It will come as no surprise to Brandon Sanderson fans that he's a lover of all things video game-related, and he's been quite vocal about it over the years. Sanderson has multiple discussions up on his YouTube page dedicated entirely to video game talk, going over his favorite world-building games, his picks for best narratives in games, etc. His favorite games span everything from Halo to BioShock to Elden Ring to Breath of the Wild, and beyond. View the full article
After backlash over the controversial Stellar Blade: Blood Rain AI music video, Shift Up's chief technology officer says the studio has been taking concerns "seriously," and now wants to "make a clear separation" between what it considers "experimental content" and its main "game-related content." Following the Stellar Blade sequel's reveal during Summer Game Fest, an official AI-generated music video starring new protagonist Evie was released and met with immediate vitriol. Shift Up wasn't attempting to hide anything – fine print at the end of the video stated: "This video was created using the Game resource from Stellar Blade: Blood Rain and regenerated with AI support." But honesty wasn't the concern here. People have many reasons to dislike AI, from its general laziness to the environmental concerns that persist regardless of whether someone is feeding their own work into the machine (it's a whole other issue if it's reproducing the work of others). In a new interview with The Gamer, Stellar Blade technical director and Shift Up CTO DongKi Lee has explained why the video was made in the first place and the studio's thoughts on using the technology moving forward. "The reason we revealed that music video was to show more of the beauty of Stellar Blade: Blood Rain," the dev says. "We wanted to show the world view and the character Evie. We just wanted to show a little more of each, and we did that as part of the content. "But then we do take seriously and importantly what the fans have been saying, and the concerns they have been expressing about the music video, and from now on we definitely want to make a clear separation between the two, like game-related content and what we would call experimental content, like what we are experimenting with," he continues. (Image credit: Shift Up) Shift Up CEO Kim Hyung Tae previously responded to the backlash over the music video himself, although perhaps not in the way Stellar Blade fans were hoping for. At the time, he stated that "Evie, the character at the heart of this video, was created from head to toe by our talented artists and modelers through more than a year of dedicated work," and that "the AI is not creating her from scratch," but rather "rendering and presenting the character based on the data, designs, and craftsmanship our team created." The thing is, as folks pointed out at the time, this was never really the worry. In fact, one of the main sentiments of the initial kickback from the video was the idea that using AI to regurgitate Evie's design was an insult to the studio's human artists, and that the company had the talent available to create something like this without turning to the slop machine. The CTO's latest comments do, at least, seem a little more open to the negative feedback, but anyone hoping for the studio to drop the technology like it's a burning ***** might still be disappointed. "AI has a lot of influence and impact on game development," he continues, adding: "But when we are using certain technologies or tools, what's important is the direction and purpose they serve. It needs to be used in a way that supports the developers' creativity, know-how, and skills. "It should be used as a tool. That's the direction, and its purpose would be to make a great, high-quality game." This sentiment shouldn't be too surprising, however. The Shift Up CEO previously expressed his belief that AI is a necessary tool for South Korean studios to compete with larger studios in the US and China, so the Stellar Blade creators are clearly in favor of using the tech when it can. Fueled by the sequel, Stellar Blade diehard begins multi-year quest to kill the final boss every day until Blood Rain and Evie finally arrive. [/url]View the full article
Goku's Perfected Ultra Instinct (Giant Form) is basically Dragon Ball Super's answer to Naruto's Susanoo, sometimes even being jokingly referred to that way, and it's officially set to return in 2027. This is noteworthy because Goku has only used it twice thus far in the Dragon Ball Super manga: once against Moro in the finale of the Galactic Patrol arc, once against Gas during the Granolah the Survivor arc. Its return in 2027 doesn't add a third, but it is an exciting update nonetheless. View the full article
The latest beefy expansion mod to hit Skyrim is an adventure to the Argonian homeland of ****** Marsh, complete with hist trees and humid swamps. Though, its creator seems to be hoping the trip to the southern tip of the mysterious province will do more that just entertain, serving as a reminder that it's still possible for solo modders to make ambitious works happen for free without resorting to using generative AI. Read more View the full article
War for Westeros is a real-time strategy game for real-time strategy enthusiasts, but the developers at PlaySide know they’re going to get inundated with Game of Thrones fans who have never played an RTS before when the game comes out — so they’re planning accordingly. The Game of Thrones franchise is, as everyone knows, incredibly popular, and that popularity is maintained by spinoff HBO shows such as House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms years after Game of Thrones itself came to an end. And so, War for Westeros will surely find itself beset by players from two camps: RTS fans who are looking for their next strategy hit, and Game of Thrones fans who fancy playing a game set in Westeros. RTS games, though, can be pretty complex and hard to get into. RTS developers have for years tried to solve this problem with various systems and tutorials. War for Westeros will, obviously, have tutorials to help newcomers learn its systems, but PlaySide has built approachability into the very design of the game to help. “That's what we want!” game director Ryan McMahon told me in an interview at gamescom, when I asked if the studio was prepared for the flood or RTS-shy Game of Thrones fans to descend upon War for Westeros. “Approachable is the key word,” he continued. “So you've got accessibility and approachability. We kind of look at it more through the approachability lens. It's not trying to dumb down what makes a good RTS, but more so how we onboard players to that experience.” So, expect a “very robust” tutorial at launch to onboard new players to skirmish mode and teach players its various systems through campaign mode. But most interesting to me is that War for Westeros’s worker units do not require any high level micro mastery. In many RTS games, you need to assign workers to farm resources and construct buildings, then, once they’re done, you need to give them another job to do. And another. And another. In short, workers require constant attention. War for Westeros, however, employs a ‘set and forget’ system where buildings will farm resources on their own once they’re build, leaving you free to focus on other things, like killing super powerful dragons. “At the base top level of the game, there's no high level micro mastery required of your workers or your builders,” McMahon explained. “All they need to do is build a building and it's ‘set and forget.’ You don't have to assign workers to buildings to farm resources. The buildings will farm the resources on their own once they're built. So that reduces a lot of macro or mental overload of what you're trying to think about while you play the game, and allows you to focus more on the units you're building, the heroes you're fielding, what type of buildings you're placing, and creating the moments that you want to see.” Meanwhile, the AI is tuned to give players the breathing room to learn how War for Westeros works through single-player in the hope that they’ll come away considering giving multiplayer a chance. “If they ever want to dip their toes into multiplayer or play with their friends, there's enough layers of complexity that they've been onboarded to over time without having to master straight away to enjoy a game,” McMahon said. Certainly, War for Westeros will have plenty that is familiar for Game of Thrones fans. It has iconic characters complete with their likenesses from the HBO show — although soundalike voice actors were employed for dialogue ("Obviously choosing the actual actors would be a very expensive endeavor and also some of them aren't necessarily available to work with us on the timelines that we have"). Jon Snow, with his likeness approved by actor Kit Harington, is just one example. At gamescom, PlaySide announced Gregor ‘The Mountain’ Clegane and Arya Stark. The Mountain can be recruited by House Lannister, “utilising his massive size and strength to shock battlelines and strike fear into the hearts of those who stand against him.” Arya, on the other hand, “is a master assassin for House Stark, trained under the Faceless Men of the House of ****** and White.” I had suspected that Jon Snow would be the most popular pick in playtests because, well, it’s Jon Snow. But according to McMahon, as the game has evolved and staff have got to grips with it, other famous characters have risen to the top of the popularity tree — and with good reason. “Tywin [Lannister] and Robb [Stark] are actually the most popular,” McMahon revealed. “The cavalry definitely helps so they can get around the map really quickly. But they have a strong kit in how they buff units around them as commanders, which helps reinforce the army rather than being individual strength. “But it changes a lot. We do weekly play tests every Friday afternoon after lunch, we just play the game for the rest of the day. And at the end of every milestone we do an internal tournament as well where we basically play whatever the game is currently at, and we have a bracket system and whoever wins gets the trophy and that gets passed around desk to desk based on who won the last tournament. “So we get a lot of data from that because we've got data in the game that we're tracking and we can see win rates from different factions. We can see how many heroes get spawned. We get a heat map of where people build buildings on the map that informs our level design and informs our faction balance and informs how we basically gear up heroes in different factions against each other.” Currently, players are picking heroes based on what they believe will be most effective on the battlefield as opposed to going with their heart and their favorite character. That makes a lot of sense if you're running internal tournaments. “As the game gets more mature, it sort of moved that way,” McMahon said. “For a while it was Jon [Snow] and Jaime [Lannister] because they were very strong heroes. But now if we put more emphasis on the units being important, because the game needs to be grounded. You can't just have one hero fighting off hundreds of people. Commanders start to become more important because they're not that strong on their own, but they're also reinforcing the units they're paired with.” I suspect when War for Westeros comes out on PC next year, Jon Snow might rise to the top once again. View the full article
I went hands-on with Nodusfall, HoYoverse's big new action game, at Gamescom, and came away impressed by HoYo's take on Monster Hunter. Read the full story on PCGamesN: Nodusfall feels like Monster Hunter meets Elden Ring, and it's a new look for HoYoverse View the full article
From developer caiys who made the excellent Boneraiser Minions, along with Voids Vigil and Xenosensory has another game out now with Deadzoned. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
A newly released Soulslike game on Steam called Withering Realms takes a page out of Bloodborne, Pragmata, and Lies of P's playbooks. In Withering Realms, Steam users play as an undead doll controlled by the ghost of a little girl who sits over the doll's shoulder. Together, they slay demonic creatures roaming a gothic city, using a combination of magic and long-range and melee weapons. View the full article
Xbox has confirmed that Forza Horizon 6 will still be coming to PlayStation 5 later this year. When the game was originally announced last year, Xbox confirmed that it would be coming to Xbox Series X/S and PC at launch, with a PS5 release coming “post-launch”. Since then, however, Xbox has undergone major changes in both management and strategy, ditching its apparent plan to make all future releases multi-platform and instead deciding exclusivity on a game-by-game basis. Read More... View the full article
Face off against the dealer with your random rolls in Dealer's Dice, which blends together tower defense and incrementals. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
For fans of cats and incremental games - Snap the Cat is a cute and fresh entry into the genre for fans of relaxing casual games. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
If you enjoy puzzle games you'll want to keep an eye on puzzlez - a shapez game, a spin-off from the shapez series from tobspr Games. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
A factory-building automation sim with a destructible world and simulated heat and fluids, FluxWerks sounds like it's going to stand out in the genre. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
BLIGHTEN was covered here on GamingOnLinux back in April, and recently it had a new teaser that really badly made me want to see a lot more. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Apple TV's adaptation of Isaac Asimov's iconic Foundationsaga has become one of the most compelling series in modern sci-fi, with each season proving that a faithful retelling of the original work isn't dependent on sticking strictly to Asimov's structure. The Foundation series has introduced several major changes to the source material (out of necessity) while still preserving what made the original text so beloved. View the full article
After being in Beta for a while, Linux and macOS support has arrived for the clever Beam Eye Tracker app. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Rogue Blight recently released with Linux support - a great looking 2D action souls-inspired side-scroller that's getting some good user reviews. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article
Game of Thrones fans have a lot to look forward to in the coming months, with the newest season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms on the way in 2027 and the final season of House of the Dragon following soon after. Further, with the Aegon's Conquest film in the works and The Mad King stage play getting new showtimes in London in 2027, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire universe is as alive as it has ever been. View the full article
Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard has one of the most enduring legacies of any character in science fiction history, becoming the defining image of a Starfleet captain for an entire generation of fans. Brought to life by Patrick Stewart across seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, four feature films, and three seasons of Star Trek: Picard, he will always hold a special place in fans' hearts. View the full article
Game of Thrones fans were extremely curious about how the Sowing of the Seeds from George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood would be interpreted on screen in HBO's House of the Dragon, and it's one scene that was widely hailed even by the show's harshest critics. It played out rather brutally, with several Dragonseeds suffering a devastating and morbid end in an onslaught of dragonfire. View the full article
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