Sony has updated its official page for PS5’s DualSense, and its new 360-degree look confirms there are no back buttons or triggers on the new controller.
Disney’s Mulan has been a victim of multiple COVID-19 related delays and was recently taken off the schedule entirely after being bumped from its August 21 release date. However, on a quarterly earnings call, Disney’s chief creative officer Bob Chapek announced new release plans.
Mulan will be headed directly to Disney+ on September 4–but there’s a catch. It will not be included with the monthly Disney+ subscription, but instead be provided under a video-on-demand price point Chapek referred to as “premium access” for $29.99.
It’s unclear whether this price point will be for a single viewing of the film, a timed rental, or repeated viewings, nor is it clear how many devices or shared user profiles will be able to access the film once it has been paid for.
Chapek also clarified that Mulan will be sent to theaters in “select markets” on September 4, contingent upon safety regulations.
Chapek explained that Mulan is currently being considered a “one off” for digital releases and that, while the company is going to be carefully monitoring its success on the platform, there are currently no plans to repeat the procedure for any major upcoming Disney films, such as Black Widow, which is still set for release on November 6.
Nioh 2 was never a game starved for content, but the first of three planned pieces of DLC, The Tengu’s Disciple, is a substantial addition all its own. It introduces the coastal Yashima region with three new areas and 10 new missions that can, and most likely will, take players at least 10 hours to complete. Even more than that, there’s also a brand new weapon type called the Splitstaff, a large handful of new enemy types, challenging new boss fights, new armor and weapon sets, new soul cores, and new guardian spirits. The quality of the DLC campaign itself isn’t anything to write home about, but this is still an incredible value and a great reason to sink your teeth back into Nioh 2’s stellar combat.
The Tengu’s Disciple essentially fits into Nioh 2 as a side story that takes place after the events of the main game. Your character finds a dagger at a shrine that suddenly transports them back in time to the Heian period, where they join forces with real life Japanese historical figures Minamoto no Yoshitsune and the warrior monk, Benkei. There are some cool cutscenes that set up some of the boss battles, but like Nioh 2’s main story, the plot in The Tengu’s Disciple is an afterthought largely just used to frame the action.
But man, oh man, is that action still as good as ever – and The Tengu’s Disciple only serves to add new wrinkles on top of that layer of excellence. The big new draw is the addition of the Splitstaff, a new weapon type that scales primarily with Onmyo Magic, giving those who choose to specialize in Onmyo Magic a much needed secondary weapon type to accompany the Switchglaive.
The Splitstaff is a tricky weapon to master, and early on, it actually didn’t click very well with me. It relies very heavily on its active skills which are unlocked deep into the skill tree, and beyond that, it also has a unique quirk in that if you hold down the attack button slightly, the staff will transform, extending out and dealing an extra hit. Hold the button down too long though and you’ll drop the combo, so there’s a special rhythm to attacks with the Splitstaff that just doesn’t exist with other weapons.
Once I got over the initial learning curve and built up some skill points that could be invested in the extremely strong multi-hitting attacks of the Splitstaff, I learned to really like it. Aesthetically, it brings back memories of playing Ninja Gaiden with the Lunar staff, but even beyond that its range is fantastic, it’s really good at inflicting elemental status ailments, and it offers a completely different style of play compared to my other main weapon, the Switchglaive, all while still allowing me to utilize powerful Onmyo magic.
I ended up using my Splitstaff/Switchglaive build all throughout the DLC, which took me about 12 hours total if you include some backtracking to find a trio of items required to unlock one of the missions. Spread all throughout its 10 missions are a fairly large handful of new enemy types, including giant crab yokai with Groucho Marx facial hair; gross fleshy monstrosities called Nuppeppo that have a nasty tendency to suck you up and spit you out like a nightmarish version of Kirby; nastier versions of the monkey-like Enki enemies called Kiryokis; and more small variations on other existing enemies. The crabs are pretty irritating to fight due to them being impervious to damage from the front, but the rest of the new enemy types are fun and challenging new obstacles to learn how to deal with.
Of course the biggest challenges come in the form of the bosses. I don’t want to spoil them, but there are some great surprises in store for fans of the original Nioh, along with some super fun fights that rank up there among Nioh 2’s best boss battles to date.
If you’re a Nioh 2 superfan, one of the most enticing additions for you will no doubt be the Dream of the Demon difficulty, which essentially serves as Nioh 2’s New Game++. As you’d imagine, Dream of the Demon raises the level of all enemies, along with the gear that they drop, but it also remixes enemy locations, and introduces incredibly tough red enemies that are much stronger than your garden variety yokai. Just to illustrate how deep into Nioh 2 you have to be in order to survive Dream of the Demon, I have poured nearly 107 hours into a character who is level 159. To survive the very first mission of Dream of the Demon, I’d need to be nearly a hundred levels higher.
Disney announced during an investors call Tuesday that they will forego a domestic theatrical release of their live-action retelling of Mulan in favor of a digital debut on Disney+ on September 4, 2020. Internationally, the film will open in cinemas in regions that don’t yet have Disney+.
Mulan will premiere on Disney+ on September 4 “on a premiere access basis” for $29.99. That’s for rental, not purchase, and on top of the fee existing Disney+ customers already pay for the streaming service.
“We’re looking at Mulan as a one-off, as opposed to saying there’s some new business windowing model that we’re looking at,” said Disney CEO Bob Chapek.
The media giant made the announcement while also announcing some very good news — Disney+ has passed 60.5 million subscribers — and some very bad news — the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Disney Parks saw Disney take “a $3.5 billion hit to operating income and a loss of $2 billion” — to shareholders.
Video games are made by teams of dozens, if not hundreds of people, and that means that every aspect of a given game has likely passed through many hands before it gets revealed to the public. Still, sometimes it takes an outsider to see the obvious. This was the case with the battle menu for the upcoming Yakuza: Like a Dragon, and the results are quite amusing.
Back in June, John Ricciardi–the co-founder of notable localization company 8-4–joked in a tweet that translators should change the battle menu of the eighth Yakuza game to spell SEGA. Well, as a recent behind-the-scenes video revealed, it appears that the localization team took Ricciardi’s advice.
Yakuza: Like a Dragon was awesome. Excited to see it in English for the first time! BTW, not too late to change “More” to “Etc” or “Extra” to make the menu options basically spell out SEGA pic.twitter.com/kcUoim06hC
— John Ricciardi | BLACK LIVES MATTER (@johntv) June 11, 2020
As you can see from the two above tweets, the “More” option has changed to “Etc.,” which means it now spells the name of the game’s publisher. It’s a nice touch, and one that fits in well with the goofy, self-referential tone of the franchise.
As long-time Kiryu-heads know, Yakuza: Like A Dragon is a soft reboot of the series, and the first to feature turn-based combat. The game originally came out in Japan back in January, and the English version is schedule for a November release. It will serve as a launch title for the Xbox Series X, with a PS5 release coming sometime later.
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Activision boasted a big second quarter in its financial results, driven in part by the rapid growth of its free-to-play Call of Duty: Warzone. The spin-off from last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare reached more than 75 million players to date, according to the company’s second-quarter 2020 financial report.
That’s the first updated player count we’ve heard since it was riding high on its explosive first month with 50 million players. The growth over the last few months has been slower since its debut, but that’s not surprising in itself, and another 25 million is still a huge success.
The success of Warzone has had a knock-on effect with Modern Warfare as well. Activision Blizzard said that Modern Warfare has added more players outside of a launch quarter than ever before, mostly due to players upgrading from Warzone. The company has already specified that Warzone will continue to evolve with content from future Call of Duty campaign releases.
For the quarter ending June 30, 2020, Activision Blizzard reported net revenues of $1.93 billion, up from $1.4 billion for the same period last year. Digital revenue grew to $1.59 billion, compared to $1.09 billion for the same period. The company’s earnings have come under scrutiny recently, in regards to both the pay for CEO Bobby Kotick and a more recent pay-sharing campaign from Blizzard employees.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone are currently preparing to launch Season 5, which will include new maps, some big changes to the Verdansk Battle Royale map, and more. Fans have been speculating that Warzone will also serve as a teaser or even tie into the announcement of the next Call of Duty, which is rumored to be a Black Ops game.
Nintendo is giving Switch players another chance to win My Nintendo Gold Points. The company is hosting online competitions in two of its Switch games this month: the stretchy-arm fighter Arms and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
First up is the Arms North American Open August 2020, which takes place this Saturday, August 8. The top player will win a prize package that contains download codes for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, its Fighters Pass Vol. 2, and Splatoon 2. The rest of the top four, meanwhile, will take home 2,500 My Nintendo Gold Points, which is equivalent to $25 USD in Switch Eshop credit.
The following week, Nintendo will host the Mario Kart 8 North American Open tournament. That competition runs from August 14-16, and the top eight players each day–based on the total amount of points accumulated–will win 2,500 Gold Points. You can learn more about both competitions on Nintendo’s website.
Those aren’t the only Switch games holding events this month. On August 21, Nintendo is kicking off another bonus Splatfest for Splatoon 2. There are no My Nintendo Points up for grabs in this competition, but everyone who participates will receive Super Sea Snails in the game. The Splatfest runs until August 23, and the theme is another repeat of a previous event: which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Although Nintendo has not released new content updates since the Splatocalypse event back in July 2019, the company has announced two more bonus Splatfests for the game. These will be held before the end of March 2021, although no other details about them have yet been announced.
Microsoft has changed “Xbox Live” to “Xbox online services” in the company’s service agreement. The service has also been amended to refer to “Xbox consoles” instead of “Xbox One and Xbox 360 consoles.” The changes are effective starting October 1.
The change comes after Microsoft has been making tweaks to Xbox Live, removing the option to buy yearly and six-month subscriptions for Xbox Live Gold. This makes it only slightly cheaper to buy Xbox Live Gold instead of buying Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.
GameSpot has reached out to Microsoft for comment.
There has recently been rumors and speculation that Xbox Live may soon become free. However Microsoft itself has not indicated that this is true. As it currently stands Xbox Live Gold is required for online multiplayer in all games on the console.
