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Amy Hennig, best known for her work as creative director on the Uncharted series, may be one of the most prolific video game storytellers alive, but even she can’t make a huge portion of gamers finish her stories. Hennig sat down with editor Ryan McCaffrey on this month’s episode of IGN Unfiltered to discuss the issue plaguing narrative-focused games.
“The idea that our medium just makes peace with the fact that most people will never see the whole arc of the story we’re telling, that’s bizarre to me. The age when we could make games in the non-indie space that are six to eight hours long, don’t have any second modes, don’t have a live service, multiplayer, they’re just about this finite interactive narrative experience that sticks the landing and is memorable, that’s a harder and harder sell.”
Join Jim from Apocalypse Studios as he takes you on a guided tour of some work-in-progress gameplay from Deadhaus Sonata, the upcoming free-to-play, six-player-cooperative action-RPG from the team led by Legacy of Kain and Eternal Darkness developer Denis Dyack.
As you can see in the video above, you play an undead character, feeding off the living, and Apocalpyse says they “want you to be a killing machine.” You’ll also see Deadhaus’s unique approach to classic vampiric actions such as sucking blood and transforming into a bat.
“We are combining elements of many of my past games into Deadhaus Sonata,” Dyack told us when the game was announced. “Deadhaus Sonata is a cooperative multiplayer, free-to-play RPG where you are an unstoppable force of the dead. There are Lovecraftian overtones from Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, the gothic role-playing elements of Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, where you are undead, and finally, some the action RPG elements of Too Human.”
Nintendo Executive Officer of the Entertainment Planning and Development Division Takashi Tezuka has been with the company since 1984. He has served as Director and Producer on 2D games in the Super Mario series, 2D games in The Legend of Zelda series, and he’s produced the Yoshi series, Animal Crossing series, and Flipnote Studio for Nintendo DSi. Etsunobu Ebisu, meanwhile, is the Executive Vice President of Good-Feel Co., Ltd, the developer behind Yoshi’s Crafted World. Both answered a handful of IGN’s questions about the brand-new Yoshi-starring platformer, which releases tomorrow.
Our interview is presented below, but first, check out our review of Yoshi’s Crafted World, which, as you can see, we quite enjoyed!
Creature in the Well was revealed during the Nindies Spring Showcase, showing off its combination of hack-and-slash gameplay and pinball. We’ve gotten hands on with the game at PAX East 2019, and it leans much more into hack-and-slash gameplay than proper pinball. You simply attack balls to send them flying into bumpers–some of which will fire their own lasers in your direction–but there’s no risk of losing a ball or pressure to rack up a high score.
Instead, the “pinball table” in each room becomes something of a bullet hell. Your goal is to rack up enough points to open the exit door, but of course doing so is easier said than done when you’re managing multiple pinballs and dodging laser attacks.
You can see the first 10 minutes of the game above. Our gameplay shows off some of the opening rooms, a fast-paced boss fight, and even a secret chamber. Creature in the Well comes to PC and Nintendo Switch this summer.
Media Molecule has announced that early access to Dreams, its upcoming PS4 exclusive, will be available from April 16. Like the studio’s Little Big Planet series, Dreams enables players to create unique gameplay experiences as well as play what Media Molecule and other players have created. The early access part of Dreams will be limited to the creative tools, the studio said on the PlayStation Blog.
“The core of Dreams–the creation bit–is ready,” explained studio director Siobhan Reddy. “There is so much we want to do with and add to Dreams–but to start, we want players to be able to see their creations on their own TV screen and be able to have all the tools they need to make games or stories or art or music accessible from their couch.
“[Early access] won’t feature everything that the full release will have (our story mode being a big piece of that) but you’ll get our full tool set for creating, our interactive tutorials and arcade games, templates and additional content created by Media Molecule and access to what you, the CoMmunity, made during our Dreams Creator Beta. You’ll also be getting the first hands-on with new features and content as we add them.”
Early access is an opportunity for players to offer feedback to the developer, and Reddy said Media Molecule plans to make Dreams “an amazing space for creators and players alike for years to come.” Anything created in the early access will carry over to the full game.
The early access version of Dreams will cost $30/£25/CAD$40. It will be available in the US, Canada, and all European territories. Those that purchase the early access version of Dreams will get the full version when it is released. Media Molecule and publisher Sony have not yet provided a release date for the full version, however.
Media Molecule has also said that early access is limited, in terms of the amount of people that can purchase it. Although it added that “it’s a big limit,” the studio suggested players purchase as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
Dreams had a beta in January and players were immediately coming up with interesting ways to use the game. One person, for example, created a battle royale-style game inside Dreams. Another remade Konami’s P.T. within the game.
Fortnite Season 8 seems to be whizzing by, as we’re already in Week 5. For those with hopes of unlocking everything the Battle Pass has to offer, the clock is ticking. Luckily for you, there’s a way to speed the whole process up: doing challenges. Every week developer Epic Games updates Fortnite with a fresh set of tasks for you to complete. Doing so unlocks Battle Stars which levels up your Battle Pass and makes cosmetics available.
As always, there are two categories of challenges. The first is available to everyone playing the game, while the second is exclusive to those that have spent V-Bucks on a battle pass. Below you’ll find a list of everything that you need to do in both categories.
First up is the free challenges. As part of this players will need to deal damage with scoped weapons, search chests in Paradise Palms or Shifty Shafts, and complete a lap of the race track in Happy Hamlet. If you’ve got the premium Battle Pass, you’ll need to use the Bouncy Ball toy and get 15 bounces with it.
You’ll also have to complete a three-stage challenge that begins with getting shields from Mushrooms, and once that’s done further stages will be revealed. You’ll also need to use a Volcano Vent, a zipline, and a vehicle all in the same match, and head to pirate camps to take out three enemies. Take a look at the full list of challenges below.
Free
This one is fairly obvious: grab yourself a weapon and make sure it has a scope. Once you’ve got one of those you’ll need to land 200 points of damage on opponents, and in return you’ll be rewarded with five Battle Stars. Fortnite has scoped sniper rifles, assault rifles, and a scoped revolver. For our money, we recommend looking for an assault rifle, as it’s the most common and also much easier to land shots with.
Again, another fairly obvious one. Drop into one of those two locations and, to speed things up, look for an elevated position. From there you should be able to spot nearby treasure chests that you can search. However, be careful as both these areas will likely be crawling with other players also looking to complete the challenge. If you’re able to get there with a scoped rifle and are feeling confident, you could engage enemies and kill two birds with one stone.
This is a nice, easy breezy challenge that lets you have a bit of fun. Happy Hamlet is located at grid reference D9 on the Fortnite map. Drop there, hop into a vehicle, and do a quick lap. Done!
If you head to your emote locker you’ll be able to select the bouncy ball and throw it for a good time. The easiest way to complete this challenge is to grab the resources necessary to build a high ramp, build up, and once you’re relatively high in the sky, just throw down the bouncy ball and let physics take care of all the hard work for you. Alternatively, just build a 1×1 structure around yourself and throw the ball–even easier.
Mushrooms are consumable items in Fortnite that you’re most likely to encounter in the dense forest areas of the map. We recommend heading to Wailing Woods, Dusty Divot, and Shifty Shafts to find them. However, given that they’re relatively prevalent throughout the map, it’s probably easier to just get on with the other challenges and keep your eyes peeled for them as you’re out on your adventures.
Epic Games also recently released update 8.20 for Fortnite. It introduces a new limited-time mode that tasks players with avoiding lava that is constantly rising. There’s also a new trap weapon and a number of other tweaks to the way the game plays. Check out the full Fortnite 8.20 patch notes to see everything included in it.
In February it was announced that Kaz Hirai, who led the PlayStation business before being promoted to CEO of Sony, would step down and transition to the role of director, chairman. Now, Sony has announced that Hirai will be retiring from those roles effective June 18. Hirai will serve as senior advisor for the company and “will continue to provide counsel as requested by Sony’s management team.”
In a statement, Hirai lent his support to Kenichiro Yoshida, who replaced him as CEO of Sony on April 1. “Since passing the baton of CEO to Yoshida-san last April, as Chairman of Sony, I have had the opportunity to both ensure a smooth transition and provide support to Sony’s management. I am confident that everyone at Sony is fully aligned under Yoshida-san’s strong leadership, and are ready to build an even brighter future for Sony.
“As such, I have decided to depart from Sony, which has been a part of my life for the past 35 years. I would like to extend my warmest gratitude to all our employees and stakeholders who have supported me throughout this journey.”
Yoshida added: “Hirai-san and I have been working on management reforms together since December 2013. While he will be retiring from both Chairman and our Board of Directors, we look forward to his continuing high-level support to Sony’s management that encompasses a breadth of diverse businesses.”
Hirai was instrumental in launching the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3, and went on to become CEO and president of Sony. In February, the PlayStation business had a management reshuffle, with Jim Ryan being appointed president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.
2019 is set to be quite a different year for the PlayStation division, particularly in the way it communicates and promotes its products to its audience and the wider gaming community. The company has pulled out of E3, where it traditionally debuted and showed off its biggest upcoming games.
Fans are looking to PlayStation Experience to be the tentpole PlayStation event for 2019. Sony opted to skip PlayStation Experience in 2018, so many are hoping to see it return this year. However, as of yet Sony hasn’t indicated it has plans to host the show.
Sony has kicked off State of Play, however. This is a series of smaller, streamed showcases in the same vein as Nintendo’s Directs. The first one yielded a new Iron Man VR title, as well as information on No Man’s Sky VR and Mortal Kombat 11. You can read all the news from Sony’s first State of Play to catch up on what happened.
Sony has said State of Play will return throughout the year to deliver updates on key titles. While the first episode wasn’t exactly a barnstormer, the company has a number of big games on the way, including Death Stranding, The Last of Us: Part II, and Ghost of Tsushima, so upcoming episodes stand to be much more exciting.
