Innholdsfortegnelse for Xmas 2019 i PLAY

‘Tis the season to argue ad infinitum whether Die Hard is a ‘Christmas movie’ (as opposed to just a film that happens to take place during the festive period). Alas, our beloved medium isn’t safe from the debate. Who would have thought a game in which you can glide around like a bat saying “I AM THE NIGHT!” could be classed as a Christmas game? “IT’S A GOOD CONTRAST. […] I THINK IT MAKES IT DARKER.” At Paradox Con in Berlin we speak to Hardsuit Labs’ narrative lead, Brian Mitsoda, and senior narrative designer, Cara Ellison, about Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2’s December nights and festive undead frolics. “So Christmas is important in this game because the game is set in December,” Mitsoda begins. “[…] The reason we set…

Of all the superheroes you could be in PS VR, playing as Iron Man makes the most sense. After all, Tony Stark is encased within a high-tech armoured suit when he’s acting as the invincible superhero, justifying the heads-up display and the feel of looking out through a futuristic visor. As we get strapped in, it’s almost surprising how natural controlling Iron Man is – if a bit tricky at first. For the most part, you use the PS Move controllers to interact with the game, which means a delicate balance of sticking your arms out behind you to rocket through the air, and pointing at the screen palm-first to fire repulsor blasts. When you get used to it and can soar and blast with ease, it’s a truly special…

NIOH 2 TAKES A STANCE With the original Nioh landing on PS Plus this month we’re all warmed up for more demon-samurai slaying sequel, releasing 13 March. Now that The Last Of Us Part II has been delayed, Nioh 2 is filling a PS4-exclusive-shaped hole in our early new year schedule. Sharpen your blades, worthy warrior. DID YOU SOLVE IT? BluePoint teased its new remake: “So calm this spooky night. A symphony of rumours – not one, but two – return from shadow. A resistance to dart home as black monsters escape twisted hills to wander lands and SYPHON souls. FILTER your candy collections, soft from solid, and be eco-friendly.” BIRDS OF A FEATHER After delighting PC players, House House’s Untitled Goose Game is coming to PS4. When can we…

“It’s honestly been quite shocking and overwhelming and really gratifying.” Narrative designer Kate Dollarhyde on the response to everyone’s favourite mechanic in The Outer Worlds. “He would point and frown and make a face and I would just go, ‘Yep, I got it.’ We sort of transcended the language barrier.” Norman Reedus on working with Hideo Kojima. “The skill that I see in great filmmakers, I now see in Kojima-san’s work.” Mad Max film director George Miller praises Death Stranding.…

“THERE’S A RISK OF TURNING YOUR COMRADES CRUEL… OR WORSE.” FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2020 / PUB PARADOX INTERACTIVE / DEV ROMERO GAMES As soon as she swept her way into the speakeasy we knew she was trouble. Goldie by name and Goldie by appearance, this ’20s flapper is one for making an entrance – whether that be on stage, devastating audiences with her voice, or right here and now, as she’s currently devastating a horde of ill-fated goons with her minigun. Goldie Garneau is just one of 14 total mob bosses you can play as or vie with for dominance of Chicago during the Prohibition era in this 1920s-set strategy game. The rogues’ gallery features a mashup of historical figures, with some changing very little from their real-world inspirations…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2020 / PUB BREAKING WALLS / DEV BREAKING WALLS The world’s burning around you as cataclysmic storms bear down on the environment. Do you search for the cause of the problem? Quest for the mythical MacGuffin that will put the world back together? Not exactly. You’re Sugar Glider, a flying possum, and all you care about is finding a safe place for your family, and nibbling on sweet sap. “It’s important for games to have messages, and I think what’s really interesting is nowadays more and more games are doing this,” says Breaking Walls’ André-Paul Johnson as we sit down to unpick Away: The Survial Series. “We see games as one of the most immersive mediums out there, and so it’s an opportunity to explore important…

“THWACK CURSED COLLEAGUES WITH WHATEVER OFFICE JUNK IS LYING AROUND.” FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2020 / PUB TEAM 17 / DEV AGGRO CRAB GAMES It can be hard to get your first foothold on the career ladder… especially when even entry-level positions are asking for masses of experience. This is a pain protagonist Jackie knows all too well; the ad said it was a marketing internship but unfortunately the newest employee at Fizzle, a carbonated drinks company, is set to work fighting monsters instead. In the city of Neo-Cascadia failed startups don’t fade from existence, they sink beneath the Earth. Jackie’s bosses are keen to repossess these failed businesses’ assets and so you must thwack cursed colleagues down below with whatever office junk is lying around. At college, Aggro Crab…

HELICARRIER The decommissioned Helicarrier is your base of operations, and you can customise it throughout the game. Between missions you can tweak your characters’ gear and skills, as well as their cosmetic outfits. To start a mission you use the Helicarrier’s war table, where you can select missions from across different regions of the globe (we’ve seen America so far, but Crystal Dynamics teases escapades further afield, as well as more coming post-launch). So, what do you want to do? HERO MISSIONS Geared around a specific hero or heroes, this is how you play through the main story campaign. If you simply want to ingest the story as quickly as possible, you can gun through these, unlocking more heroes, regions, and War Zone missions as you go – and, of…

01 Days Gone Soundtrack £27.38 As Days Gone was one of the best-selling PlayStation exclusives of the year, it was only a matter of time before Nathan Whitehead’s haunting score got the deluxe vinyl treatment. Oliver Barrett’s beautiful cover artwork really speaks for itself and is the shiny bow on an already robust souvenir of Deacon Saint John’s post-apocalyptic road trip. mondo.com 02 Supergiant: the 10th Anniversary Collection £244.31 This is the ultimate gift for any Supergiant super-fan. This tenth anniversary commemorative collection features cover art by James Gilleard and 12 discs of game soundtracks, all composed by Darren Korb. Now that’s what we call a Long Play! This is a limited-edition run of only 1,000 copies. iam8bit.com 03 Bloodborne Vinyl Soundtrack £33 It’s difficult to think…

WHAT YOU DO IN… MEDIEVIL STAT PACK 1 Mr Apple, who the game is dedicated to, and who’s hidden in one of the stages. 20 Chalices to find and fill with enemies’ souls. Each one unlocks something nice in Hall Of Heroes. 60 Enemies to banish, spread over the 20 stages, including werewolves and skeleton pirates. 2 Endings to unlock, determined by how many Chalices you’ve managed to fill. LOVING/ HATING HIDDEN MAGIC Completing side-quests and discovering secret areas will unlock new treasures and even a bonus boss battle… BOSS IT …but be warned, this is a retro game so has a weird relationship to check points; die on a boss battle and its back to the stage’s start. COMPEL-O-GRAPH IS IT BETTER THAN? A genuine classic beautifully…

The Legend Of Heroes series has built up a complex world of politics and economics which has an impact on every game, eschewing the more separate approach of the numbered Dragon Quests or Final Fantasies. Trails Of Cold Steel has been telling a story set in the world of Erebonia, revolving around internal struggles for power as told through Rean and the rest of Thors Military Academy’s Class VII. Which gives us something wonderful: we’ve now followed Rean all the way from being a student in over his head in a larger conflict to becoming (at the start of this game) an instructor to a new group of kids himself. This makes the story a marvellous mix of old and new – both a perfect jumping-in point and a world…

WHAT YOU DO IN… GRID STAT PACK 400 AI drivers, each with their own personality. As in real life, some racers are total gits. 16 Cars on the track at once. It looks so good, sometimes you won’t believe your eyes. 4 Cities to race in: Shanghai, Barcelona, San Francisco and Havana. Oh na na. 97 Distinct career events (many with multiple races), plus the final Grid World Series on top. HOW TO… CONTROL YOUR TEAMMATE You choose a buddy, trading a little of your profit each race for their wingman services on the fly. If you want them to attack the pack ahead, push 8. If you want them to defend their position (read ‘slow everyone else down’), just tap 2. THE FIRST FIVE HOURS… 1 Things…

There’s nothing particularly striking about this dungeon crawler at first glance – your aim is to battle your way through a number of rooms, collecting power-ups from enemies and breakable barrels, defeating bosses along the way. In short, it’s the usual fare – but it’s when you play with friends that it really shows its full potential. Crawl ‘n’ Brawl mode (which can be played in local, split-screen co-op or online) sees you and the opposing player or team racing to reach the end of separate dungeons as quickly as possible. Once there, you’re promptly set against one another in a fight to determine the champion. You’re thrown down a different path each time you play,1 and the equipment and skill rewards at the end of each completed room are…

Here it is, a whole solar system for you to explore – but it’s a solar system in miniature, where you can get from one end to the other in a couple of minutes. Outer Wilds does a lot with a little, creating a rich open world which never feels small, so let’s follow its example and get straight to the point: this is one of the best games you’ll play this year. It’s the kind of game which makes you want to grab friends by the collar and recite your own version of Rutger Hauer’s Blade Runner speech. You know: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Quantum moons off the shoulder of Giant’s Deep. I watched ghost matter glitter in the dark of the Hourglass Twins. Um, this…

First-person shooter in which you play a demonic cyborg, hellbent on the destruction of… ah, course it isn’t. See that title? You’re a cube-headed biker, speed-running through time trials amid four mountains’ worth of picturesque scenery.1 Obstacles are everything you’d expect: ginormous rocks; unhelpfully placed trees; expanses of water; sharp curves bordering precipitous drops. Now for the part you’d never expect: it’s bloody fantastic. By bloody, we mean bloody. You die often, being kicked back to the most recent checkpoint in the process, but the claret-spattered nature of each demise maintains light relief amid the relentless competitiveness. Ingeniously, it’s in dying that you often notice a shortcut to experiment with on your next run – gradually bringing your segment times down, unlocking new runs and faster bike parts, to bring…

How far the Plants Vs Zombies franchise has come. What started out as a way to pass time on mobile has grown into a different beast, evolving from a humble tower defence game into one of the most robust, kid-friendly online shooters around. The same is true for PopCap’s threequel, which smartly marches closer to Destiny-fication. Story-wise, it centres on the continued war between flesh-eaters and shrubs, presenting you with a healthy suite of PvP and PvE modes to jump into. The main change this time is that all is accessed via the eponymous town, which serves as your central hub. This updates almost weekly with fresh events and items, as any good live-service game should. Popular PvP modes like Garden Ops and Turf Takeover return and are perfect for…

You may have taken your eye off Battlefield V, but over the last year EA’s premier shooter has quietly been impressing. In fact, it has the best battle royale mode on PS4. With Chapter 5: War In The Pacific developer DICE is not only taking us back to a period of the war we haven’t experienced since COD: World At War, it’s also reintroducing Battlefield’s trademark all-out war, enabling us to battle online on land, air, and sea. The two new maps call back to the series’ PC roots with Iwo Jima and Pacific Storm. While Iwo Jima offers beach and close-quarters combat, Pacific Storm is more dynamic, calling on you to fight across a series of small islands in gunboats, fighter planes, and tanks as you battle against either…

Black holes are hard to miss, especially when they’re taking up the lobby of your favourite online game. That’s what happened when Epic enigmatically pulled the plug on its battle royale sensation just the other month, sucking it away. The event was the culmination of Season X, the game’s tenth major update But that wasn’t the end of the story for such a massively successful game, though it was one of the most fantastic and dramatic community events we’ve seen in a long while. Out of that black hole came Fortnite Chapter 2. Bigger and better, the new map is filled with detail, and more to do than ever, like boats, swimming, and fishing. Stealth has been expanded (you can hide in dumpsters, for example), and you’ve more options for…

1 TETRIS EFFECT Tetris, yeah? It might be a great game, but it’s easy to understand why you’d brush this off as just more Tetris at a glance. Yet Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s trippy, transcendent take on the block-based puzzler is nothing short of a masterpiece. Sure, you can play it without PS VR, but in the virtual space it really becomes next level, transforming one of the tightest puzzle games ever made into an emotional ride. 2 THE PERSISTENCE This first-person horror roguelike offers perfectly sized chunks of survival bursts. It’s everything you’d expect from a full PS4 release, but in PS VR it’s filled with clever ideas, unique weapons, genuine jump scares, and fab looks – plus great couchplay. 3 REZ INFINITE Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s vision becomes reality in PS VR.…

You will have read our hands-on with Naughty Dog’s epic sequel The Last Of Us Part II last issue and thought, “Yep, can’t wait to play that.” Well you’ll have to, because Naughty Dog has delayed the game until 29 May. Following the exciting preview event, game director Neil Druckmann said the team felt “invigorated”. But during the weeks that followed something changed. “IT’S LAUDABLE THAT THE DEVELOPER WON’T COMPROMISE.” He explains in a open letter on the PlayStation Blog: “It was during the last few weeks, as we were closing out sections of the game, that we realised we simply didn’t have enough time to bring the entire game up to a level of polish we would call Naughty Dog quality. At this point we were faced with two…

Overwatch is getting a sequel. In it the international task force reforms in the face of co-ordinated attacks all over the globe by Omnic terrorist group Null Sector. Winston, Mei, and Tracer were the focal point of the announcement cinematic that debuted onstage at BlizzCon. However, there’ll be plenty of other familiar faces mixed among the brand-new ones among the ranks as you thwart criminal organisation Talon wherever it attempts to get its hooks in. “YOU’LL BE ABLE TO USE ALL YOUR COSMETICS AND LOOT.” Overwatch 2 is built with an upgraded engine at its foundation, supporting larger maps and a visual upgrade for your roster of heroes. The name of the game is replayability, as the more you play the sequel’s new story-heavy PvE co-op and Hero missions, the…

PS-gimme-5 I’m really excited to get my hands on a PS5. The thought of those boosted graphics and improved sound all around me – even without PS VR, I’m going to be living the dream! I’ll almost be able to smell those Clickers in The Last Of Us, feel my car hitting the gravel in a racer, maybe even hear my end of the stadium supporting me when I’m doing well in FIFA. (Yeah, that doesn’t happen very often!) I just hope I can afford it as it sounds like it’ll be pricy. Tom Carney via email PS5 certainly looks like delivering a greater level of visual and aural realism than ever – turn to p54 for everything we know about the console, including what we think the most likely…

1 The Last Of Us Part II Oh no! The release date has slipped – but as we explain on p11, there’s a good reason for that. It hasn’t made you want it any less, mind. FORMAT PS4 ETA 29 MAY 2 Cyberpunk 2077 The future is nearly upon us, and it seems OPM’s readers are all eager to get themselves augmented. FORMAT PS4 ETA 16 APR 3 Dying Light 2 With Joel and Ellie’s adventure slipping, this looks like fulfilling your need to kill the shambling undead next spring. FORMAT PS4 ETA SPRING 2020 4 Watch Dogs Legion You can’t wait to get up to hacking mischief in a dystopian London. [Is there a non-dystopian London? – Ed] FORMAT PS4 ETA TBC 5 Ghost Of Tsushima This one’s still…

FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2020 / PUB HUYA, SURGICAL SCALPELS / DEV SURGICAL SCALPELS We had a taste of zero-gravity gunplay in Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare, but it always felt limited. That it’s taken three years for a dev to chew on the problem of transferring full space-based first-person shooting into a workable multiplayer experience suggests it’s no simple feat. But Surgical Scalpels has done just that. The premise is simple: two teams shoot it out amid the floating debris of various space stations orbiting our blue planet. The final game will feature around six modes, but for our hands-on we’re gunslinging in zero-G in 2v2 team deathmatch. On release Boundary will support 5v5 in all modes. What impresses from the get-go is the ease with which we slip…

“WE REMEMBER EXTRACTING BRAINS FROM A HUMAN’S ANUS.” FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2020 / PUB THQ NORDIC / DEV BLACK FOREST GAMES Anal probes, bovine tampering, and a mech powered by a former US President’s brain are just some of the things this remade cult classic will offer you when it arrives in the early part of 2020. Never thrown a cow at a tank using telekinesis? There’s no better place to start. We have a list of games we want remade, and no matter how fondly we remember extracting brains from a human’s anus, Destroy All Humans! has never been top of that list – until now. This is no mere 1:1 remake, as developer Black Forest Games is adding a flying-saucer-sized list of new features and tweaks to…

Rather than pick a readymade Marvel story to base a game on, Crystal Dynamics is creating a unique story packed with significant details. In conversation with Scot Amos, he drops some little hints about things to look out for. But what does it all mean? CAPT AIN AMERICA’S SHIELD “Why does Cap’s shield have a larger star than it usually does? There’s a story behind that,” says Amos. Thankfully, in this instance, he provides an answer: “The Avengers have expanded to the West Coast, so they’re actually covering more of the world so they actually have a unique image. Everything that we do has a story to it.” THE A VENGERS’ ‘A’ “Why are there little phalanges on the A on the Avengers logo? Well, we have a story for…

WHAT YOU DO IN… DEATH STRANDING STAT PACK 148 Kilometres our Sam travelled to complete his journey. Almost as much walking as you do at E3. 55 Thousand – the staggering number of Likes we’d received by the time we finished. 100 Other players we connected with during our cross-America delivery trip. Thanks everyone! 42 Hours it took us to reach the end credits – though there’s still much more to do. FRIENDS & ENEMIES He loves to cause trouble for Sam. And chew delicious scenery. The enigmatic, umbrella-toting owner of Fragile Express. In charge of the BBs, but far from understanding them. Can you help him? HOW TO… FORGE A RIVER 1 Being able to cross a wide river easily feels like a real gift. But using…

As cold and uncaring as the world in which it is set, Frostpunk is unforgiving, unrelenting, and devoid of hope. Despite this, it is one of the most fascinating games currently available thanks to the issues it forces you to consider, and the way it frames surviving just one more day as a huge victory. A world-changing ice age has set in,1 leaving civilisation in ruins. You’re the ruler of the last city on Earth, so survival is going to be tricky. You build your city around a reactor that keeps the chilly touch of death from your people, but the cold isn’t the only threat. Running out of limited resources could also result in the end of your city. And so you’re forced to ask yourself abhorrent questions and…

Let’s say you’re not feeling quite right. Maybe you’re ill. You come home and how do you seek comfort? Maybe it’s somewhere at the bottom of a big bowl of cheesy pasta or it’s in a tall glass of wine or perhaps you’ll find it somewhere in the end credits of an awful Netflix Original. For the RPG fan, The Outer Worlds takes great pains to scratch that itch. That is to say, you’re a recently thawed hero skill-checking and sharpshooting your way across the universe alongside your crew of acquired miscreants. Along with everyone else on space colony ship The Hope (this being just the first in a long list of endearingly unsubtle names), you were put into suspended animation. However, The Board (the group of space capitalists calling…

“THE CAMPAIGN IS LIVELY AND VARIED, NEVER FAILING TO KEEP YOU ON EDGE.” here’s a moment early in this T game when we need to crawl under some lorries and then silently drag ourselves across a pile of dead bodies to remain undetected by a Russian patrol, and we can feel the developer winking at us through the code. “Remember All Ghillied Up?” it’s asking. “So do we.” Recollection is a theme that resonates through the game at regular intervals, playing as a constant reminder that this game shares its DNA with Call Of Duty 4. Thankfully this doesn’t overshadow everything in Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare, and while the story has problems, it’s still one of the best Call Of Duty campaigns in a generation. Bringing in former Naughty…

Having been absent from PlayStation since 2010, Travis Touchdown makes his return to the platform. This top-down spin-off from the No More Heroes series aims to deliver the same stylish action as the mainline titles, albeit in bite-sized hack-and-slash chunks. It works, for the most part, letting you dish out all manner of light and heavy attacks as you pound your way through legions of faceless goons. The problem is, that’s all there is to it. The basic setup proves interesting at first: Travis and nemesis BadMan are sucked into a retro-inspired games console called the Death Drive MK-II and forced to fight through various fictional games to gain their freedom. The premise allows levels to morph and twist, but that doesn’t make what you’re doing within them any less…

There might not be a hairy lycanthrope waiting to chew on our jugular, but we can still feel a bad (and kinda sad) moon rising. Bungie’s latest expansion to its space shooter sequel tells a downbeat, often creepy tale. Returning to the lunar patrol zone we explored in the original game, the latest chapter in your Guardian’s adventure feels like a recooked entry. Destiny 2: Shadowkeep ushers in a new era for the MMO blaster. For the first time, Bungie’s sequel is now free-to-play. Almost all of the base game’s year-one content is available to play absolutely gratis, including all launch missions, strikes, raids, and the always-ace PvP Crucible duels. Yes, you’ll have to fork out £30 to access the new Shadowkeep campaign, the new raid, and the rather underwhelming…

Do you get into heated arguments about the truth behind the Mary Celeste? Yes? This is the game for you. It challenges you to assess insurance claims relating to the abandoned ship Obra Dinn by using a skull-emblazoned pocket watch to step into each of the crew’s final moments to determine three things: who they were, how they died, and because of whom. We already feel like we’re peering into another dimension thanks to the stylised visuals, which emulate old Macintosh systems.1 Each time you find someone’s last resting place, you can zip into an explorable diorama of their final moments rendered in amazingly stylish detail, accompanied by an audioscape of the moment. You can even hop between memories, uncovering other final moments from within those scenes. Everything you encounter…

You know the drill by now: online FIFA = Ultimate Team = loot boxes = gambling. Except it isn’t quite that simple. The number of players drawn into spending real money on shiny gold digital packs is hugely concerning, but it needs to be pointed out that you can succeed in FUT without spending any cash. Competition rewards handed out every Monday (for Squad Battles) and Thursday (for Division Rivals) make these packs easier to come by than ever, and intelligent transfer market work quickly racks up the coins. Indeed, that’s the most fun part of FIFA’s online side: wheeling and dealing to complete Squad Building Challenges proves even more satisfying than the 8/10 onfield action, and delivers often-juicy rewards into the bargain. VERDICT Put the credit card away and…

Watchmen creator Alan Moore famously objects to any adaptation of his work. But you could imagine even he must (begrudgingly) admit that Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof has done the impossible: created a worthy follow-up to the greatest comic ever written. A working knowledge of Moore’s ’86 opus isn’t essential, but it’ll enrich the experience. Buffing up on American history won’t hurt either, the show opening with a shocking sequence set during the 1921 Tulsa race riots, the ‘single worst incident of racial violence in American history’. Politics permeates the show. In Watchmen’s alternate present, vigilantes have been outlawed, reparations have been paid to the country’s African American population (by President Robert Redford), and gun control laws mean that police officers can’t draw their guns unless authorised. The result is that…

1 “IT FEELS LIKE UBI’S BUILT A WORLD FOR SCREENSHOTS, NOT FOR 30 HOURS OF PROBING” 2 “SOULFUL ESCAPISM THAT CONSTANTLY MAKES YOU QUESTION YOUR MOTIVES AND GENTLY AWES THROUGH QUIET EXPLORATION.” 3 “TREATS LOVECRAFT WITH CARE, AND KEEPS YOU ON YOUR TOES. EVERY CHAPTER IS AWASH WITH MORE TWISTS THAN A NET OF SQUIRMING OCTOPUSES.” 4 “MORE GUNS, MORE PLANETS, MORE SKILLS, MORE… MORE. IF YOU LIKED THE PREVIOUS ONES, THIS GIVES YOU PLENTY OF THE SAME TO ENJOY.”…

1 UNCHARTED 4: A THIEF’S END Nathan Drake’s swan song is a daring evolution. It combines series-defining set-pieces, quietly devastating storytelling beats, and sprawling levels that make you feel like a real-life explorer. This franchise finale retains its signature charm, with the wisecracks flowing as fast as the bullets, while the new characters each justify their inclusion. With an astonishing attention to detail, it’s Naughty Dog’s best yet. 2 RED DEAD REDEMPTION 2 There are a lot of open world games, but none that make you feel like you’re a part of a world in quite the same way as Arthur Morgan’s wild west adventure. Tremendously physical, an epic story, and some of the most satisfying headshots you’ll ever find. 3 GOD OF WAR A departure in some ways but…

FORMAT PS3 / PUB CAPCOM / DEV CAPCOM / RELEASED 2013 / SCORE 7/10 This return to the slower pace of classic Resident Evil brought with it a sense of vulnerability and claustrophobia. Jill Valentine and her partner Parker venture deeper into the depths of an abandoned cruise liner, the Queen Zenobia, searching for Chris Redfield. As the watery threats close in, the two end up trapped in a flooding engine room with no hope of escaping. Cue a switch of characters as we jump into the boots of Chris, who wasn’t on the ship after all, but is showing up to bail his fellow agents out of trouble. Panicked, we have to rush through the ship, retreading what we’ve played through already as Jill, our prior knowledge of the…

“STREAMING WILL BECOME SOMETHING THAT WE DON’T REALLY HAVE TO WORRY SO MUCH ABOUT.” Sony keeps teasing us with titbits of PlayStation 5 news, and on p54 we’ve gathered up all the latest info on Sony’s next console. But what does it all really mean for developers? We catch up with Control developer Remedy and ask what the future holds. “Ray tracing is a fundamental shift in how to approach computer graphics,” says Tatu Aalto, lead graphics programmer at Remedy, as we jump straight into one of PS5’s biggest graphics features. Aalto goes into more detail: “Gradual improvements in processing power and programmability have made it possible to do very accurate material shading and effects on the previous generation already, but for global connectivity games have used either precomputed static…

“WE HAVE A POINT TO MAKE, BUT WE WANT TO LAUGH ALONG THE WAY.” While Journey To The Savage Planet is the first game to blast off from Typhoon Studios, a lot of the staff behind the game have a history of successful missions. Between them, co-founders Alex Hutchinson and Reid Schneider (creative director and executive producer respectively) have worked on Batman, Far Cry, and Assassin’s Creed. Savage Planet might seem quite different from those globally-known franchises, but Hutchinson explains it’s not really. “Exploration is core to all [those titles], and it’s still one of the things that fascinates me most about games,” he says. “With Savage Planet to take it out of the real world and into a more fantastical sci-fi style interpretation was exciting: not being bound by…

This month we’ve enjoyed some excellent RPG action (you can read our review of The Outer Worlds on p85). But it’s hard to ignore the voices of our sister publications echoing throughout OPM Towers as they rave about one title in particular: Disco Elysium. You play as a detective attempting to solve a murder as he recovers from an amnesia-inducing hangover (we’ve all been there…). Despite this intriguing starting point, the game’s narrative design arguably has the starring role and you’ll be able to investigate its charms for yourself when it comes to PS4 next year. By placing a strong emphasis on its narrative above PC gaming’s tendancy for fiddly, menu-led tactics, Disco Elysium is a game fit for console. And developer ZA/ UM’s goal is to bring the game…

As the philosopher Sheryl Crow once sang, a change would do you good. Now in most situations, this is true. After all, you and I alike, dear reader, benefit every handful of years from a new Sony console. And do we not all enjoy a change of gaming scenery on a regular basis (usually leading to a Pile Of Shame)? Yet ath change giveth, so altho do it taketh away. Remember when OPM used to hit the shelves with a demo disc? For many years now, the majority of us have enjoyed a fast and uncapped internet connection, giving us easy access to demos and rendering the disc irrelevant. And strikingly, nowadays you’d never be able to fill a disc with new demos each month. This has been an incredible…

1 Each class has a set loadout but that doesn’t prevent you from unlocking and creating bespoke gear. The handheld guns are particularly deadly in space. 2 The Flanker class can move faster and has a short burst rather than a grapple. This means you can actually dodge bullets and go in for close kills. 3 You can tailor a scary number of ways to play, from weapon scopes and attachments to the type of ammo used. We love the EMP bullets that stop enemies dead. 4 The Support class is heavily armoured and slow but packs the big guns, including a rocket launcher attachment to the EMU backpack for insta-kills.…

“YOU’LL BE GRAPPLING WITH ENEMIES, DODGING ATTACKS, AND LAYING DOWN SOME SERIOUSLY STYLISH COMBOS.” FORMAT PS4 / ETA 2020 / PUB INTRAGAMES / DEV NEXT STAGE, VISUAL DART What was the last Korean game you played? You don’t hear about many big games coming from Korean developers, which is bizarre considering the talent in that country. Well, when this game launches in 2020, ‘Ultra Age’ will be the answer to that question for many of us. In Ultra Age, humanity has abandoned the Earth to live in space, but lead character Age must return in order to ensure the species’ continued survival. Despite all the future tech available, he doesn’t rely on things like guns, but instead uses multiple swords, each with its own strengths, weaknesses, and elemental affinities (his…

1 Weapons in this remake include some taken from the original game’s sequel, and you can now combine them with Crypto-137’s psi powers. 2 The open-world maps of the original game have been improved, and in some cases enlarged. We still get to zip around on a rocket pack, too. 3 Weapons can be upgraded just like in the original, but now the improved versions have extra functionality rather than getting simple stat boosts. 4 Crypto-137’s movement has been overhauled. The animation has been motion-captured and the little guy has a faster, smoother turn of pace.…

We’ve yet to dive into how the team will play together when you join your friends for a spot of co-op action (cross your fingers for some fastball specials), but we do know that each character in a War Zone will have to be distinct. “We built the game so that the team composition will follow the story of the Avengers team,” the game’s editorial director, Casey Lynch, explains to us. “So no, there will not be four Hulks.” Okay, we’ll have to draw straws in the office for that one. But here’s everything we do know about the currently announced big six! IRON MAN NAME: TONY STARK PLAYED BY: NOLAN NORTH FIRST APPEARANCE: TALES OF SUSPENSE #39 (1963) “He’s without his fortune, his mansions, his tech, and his toys.…

01 IT’S PLAYSTATION 5! “I’m proud to share that our next-generation console will be called PlayStation 5,” said Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. He added in a Wired article: “It’s nice to be able to say it, like a giant burden has been lifted from my shoulders.” Before now we had to call it ‘Sony’s next console’ just in case Sony lost its collective marketing mind and called the system PS-Next or PlayStation Ultra – but, of course, it was always going to be PlayStation 5. 02 INCREDIBLE DETAIL The solid state drive’s loading approach (see p6) means we’ll get more detailed worlds. An SSD treats data differently to a traditional HDD, where devs need to duplicate data to make it more ‘searchable’. On an SSD…

Digging up the past doesn’t always guarantee a good time, but some games can surprise you. I have fond but cloudy memories of the original MediEvil on PS1 (as I do about much of my early 20s). This remake brings into crisp clarity what’s good and bad about this classic. The original devs were clearly drinking from the same potions as Terry Pratchett and Tim Burton when they conceived MediEvil. The game follows the trials of the gangly Sir Daniel Fortesque as he’s accidentally reanimated by the evil wizard, Zarok, who killed him in the first place… along with every other corpse and ghoul in the kingdom of Gallowmere. Sir Dan, you see, wasn’t good at the knight stuff. More Mr Bean than Sean, he died seconds into his first…

For its latest release, Lab Zero Games did what every anime fan with money making a game would do – it invested in a lavish opening by well-known animation studios, music by Secret Of Mana composer Hiroki Kikuta, and a large cast of colourful characters. Indivisible isn’t a classic JRPG, however, but a platformer with combat designed to make the round-based battles of old more interesting. You control Ajna, whose story begins with the destruction of her village. Of course she swears revenge and sets off in search of the person responsible, a warlord called Ravannavar. Along the way she becomes aware of having several mysterious powers, chief among them her ability to absorb new party members into her head. The story fails to make an impact, and dialogue often…

For those in the know, the return of Grid is a very exciting prospect. The thought of all that frantic, spectacular, close-contact racing purring away on PlayStation 4 hardware has been almost too tasty to imagine. Picture it: cool licensed cars, tarmac tracks, tyre walls and tyre smoke, and heavy impacts showing off the latest damage tech of the incredible Ego engine. Right? Well, about that… The premise is unchanged and easy to love. If you’re bored of sliding off into gravel traps all day long in more serious racing games, Grid offers a more arcadey alternative to the likes of Assetto Corsa. The handling is still based on real-world physics, yet tweaked to allow for scandalous power slides, late-braking overtaking manoeuvres, and ‘rubbing is racing’ competition which lets you…

WHAT YOU DO IN… COD: MODERN WARFARE ALSO ON PLAYSTATION 4 PRO The PS4 Pro version features all the enhancements the system can throw at it, including 4K resolution using temporal anti-aliasing with dynamic up-sampling, super-sampling, and HDR. It also runs at a steady and smooth 60fps on- and offline. Technically, it’s perfect. MULTIPL AYER Online Modern Warfare feels slower and more tactical than past games in the series. This is because maps are larger and you need to pay closer attention to teamwork. At launch it’s hit-and-miss, but when it works (Gunfight mode), it’s class. SERIESOGRAPHY This PS4 remaster still plays well, but in time we expect the new Modern Warfare to surpass it online – free DLC is coming. TROPHY CABINET GOLD Complete the breach and…

Come on, not another sci-fi game set in a Stonehenge museum hit by a mysterious explosion! Get some new ideas, guys! This one is a first-person puzzle game where, with the help of one other character communicating with you via the magic glasses you both have, you have one objective: escape. There’s no getting around it; the first thing to hit us about this game is the dodgy framerate, which jitters whenever we try to do anything more complicated than walk in a straight line. This is quickly forgiven when we start to explore the ruined museum building, which feels like a real place. There are functional-looking working spaces, genuine Stonehenge trivia displayed in the public area, emails with (intentional?) spelling and typing errors, and even the remains of a…

WHAT YOU DO IN… DESTINY 2: SHADOWKEEP STAT PACK 950 The new softcap power level you’ll be striving towards, from a base level of 750. 5 Pieces of Legendary Dreambane Armour you’ll track down in the campaign. 100 Levels in the new Season Pass – though most of the fun stuff is in the free-to-play game anyhow. 59 Months since we last visited the moon in the first Destiny. Going back feels underwhelming. SECOND OPINION SERIES EXPERT Thanks to going free-to-play and boosting everyone to power level 750 it feels like the playing field has been levelled for Shadowkeep’s introduction. That means everyone is able to hop into the new content. As excellent as the moment to moment gameplay still is, this expansion feels like a Best Of:…

Alternate history is the perfect writer’s playground. You get all the intrigue and texture of a period setting, without the constraint of the facts. Close To The Sun is set in an alternate reality in which Nikola Tesla’s1 eccentric inventions have all been built and work, the most exciting of which is the Helios, the giant floating laboratory in which this first-person adventure game is set. You play as Rose, a journalist boarding Tesla’s ship in order to find her missing sister, unaware that she’s about to stumble across a dead crew and a host of dark secrets. Featuring no combat elements, survival on the Helios is all about finding and solving various puzzles before those hunting you down can locate you and end your game. Every room and hallway…

Just in case you missed last month’s review of the main game, we didn’t much care for Ubisoft’s latest covert soldier. Actually, we more or less thought it sucked. Save for some semi-strong gunplay, the publisher’s latest open-ended effort is one of the shabbiest sandboxes we’ve played on PS4. Its PvP isn’t much better. Ghost War isn’t bad, there’s just nothing that makes it feel special. Breakpoint introduces the Shrinking Combat Zone, the most notable addition to Ghost Recon’s take on multiplayer since Wildlands. In non-nauseating PR speak, that means: “Fortnite and PUBG have decreasing play zone sizes. Let’s copy that!” On the sweeping sandbox map of a battle royale, a shrinking area of engagement makes sense. In an online shooter with boxy maps? It’s as logical as installing solar…

Unlike the competition, PES online doesn’t pressure you to spend hard cash to unlock star players. You can put a decent myClub team together using earned in-game currency. The upshot is you feel like you’re making progress all the time; the down side is every five-star side has the same players. There’s also life outside MyClub. PES 2020’s online leagues matchmake quickly, though you can be paired with higher-ranked players. The best new feature is Matchday mode, where you back one of two teams team for a week and help your side win by accumulating points against players supporting the other team. The sense of community this fosters is genuine, and there’s not a lootbox in sight. VERDICT With tweaks and improvements having been made to almost every area, there’s…

HITMAN 2 – WHITTLETON CREEK PACK The suburban stages are always the most fun in every Hitman, and this latest DLC takes us to two such sandbox maps: Whittleton Creek, USA and Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. Each features unique missions, with more to follow. THE SURGE 2 – SEASON PASS You won’t be leaving Jericho City any time soon as the game’s season pass launches, promising 14 fresh weapons and three more armour sets this month and in December, followed by a new storyline set aboard a mysterious aircraft carrier in January. DYING LIGHT – GODFATHER BUNDLE With a sequel on the horizon, here’s a reminder the original Dying Light is still going strong. This mobster-themed pack includes new weapons that grant XP and damage bonuses. You will need the…

DAYBREAK FORMAT NETFLIX PRICE £8.99 A MONTH Based on a comic, and from the director of videogame adaptation Rampage, this post-apocalyptic comedy sees a 17-year-old outcast scour a Mad Max-style apocalyptic wasteland America in search of his missing girlfriend. More fun than it sounds. 6 UNDERGROUND FORMAT NETFLIX PRICE £8.99 A MONTH Ryan Reynolds stars in this slice of Bayhem about six billionaires who fake their own deaths in order to become untraceable vigilantes who take down untouchable criminals. Expect wisecracking, explosions, and at least one instance of mid-explosion wisecracking. BATWOMAN FORMAT TBC The latest Arrow-verse spin-off stars Ruby Rose as Kate Kane, aka Batwoman. Picking up three years after Bruce Wayne’s disappearance, it sees Kane finding her place as Gotham’s protector. As well as big bad Red Alice, season…

INFO PUB SONY DEV QUANTIC DREAM RELEASED 2018, PS4 GET IT NOW PS STORE, £34.99 WHAT? From the studio behind Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls, Detroit is a sci-fi narrative adventure set in a world full of androids, with a heavy emphasis on player choice.…