Koji Igarashi’s recently-released Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night has caught the ire of the internet yet again. Following a bug that caused progression issues on other platforms, some Nintendo Switch players are running into performance problems, reporting large dips in frame rate and unstable gameplay. Publisher 505 Games has announced plans to address these issues.
Bloodstained Kickstarter backers received an email from 505 Games’ senior community manager Jason Ryan. Ryan said the team has heard the feedback and ultimately wants everyone “to be able to enjoy the game and have it run smoothly.” To that end, Ryan said resources will be shifted “immediately” to focus on Switch performance and stability.
“Update 1.01 was published to Switch prior to launch to add content and improve performance,” Ryan wrote. “It did not accomplish as much as we had hoped and we need to do more. You can expect a number of small updates that will improve different areas of the game rather than waiting longer for one big update. We will have more details as we dive into the work.”
Ryan didn’t specify what kind of work the team is doing, nor did he clarify when these “small updates” will release for Bloodstained on Switch. You can check out a side-by-side comparison between the PS4 and Switch versions below.
Off the heels of E3 2019, Bloodstained released to very little fanfare. The launch trailer gave an unexpected announcement in the form of a Shovel Knight cameo. Bloodstained is currently on sale for PC if you’re looking for a cheap way to pick up the title.
Spider-Man: Far From Home continues the journey of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker in theaters on July 2, but in the meantime it’s getting a free VR tie-in experience, which is available right now on Steam and on PSVR. The experience is published by Sony, and developed by CreateVR, who also worked on VR tie-in experiences for Spider-Man: Homecoming and the Ghostbusters reboot. Check out a trailer for the Spider-Man: Far From Home VR Experience below.
Where the previous Spider-Man VR tie-in for Homecoming was more stationary, this experience finally brings one of the essential Spider-Man fantasies into VR: swinging from building-to-building through the streets of New York City. You can choose from one of four outfits that Spider-Man has worn in the MCU and swing through the city, facing off against some giant robot foes. In addition to releasing on PSVR and Steam (for both HTC Vive and Oculus Rift), Sony will be taking the experience to select Regal Cinemas in North America through July 7, running on HP’s Reverb headset.
Spider-Man: Far From Home releases in theaters on July 2 as the first entry in the MCU following the climax of Avengers: Endgame. Tom Holland returns as Peter Parker and Jake Gyllenhaal makes his MCU debut as Mysterio, a classic Spider-Man villain who first appears as an ally, according to the trailers. Check out some of our favorite fan theories about the film while you wait for the VR experience to download.
Another week means a fresh set of deals for PS4 games on the PlayStation Store. This week the headline event is a PlayStation Plus Specials Sale, offering deep discounts on more than 300 games and DLC packs–as long as you’re a member of Plus, the PlayStation service that grants you access to online play.
The lineup of game offerings for sale include a wide array of games, especially ones from Ubisoft. If you’ve been waiting to get your hands on some of the back catalog of Assassin’s Creed, South Park, or Far Cry, now may be the time. You can also catch up with bundles for The Division and Watch Dogs franchises, and the Persona Dancing: Endless Night Collection ($60).
Fortnite‘s first 9.30 content update is now live, kicking off the game’s 14 Days of Summer event. For the next two weeks, Epic will be rolling out a new limited-time mode and unvaulting an old weapon for 24 hours each day. That’s not all; the game will also offer a new daily challenge to complete, which will net you an exclusive new reward.
The first 14 Days of Summer challenge is live, and it involves dancing at six beach parties. You’ll need to boogie down at six of these beachside shindigs in total to complete the challenge, and they need to be different ones each time; you can’t simply return to the same location over and over. Fortunately, the beach parties are fairly easy to spot; the areas will be decked out with beach chairs, balloons, and other party favors. You can see where these beach parties are located in the video above.
The reward for completing the first 14 Days of Summer challenge is the new Deep End dance emote, which has you doing Fortnite’s take on the famous “C’mon and Swim” dance. We’ll continue to update this list as more challenges go live, so be sure to check back regularly for more guides as the 14 Days of Summer event progresses.
Despite the event’s name, you’ll actually have 21 days to complete the 14 Days of Summer challenges, giving you plenty of time to finish everything. If you do manage to complete all 14 challenges before the event ends, you’ll unlock a special smoothie back bling for your troubles. You can find the full list of all the available challenges thus far below.
As previously mentioned, challenges aren’t the only thing you have to look forward to in the 14 Days of Summer event. Epic is also featuring a new LTM each day; the first, dubbed Splashdown, has you trying to eliminate other players using water balloons. There will also be new outfits and other items for purchase from Fortnite’s in-game shop. You can read more details about the event on the official Fortnite website.
Fortnite 14 Days Of Summer Challenges
Dance at different Beach Parties (6) — Deep End emote
Toy Story 3 ended perfectly. Andy went to college. The toys went to Bonnie. And everybody cried. For a generation that grew up with Woody, Buzz, Jessie, and Bullseye, this was goodbye, not only to the characters whom we loved throughout our childhoods, but also to our childhoods themselves. Letting go of one’s idle playthings, and trading them in for mature responsibility, was a relatable rite of passage for every teenager and young adult.
And that’s why fans questioned the decision to make Toy Story 4. There was a definitive ending and a definitive arc to the larger story. What more could Pixar possibly add that could be fresh and different?
As it turned out, Toy Story 4, received near-universal acclaim from critics, and opened with $118 million in weekend U.S. ticket sales. And though it neither tops its predecessor nor makes itself an indispensable part of the larger story, Toy Story 4 does progress things in a happy direction.
Here is every Toy Story toy character in the movie, ranked from worst to best; We took character development, creativity, and charisma into account, and we added in the new toys from the fourth movie. Note: there are many toys in the background that exist as sight gags or window dressing, so we tried to stick to characters who at least had lines or affected the plot, even in a small way. If this is truly the end of the road, we’ll miss them all.
PlayStation fans have had quite a bit to digest in the first half of 2019. Sony has been making news at a furious clip, specifically because it’s already talking about the concrete details of its next-generation console, including its release date. But also making headlines was another big move from Sony–the company completely skipped E3.
Just because Sony didn’t share any news at the year’s biggest gaming convention doesn’t mean there weren’t games getting a lot of attention, though. The show was full of major releases slated for the second half of 2019 and into 2020, like Cyberpunk 2077, Watch Dogs Legion, Control, Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Ghostwire Tokyo, and Elden Ring. Sony might not have been present, but PS4 exclusives and semi-exclusives, like Final Fantasy VII Remake and Shenmue III, also made a big splash at the convention.
With so much going on with Sony, the PS4, and whatever its successor console winds up being called, there’s a lot to keep up on. We’ve compiled this cheat sheet to bring you up to speed on everything you need to know about what’s happening on the PS4 front, from news about the new console to E3 and beyond. Read on to keep yourself up to speed on all things PlayStation that you might have missed.
Several companies have started taking their E3 festivities off-site rather than appear at the actual convention. Electronic Arts now has its EA Play event in Hollywood, for example, while Microsoft maintains a presence at the Microsoft Theater just next door to the Los Angeles Convention Center where the rest of E3 takes place. But while major publishers have been moving away from E3, they usually maintain some kind of presence during the convention, including showing off their plans for the future in big press conferences.
This year, Sony was abnormally silent–the PlayStation maker skipped E3 altogether. Sony didn’t hold a press conference to show off new games or discuss its next console, slated for release in 2020. Sony also usually dominates the show floor in E3 with a huge booth, where attendees can try both future and current titles–but Sony gave up that space as well. It was a quieter E3 without Sony in attendance, and that has resulted in somewhat less news from the company about what to expect for the rest of the year. There were still plenty of PlayStation games on offer at the show from other publishers, though.
PlayStation 5 (By Some Name) Is Coming
It’s official: Another Sony game console is coming. Sony revealed some details of the new console in May, although some key pieces of information about what we can expect from the new machine are missing. We don’t know if it’ll be called PlayStation 5 or something else, or what the console will cost. We do know the machine will feature backward compatibility with PS4 games and that it’ll support PSVR. It’ll feature SSD storage and support 8K visuals, provided you have a TV that can handle it. Sony also later teased the possibility of multiplayer playable between generations–meaning you could take on PS5 owners from your PS4 in games that are available on both platforms.
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PS4 And PS5 Cross-Gen Multiplayer And Backwards Compatibility Teased – GS News Update
Top New Games Out On Switch, PS4, Xbox One, And PC This Week — June 23-29 2019
According To A Leak, Steam’s 2019 Summer Sale Is Starting Very Soon – GS News Update
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order — Official Extended Cut Gameplay Demo
Cyberpunk 2077 Has Romance, Minigames, And Self-Driving Cars – GS News Update
The console is set for release in 2020, so it seems likely there will be a lot more details coming soon, likely before the end of the year. Though E3 has come and gone, there are plenty of other conventions between now and April where Sony could reveal more details.
Some Developers Are Talking About PS5 Development–Kind Of
It’s still early yet, but developers are starting to get peppered with questions about their games appearing on PS5 (or whatever they call it). Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red didn’t rule out releasing the game on new consoles, but said it’s “not our area of interest right now” but didn’t rule it out. A report from Wired said Death Stranding could make it to PS5, something Sony wouldn’t comment on. There are surely more games being planned for the PS5 at this point with its launch next year, but so far, nothing is confirmed.
Sony And Microsoft Team For Cloud Gaming
Though Sony and Microsoft have long been rivals in the console market, with the expansion of the idea of games as a streaming service, the two console makers are teaming up. The two companies announced the partnership in May, which will focus on entertainment technology. The two companies are working together on Microsoft’s cloud architecture, Microsoft Azure, and it sounds like Sony may soon be using Azure for its own games and content streaming services. What’s particularly interesting is that the team-up comes just as Google’s Stadia streaming service has been making headlines. Sony has PlayStation Now and Microsoft is planning its xCloud service that will both compete with Stadia, so it seems the two console makers are looking to team up against a bigger rival.
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Death Stranding Release Date Trailer
Top New Games Out On Switch, PS4, Xbox One, And PC This Week — June 23-29 2019
According To A Leak, Steam’s 2019 Summer Sale Is Starting Very Soon – GS News Update
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order — Official Extended Cut Gameplay Demo
Cyberpunk 2077 Has Romance, Minigames, And Self-Driving Cars – GS News Update
Just ahead of E3, one of the biggest PS4 exclusives on the horizon grabbed the spotlight. That game is Death Stranding, the first project by Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima after exiting Konami. We got a new, weird trailer for the game, plus a release date: November 8, 2019. The trailer also gave us a close look at Death Stranding’s gameplay, something a slate of past cinematic trailers haven’t yet made clear. There may yet be more news on the way, too: Kojima is set to appear at San Diego Comic-Con in July.
Big Games On the Way–And A Few Exclusives
Though Sony wasn’t at E3 to show off big games, there were a few PS4 titles that made headlines anyway. Square Enix’s Final Fantasy VII Remake made a meteor-sized impact with a new playable demo of the Bombing Run and a look at how the game’s combat will play. Square Enix also released an extended trailer that game with a release date: March 3, 2020. We learned that FFVII will span two Blu-ray discs–but this first episode will only cover everything that happens in Midgar, and Square Enix has no idea many episodes the entire FFVII story will require.
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Final Fantasy VII Remake – Official Release Date Gameplay Trailer
Top New Games Out On Switch, PS4, Xbox One, And PC This Week — June 23-29 2019
According To A Leak, Steam’s 2019 Summer Sale Is Starting Very Soon – GS News Update
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order — Official Extended Cut Gameplay Demo
Cyberpunk 2077 Has Romance, Minigames, And Self-Driving Cars – GS News Update
Plenty of other huge games got shown off during the E3, and while they’re not just PS4 exclusives, they’ll be rounding out PlayStation owners’ libraries as they’re released through the rest of 2019 and into 2020. Titles like Watch Dogs Legion, Cyberpunk 2020, Ghostwire Tokyo, From Software’s Elden Ring, and Marvel’s Avengers will all be available to PS4 owners before too long.
The news comes via a special Square Enix livestream, where the publisher showed her in action against combatants like Sephiroth. Tifa will be a speed-type fighter and sports both her original Final Fantasy VII outfit and her Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children outfit (along with a few different color options for both). Check out the announcement trailer below.
Tifa will be available on July 3 in Japan. No release date was provided for other regions.
In our Dissidia Final Fantasy NT review, we said, “With a story that’s fed piecemeal behind arbitrary gating, several combat encounters that feel out of place, and unreliable online systems that don’t function when you need them to, this online brawler isn’t able to live up to the series that it steadfastly tries to celebrate.”
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite is Niantic’s latest AR mobile game, and similar to Pokemon Go it appears to be a hit out of the gate. One persistent complaint has been brought up by the community, though, and the developer is already addressing it with a change.
In a note on the Wizards Unite subreddit, Niantic says it is making changes to the Spell Energy mechanic. New players will get 50 Spell Energy from the start rather than 25, and you can score extra Spell Energy from Inns, Greenhouses, and Daily Assignments. Specifically on the last point, you’ll get 10 Spell Energy from the “To Collect an Ingredient or Portmanteau” assignment, up from five.
Spell Energy behaves similarly to Poke Balls in Pokemon Go, as you gather them both at physical locations and they serve as the fuel for your basic interactions in the game. The name may be confusing to new players, as many mobile games use an “energy” mechanic to limit how much you can play. Spell Energy in Wizards Unite is a limited resource, but it isn’t time-gated.
