Author: Trafficblast

If you haven’t peeked at the Xbox Store this week, you absolutely should. Not only are some of the best games from last week’s sale still available, but more great deals were also added today. Before we get into those, be sure to check out the Critically Acclaimed Sale, which has discounts on some of the best games available on Xbox One, including Red Dead Redemption 2, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Celeste, Dead Cells, and more. Only one day is left for these incredible deals, so grab whatever you want ASAP.

In case you haven’t heard, this week marks the 25th anniversary of The Elder Scrolls–the first game in the series, The Elder Scrolls: Arena, released back in 1994. To celebrate, Bethesda is offering huge deals on many Elder Scrolls titles this week, including The Elder Scrolls Online ($10), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Special Edition ($24), and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion ($7.50). The Elder Scrolls Online deal is available through April 8; the other deals will only be around through April 1. As a heads-up, you can also download The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for free on PC all this week, with that offer ending Sunday, March 31.

An iconic DC superhero is getting some love in the Xbox store this week: Batman’s Arkham series and Lego games are marked down up to 60% right now. Grab Batman: Arkham Knight for $10, Batman: Return to Arkham for $10, and the Batman: Arkham Knight season pass for (you guessed it) $10. If you’re a fan of the Lego games, you can also get Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham for $10 and its Deluxe edition for $17.50. Plus, the Lego DC Super-Villains season pass is only $9. The Lego games make for some entertaining couch co-op if you enjoy playing locally with a friend or partner.

Another notable deal: Battlefield V is 50% off for a limited time to celebrate the release of its free battle royale mode, Firestorm. You can grab the base game for just $30 for the next two days. Its Deluxe edition is also marked down to $40. Other great deals this week include Titanfall 2 ($5) and Injustice 2 ($28), both of which will be available through April 1.

Shop this week’s Xbox game deals »

And see more of our picks from the sale below!

Xbox One

Xbox 360

Critically Acclaimed Sale (ending within 24 hours) »

Xbox’s indies-focused event and announced three more ID@Xbox games that will come to Game Pass on release day, as well as the lineup of indies that will be available to play at PAX East.

Killer Queen Black, Outer Wilds, and Blazing Chrome will all hit Xbox’s all-you-can-eat subscription service on release day. Killer Queen Black is a new arcade multiplayer entry for up to eight players. Outer Wilds from Annapurina Interactive and Mobius is an open-world exploration game that repeats a limited-time challenge as you learn new secrets about the world to help with subsequent playthroughs. Blazing Chrome is an arcade run-and-gun action game. Killer Queen and Outer Wilds are both targeting 2019 launches, while a date wasn’t given for Blazing Chrome.

Microsoft also announced the slate of ID@Xbox games playable at PAX East, which begins March 28 in Boston, MA. You can stop by the Xbox booth to try Void Bastards, Operencia: The Stolen Sun, Supermarket Shriek, The Good Life, and Afterparty. Like the other games announced today, each of these will launch on Game Pass on their respective release days. You’ll also be able to collect pins that represent the various indie games.

Xbox Game Pass offers an all-you-can-play model with more than 100 Xbox One and backwards-compatible Xbox 360 games as long as you pay the $10 per month subscription fee. The Xbox Game Pass lineup already includes a selection of indie games with more being added regularly. This month’s additions include What Remains of Edith Finch and Operencia among others, and Minecraft will be coming next month.

SNK’s once-prolific output in the ’90s has slowed in recent years, but thanks to Neo Geo ports arriving weekly on Switch and other platforms, some of the company’s most popular arcade series are once again vying for players’ attention. Samurai Shodown is one of those. The weapons-based 2D fighting series thrived for close to 15 years, but it has largely remained dormant since 2008’s Samurai Shodown Sen. While it’s great to revisit the series’ past on modern consoles, it’s also exciting to know that a brand-new Samurai Shodown fighting game is on the way–and it feels even better to report that my time with the game has only increased my anticipation for its upcoming June release.

In order to get an inside look at the new systems and to discuss the game’s overall direction, I recently played a few rounds during a meeting with three Samurai Shodown developers: producer Yasuyuki Oda, game director Nobuyuki Kuroki, and game designer Josh Weatherford. Oda and Kuroki have experience working at SNK during its heyday in the ’90s, and though they both worked on 2016’s King of Fighters XIV, each had spent years away from the publisher working with other companies. While Kuroki helped ship a number of Sonic the Hedgehog games, Oda worked on Street Fighter IV at Dimps, the studio that co-developed the title with Capcom–which may help explain the similar inky rendering effect seen in the new Samurai Shodown. The team at SNK, we’re told, is roughly a 50-50 split of veteran SNK developers and fresh talent from across the industry.

Weatherford, Oda, and Kuroki are all very good players, as you’d expect, and in their capable hands the new Samurai Shodown looked very impressive. Familiar faces like Nakoruru and Galford clashed with great speed and ferocity, with spurts of blood and blots of ink accenting the action. As with the ink, characters were vaguely reminiscent of Street Fighter IV‘s expressive and slightly exaggerated designs, yet it all feels distinctly Samurai Shodown, where beauty and brutality clash with ease. It’s a testament to the strong character designs that have evolved with the series over the years, and proof that lessons were learned after King of Fighter XIV’s poorly received graphics had to be overhauled post launch.

“I’ve led the charge on the art style,” said Kuroki, “and I was really worried prior to the announcement and reveal of the game what the reaction would be to the visuals. I went really hard on the Japanese style with everything, from the UI, to the colors, and the textures. It’s not what the Western image of ‘Japanese’ would be, it’s a very original style, no corners cut or anything, and I wasn’t sure if that would be popular in the West. Still, so far, everyone has been positive, so I’m happy to see that.”

We now know that the roster will feature a total of sixteen characters, including 13 returning faces and three new fighters. The new characters remain a mystery, but we can now confirm that the 13 veterans are: Charlotte, Earthquake, Galford, Genjuro, Hanzo, Haohmaru, Jubei, Kyoshiro, Nakoruru, Shiki, Tam Tam, Ukyo, and Yoshitora. For Oda, seeing these familiar characters shine in a new light is a relief. “If you think about how the old 2D art was made,” he posited, “it was very stylized, to the point where if you viewed the same character from the front, their hair would be so ridiculous and it would make no sense. I’ve loved the reaction so far, with everyone saying it looks like the old games, but in 3D; not like a reimagining.”

If you’ve played Samurai Shodown in the past with any amount of regularity, you should have no problems picking up where you left off with the returning fighters. The rage gauge system is back, where each fighter has a meter that fills as they take damage, activating powerful buffs and attacks when it maxes out–including the disarming weapon-flipping technique. And once per match, you can activate a rage explosion with a simple button combo that destroys your rage gauge but gives you the chance to use a Lightning Blade attack, a move powerful enough to dramatically turn the tide of a contested battle.

Having left the series after Samurai Shodown V in 2003, it felt great to take control of these characters again. The speed, the hard-hitting fights, and the attitude is there. The visuals truly pop, giving me a newfound appreciation for a series that had until last year felt all but forgotten. I’ve only played a handful of fights so it’s too early to say whether or not Samurai Shodown will have what it takes to excite casual and competitive fighting game players alike, but it will be tested soon enough.

“People always ask why we brought the series back,” said Weatherford, “and as Kuroki always says, it’s not just that the community’s request via polls was very high, but it’s also, even among other fighting games, it has a very different style and a different pace. We felt, with the current trend towards esports, that it could stand out on its own very easily.”

The team at SNK won’t have to wait long to see how its revival shakes out with fans and pros alike. The new Samurai Shodown is currently scheduled to release on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in June (Switch and PC at a later date), and shortly after, it will share the spotlight as one of the nine main games at EVO 2019 in August. That will be a big test, for sure, but having had a taste of what’s possible during my demo, I already know it will be one of my most anticipated tournaments when the annual fighting game event kicks off in a few months’ time.