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Yesterday, the head of Xbox Games marketing Aaron Greenberg (no relation) tweeted the following:

https://twitter.com/aarongreenberg/status/864239501383684096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gamesradar.com%2Fsurprise-phantom-dust-is-free-to-play-on-xbox-one-and-its-out-now-ish%2F

Wait a minute, today is yesterday’s tomorrow. That means starting today, Xbox One and Windows 10 owners can download and play the game for free. Sweet!

You might wonder what Phantom Dust is and why the game is a big deal, as like I, you neither played nor heard of the game before today. Basically, it’s the most anime name you can imagine, but in all seriousness, Phantom Dust takes place in a post-apocalyptic future; the titular dust renders the Earth’s surface uninhabitable and grants certain people magical powers. Also, every character in the game has amnesia, not just the protagonist. I can’t get into the story any more for fear of spoilers, but from what I’ve read it’s pretty good, if overly anime.

Phantom Dust originally released  on the Xbox back when trading card games (TCG) and collectible card games (CCG) were extremely popular, and several video game developers tried to take advantage of the craze. Games such as Baten Kaitos and Lost Kingdoms 1 and 2 are examples of RPGs that tried to implement CCG mechanics, while Phantom Dust is an example of an action-strategy/third-person shooter CCG. Phantom Dust’s gameplay revolves around creating a deck of spells with “cards” that are used in combat. Players then run around combat arenas to collect Aura (the equivalent of mana in other CCGs) to power these spells and use them to defeat enemies. Spells have different effects and cost different amounts of Aura. The strategy of the game comes from the types of spells a player places in a deck; for example, some players might stick to spells that let them nuke enemies from a distance but cost a lot of Aura, while others would rather unleash a flurry of melee attacks that cost little Aura, and that’s not taking into account the numerous defensive, support, and healing spells. Given the number of cards, players are free to experiment and play any number of ways.

Some people might be tempted to call the re-release a remaster, but that would imply the graphics were improved from the original game. The graphics might look better, but that’s because, according to Microsoft Studios Publishing creative director Adam Isgreen, the textures were compressed to fit on the original Xbox disk. In other words, technology has finally caught up to the original developers’ ambitions, which makes the re-release more like a director’s cut than a remaster. Granted, one could argue the re-release’s 16:9 resolution support and use of Cloud servers technically makes it a remaster, but that’s just splitting hairs since plenty of old games are patched to include those kinds of features.

Since the Phantom Dust re-release is free, Isgreen hopes the game will find a place in the eSports scene. The game certainly has the potential to become the next big eSports hit, but that depends on the game’s staying power.

All you have to do to get my attention is talk about video games, technology, anime, and/or Dungeons & Dragons - also people in spandex fighting rubber suited monsters.

Gaming

Ubisoft says that future Assassin’s Creed games will need more time to be made

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As Assassin’s Creed Shadows is about to sneak up on people in November, Ubisoft says that the time between developing games needs to be longer to find the “right balance.” Shadows has been in development for four years, longer than any other game in the series up to this point. That includes the huge open-world epics Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla.

Shadows lead producer Karl Onnée (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) says that the latest AC game took 25% longer to make than Valhalla. He says this is necessary to keep the quality of the series that it is known for: “It’s always a balance between time and costs, but the more time you have, the more you can iterate.” You can speed up a project by adding more people to it, but that doesn’t give you more time to make changes.

Onnée says this has as much to do with immersion and aesthetics as it does with fixing bugs and smoothing out pixels. This is because the development team needs time to learn about each new historical setting: “We are trying to make a game that is as real as possible.” We’re proud of it, and the process took a long time. In feudal Japan, building a house is very different from building a house in France or England in the Middle Ages. As an artist, you need to learn where to put things in a feudal Japanese home. For example, food might not belong there. Get all the information you need and learn it. That process takes a long time.”

You’ll have to wait a little longer for Ubisoft to work on each game. Are you okay with that? In what part of Shadows are you now? Is it interesting to you? Leave a comment below and let us know.

 

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Gaming

You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on PS5

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You can now pre-order Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, a remaster that Dragami Games and Capcom both created. You can now pre-order the PS5 game on the PS Store for $44.99 or £39.99. If you have PS Plus, you can get an extra 10% off the price.

The company put out a new trailer with about three minutes of gameplay to mark the start of the pre-order period. Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is a remaster of Grasshopper Manufacture’s crazy action game from 2012. You play as Juliet, a high school student who fights off waves of zombies.

The remaster adds RePOP mode, an alternative mode that swaps out the blood and gore for fun visual effects. It also adds a bunch of other features and improvements that make the game better overall. You can expect the graphics and sound to be better as well.

The game will now come out on September 12, 2024, instead of September 12, 2024. Are you excited to get back to this? Please cheer us on in the section below.

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Gaming

This Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 zombies trailer is way too expensive

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Is there really anyone who is following the story of Call of Duty’s zombie mode? We’ve known about the story in a vague way for a while, but we couldn’t tell you anything about it. It looks like the “Dark Aether” story will continue in Black Ops 6, but we don’t really know what that means.

For those of you who care, here is the official blurb with some background: “Requiem, led by the CIA, finally closed the last-dimensional portal, sending its inhabitants back to the nightmare world known as the Dark Aether, after two years of fighting zombie outbreaks around the world during the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War timeline.”

Wait, there’s more! “Agent Samantha Maxis gave her life to seal this weird dimension from the inside out.” Even worse things were to come: senior staff members of Requiem were arrested without a reason by the Project Director, who turned out to be Edward Richtofen.

Black Ops 6 will take place about five years later, and it looks like it will show more about Richtofen’s goals and motivations. The most important thing is that you will probably be shooting an unimaginable number of zombies in the head. This week, on August 8, there will be a full reveal of the gameplay, so keep an eye out for that.

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