New game consoles from Microsoft and Sony are in development, but the head of Bayonetta developer Platinum Games is not all that excited by them, apparently. Studio head Atsushi Inaba told Video Game Chronicle that the new systems, the PlayStation 5 and Project Scarlett, are “more of the same.”
“It’s OK. And by that I mean, I’m sure that things will move faster, graphics will be better and maybe it will be easier with less wait times… that’s good for the consumer,” Inaba said. “But it’s more of the same, quite frankly, compared to previous generations. It’s nothing that’s disruptive or super innovative, if you ask me.”
Inaba went on to say that in the past, game consoles formerly featured “custom chips” that were not possible on PC. But today? “Now you look at it and they’re just grabbing stuff that already exists,” Inaba said.
He pointed out that the Nintendo Switch uses the Tegra chip that was used in other systems before it, even if it was updated or changed in some ways. The PS5 and Project Scarlett, meanwhile, feature custom chips from AMD. We don’t know all the specifics yet about each console, but both companies have said their new systems will offer things like backwards compatibility, ray tracing, and faster load times, while they will also apparently feature faster load times thanks to solid-state drives.
Inaba said he’s more excited about cloud gaming instead of “stuff that kind of already exists but has been repurposed to a certain degree.”
“That’s why for me, things like cloud platforms represent innovation and something very, very different–they’re platforms that excite me and where I feel there is a lot more innovation happening,” he said.
Project Scarlett is launching in Holiday 2020, while Sony’s PlayStation 5–which has only been revealed at a high-level–is said to also release around that time.
Platinum is currently working on a number of projects, including Bayonetta 3 which is coming to Nintendo Switch.
During the NHL Awards tonight in Las Vegas, EA Sports officially announced NHL 20, and the developer is promising some big changes for this year’s instalment across gameplay, presentation, modes, and more. It appears to be one of the biggest and most substantial changes to the NHL series in years. EA released a lot of details about NHL 20, and to help make sense of it all we’ve broken it down by section into the key categories of things you need to know.
Auston Matthews is NHL 20’s cover star
NHL 20 Cover Star
Auston Matthews of the Toronto Maple Leafs–a three-time All-Star and 2016 No. 1 overall draft pick–graces the cover of 2019’s game. He had a monster debut season, scoring 40 goals and taking home the Calder Memorial Trophy for best rookie. In February 2019, the Leafs invested heavily in Matthews’ future on the team when they signed him to a five-year, $58 million deal.
RPM Changes And Improvements
Moving to new gameplay features, EA Sports updated its Real Player Motion (RPM) technology with new “Signature Shots.” This brings the unique shots of NHL superstars into the game, including Matthews’ toe-drag wrist shot and PK Subban’s heavy and powerful slapshot. Alexander Ovechkin’s smooth-as-butter one-timer has also been brought into the game for NHL 20. Overall, EA Sports is promising “hundreds” of new shot animations.
What could be a bigger update are changes to passing and puck pick-ups. In the past, players had to slow down to execute passes or perform skill moves. But now, these happen faster and more fluidly, according to EA Sports. Creative director Will Ho tells GameSpot that EA’s playtests show that the speed of play feels faster, even if it actually isn’t in practice. The overall aim is to replicate the speed of the real NHL, Ho says. Additionally, goalie AI has been changed with a “full offensive threat analysis” so players won’t get as many cheap or scrappy goals.
Doc And Eddie Are Out
On the presentation side, EA is changing things up substantially. Famed NBC commentators Eddie Olczyk and Doc Emerick are out, and the entire NBC licensing package is gone. The new commentators are Ray Ferraro (who appeared in previous NHL games as a rink-side analyst) and hockey broadcaster James Cybulski. Ho, the game’s creative director, tells GameSpot that EA went with new commentators because they better represent the kind of youth and energy that fans want to see. Not only that, but they were able to record 300 hours’ worth of commentary compared to 30 hours for Doc and Eddie due to their relatively busier schedules. Doc and Eddie are based in Chicago, and this was not very convenient for EA. Not only that, but Doc and Eddie were likely expensive, given their history in the league.
Doc and Eddie are two of the biggest and best-known commentators in hockey, so some fans will surely miss them, but this is not uncharted territory for EA Sports. EA’s Madden NFL series dropped Jim Nantz and Phil Simms from the franchise’s broadcast booth in favor of lesser-known, more youthful commentators in recent years. With NHL 20, Ho says Cybulski and Ferraro have a more playful and lighthearted banter that comes across as more natural-sounding.
Celebrity Commentators And New Graphics
Another interesting element of NHL 20’s broadcast package is that EA plans to bring in celebrity guests. Hockey fans will no doubt recall Snoop Dogg and Will Ferrell as his Anchorman character Ron Burgundy doing commentary for L.A. Kings games. It helped bring more attention to the sport of hockey, and EA appears to be attempting to do something similar with NHL 20.
The developer isn’t confirming any celebrity guest appearances yet, but a slide shown to GameSpot included people like Snoop Dogg, Will Ferrell, Drake, and Wayne Gretzky.
Also in terms of presentation, NHL 20’s graphics and scoreboards will look different this year. You’ll immediately notice that the scoreboard is now on the bottom of the screen, while there are brand-new overlays and motion graphics, too. Additionally, there are new sequences that aim to showcase the flashiest and most exciting moments in NHL 20. This includes “play of the period” and “play of the game” highlights that showcase those moments, as well as new celebration animations.
NHL 20 Adds Battle Royale
Moving to game modes, NHL 20 is adding battle royale–yes, really. Called “Eliminator” in NHL 20, this competitive mode is a “winner-take-all competition inspired by battle royale,” EA says. It comes in two versions: Ones and Threes Eliminator.
In Ones, 81 players compete against each other–though not at the same time–in what EA calls a “survival tournament” that plays out until one player wins. The Ones mode was introduced in NHL 19, and it features groups of three players duking it out solo. These matches will continue until one player is crowned grand champion. In the Threes variation of Eliminator, which is basically Squads from battle royale, teams of three will compete until one team remains.
One of the biggest criticisms of NHL 19 was that its pond hockey mode, Ones, was only playable through online multiplayer. NHL 20 adds an offline, local multiplayer mode for Ones where players can compete against other humans or the computer. Also new for Ones this year is even more outdoor ponds to skate on, including one set on a glacier and another based on the Rideau Canal in Canada.
Hockey Ultimate Team Adds Squad Battles
The Hockey Ultimate Team mode, meanwhile, adds a feature called Squad Battles. Similar to Squad battles from FIFA Ultimate Team, this has players competing with their fantasy team against squads made by famous people like singers, athletes from other sports, and hockey influencers. Additionally, more Icon players are being added to Hockey Ultimate Team mode, bringing the total number of them up to more than 400.
New Stuff For World Of Chel
Finally, the online hub, World of Chel, is updated in NHL 20 with new weekly in-game events, called Chel Challenges, that players can complete to earn customization items and character XP. Some of the newly added items include ski goggles and various caps. In total, NHL 20 will offer more than 2,000 customization items for players to create a unique character.
Hockey Is A Bruising Sport
One element of ice hockey that is synonymous with the game is hitting and general physicality. It makes the sport exciting to watch in real life, and in the game the physics and collision engine adds to this as well. At the same time, there is a human cost to hockey’s physical nature, as demonstrated recently and on a longer timeline with regards to head injuries and concussions.
We asked Ho for his thoughts on EA’s responsibility as a developer to making NHL 20 fun to play but also a game that respects and demonstrates how dangerous the game can be.
“As developers, we want to the game to mirror the real-world sport as closely as possible, while still being fun first,” Ho said. “Physicality is definitely an element that adds to fun gameplay and so it’s an important part of our game, just as it’s an important part of hockey. That said, we do have a responsibility not to encourage or celebrate the negative side effects of physicality, like injuries; which is why we take great care to make sure our game enforces rules, the same way the NHL does, and doesn’t celebrate those negative consequences.
“We think the NHL has done a great job of prioritizing player safety in the real world and we want to do the same. We’re proud to be able to provide players with a really fun, physical experience that doesn’t come with any risk of injury in the real world.”
Franchise Mode Updates
There are a number of granular changes coming to NHL 20 in regards to the Franchise mode. Scouting was introduced in NHL 19, and in the new game you can hire–and fire–coaches. Additionally, there is a new “line chemistry” feature that allows players to select players who match the right chemistry for a particular line to have the most success. NHL 20 also adds a new Trade Finder feature that should make the trading process easier. It was a laborious process in NHL 19 to make a trade, but now the CPU will auto-propose trades and then you can choose to accept or reject. Alternatively, players can also propose their own specific trades.
No Nintendo Switch Or PC Versions
NHL 20 is confirmed to launch on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Fans have been clamoring for years for EA to bring the game to PC, but it’s not happening–at least not this year. Additionally, there is no Nintendo Switch version, though Ho tells GameSpot that EA is constantly thinking about which platforms are the right fit for the NHL series.
NHL 20 Release Date
NHL 20 launches on September 13 for PS4 and Xbox One. The NHL 20 Deluxe and Ultimate Editions, which come with various digital extras, unlock three days early on September 10. Additionally, EA Access subscribers can play a trial of NHL 20 starting on September 5.
Cyberpunk 2077 is finally releasing in April 2020, and it appears launch will be just the beginning for The Witcher developer’s next big RPG. The game’s UI coordinator, Alvin Liu, told Prima Games that he expects the game to receive expansions after launch, just like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
“We want to make sure everything’s complete, but we also want to build open worlds,” he said. “I know when I was playing The Witcher 3 and I finished everything, I still want to know what everyone was up to. I think we’re going to have opportunities like that as well for Cyberpunk 2077.”
Throughout Cyberpunk 2077, players will encounter characters and see them develop over time. The ending to the main game will be “rewarding,” Liu said, though there may still be room for additional storytelling just like The Witcher 3.
“So I don’t want to spoil anything right now, but very satisfying story arc, right? You’re going to see characters and you’ll see them develop,” he said. “You’re going to see them go through conflicts and resolve those conflicts. It’ll be a very rewarding ending. We’re not withholding content, we’re not withholding story for the future to try to, you know, monetize it or sell it in pieces or anything like that. You’re going to get the whole, full value game here.”
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt offered heaps of free DLC before it released two major paid expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine.
CD Projekt Red has yet to officially announce any expansions or post-release content for Cyberpunk 2077, which makes sense given the studio is focusing on preparing the base game for release.
Back in February 2018, Sony CEO Kaz Hirai announced that he would be stepping down and transitioning to a director-chairman role. Then in March of this year, the executive confirmed his retirement, leaving then-CFO Kenichiro Yoshida in charge of the company. Hirai’s last day at PlayStation and Sony as a whole was Tuesday, June 18. It was previously reported that he will serve as senior advisor and “will continue to provide counsel as requested by Sony’s management team.”
Hirai joined Sony Music in 1984 and moved to Sony Computer Entertainment (now Sony Interactive Entertainment) in 1995 before becoming CEO and president of the company in 2012. At the time of his promotion, Hirai said his mission was “to ensure Sony continues to be a company that provides customers with kando–to move them emotionally–and inspires and fulfills their curiosity.” Games like God of War, The Last of Us, and Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End–among many others–are some recent examples that have instilled Hirai’s vision of kando.
With Hirai heading off to live his best life, he’s entrusting Sony to the newly-appointed Yoshida, who assumed the position of CEO and president on April 1, 2018. Speaking of his successor, Hirai said Yoshida “possesses the breadth of experience and perspective, as well as the unwavering leadership qualities required to manage Sony’s diverse array of businesses, and as such is the ideal person to drive the company forward into the future.” As the baton was passed, Yoshida said he aims “to build on the business foundations established by Mr. Hirai, and execute further reform measures that enhance our competitiveness as a global enterprise, and enable us to realize long-term profit growth.”
Hirai’s decision to step down was partly because he was “worn down from the travel schedule he’s maintained during the past six years as CEO,” a Variety source said. Now that he’s finally able to wind down after being reportedly worn down, Hirai plans to spend more time with his family in his California home.
Toy Story 4 hits theaters this week, and box office predictions suggest that it’s going to be one of the biggest movies in the studio’s history. But while anticipation for this sequel is high, the studio also continues to make original movies. The animated fantasy Onward has already been confirmed for a release next March, and Pixar has now announced another movie for 2020, titled Soul.
News of this latest Pixar movie was revealed via Twitter alongside a logo and the release date of June 19, 2020. The tweet also states that Soul “will take you on a journey from the streets of New York City to the cosmic realms to discover the answers to life’s most important questions.” Check it out below.
One year from today, @Pixar Animation Studios will take you on a journey from the streets of New York City to the cosmic realms to discover the answers to life’s most important questions. Disney & Pixar’s “Soul” arrives in theaters on June 19, 2020. pic.twitter.com/YvHsrIQ3ga
Soul will be directed by Pete Docter, who previously helmed Pixar’s highly acclaimed Up and Inside Out. No further details have been revealed yet, but expect casting news to follow in the coming months.
Onward will arrive on March 6, 2020. The movie features Spider-Man star Tom Holland and Guardians of the Galaxy’s Chris Pratt as teenage elf brothers who embark on a magical quest–check out the first trailer, which was released last month.
After months of anticipation, Nintendo finally pulled back the curtain on its new Animal Crossing game for Switch–now dubbed Animal Crossing: New Horizons–at E3 2019. Since the company’s E3 Direct, more details about the title have begun to emerge, and one of the new tidbits we’ve learned is that it won’t support cloud saves.
In an interview with French website Gamekult (via US Gamer), game producer Higashi Nogami confirmed that, unlike most Switch titles, New Horizons will not allow players to back up their save data to the cloud. The reason for this, according to Nogami, is to prevent players from manipulating time in the game, thereby cheating.
This news doesn’t come as much of a surprise, particularly if you’ve been following the series. Each installment to date has taken measures to prevent players from cheating; in the past, if you quit the game without saving, the irritable mole Mr. Resetti would pop up the next time you loaded your file and scold you (although he’ll be out of a job in New Horizons thanks to the game’s auto-save feature). Mr. Resetti was optional in Animal Crossing: New Leaf for 3DS, but that title similarly didn’t allow you to back up saves.
Cloud saves are one of the perks you get for subscribing to the Nintendo Switch Online service. While New Horizons won’t support that feature, the game does require a Nintendo Switch Online subscription in order to play online with others. As we learned during a Treehouse Live demo, New Horizons will support up to eight players online and locally. Nintendo also confirmed the game will feature couch co-op for the first time in the series.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons launches for Nintendo Switch on March 20, 2020. We learned a lot of other details about the game during E3. This time around, players will be establishing their own village on a deserted island, and they’ll be able to use materials they gather from rocks and trees to craft tools and furniture. The game also makes some welcome quality-of-life improvements, like giving you more control over where other animals move in. You can read more in our Animal Crossing: New Horizons pre-order guide.
To call the MCU “cagey” about protecting its secrets and reveals would be putting it lightly. Since the superhero boom, the people at Marvel Studios have been doing everything they can to obfuscate and deflect the truth about their movies from the general public before their release–and sometimes, even from the actors themselves. Most recently, some of Avengers: Endgame‘s biggest stars opened up about being told they were “filming a wedding” rather than a funeral for Tony Stark in the final moments of the movie. Other cast members have spoken up about only being given parts of scenes or “dummy” scripts, and the directors themselves have sparked social media campaigns begging fans not to spoil the movie’s secrets.
Of course, some of these claims may just be for show, or at the very least be playfully exaggerated–especially in the case of “notorious” spoiler-ers like Mark Ruffalo and Tom Holland who have made names for themselves by unintentionally (or, sometimes, very intentionally) letting secrets about their various movies slip well before they’re supposed to. Marvel’s secrecy has become a meme unto itself, which really begs the question: How do you make a movie like Spider-Man: Far From Home that deals directly with the fallout of the most secretive Marvel movie of all time if you don’t actually know what happens in the most secretive Marvel movie of all time?
The answer: You don’t, apparently. For all that Endgame has garnered a reputation for being kept under complete lock-and-key from just about everyone, it turns out the cast and crew of Spider-Man: Far From Home was in on the whole thing from the very beginning. Yes, even infamous secret-spiller Tom Holland.
GameSpot sat down with Ned Leeds himself, Jacob Batalon, and Far From Home director Jon Watts to talk about the secret keeping of a post-Endgame movie–and it turns out, security on spoilers was way less strict than we could have anticipated.
“We read the full thing. We read the full script. Nothing was redacted or anything like that. That was like a big secret that we couldn’t talk about ever,” Batalon admitted. “Even, for some reason, while we were filming we were pretending like it never happened. […] We made sure that no one ever brought it up. I mean, we’d bring it up as far as story-wise goes, as far as making the scenes and everything, but it was never really a thing discussed. It wasn’t a big deal.”
And somehow, miraculously, that approach seemed to be successful–at least, so far. Endgame may have avoided major leaks by keeping the actors as in the dark as possible, but Tom Holland would have been in the loop thanks to Far From Home’s filming schedule–and it all worked out!
Nice work, Tom!
Watts confirmed–and added that, despite knowing the secrets of Endgame well in advance, Marvel Studios took a relatively hands-off approach to Far From Home’s story. “I was one of the lucky few who knew the secret a long, long, long time ago,” Watts laughed. “It was more just with that in mind, we were cut loose to develop our movie and to answer a lot of those unanswered questions in Endgame and figure out a way to use that as a jumping-off point.”
Watts continued, “It was just like we know where those movies end, and that’s where you start, and then where are you going to go from there.”
So, where do they go from there? You can find out when Spider-Man: Far From Home hits theaters on July 2 to officially wrap up Phase 3 and to kick off the mysterious Phase 4.
With the smashing success of the John Wick franchise, and with a fourth installment slated for a May 2021 release, action badboy Keanu Reeves (47 Ronin, The Matrix) is back in full force. Everyone’s loving him, from developer CD Projekt Red to the whole of the Internet. Even Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige admits to looking for “the right way” to include the Canadian-American actor in the MCU.
Feige was interviewed by Comic Book, who asked if the studio was in talks with Reeves. Feige said Marvel talks to Reeves for every movie the company makes. This led to Feige confirming that he wants Reeves in the MCU. “I don’t know when, if, or ever he’ll join the MCU, but we very much want to figure out the right way to do it.” Feige believes the situation with Reeves could play out similarly to Jake Gyllenhaal (Source Code, Southpaw), who has been approached “multiple times” until “the right way” appeared. Gyllenhaal plays Quentin Beck/Mysterio in the upcoming Spider-Man: Far From Home, which is scheduled to debut on July 2.
Reeves is everywhere these days. The prolific action star plays himself in Netflix romcom Always Be My Maybe and lends his voice to Toy Story 4. Reeves also returns to Ted “Theodore” Logan in Bill & Ted Face the Music and plays “key” character and “legendary rockerboy” Johnny Silverhand in the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077.
During E3 2019 we learned that CD Projekt Red approached Reeves about a year ago or so and called the meeting a “match made in heaven.” Cyberpunk 2077 will launch on April 16, 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
If you played Zoo Tycoon in the early 2000s, Planet Zoo will immediately feel familiar. Your overall goal, if you can call it that, is the same: build and maintain a successful zoo, whatever that means to you. You pick your animals, build their habitats, and keep them happy, all while keeping your guests happy, too. But Planet Zoo’s tools go much further than Zoo Tycoon’s did all those years ago, from the big-picture management to the most zoomed-in view of your zoo.
Planet Zoo comes from the team behind Planet Coaster, and many of its management features are similar. One of the standouts is a piece-by-piece building tool, which allows you to customize larger structures from individual pieces, as opposed to placing pre-built structures in full. This means you can customize, say, the play structure in your primate habitat to fit the area as well as your own imagination. You can then zoom in to watch as the chimps play on their custom-made playground (or ignore it for nearby trees).
The animals in Planet Zoo have personalities, a variety of needs, and their own genetic print–no two giraffes will have the same pattern. Each individual animal has a series of needs that update in real time as you update things like their habitat’s terrain, the amount of fresh water available to them, and even the climate of indoor habitats. Following animals around just to see what they do is a kind of metagame of its own, too, as they’ll engage in activities both typical for their species and unique to their own personality, like playing with toys.
We only got a brief overview during E3, but it’s clear that Planet Zoo has both breadth and depth. From the basic layout of your zoo, which involves keeping the behind-the-scenes things out of sight and the educational side of a zoo at the forefront, to the minute details of each individual animal, the zoos you can create could only have been dreamed of in the early days of Zoo Tycoon. We’re eager to see the full scope when Planet Zoo releases on Steam on November 5. — Kallie Plagge, Reviews Editor
Microsoft announced the next few weeks of Xbox game Pass games coming to PC and console, but a few are rotating out as well. You have just over a week to play the games slated for rotation.
If you want to keep any of these games in your library permanently, your Game Pass subscription grants you a 20% discount on game purchases, as long as you make those purchases while the games are still part of the Game Pass service. Otherwise, just get your time in while you can.
Game Pass costs $10 per month for a standard subscription on PC or Xbox One, but Microsoft recently introduced a new Game Pass Ultimate that bundles both along with Xbox Live Gold for $15 per month. You can try the Ultimate version of the service for $1 for your first month, or take advantage of a little loophole to upgrade your current Gold or Game Pass time on the cheap.
