Hello! This is a fresh piece of gaming industry news from the past week. And here you will find a couple of trailers and games that come out next week.
What happened?
Games out of the box
At the end of January, Xbox and Bethesda decided to broadcast and talk about several upcoming projects – and even released one unannounced game. But first things first.
Mojang talked a little more about the PvP mode in Minecraft Legends. The map for the match will be procedurally generated, and each team can have no more than four players. Their tasks are to search for resources, tame local animals, build and improve the base, and attack the enemy. In addition to the players, there will be neutral enemies on the map – piglin tribes that will periodically attack you. Minecraft Legends will release on April 18 on PC, PlayStation, Xbox and Switch.
Turn 10 Studios showed off the new Forza Motorsport gameplay and also shared some details. So, the developers have updated the physics of transport behavior to make maneuvers more realistic. We also worked on the damage model – now scratches take into account the thickness of the paint and the direction of impacts. Separately, we improved the simulation of the appearance of dirt on cars. Forza Motorsport will have 20 locations and five new tracks, and 500 cars will be allowed to drive, of which 100 are new in the world of motorsport. The game will even have tuning with a lot of different parts that can be attached to the car. Forza Motorsport is slated to release sometime in 2023 on PC and Xbox Series.
Quite suddenly and without any announcements, they introduced and immediately released the game Hi-Fi Rush. This is a bright and funny rhythm fighting game about a guy who mistakenly attached an audio player instead of a heart. Now he is fighting an evil corporation and trying to become a rock star, and at the heart of the gameplay is the need to hit the beat of the music – then the blows do more damage. The project’s soundtrack includes such bands as Nine Inch Nails and The Prodigy, and the game was presented by Shinji Mikami, the creator of Resident Evil and The Evil Within. As a reminder, Hi-Fi Rush is already available on PC and Xbox, including Game Pass. Now she has 98% positive reviews on Steam.
The next big expansion for The Elder Scrolls Online is Necrom. With it, a new region will be added to the game – the eastern part of Morrowind and a new class, a rune master, with access to magic from forbidden sources. The storyline will be connected with the return of one of the Daedra princes, but the developers will tell more information in a separate broadcast. The Necrom expansion is due out on June 5th for PC and June 20th for Xbox.
The staff of Arkane Austin once again showed their future project about a small town captured by vampires – Redfall. From ten minutes of gameplay, you can learn that in addition to you and vampires, there will be other residents in the city – they can be found in safe places where players rest and replenish supplies. Survivors can give you tasks, the completion of which reduces the number of vampires in the area. The developers call the city of Redfall the largest open world in the history of Arkane, and all the locations here are made by hand. In addition to the main storyline, the game will have side quests and vampire lairs – something like dungeons that need to be cleared. Redfall will release on May 2 on PC and Xbox Series, including Game Pass.
Tactical Pirates
The authors of Shadow Tactics and Desperados III presented their new game – Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. Like previous creations of this studio, Shadow Gambit will be a tactical stealth game, but this time in a pirate-fantasy style. According to the plot, the local Inquisition destroys everything supernatural, but you have to find magical black pearls in order to assemble a team of cursed pirates.
In Shadow Gambit, you will have something like a base – the ghost ship “Red Marley”, where you can plan your next mission and learn more details about the heroes. Each of the eight playable characters has their own unique abilities and personality. Locations will give players more room for experimentation, and if you don’t have time or made a mistake somewhere, then there is a mechanic of interaction with time – you can pause the game to give orders and even rewind time. Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew will release on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series sometime in 2023.
Little things
The Day Before from the Yakut FNTASTIC was postponed to November 10, but this time the reason is legal. Initially, in January, the “clean” gameplay of the game was supposed to be shown, and on March 1, early access would start. But suddenly the game was removed from Steam at the request of a private individual who had registered the same trademark before the developers. After that, rumors even spread that there really was no game, but FNTASTIC hastened to reassure the players: the company is sure that the legal dispute will soon be settled and then they will be able to show everyone what they have done. Plus, according to them, they planned to postpone the release of the game even before this whole situation in order to devote more time to improving their project. Recall that The Day Before is an ambitious survival zombie, similar to a cross between The Division and The Last of Us.
An early version of Horizon’s multiplayer has leaked online. True, they report that this is supposedly a prototype from 2020, but at the same time, Guerilla Games confirmed at the end of last year that it was working on the game’s multiplayer. In general, there is nothing unique in the 12-minute video: all the same robots, mountains, trees and buildings, except that the characters look a little cartoony.
Short events
Some news in one line. They are interesting but short:
- The Wall Street Journal: The day before the dismissal of 10,000 employees, Microsoft held a private event with Sting’s speech.
- Microsoft report: Xbox console sales down 13% and Game Pass’s monthly active users top 120 million – a new record for the service.
- Insider Tom Henderson: Ubisoft is developing two Far Cry games at once, one of which is multiplayer.
- Mobile Valiant Hearts: Coming Home will be released on January 31st.
- Atomic Heart went gold. The game is set to release on February 21st for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox.
- The creators of Metro: Exodus have released a toolkit for mods.
- On January 27th, the GoldenEye 007 remaster was suddenly released on Xbox and Switch.
- Sales of The Last of Us remake in the UK increased by 238% after the premiere of the series.
- In Hogwarts Legacy, you will not be able to change your wand and house – this choice you make only at the beginning of the game.
And this week we also talked about AMD’s recognition of the unprofitability of flagship video cards:
What have they shown?
Trailer with the release date of Pharaoh: A New Era – February 15:
Story trailer “Kuzhlevka”:
SteamWorld Build Announcement Trailer:
What to play?
First of all, I correct the mistake of the last news release: I missed one of the most important releases of the past week – a remake of Dead Space. It was released on January 27 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series and is available now. This is an updated and improved first part of Dead Space, but redone from scratch on a new engine. You will again be able to experience the horrors of loneliness and hopelessness on the Ishimura ship filled with dangerous Necromorphs. But do not think that you already know everything here – the developers have tried to update the horror component, so you will have to be scared like the first time.
January 31
SpongeBob SquarePants: The Cosmic Shake (PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch) is a vibrant platform game about the new adventures of SpongeBob and his friends. This time the heroes manage to open portals to other dimensions where knights, cowboys, pirates and prehistoric snails live.
Season: A Letter to the Future (PC, PlayStation) is a melancholic and contemplative adventure set in a familiar yet mysterious world. While cycling, you will have to communicate with the inhabitants and study the world around you in order to capture it in records and photographs before the mysterious changes.
Inkulinati (PC, Xbox) is a fun and addictive turn-based tactical strategy game with a very cool visual style. You have to take control of a variety of living creatures from medieval drawings: swordsman rabbits, spear dogs, cannibal snails and other bizarre creatures drawn in ink in ancient manuscripts.
February 2
Deliver Us Mars (PC, PlayStation, Xbox) is the sequel to the adventure game Deliver Us The Moon. A mysterious distress signal has been received from Mars, and the youngest astronaut is sent there to return the arks of the colonialists and save the earth’s civilization. But space missions of this magnitude are a dangerous undertaking, so you will find tense situations, puzzle-solving and an exciting story.
That’s all, see you next week!