Category: Games

Apple unveiled its gaming subscription service, Apple Arcade, back in March 2019. While it’s expected to roll out sometime this fall, reports are now circulating that Apple Arcade could cost just $5 USD / $7 AUD / £4 GBP per month.

9t05 Mac uncovered the alleged pricing, which includes a one-month free trial, in a promotional message hidden within an App Store API. Apple has yet to comment on the matter, but 9to5 Mac reports that Apple Arcade will feature Family Sharing as well. With the supposed price unconfirmed, there’s a possibility it could change ahead of Apple’s September 10 event, where the company is expected to announce new iPhones.

Apple has been testing its Arcade service on company employees, offering the subscription for just $0.49 USD per month. The extremely cheap price is only for Apple employees and will reportedly last until iOS 13 becomes available for everyone.

Apple Arcade will be accessible on Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, and Mac computers. With Apple’s various continuity features, you’ll be able to transfer between devices. The new gaming subscription service is said to launch with 100+ games, including Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm, Team Sonic Racing, Where Cards Fall, and more.

Since Pokemon Black and White on the DS, competitive Pokemon players have been able to take part in online competitions and view their rankings via the Pokemon Global Link. While the website has served as the online battling hub for all subsequent Pokemon games, The Pokemon Company has confirmed the upcoming Sword and Shield for Switch will not be utilizing it.

According to a statement posted during Gamescom 2019, Sword and Shield will not support the Pokemon Global Link website. This is because most of Global Link’s functionality is being folded into the games’ themselves via the Battle Stadium, which will allow players to participate in regular online competitions and take part in Ranked battles.

“For Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield, services equivalent to the current Rating Battle and Online Competitions are planned to be supported. However, PGL will not support Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield,” the statement reads. “These battles and Online Competitions can be enjoyed in Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield using just the connectivity features of Nintendo Switch.”

Other Global Link functions, like the ability to view your ranking, will also be implemented in Pokemon Home, an upcoming cloud storage service that will allow players to store monsters from Pokemon Bank, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Let’s Go, and Pokemon Sword and Shield. Pokemon Home is expected to launch for Nintendo Switch and mobile devices in early 2020.

Pokemon Sword and Shield, meanwhile, release for the hybrid console on November 15. Players will need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription in order to make use of the aforementioned online features. The Pokemon Home service will presumably also require a subscription, although it hasn’t yet been announced if this will be included as part of NSO or will be offered separately.

In addition to the Global Link news, The Pokemon Company shared a new gameplay clip of Pokemon Sword and Shield. The video shows off one of the quaint towns players will visit on their adventure across the Galar region. We also recently learned about some new Pokemon Abilities and held items being introduced in the titles.

Creature in the Well is an upcoming top-down hack-and-slash dungeon crawler with pinball-inspired mechanics. The game is scheduled to release for Xbox One, PC, and Switch on September 6.

In the video above, GameSpot associate news editor Jordan Ramée plays through the first three dungeons of Creature in the Well with the game’s creative director, Adam Volker. The two talk through Creature in the Well’s creation, including how the game uses The Legend of Zelda-styled dungeons to unify the mechanics of the two different types of games it pulls from. Volker also shows off several of the game’s earliest secrets and hidden weapons, including a fan tool that can be equipped to create a tank-like healer build.

You play as BOT-C, the last robotic engineer that knows how to fix the massive weather machine that keeps the town of Mirage safe from constant sandstorms. Unfortunately, the machine has been destroyed by the Creature, a monstrous entity that lives in the town’s well. In order to save Mirage, you must journey into the caverns of the nearby mountain where the weather machine is held and fix its damaged components.

In order to stop you, the Creature builds traps throughout each cavern. They can only be overcome by flipping balls of light into the nodes that power them. The nodes themselves act like bumpers in a pinball machine. As Volker describes it, Creature in the Well is a “pinbrawler” where you need to master the fast-paced action of a dungeon brawler with the frantic but tactical awareness that’s needed for playing a pinball machine.

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most highly-anticipated games around right now, and we’re still learning more about it. Now, five years after saying the game is “definitely not a multiplayer shooter,” developer CD Projekt Red has hinted it may have changed its mind.

“We are exploring multiplayer modes,” the game’s producer, Richard Borzymowski, told GameSpot in an interview at Gamescom. “This is all I can say at the moment.”

Of course, this isn’t a confirmation of gun-focused multiplayer modes–or, indeed, any kind of multiplayer mode–so the earlier claim may still be true. In addition, last year saw CD Projekt Red hire Canadian studio Digital Scapes, specifically citing the company’s history with “AAA multiplayer console and PC game development” as a reason for enlisting its help.

Will Cyberpunk 2077 receive DLC or expansions?

We also asked Borzymowski whether CD Projekt Red intends on adding more content to Cyberpunk after launch in the form of expansions, in a similar vein to The Witcher 3‘s add-ons Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine. The producer refused to confirm CD Projekt Red’s plans but offered a small hint as to what it intends to do: “We know how well received the DLCs and expansions were for The Witcher. Right now–and I’m not lying about this–we are 100% focused on the main game.”

He concluded: “Bearing in mind how well received The Witcher’s expansions were, there will be time to think [about expansions for Cyberpunk 2077].”

Cyberpunk 2077 launches for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on April 16, 2020.

More on this topic:

Marvel’s Avengers had its big debut at E3 2019, but Crystal Dynamics and publisher Square Enix have kept the public showings of it strictly cinematic. That has changed now with a full 18-minute capture of the “A-Day” prologue mission released at Gamescom.

As noted in previous behind-closed-door presentations, the Avengers game has you taking control of the five main team members: Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Black Widow. The introductory stage both sets the story in motion and introduces the mechanics of each character. Cap is a brawler with his boomerang-like shield, Black Widow is a combination of melee and gun-play, Thor uses his lightning attacks, Iron Man flies, and Hulk, of course, smashes. The trailer gives a good look at all of them, including an extended boss battle against Taskmaster as Black Widow.

The presentation at E3 received a mixed reaction, perhaps in part because the public didn’t get to see actual gameplay. Even behind closed doors we were left with some lingering questions, especially around the online component and microtransactions. The game’s follow-up at SDCC shed more light on co-op play.

Marvel’s Avengers is coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One relatively soon, on May 15, 2020. Crystal Dynamics is getting an assist from Eidos Montreal, which is also working on the game.

In fellow Marvel game news, Sony recently acquired Insomniac, the studio behind the hit Spider-Man game. While Marvel’s Avengers is multiplatform, Spider-Man was a PlayStation 4 exclusive. Sony has hinted it may still allow its studios to develop multiplatform games, as the situation demands.

Gamescom 2019 is officially underway. Following Nintendo’s indie-focused presentation on Monday, Pokemon Sword and Shield developer Game Freak has shared a new gameplay clip of the upcoming Pokemon Switch titles, giving fans a closer look at one of the first areas they’ll explore in the games.

The video, which you can watch below, gives viewers a brief tour of one of the quaint, English-inspired towns that players will visit on their journey across the Galar region. While brief, we get to see a few notable landmarks in the clip, including a Galarian Pokemon Center, the Pokemon Research Lab where Professor Magnolia conducts her studies, and a few other facilities, such as a boutique shop (where players will be able to purchase you clothing items for their avatar) and a rail station.

Nintendo and The Pokemon Company have been gradually revealing more details about Pokemon Sword and Shield in the lead up to their launch. Ahead of the Pokemon World Championships last week, we got to see a new trailer that showcased some new Pokemon Abilities and held items, such as Galarian Weezing’s Neutralizing Gas, which negates the Abilities of every other Pokemon on the field.

The Pokemon Company also shared more details about how online battling will work in Sword and Shield. The games will feature both Ranked and Casual battle modes; the former has players earning points after every battle, which will increase their standing in the different ranked tiers. The titles will also occasionally host special online competitions, like those that are run through the Pokemon Global Link website for Sun/Moon and their Ultra counterparts.

Pokemon Sword and Shield launch for Nintendo Switch on November 15. Players will need to have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription in order to take advantage of the games’ online features. You can see all of the new Gen 8 Pokemon revealed so far in our gallery. For more information about the titles, including where you can secure a copy, be sure to check out our Pokemon Sword and Shield pre-order guide.