Leaving early access is a milestone that carries more weight than it used to. Enshrouded has spent an extended stretch in that phase, and version 1.0 is being presented as the point where the project stops being a work in progress and becomes something the studio is ready to stand behind. The setup is laid out clearly in the launch trailer. You are Flameborn, the last spark of hope for a species that is fading, and the goal is to reclaim Embervale. Between you and that goal sits a tainting mist, a threat the game asks you to endure rather than brush aside. Survival games built around a hostile environment live or die on how that environment feels. A mist that corrupts and spreads is a useful device because it turns the map itself into a source of pressure, giving exploration a cost and making safe ground feel earned rather than guaranteed. A 1.0...
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Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 arrives on October 23, and it will do so without the safety net that Xbox players have come to expect. The game will not be available through Xbox Game Pass at launch, a decision that marks a real change in how the series is being positioned. Activision has restated the point in a new blog post timed for the eve of the campaign’s early access period, which begins on October 16. The company has been clear about this for a while, so the post is less a revelation than a confirmation, but the timing gives it weight. Game Pass has spent years being sold as the reason to choose Xbox, and day-one arrivals have been central to that pitch. A release as large as a new Modern Warfare sitting outside the service cuts against the message, even if the reasoning behind the decision is easy to understand. For...
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Some games are remembered for what they were. Others are remembered for what they might have been, and Agent belongs firmly in the second category. Sony announced it at E3 2009 as a PlayStation-exclusive espionage title built in collaboration with Rockstar, with Sam and Dan Houser overseeing production. It never released. The project quietly stopped being discussed, and for years the only information available was the announcement itself and the occasional rumour. Now Dan Houser has offered more detail about why the game fell apart, in conversation with IGN. The context of that announcement matters. Platform exclusivity deals were common in that era, and a partnership with a studio of Rockstar’s stature was a genuine coup. It signalled that Sony was willing to fund original work rather than simply secure timed access to multiplatform releases. Cancellations are rarely the result of a single failure. Projects of that scale involve technology that has to be...
Read MoreStreet Fighter has always been more than a fighting game. It is one of the few series whose characters are recognisable far beyond the audience that plays it, and any list of the most famous faces in the medium tends to include Chun-Li, Ryu and Ken without much argument. For a lot of people, that familiarity started in the arcade. The series was a gateway into fighting games during the 1990s, a decade when the genre was a social space as much as a competitive one, and the characters carried that experience into other media. That is what makes the live-action record so frustrating. The curse in the headline is not a supernatural one. It is the simple fact that Street Fighter has never been served well by the transition to film, despite a premise that seems built for it. Adaptations of fighting games face a structural problem. The appeal of the source is...
Read MoreCastlevania: Belmont’s Curse Is The Latest Game To Attend The Hades School Of Making Everybody Hot
Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse has landed at the sharp end of the year’s releases, and it has done so with a confidence that is hard to ignore. It combines striking visual design, combat with real weight behind it, and movement that flows rather than fights the player. The game has also attracted attention for a reason that has little to do with mechanics. Its cast is, to put it plainly, extremely good-looking, and that has become part of the conversation rather than a footnote to it. The comparison that keeps coming up is Hades and its sequel. Not because the games share a structure, but because they share an approach to character design, one where attractiveness is treated as part of the craft rather than an afterthought or a marketing hook. That approach has practical benefits. A well-designed face gives an audience something to hold onto during long conversations, and a distinctive silhouette makes a...
Read MoreCyberpunk 2 exists mostly as an outline. It has an official name, which is more than it had for a while, and it has a team, but the specifics of setting, structure and release have not been laid out in any detail. What is known is that CD Projekt Red has stacked the project with senior talent. Among that group is Gabe Amatangelo, who led work on Phantom Liberty and has now spoken publicly about the sequel. His involvement is one of the few concrete reasons to feel confident about a game that has otherwise been kept carefully out of view. A director matters more than the job title suggests. In a large studio, the director sets tone, arbitrates between competing ideas and carries the project through the long middle stretch when enthusiasm inside a team inevitably dips. The role is part creative lead and part custodian. Phantom Liberty is a useful reference point....
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