2016 saw the release of many YA-themed games, and Oxenfree was one of the highlights. Developer Night School Studio is ready to show off its next project and, well, this one is a little different. In Afterparty, players assume the role of a pair of college seniors who have their revelry interrupted by their untimely death. As a result, they are doomed to a pub crawl in hell, as the adventure game follows them from bar to bar on a quest to outdrink Satan himself and escape.
Take-Two Interactive's stable includes 2K, Rockstar Games, and now a newly-formed third publishing label, Private Division, which will focus on independent studios with proven talent.
"We have spent more than two years laying the groundwork for Private Division, building an experienced publishing team, and signing projects with some the most respected and talented creative leaders in our industry," says Michael Worosz,SVP and Head of Independent Publishing at Take-Two.
As detailed in the video, several veteran creators and their teams have already signed on:
These are some big moves. And, crucially, the studios will retain their intellectual properties.
"[N]o one on the Take-Two management team will ever opine on how a game should look, feel, or play," Worosz told Game Informer. "No one's ever going to tell the people in the studios that we've partnered with what a game should look like. That's for the team on the ground working on that game every day."
I sincerely hope this works out for everyone involved. Fingers crossed.
I'm on board with Sea of Thieves. I have been for some time now. But there's still one question hampering my excitement for Rare's multiplayer pirate adventure: how long will it last?
Long-term player progression and motivation has been a concern with this game and today's video attempts to address some of those points with a look at quests, customization, and factions.
Much of the structure -- aside from just getting into trouble with your pals on the open sea -- revolves around building your "reputation" by climbing the ranks at NPC-run trading companies. The Gold Hoarders are after buried treasure chests, the Merchant Alliance deals with transporting cargo, and the Order of Souls will send you off to skirmish with skeleton pirates and raid fortresses.
In short, they all specialize in different playstyles. Each faction will offer its own voyages (quests) that you can bring to your crew as a physical object, look over together, and choose to embark upon.
"Based on the reputation you've built with each trading company, your voyages will not only become richer and more rewarding, but they'll challenge you more and introduce more mechanics," explains design director Mike Chapman. And even if your mates are at different reputation levels, you can still band together. "There are no barriers in place preventing players playing together."
Time will tell if Sea of Thieves can hold my interest after the honeymoon period ends but I like what I'm hearing. Here's hoping Rare will be able to meaningfully build on the game after release, too.
If you're looking for a premium mobile game without in-app purchases, there's good news: Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty has arrived on iOS, Android and NVIDIA Shield. The 2014 console game, based on Lorne Lanning's Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee has been re-purposed for mobile with new controls for a small touchscreen, letting you swipe on the side of the screen to perform actions like "use," and "sneak." It also has full external controller support, and you can resize or move buttons. And did I mention there's no in-app purchases?
It only took a few seconds for this Battery Jam trailer to tell me what it's all about and wholly sell me on the idea. This "territorial mayhem" multiplayer game has players smashing boxes around to paint the ground with their chosen color and also wipe out the competition in the process.
The concept itself is straightforward, but it looks punchy and frenetic in all the right ways.
It's coming to Steam Early Access in January, with the developers at Halseo adding that they're working toward having the game "completed and officially released around March 2018."
The Early Access build of Battery Jam will release with "four stages across two levels" and it's meant to be "fairly indicative" of the final product. As for the big question that's always asked for these sorts of games, it's local multiplayer only. Currently, there aren't plans to add online play.
When I first experienced Enter the Gungeon on the PS4, I couldn’t help but think of how great the game would play on a portable system. Today, that dream finally comes true, and it’s everything I could have hoped for.
While it doesn’t feature the Advanced Gungeons and Draguns Update yet, I have confirmed that it will launch simultaneously across all platforms, including the Switch, sometime in early 2018. What we get here is the base game along with the Supply Drop Update. It features fully customizable controls, local co-op, and the ability to take this disgustingly addictive game on the go with us wherever we want.
Following weeks of negative press and irate consumers due to its recent business decisions, sources within EA say the company is quietly thanking FCC Chairman Ajit Pai for getting the internet to momentarily stop paying attention to the company’s string of scandals and instead focus all its attention on him.
“It’s been a rough couple of months for us, public relations wise,” explained one EA employee. “First we closed down Visceral, which pissed a lot of people off. Then everyone found out why we did that, which just made them angrier. And then of course there’s the whole Battlefront II loot box fiasco. That’s why we’re thankful to Mr. Pai for taking the entirety of the internet’s universal hatred of us and directing it all onto himself.”
Since Mr. Pai voted to repeal Net Neutrality, sources we spoke with say the number of emails sent to the company with the subject line “Fuck off and die” has dropped by nearly 50%. The number of Twitter accounts sarcastically mentioning microtransactions on every tweet it sends out is down 70%.
“We’ve been so hated for so long that I almost forgot what it’s like not to be the most reviled thing on the internet,” the source said. “It’s just a shame it’ll have to end next year when we shut down three more beloved developers.”
As a thank-you, sources say the company will send Pai a bottle of wine, a box of chocolates, and 80,000 unsold copies of Need for Speed Payback.
Reservoir Dogs, a movie where some men argue about tipping and then almost all of them die, is the film that started Quentin Tarantino's ascent into prominence. Nearly 26 years later, a very popular video game is paying homage.
Payday 2 just added a free Reservoir Dogs-themed heist. The clowns and jokers of the Payday gang are headed to Tinsel Town to try their hand at robbing those banks. The add-on comes with a Union 5.56 rifle, an Alabama Razor melee weapon, and three masks.
But, and this is truly what's important, developer Overkill created Payday's version of the infamous ear scene from Reservoir Dogs:
If future historians or whatever alien race eventually colonizes Earth and wipes out humanity – my money is on the Tollybex of Urutha XXI – look back on the brief but bountiful life of the Nintendo Wii U, they will no doubt point to this year, 2017, as its crowning achievement. Jam packed from beginning to end, the past twelve months have been without question the best year the Wii U has had on the market. It sold in the literal dozens around the world and introduced gamers to some of the all-time classic of the medium.
Who out there can say the Wii U wasn’t the absolute must-own console of the year? With its second-screen controller that you could take anywhere you wanted (technically) and its astounding graphics that rivaled the best PC (built in 2005), it was a behemoth the world has never seen. And as it conquered the world, the system was flooded with top quality first- and third-party games from all the best publishers. Ubisoft, Activision Blizzard, Atlus, Sega, 2K, Bandai Namco, Bethesda, and Capcom are all companies I can name off the top of my head. I think we all remember lining up for the midnight launch of that great EA game that came to the Wii U over the summer.
It truly was the gift that kept on giving every damn day of the year. That’s why for the Destructoid Game of the Year awards, this was the most difficult category to whittle down to seven nominations. After hours of infighting, death threats, and promises to perform unspeakable acts on each other’s mothers, the editors responsible for this year’s nominees finally came up with a list that was satisfactory of all. Here are the nominees for Destructoid’s best Wii U game of 2017:
Night School Studio's Oxenfree stuck with me throughout 2016. I couldn't get its unique story and tone out of my head for months. One of the things I loved most about it was its characters' irreverent attitudes in the face of total horror. They're stuck on an island where ghosts are pouring out of time rifts and one of their friends is missing, but they still manage to make dick jokes. Laughter is the best coping mechanism, which is why horror-comedy is so great.
Continuing in that vein, Night School Studio has announced their next project, an adventure game called Afterparty about partying in Hell and outdrinking Satan.
EightyEight Games released the popular puzzle/battle game 10000000 and its sequel You Must Build a Boat to great success. Now developer Luca Redwood is ready to reveal his next project for the studio: Photographs. The new puzzle game will release next year for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.
The folks at the Humble Store have been in a giving mood as of late and that trend continues today with yet another freebie. For a limited time, you can score a free Steam key (Windows, Mac, Linux) for Relic Entertainment's 2013 World War II real-time strategy title Company of Heroes 2.
Once you redeem your copy, it's yours to keep -- this isn't a trial or a "free weekend" offer.
I've always been more into Relic's Warhammer 40K strategy titles, but this is worth nabbing.
We've been hard at work at Gameumentary over the past few months getting a bunch of the docs filmed that were funded by our recent Kickstarter campaign with help from Destructoid's parent company, Enthusiast Gaming.
In October, we traveled to South San Francisco to film our documentary on Outpost Games, who are currently running a closed beta for their upcoming game, SOS. In November, we traveled to Austin, Texas to film our docs on Gunfire Games, Battle Chasers: Nightwar and of course, the Darksiders franchise.
With the opportunity we've been provided to do all this, however, we wanted to go above and beyond what was expected of us. Originally, we were going to have to do a Skype interview with Jesper Kyd if we wanted him involved in the doc on Darksiders as he wouldn't have been able to make it out to Austin during our filming dates.
Luckily, his PR guy got in touch with us during the campaign and invited us out to his studio in California, and so we ended up flying from South San Francisco to Burbank during our Outpost Games shoot to spend a day with Jesper and get the footage we needed for the Darksiders doc.
We ended up filming all of that, and a whole documentary just on him in the process, because why not? This doc covers Jesper's journey to becoming the composer that he is today. In our Darksiders documentary (out in early 2018), we go much more in-depth with him in regards to his time working on Darksiders 2.
Hope you enjoy the doc and if you wouldn't mind sharing it around, we could really use the extra help spreading the word! We'll have more details on our upcoming doc on Outpost Games to share with you very soon as well.
There were some pretty decent fighting games in 2017. At last week's Game Awards 2017, Injustice 2 was crowned as the best of them all. Now you have a chance to see what all the fuss is about.
For anyone who abstained from NetherRealm's superhero fighter, it's free to try for the next four days -- albeit in a somewhat limited capacity. Injustice 2 is free on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One until the end of the day on December 18. The whole main roster is available to play in an unlimited multiplayer mode; the story mode only has the first three chapters unlocked for free. It's probably worth noting that playing multiplayer requires a PlayStation Plus or Xbox Live Gold subscription.
Anyone who likes what they see has the opportunity to buy Injustice 2 at a significant discount. It's marked down to $30 during the trial period. But, even if you don't want to drop cash, it's still a good shot at playing one of 2017's better games. Free gameplay weekends are the real heroes.
There aren't a whole lot of names in comics that will get me to turn my head, but Ryan North is one of them. He's been making Dinosaur Comics for almost fifteen years, he's released a few Choose Your Own Adventure-style Shakespeare retellings, and he's recently been absolutely killing it with Marvel's Unbeatable Squirrel Girl. Suffice it to say: I have a bit of a man crush on him.
So imagine my delight when I saw today's announcement that he's writing a comic about the origin of Destiny universe's infamous Warlock Osiris, namesake of the most recent Destiny 2 DLC. Wait, let me back up. I also really like Destiny. Okay, now imagine my delight.
Destiny: Fall of Osiris will detail his back story, putting to the page how Osiris went "from hero to traitor." It's "coming soon" for free on Bungie.net.
While we're here, we should mention The Dawning, Destiny's now-annual winter celebration. While it doesn't look like there will be any Sparrow Racing League this year (my personal favorite), there will be snowball fights in the social spaces, a new snowball mechanic for actual combat areas (snowballs will stun enemies in Strikes), and Mayhem will be returning as a Crucible game mode (abilities recharge much more quickly). It's not clear if Mayhem is only going to be around during the Dawning, but considering how many complaints Bungie has gotten about ability recharge rates in Destiny 2 compared to Destiny 1, it seems silly for it not to stick around.
The Dawning also brings a real nice looking set of armor for each class. Of course, it's available through Eververse, the place where you can either pay real money or grind out currency slowly in-game. At the very least, every piece of armor will be purchaseable outright, rather than relying on the random gamble of a loot box. The Dawning runs for three weeks, beginning next Tuesday, December 19.
Killing Nazis and protesting are two of the most American things you can do. And if you need another avenue for (virtually) doing the former, that's where the first expansion for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus comes in. "The Adventures of Gunslinger Joe" changes up the base game's formula with a new protagonist who, thanks to his football skills, can run through walls and Nazis alike. Sounds good? There are two more packs incoming, and you can pick them up as part of the $25 season pass.
What a year that was, right? Some bad stuff happened, but at least the games were good! Nintendo had a crazy first nine months for its new console, and the Switch has gone on to sell 10 million units despite having a "slow" start at launch.
Basically anchored by Zelda, it's kind of nuts looking back and realizing there was at least one major Switch release every month since that March launch. In such a short time, Nintendo has bounced back after taking such a hit from the Switch's pilot run, the Wii U.
Wake up every morning, by the night they count stacks.
You a real one, Switch.
Real one, real one.
Here are Destructoid's nominees for Best Switch Game of 2017:
Nintendo has always believed in the power of local multiplayer games. The company built a business creating digital experiences that are best when shared by people sitting in the same room, on the same couch -- not simply connected via headphones and tinny chat services.
The Switch is a testament to this history. The console itself doesn't support voice chat or online invitations, instead relying on a separate smartphone app to connect anyone who dares to play Splatoon 2 with a friend in another city. The hardware is built for local multiplayer: It's a portable system with two small controllers attached to either side of the screen, making it easy for newcomers to join a game in-person.
For veteran Zelda and Mario producer Yoshiaki Koizumi, these detachable controllers -- called Joy-Cons -- are the most intriguing aspect of the Switch.
Nothing says holiday cheer like killing people for money! In celebration of the upcoming season, IO Interactive is giving out a "Holiday Pack" from December 15, 2017 until January 5, 2018 for its hit assassination game Hitman. Along with a bunch of cool new goodies for previous owners, anyone without the game can nab the Paris episode for completely free. Paris is the first of five episodes and will get you started off nicely on your journey into 47's murky world.
This holiday pack will see the return of the "Holiday Hoarders" mission with the added bonus of you being able to unlock the Santa outfit for use on every mission. You'll also be given access to the professional difficulty setting and be able to play all future reactivated elusive targets on the Paris map. Not too shabby for free.
"If we just did a perfect translation of the physical game, it could work, until it doesn't," studio head of Fantasy Flight Interactive Tim Gerritsen told me in a phone interview. "We're inspired by the tabletop edition of The Lord of the Rings Living Card Game, with many nods, but we're not a one-to-one translation of it."
With some familiarity with the card rendition and the LCG concept, I could see that first-hand after viewing a developer demo. It's not exactly the same, but the entire core of the "living" concept, which involves buying pre-set cards and no blind boxes, is going to appeal to a lot of people.
Microsoft introduced a new beta of the Xbox phone app today, which appears to include the testing of party chat on your mobile device. Presumably, this will allow you to chat with your Xbox party on your phone, similar to the way the Nintendo Switch works. While the Xbox app is available for both iOS and Android, this new beta appears to only be available at the Google Play Store.
It's another big day for the Switch (man this system), as it's hosting Enter the Gungeon, Yooka-Laylee, and Romancing Saga 2 (on December 15).
Also on Switch is Gorogoa, One More Dungeon, NeoGeo The Last Blade, Mutant Mudds Collection, Embers of Mirrim, Pinball FX3, Stern Pinball Arcade, Bleed, Poly Bridge, Black the Fall, Never Stop Sneakin, Mecho Tales, Hammerwatch, Unholy Heights, Unepic, Hiragana Pixel Party, Crawl, DragonFangZ, and Brawlout.
The 3DS is getting the sole release of Blok Drop Chaos.
Never Stop Sneakin' is the latest title from the developer of Dust: An Elysian Tail, though the games couldn't be more different. Instead of jaw-dropping 2D art, those who reminisce about old PlayStation 1 games will get treated to pixelated faces and blocky character models in what is basically a parody of Metal Gear Solid.
Major Milestone and the agents of the Department of Sneakin' are on a mission to foil the plans of madman Amadeus Guildenstern, who has used a time machine to kidnap all of the Presidents (even the bad ones). By infiltrating Guildenstern's base you'll acquire resources for expanding your own base, recruit new agents, and steal useful tech.
When Nintendo unveiled the Switch, the memes kept coming, and one of the biggest ones was the suggestion that the Joy-Con controllers inside the grip looked kind of like a dog. It's been a thing for a while with indie companies putting out stickers for your existing remotes, but manufacturer Hyperkin has gotten in on the craze with an upcoming controller attachment accessory.
It's priced at $19.99, and functions as a rechargeable battery for your Joy-Con. It also includes a battery status light (which doubles as a pair of eyes) and a curved grip. The actual dog faces are stickers, and there's three variants. It's out on December 21.
You know what, beyond the meme, that's not a terrible price for a Joy-Con charger. Nintendo is still charging $30 for their official version, so as long as this Hyperkin rendition doesn't explode it might be the better option, dog sticker or not.
Take-Two is the latest major games publisher to open up an indie label. From the sounds of it, Private Division will operate like a smaller scale version of Take-Two itself, giving developers leeway to work on things at their own pace and not worry about pumping out a sea of annual sequels.
Rainbow Six Siege was pretty great at launch, but Ubisoft's willingness to smooth it over and add to it over time have kept me playing it.
Now it's in its 4.1 patch, which brings about a long-awaited change for servers -- now they're 60hz on all platforms. What does that mean? Well, the tickrate has been brought up, which makes for a better online experience. 4.1 is in the process of dropping now on Xbox One, and has already been implemented on PC and PS4.
It's now exactly the same tactical-heavy action I grew up with on PC, but it has a lot of the same elements, and I'm happy to see the series still alive and well.
Since it's release in 2015, the mobile game Super Robot Wars X-Ω has been chugging along, adding more and more franchises to its ever-growing cast list. Every so often, a new addition comes out of left field, such as Little Witch Academia or Idolmaster. On Wednesday, the official twitter account for the game announced another one of these picks in the form of Mega Man characters.
Can't say anyone saw that coming, that's for sure.
This snuck right up on me, but the first DLC episode for Wolfenstein II is now available for download on all platforms. Season pass owners should already have the content, but if you want to purchase this separately it will set you back $9.99.
The Adventures of Gunslinger Joe sees the game take a more lighthearted approach as you occupy the boots of Joseph Stallion and utilize your years of football prowess to literally tackle Nazis to death. The setting also gets shifted to Chicago, which sounds like a whole heap of fun. Anything that lets you punch more Nazis can't be that bad.
