prefer digital and we want to recognize that,” Ryan said.
The PS5 is not Sony’s first game platform without a physical media drive. The company released the PSP Go back in 2004, but the PS5 is Sony’s first home console without a physical media drive.
Looking across the industry, Microsoft released the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition in 2019, and the company is rumored to release a next-generation Xbox without a disc drive, too.
Going back to PlayStation’s strategy, Ryan said the regular PS5 with a disc drive and the disc-free model are “identical products” outside of the small difference in form factor. Both systems will be available at launch when the PlayStation 5 ships in Holiday 2020. Pricing has not been announced for either system.
