Update: The WD_BLACK C50 Expansion Card for Xbox is available now in local stores, starting with JB Hi-Fi as well as Amazon via international delivery.

The 1TB Expansion Card retails for $289, which is a match for the Seagate alternative (depending on where you shop) even after Seagate has been reducing the prices on their previously-exclusive expansion card since it launched.

You can pick one up at JB Hi-Fi now for $289, or grab it even cheaper from Amazon at $251 with free shipping.

Original Story: Xbox Series X|S owners finally have at least one alternative option when it comes to expanding the high-speed storage on their consoles, with WD officially joining the fray with its new WD_BLACK C50 Expansion Card for Xbox – confirming a leak from back in April.

The new card comes in a 500GB or 1TB capacity, and retails for $79.99 USD (approximately $120 AUD) or $289 AUD, respectively. With the previously-exclusive Seagate option becoming much cheaper recently, it looks like the introduction of new options is finally driving the exorbitant prices of added Xbox Series X|S storage down.

These drives have launched in the US and UK but don’t seem to have any local availability yet, but we’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it,

It's finally here – Introducing the WD_BLACK C50 Expansion Card for Xbox. Get it now at https://t.co/tVTUKwzGSF pic.twitter.com/LbgyXnnzNk

— WD_BLACK (@wd_black) June 6, 2023

Those interested in picking up extra storage for their console now can grab the 1TB Seagate Expansion Card for Xbox for around $250 on Amazon, which is still a lot better of a deal than the launch pricing.

By comparison, storage prices for PlayStation 5 owners are coming down every day thanks to the PS5’s non-proprietary M.2 SSD slot, which lets users buy any compatible Gen 4 NVMe that has an appropriate heatsink and slot it into the console’s internals.

Right now, the PS5-compatible Samsung 980 Pro SSD is going for only $250 for a 2TB capacity.

The post WD’s Cheaper Xbox Series X|S Expansion Card Is Finally Available appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has unveiled an all-new update to how it manages player enforcements – actions taken against those who display inappropriate behaviours like harassment and bullying. With the introduction of a new “strike” system, it’s providing players with a more systemic and transparent approach to its enforcement outcomes.

Under this new demerit point-like system, every player will be able to receive a total of eight strikes, with strikes being applied alongside enforcements that result in temporary account suspension and in amounts that depend on the severity of the action. For example, the use of profanity or cheating might result in a single strike, working out to a one-day suspension, while hate speech is an automatic three strikes and a resulting three-day suspension. Each strike stays on record for six months, and they stack with increasing suspension lengths, so if you received two strikes for something one week and three the next week, you’d have five strikes total which results in a 14-day suspension.

The maximum of eight strikes against a player will result in a full year of suspension from Xbox social features like multiplayer, parties and party chat, messaging and more, but not have their account fully banned so as to remain useable for single-player experiences and keep any purchased content – unless in more serious cases such as those involving anything strictly illegal. Players will still be able to appeal enforcements and, if successful, have strikes removed. Everyone will also have access to their enforcement history and strikes, including being able to see current strikes eligible for an appeal, completed and expired enforcements and direct access to Community Standards documentation.

There’s a fancy diagram to make more sense of if all below:

You can also read up more on the new Xbox strike enforcement system on the Xbox Wire blog right here.

The post Xbox Is Introducing A New Strike System For Player Enforcements appeared first on Press Start.

Update: Microsoft has now revealed the rest of the games headed to Game Pass in August, and it’s just a handful more titles – some of which we already knew about.

It’s also worth noting that there’s not much longer to wait for Bethesda’s next RPG epic, Starfield, to hit Game Pass on September 6th, and Xbox is offering Game Pass members 10% off the Starfield Premium Edition Upgrade which allows keen fans – including those playing via Game Pass – to get in five days early on September 1st.

Take a look at everything that’s arrived and still to come to Game Pass in August:

Xbox Game Pass August 2023

Celeste (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available Now
Help Madeline survive her inner demons on her journey to the top of Celeste Mountain, in this super-tight platformer from the creators of TowerFall. Brave hundreds of hand-crafted challenges, uncover devious secrets, and piece together the mystery of the mountain.

A Short Hike (Cloud, Console, PC) – Available Now
Hike, climb, and soar through the peaceful mountainside landscapes of Hawk Peak Provincial Park. Follow the marked trails or explore the backcountry as you make your way to the summit. Along the way, meet other hikers, discover hidden treasures, and take in the world around you.

Broforce Forever (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available Now
Broforce is an action-packed side-scrolling run ‘n’ gun ode to freedom, putting you in control of an under-funded, over-powered paramilitary organization dealing exclusively in excessive force. Included is the long-awaited Broforce Forever content, which offers an improved and expanded campaign with new unlocks, along with six new ultra patriotic bros, and four new democracy-spreading challenge levels!

Limbo (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available Now
Limbo is an award-winning indie adventure, critically acclaimed for its captivating puzzle design and immersive sound and visuals. Its dark, misty spaces and haunting narrative will stay with you forever.

Airborne Kingdom (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available Now
Airborne Kingdom is a stunning airborne city building and management game. Grow your unique town among the clouds and fly it across a wide-open landscape. Explore the skies to restore serenity to the world below!

Quake II (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available now
Quake II is back with a vengeance with an all-new, enhanced release of id Software’s legendary 1997 shooter on Xbox! Battle the monstrous Strogg in blistering-fast single player and co-op shooter action or take your skills to the arena with online and local multiplayer. With upgraded graphics, modern updates, cross-play functionality and so much more, there’s no time to wait – experience the enhanced Quake II on Game Pass, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC today.  Read more about the release of Quake II on Xbox.

Everspace 2 (Cloud and Xbox Series X|S) – Available Now
Available now on PC and coming soon to Xbox Series X|S and Cloud gaming! Step into the pilot seat in this fast-paced single-player space shooter where brutal challenges stand between you and epic loot. Embark on a sci-fi adventure where massive, handcrafted areas are packed with secrets, puzzles, and perils! Level up, craft, and loot better gear to survive on the edge of space.

Firewatch (Cloud, Console, and PC) – August 17
Making a return to the Game Pass library, Firewatch is a single-player, first-person mystery set in the Wyoming wilderness, where your only emotional lifeline is the person on the other end of a handheld radio. You’ll explore a wild and unknown environment, facing questions and making choices that can build or destroy the only meaningful relationship you have.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Cloud, Console, and PC) – August 18
Take on the role of one of the notorious Slaughter family, or their victims, in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, a third-person asymmetrical horror experience based on the groundbreaking and iconic 1974 horror film. Experience the mad and macabre for yourself in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Sea of Stars (Cloud, Console, and PC) – August 29
Available on day one with Game Pass: Sea of Stars is a turn-based RPG inspired by the classics. It tells the story of two Children of the Solstice who combine the powers of the sun and moon to perform Eclipse Magic, the only force capable of fending off the monstrous creations of the evil alchemist known as The Fleshmancer.

Gris (Cloud, Console, and PC) – September 5
Gris is a hopeful young girl lost in her own world, dealing with a painful experience in her life. Her journey through sorrow is manifested in her dress, which grants new abilities to better navigate her faded reality.

Leaving Xbox Game Pass August

The following games are leaving the service on August 31st:

• Black Desert (Cloud and Console)
• Commandos 3 – HD Remaster (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Immortality (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Nuclear Throne (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Surgeon Simulator 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Tinykin (Cloud, Console, and PC)

The post The Next Batch Of Xbox Game Pass Games For August Has Been Revealed appeared first on Press Start.

In this month’s official Forza Monthly broadcast on YouTube, Forza Motorsport‘s creative director Chris Esaki has revealed some insight into features that haven’t made the cut in Turn 10’s long-awaited new entry – at least at launch.

First of all, Esaki revealed that players won’t be able to spectate races or race against AI in its “Featured Multiplayer” modes, which now rely on a brand-new matchmaking model that uses machine learning to match players of similar skill as well as a Safety Rating that groups players together who have similar racing behaviours.

“Having players come into a featured multiplayer event and taking player slots, and then spectating? It’s not really the racing we had intended,” the creative director explains in the video. “Similarly, racing with AI in featured multiplayer with all its potential impacts on your safety rating also didn’t make a whole lot of sense to have and is not going to be available for us at launch.”

Will Forza Motorsport Have Split-Screen Multiplayer?

Perhaps more interesting/concerning to fans of the Motorsport off-shoot of the Forza franchise is the lack of any split-screen multiplayer feature at launch, something that’s been present in every game in the series since Forza Motorsport 2. It’s seemingly a result of the studio’s push to make this the most realistic and cutting-edge racing simulator to date, with Esaki explaining, “Our heavy investment in pushing our new graphical features and our complete overhaul of the rendering engine unfortunately made split-screen really difficulty to implement and is also not going to be in for launch.”

Forza Motorsport is launching on October 10, and will be available day one as part of Xbox Game pass, along with the following editions:

FORZA MOTORSPORT PREMIUM EDITION – $149.95

• The Forza Motorsport Premium Edition includes the full game with 5 days of early access, the Race Day Car Pack, Car Pass (30 cars delivered to your game weekly, one per week), VIP Membership and Welcome Pack.

FORZA MOTORSPORT DELUXE EDITION – $139.95

• The Forza Motorsport Deluxe Edition includes the full game and Car Pass (30 cars delivered to your game weekly, one per week).

FORZA MOTORSPORT STANDARD EDITION – $119.95

• The Forza Motorsport Standard Edition includes the full game.

The post Forza Motorsport Won’t Have Some Features At Launch Including Split-Screen appeared first on Press Start.

In a small but locally noteworthy bit of progress in Microsoft’s ongoing bid to buy out Activision Blizzard to the tune of a very nice $69 billion USD, New Zealand’s Commerce Commission has given the company their green light.

Microsoft President Brad Smith shared the news, saying “With today’s approval from New Zealand, we’re cleared to move forward with our acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 41 countries. We will continue to work to resolve outstanding concerns and bring this deal to a close.”

With today’s approval from New Zealand, we’re cleared to move forward with our acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 41 countries. We will continue to work to resolve outstanding concerns and bring this deal to a close. https://t.co/PwoJj490Ah

— Brad Smith (@BradSmi) August 8, 2023

A spokesperson from Microsoft also added, “We appreciate the thoughtful consideration by the New Zealand Competition Commerce Commission of our acquisition of Activision Blizzard and welcome their its decision to clear the deal unconditionally. This acquisition will ultimately benefit the gaming industry and gamers and we will continue to work toward closing the deal.”

The full statement from the Commerce Commission can be read below:

Both Microsoft and Activision are developers, publishers and distributors of video games for personal computer (PC), gaming consoles and mobile platforms. In addition, Microsoft produces and sells the Xbox range of video-game consoles, as well as PC hardware and peripherals, and offers cloud computing services.

In reaching its decision, the Commission focused on the importance of Activision games (such as Call of Duty, Overwatch and World of Warcraft) to New Zealand gamers, and whether Microsoft would be likely to stop rivals like Sony and NVIDIA from offering those games on consoles and on cloud platforms.

Commission Chair Dr John Small said the Commission was satisfied that the merger is unlikely to substantially lessen competition in any New Zealand market.

“While Activision games, in particular Call of Duty, are popular with New Zealand gamers, our enquiries did not find that they are likely to be ‘must have’ in order to compete with Microsoft in New Zealand.”

A public version of the written reasons for the decision will be available on the Commission’s case register in due course.

The post Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard Acquisition Has Been Approved In New Zealand appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has given eager Gamescom attendees a better idea of its presence at this year’s event, revealing the content it’ll be bringing along and the sheer size and scope of the activities on offer.

Touting the largest booth it’s ever brought to Gamescom, Xbox says it’ll have over 150 gaming stations featuring 30 titles at the show, along with a 300-seat theatre, photo opportunities, and Xbox FanFest action. Of the games featured, 25 will be playable for show attendees, including the likes of Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, Payday 3, Persona 5 Tactica, Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and – somewhat surprisingly given it’s been a little radio silent lately – S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2.

As for its heavy-hitting first party titles, Starfield and Forza Motorsport, these won’t be playable on the show floor but will have exclusive theatre presentations running throughout for Gamescom-goers to check out.

For those not able to make the jaunt over to Germany for the expo, there’ll be three days of live streamed deep dives, gameplay and developer interviews, and for those attending who need extra help, Xbox has promised that all areas of the booth are wheelchair accessible, with adjustable height demo stations for select titles, Xbox Adaptive Controllers available and multiple American Sign Language (ASL) and German Sign Language (DGS) interpreters on hand along with sensory aids and a quiet room for anyone who needs them.

Hey @gamescom, we're headed your way with…

?Our Largest Booth Yet
?The latest Console & PC Games
?Live streams direct from the show floor, Xbox FanFest, and more!

Get all the details: https://t.co/E813NPSW8Z | #XboxGamescom

— Xbox ANZ (@XboxANZ) August 3, 2023

Gamescom is taking place at the Koelnmesse in Cologne, Germany from August 23rd to August 27th, and tickets to the event for anyone willing to get themselves on a very long and expensive flight are on sale now. Day tickets for Thursday, Friday and Sunday are 27 EUR each, which Saturdays are 36 EUR, and various discounted or family package passes are also available here.

Gamescom has a lot to prove this year with one of its biggest competitors in terms of sheer size and volume of content and audience being E3, which was sadly cancelled for 2023 due to a number of challenges. A fair few major developers and publishers have already confirmed their attendance, including Microsoft and Bethesda, Nintendo, Amazon Games, Bandai Namco Entertainment, Focus Entertainment, Hoyoverse, Netflix, Ubisoft and tons more.

You can find out anything else you’d want to know about Gamescom 2023 at the official website right here.

The post Xbox Is Bringing Starfield And S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 To Its Biggest Ever Gamescom Booth This Month appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has revealed that it’s introducing the ability for players to stream their gameplay to Discord, building on the Discord chat integration already featured on the console that was introduced last year.

Discord streaming is already rolling out to folks in the Alpha Skip Ahead and Alpha Rings of Xbox Insider for early testing, but Microsoft says in its blog post that the new feature will be getting a broader rollout for all users “soon.”

The new streaming feature looks like it’ll be easy enough to use, simply by navigating to your desired Discord channel through the guide and clicking on “Stream your game” with more detailed instructions on using Discord streaming and getting support for Xbox Insiders shared by Xbox in a blog post below:

How to stream your games to your Discord friends

To get started, you can join voice channels from your Discord servers directly from your Xbox console when your Discord account is linked. To try it, press the Xbox button on your controller to open the guide, scroll to Parties & chats, and select Discord. Then scroll through your available Discord servers and pick a voice channel and start streaming!

We’re excited to hear your feedback as you try it out and just as excited for what the future holds for Xbox and Discord!

How to get Xbox Insider support and share your feedback

If you’re an Xbox Insider looking for support, please join our community on the Xbox Insider subreddit. Official Xbox staff, moderators, and fellow Xbox Insiders are there to help. We recommend that you add to threads with the same issue before posting a brand new one. This helps us support you the best we can! Don’t forget to use “Report a problem” before posting—the information shared in both places helps us understand your issue better.

The post Xbox Users Will Soon Be Able To Stream Their Games To Discord appeared first on Press Start.

During this year’s huge Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest, which took place over the weekend, Square Enix revealed that Final Fantasy XIV is set to make its long-awaited debut on Xbox Series X|S.

Square brought none other than Phil Spencer himself on stage to share in the announcement that the hugely successful MMO entry in the mammoth RPG franchise will soon be available to play on Microsoft’s current-generation systems, with a release slated for early-to-mid 2024. Beta testing for the Xbox Series X|S version of Final Fantasy XIV will reportedly begin with the game’s Patch 6.5 update, which is expected to drop within the next few months.

Along with its move to Xbox Series X|S consoles, Final Fantasy XIV is also set to once again refresh its free trial offering, opening up even more of the game for new players to jump in and try for themselves. The “Even Further Expanded Free Trial” will debut along with Patch 6.5 and give players the opportunity to play through the base game, Heavensward expansion and the Stormblood expansion, up to level 70 with no limits on play time. The Final Fantasy XIV community has already updated its memes accordingly.

Enjoyed being onstage with Yoshi-P and Kiryu-san to announce Final Fantasy XIV coming to Xbox. We’re thrilled that the Xbox community will join the Warriors of Light and we look forward to partnering closely with Square Enix on future games. pic.twitter.com/zq0ETkDFq1

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) July 28, 2023

Final Fantasy XIV is also collaborating with Fall Guys on a new Warrior of Light Fame Pass kicking off on August 22nd, along with new Fall Guys-inspired Gold Saucer content coming to Final Fantasy XIV as part of the Patch 6.5 content drop.

All of this comes alongside the reveal of the next major expansion for Final Fantasy XIV, titled Dawntrail. This expansion is set to launch in Winter next year and will introduce new areas, new Allied Tribes, a level cap increase, new jobs, dungeons, gear and a heap more – along with the game’s first major graphical upgrade to both character and world visuals, promising to make sweeping improvements to the overall look of the game that launched in its “Realm Reborn” state almost exactly 10 years ago.

You can read more about Final Fantasy XIV’s Dawntrail update right here.

The post Final Fantasy XIV Is Officially Headed To Xbox Consoles appeared first on Press Start.

After a few months of Xbox Insider users having access to the much-improved Home experience on Xbox consoles, Microsoft is finally ready to roll out the new dashboard to all Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One users around the globe.

The rollout begins today with a “subset” of consoles, and will gradually continue to be pushed to all players over the coming weeks until everybody is covered. The new UI aims to improve the user experience with a cleaner, simplified layout that better shows off custom backgrounds, easier access to games in your library, better game discovery/curation and more (I’ve personally been using it since the Insider Alpha launch and it’s a vast improvement over the previous iteration).

Here’s what Microsoft reckons you’ll get out of using the new Xbox Home dashboard:

Xbox Dashboard Update July/August 2023

• Makes it easy to go to your Library, the Microsoft Store, Xbox Game Pass, Search, and Settings at the very top of your Home by introducing a quick access menu.
• Creates more space for your personalised background by simplifying the layout and putting the games you recently played and other content and apps towards the bottom of the screen.
• Adds an option to change your background to match the game you are highlighting in the recently played list.
• Improves game discovery by introducing lists of games curated and personalised for you.
• Allows you to customise your experience by pinning your favourite games, curated groups, and system groups like Quick Resume to Home.
• Helps you find what’s going on in your community through the updated Friends & Community Updates row.
• Shows you what media apps and content are available to you via a Watch & Listen spotlight and list of entertainment apps.

You can learn more about what’s different and improved in the new and fresh Xbox dashboard right here.

The post The New Xbox Home Experience Is Being Rolled Out Now And It’s A Huge Improvement appeared first on Press Start.

I’ll admit I’d never heard of Antstream Arcade before, but the service has been doing the rounds lately since it secured a somewhat surprising release on Xbox consoles.

Surprising mostly because, Antstream Arcade is essentially one giant (and fully above board) emulator for hundreds of classic games spanning retro arcade hits, old Atari and Commodore 64 titles and even the odd OG PlayStation and NES/SNES release. There are 1470 titles in the Antstream library at present, which is quite impressive.

The whole things has been nicely endorsed by Xbox as well, with Sarah Bond, CVP of game creator experience and ecosystem at Microsoft, saying in a post on the official Xbox Wire blog, “Many of us grew up playing these games, so the ability to stream them on Xbox consoles and share these experiences with our friends and family is incredible. We’re pleased that with Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub’s technology benefits and Azure cloud services we can help enable Antstream to reach more players.”

All of those classics don’t come cheap though, with Antstream Arcade’s various subscription-based options available in other regions sadly not applicable locally. Instead, the singular option for Aussies is a “Lifetime Pass Edition” which includes access to everything it has to offer, permanently, for a cool $143.95 AUD. Not chump change, but certainly not a bad deal for the sheer volume of retro content on offer.

With concerns continuing to swirl around video game preservation, it’s great to see initiatives like this get enough recognition to land on a major console platform. You can see a full list of the games available on Antstream Arcade right here and check out some of the added features you’ll get with it below.

Antstream Arcade Lifetime Pass Edition (Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S) – $143.95

Continue the arcade action until the end of time with the Lifetime Pass Edition. With over 1300 classic games from the 80s, 90s, and 00s, three decades of classic gaming at your fingertips. Regular new games, new challenges, and new tournaments. Enjoy new game modes and continue to dominate the high-score leaderboards. Feel the nostalgia by playing games from your childhood or discover new gems you never knew existed. Experience a world of gaming in a new way with:

• Over 600 original mini-game challenges, with new challenges every month. Take on your friends or the global leaderboards, or just try to earn gold in your favorite games.
• Participate in global weekly tournaments. Take on the world and show everyone your elite gaming skills.
• Set a community mini-game challenge with Giant Slayer. Take on the global community of retro gamers by setting a high score and challenging them to beat it. Will the community slay your score or will you be a giant amongst them?
• Pick up that second controller and enjoy some classic couch co-op action with some of the best Beat’em ups, Shmups, Fighters, Platformers, and more at your fingertips.
• Save your game at any point and pick up where you left off. Multiple people playing the same game? No problem, you have 4 save slots on every game to play with and a continue to pick up wherever you left off.
• Leave your mark by immortalizing yourself in the high score table of any game or challenge.
• Challenge a friend in Duel. Play any challenge and see if they can beat you.

The post Xbox Just Got A Treasure Trove Of Nearly 1500 Classics Including Nintendo And PlayStation Games appeared first on Press Start.

Guess what we’re discussing today? If you guessed “anything other than Xbox’s $69 billion USD Activision Blizzard acquisition” you’d be very wrong.

Following recent developments in the US where the FTC has all but lost its case in attempting to delay or block the buyout, and Sony has come to the table to sign a 10-year agreement to keep Call of Duty on its platform, things over at the CMA in the UK have also begun to shift.

Originally scheduled to hear an appeal from Microsoft over its decision to block the deal in the UK, the CMA has reportedly made a joint submission with Microsoft and Activision to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (I’ve lost count of how many courts, tribunals and other formal hoops have been jumped through at this point) to put that all on ice and reach an agreement out of court. The CAT has since agreed to put a two-month pause on proceedings with the CMA saying it would reconsider the deal if a modified version of terms was put to it by Microsoft (thanks Reuters).

A CMA lawyer has been quoted as telling the tribunal, “Based upon the discussion to date, both sides – Microsoft and the CMA – have confidence that Microsoft notifying a restructured transaction is capable of addressing the concerns that the CMA has identified.”

Bloomberg also reports that the whole deal itself is set to be tied up later than planned, with Microsoft and Activision Blizzard obviously incredibly unlikely to have closed it by the original July 18th deadline. As per the original terms, this was the date when both parties could walk from the deal and Microsoft would be up for a $3 billion USD payment to Activision should the buyout be terminated. According to unnamed sources, both parties are apparently keen to continue to seek regulator approval before finalising the deal.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard are nearing the finish line on their $69 billion deal, but aren’t likely to close it by a Tuesday deadline https://t.co/DuWR5iq2TD

— Bloomberg (@business) July 17, 2023

The post Microsoft And The CMA Could Come To A New Agreement Over The Activision Blizzard Acquisition appeared first on Press Start.

Phil Spencer has shared the news that Microsoft and PlayStation have both officially signed a “binding” agreement to keep the Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation platforms once the $69 billion USD acquisition deal with Activision Blizzard is finalised.

“We look forward to a future where players globally have more choice to play their favourite games, ” Spencer’s tweet reads, though little other information has been revealed about the agreement. The Verge’s Tom Warren reported that Microsoft confirmed with him it will be a 10-year agreement similar to what was struck with other parties.

We are pleased to announce that Microsoft and @PlayStation have signed a binding agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following the acquisition of Activision Blizzard. We look forward to a future where players globally have more choice to play their favorite games.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) July 16, 2023

Microsoft president, Brad Smith, shared Spencer’s tweet and added “From Day One of this acquisition, we’ve been committed to addressing the concerns of regulators, platform and game developers, and consumers. Even after we cross the finish line for this deal’s approval, we will remain focused on ensuring that Call of Duty remains available on more platforms and for more consumers than ever before.”

The Activision Blizzard deal is seeming like a lock with the FTC’s recent bid to temporarily block the acquisition in US courts being denied, including a further appeal, and the deadline of July 18th for it to be finalised looming incredibly close. If the deadline is missed and an extension is not agreed upon between the two companies Microsoft could owe Activision Blizzard a not-insignificant $3 billion USD payout.

Call of Duty has been the biggest sticking point in the entire ordeal with PlayStation arguing that Microsoft owning the consistent best-seller franchise would be anti-competitive and remaining convinced that it would see future Call of Duty titles either made inferior on PlayStation hardware or simply not released at all. Early on in the road to the acquisition, a 10-year agreement was signed with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty titles to Nintendo hardware, the exact mechanics of which – especially with the current Switch’s comparatively inferior hardware – also remain to be seen.

The post Sony And Microsoft Have Signed A Binding Agreement To Keep Call Of Duty On PlayStation appeared first on Press Start.

Update: The FTC’s appeal over the United States District Court for Northern District of California’s decision to rule in favour of Microsoft has been denied, with both Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley and the Ninth Court of Appeals rejecting the appeal. With the deal deadline coming up very quickly on July 18th, it’s looking more and more likely to go ahead in some capacity.

Microsoft still has yet to combat the UK CMA’s blocking of the acquisition but is reportedly looking at a restructured proposal that may include selling its cloud-based gaming rights in the UK to a “telecommunications, gaming or internet-based computing company” or other company if it means appeasing the CMA.

In unsurprising but incredibly “are we still doing this?” news, the FTC has decided to appeal the United States District Court for Northern District of California’s recent decision to rule in favour of Microsoft in a bid to temporarily block the tech giant’s $69 billion acquisition deal with Activision Blizzard from going ahead.

Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley had concluded that the FTC’s case against the merger wasn’t strong enough to say that it would be anti-competitive or that Microsoft wouldn’t honour its commitments to keeping Call of Duty a multiplatform franchise.

“Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny,” Judge Corley said. “That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services.”

Yesterday the Court ruled our acquisition of Activision Blizzard should proceed, and we oppose any further delay. Our statement on the FTC's decision to appeal: pic.twitter.com/EhdO4OHX9g

— Brad Smith (@BradSmi) July 13, 2023

Bloomberg reported earlier that an appeal was likely, quoting Robert Lande, a professor at University of Baltimore School of Law, who believed that Corley was too rigid on the level of certainty required from the FTC’s case. Lande said the law only required that the agency show that a deal may harm competition, not prove definitively that it would, saying, “I believe the judge evaluated the case using the wrong standard and I believe the FTC should appeal.”

And so now it will, although it’s been pointed out that even with an appeal, it’s not likely that the Appeals Court would be able to rule on it before the all-important deadline for the acquisition deal, which is on July 18th.

The post The FTC’s Appeal Of Microsoft’s Court Victory Has Been Denied appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has just soft-launched a brand new community safety feature for users playing multiplayer games across the Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One platforms.

The new Xbox Voice Reporting function allows players to quickly and easily capture and report inappropriate verbal behaviour that they experience or witness while playing just about any online-enabled game (including backwards compatible titles), with Xbox Insiders in select English-speaking regions getting access to the feature first ahead of a wider rollout.

The feature gives players the ability to quickly capture a 60-second video clip of an incident that they believe violates Xbox Community Standards and can submit it immediately or, in order to minimise interruption of actual play, submit it up to 24 hours after the capture has been taken. Unlike regular video capture on Xbox consoles, these clips aren’t saved for users to view or share later on and simply live within the reporting feature until they’re submitted as a report or expire.

This added feature rounds out the suite of options that players have to report inappropriate content and behaviour on the Xbox platform, from text and image to video and now voice, with the company’s aim to empower players to curate and protect safe, online communities with ongoing and fervent support in pushing back online toxicity.

Stephen Balkam, CEO, Family Online Safety Institute, says in the Xbox Wire news release, “With reactive voice reporting, Xbox continues to help players feel protected. Empowering players with easy-to-use tools helps foster togetherness, while improving the greater health of the gaming community on Xbox. With measures like this in place, players can feel confident they are in a safe, welcoming environment.”

You can read more about the new Xbox Voice Reporting feature and other initiatives from Xbox to foster positive and inclusive online communities in the full news release right here.

The post Xbox Is Rolling Out A New Feature To Capture And Report Toxic Voice Chat appeared first on Press Start.

Update: The ID@Xbox Demo Fest has officially kicked off!

You can now download and play over 40 new demos, all of which are listed below:

• A Duel Hand Disaster: Trackher (Ask An Enemy Studios)
• Aaero2 (Mad Fellows)
• Alchemist: The Potion Monger (Art Games Studio)
• Alisa (Casper Croes)
• Astrea: The Six-Sided Oracles (Little Leo Games)
• Bang-On Balls: Chronicles (Exit Plan Games)
• BattleCakes (Volcano Bean)
• Black Skylands (Hungry Couch)
• Born of Bread (WildArts)
• Boxville (Triomatica Games)
• Cell Scientists: Beyond (R-Next)
• Cross Tails (Rideon)
• Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle (Invader Studios)
• Death Relives (Nyctophile Studios)
• Demonschool (Necrosoft Game)
• Deserted (Zebik Media Interactive)
• Dynacat (Replayne)
• Evil Wizard (Rubber Duck Games)
• Exhausted Man (Candleman Games)
• Fall of Porcupine (Critical Rabbit)
• Frank and Drake (Appnormals Team)
• Knights of Braveland (Ellada Games)
• Let’s Cook Togther 2 (Yellow Dot)
• Lies of P (Neowitz)
• Lunark (Canari Games)
• Marble It Up! Ultra (Marble It Up)
• Metaball (Bucketplay)
• Metal Mind (Whirllaxy Studio)
• Overpass: Rhythm Roadtrip (Studio Bean)
• Pixel Cafe (Baltoro Games)
• Pocket Bravery (Statera Studio)
• PolyFury (Wayfarer Games)
• Punch Club 2: Fast Forward (Lazy Bear Games)
• Raging Bytes (Hit-Point)
• Rain World (Videocult)
• Sea of Stars (Sabotage Studio)
• Sker Ritual (Wales Interactive)
• Slave Zero X (Poppy Works)
• Space Boat (Recombobulator Games)
• Spirit Hunters: Infinite Horde (Creature Cauldron)
• Spirit of the Island (1 Million Bits Horde)
• Stonks-9800: Stock Market Simulator (Ternox)
• The Isle Tide Hotel (Wales Interactive/Interflix Media)
• The Night of the Rabbit (Daedalic Entertainment)
• The Wandering Village (Stray Fawn Studio)
• Trinity Fusion (Angry Mob Games)
• Worldless (Noname)
• WrestleQuest (Mega Cat Studios)

Xbox has announced that it’s throwing another demo party with the return of the ID@Xbox Demo Fest next week.

The event will run from July 11 until July 17, giving Xbox players a full week to dive into over 40 game demos from the Xbox dashboard. Like previous iterations of the event, these demos are closer to something like Steam Demo Fest where they represent the kinds of in-progress builds you’d typically see on an exhibition show floor as opposed to polished cuts of a finished product. It’s a pretty cool thing to see for console owners.

Alongside the announcement, five of the games being featured in the event have been revealed. Including one playable demo that’s already been available for a hot minute. Take a look:

ID@Xbox Demo Fest 2023

Demonschool (Necrosoft Games / Ysbryd Games)

An RPG with tactical elements and a spooky horror vibe, Demonschool has you try to survive university life as Faye, the last living demon hunter. Experience unique tactical battles, build relationships with friends, complete goofy sidequests, and fight gigantic bosses, all while unraveling the demonic mystery of the island.

Lies of P (Neowiz) (demo available now)

Inspired by the familiar story of Pinocchio, Lies of P is an action souls-like game set in a cruel, dark, Belle Époque world. All of humanity is lost in a once-beautiful city that has now become a living hell filled with unspeakable horrors. Lies of P offers an elegant world filled with tension, a deep combat system and a gripping story.

Sea of Stars (Sabotage Studio)

Promising the Sabotage touch in every system, Sea of Stars aims to modernize the classic RPG in terms of turn-based combat, storytelling, exploration and interactions with the environment, while still offering a hearty slice of nostalgia and good old, simple fun.

The Wandering Village (Stray Fawn Studio)

A city-building simulation game on the back of a giant, wandering creature! Build your settlement and form a symbiotic relationship with the colossus. Will you survive together in this hostile, yet beautiful post-apocalyptic world, contaminated by poisonous plants?

Worldless (Noname / Coatsink)

Worldless is a stylised 2D adventure platformer with innovative combat and a mind-bending, interpretive narrative. Players will walk the line between physical and astral planes within a shapeless world, embarking on a journey of self-growth and understanding. Featuring a great variety of enemies, bosses and skills to unlock, and several abstract yet beautiful areas to explore, together with curated sound effects and a magnificent OST composed by Berlinist (Gris), Worldless will make players feel immersed and challenged while they walk their path to a new beginning.

The post The ID@Xbox Demo Fest Has Kicked Off With Over 40 Playable Game Demos appeared first on Press Start.

With the dust settling on the battle between the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Microsoft in court, it’s been announced that Microsoft has won its case. The FTC had taken its bid to the Northern District of California Court for a temporary order that could keep Microsoft and Activision Blizzard from finalising the acquisition while the FTC’s in-house court continued to discuss Microsoft’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, but it’s ultimately been unsuccessful.

Presiding over the case, Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley denied the FTC’s motion, concluding that the intense debate around the deal, and especially Microsoft’s potential ownership of the Call of Duty franchise, has already resulted in the tech giant making a satisfactory commitment to keeping Call of Duty on other platforms. Corley said [via VGC], “Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been described as the largest in tech history. It deserves scrutiny. That scrutiny has paid off: Microsoft has committed in writing, in public, and in court to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation for 10 years on parity with Xbox. It made an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Switch. And it entered several agreements to for the first time bring Activision’s content to several cloud gaming services.”

“This Court’s responsibility in this case is narrow. It is to decide if, notwithstanding these current circumstances, the merger should be halted perhaps even terminated pending resolution of the FTC administrative action. For the reasons explained, the Court finds the FTC has not shown a likelihood it will prevail on its claim this particular vertical merger in this specific industry may substantially lessen competition. To the contrary, the record evidence points to more consumer access to Call of Duty and other Activision content. The motion for a preliminary injunction is therefore denied.”

2/Since we first announced this deal, our commitment to bringing more games to more people on more devices has only grown. We’ve signed multiple agreements to make Activision Blizzard’s games, Xbox first party games and Game Pass all available to more players than they are today.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) July 11, 2023

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has said of the ruling, “We’re grateful to the court for swiftly deciding in our favour. The evidence showed the Activision Blizzard deal is good for the industry and the FTC’s claims about console switching, multi-game subscription services, and cloud don’t reflect the realities of the gaming market.

“Since we first announced this deal, our commitment to bringing more games to more people on more devices has only grown. We’ve signed multiple agreements to make Activision Blizzard’s games, Xbox first party games and Game Pass all available to more players than they are today. We know that players around the world have been watching this case closely and I’m proud of our efforts to expand player access and choice throughout this journey.”

Microsoft has a vested interest in getting the deal across the line before July 18, at which point it could reportedly owe Activision Blizzard a $3 billion termination payout. So far only the UK’s consumer authority has outright voted to block the deal, with the European Commission having approved it back in May.

The post Microsoft Has Won Against The FTC In Court Over Its Activision Blizzard Buyout appeared first on Press Start.

With Gamescom scheduled to happen this year on August 23rd – August 27th, another major player has confirmed that they’ll have a presence at the show following the announcement of Nintendo’s plans to attend, and it’s none other than Xbox.

Not much else has been confirmed as far as activities for Team Green go, but the official Gamescom twitter has shared the news that it’ll feature Xbox in some capacity on the show floor this year, and its bringing Bethesda along for the ride as well. Will attendees get a chance to try out Starfield just over a week before launch? Will we see Todd Howard step into the AEW ring with Mario and the giant, inflatable Sonic the Hedgehog? I can’t fathom a world in which that doesn’t happen!

? BREAKING ? @?Xbox and @?bethesda will join us on the showfloor for #gamescom2023! More details soon.

Get your tickets now: https://t.co/epzkwnZye9#XboxGC pic.twitter.com/ylcK23Bti5

— gamescom (@gamescom) July 5, 2023

Tickets for Gamescom are on sale now, just in case you happen to be in Cologne, Germany this coming August.

Day tickets for Thursday, Friday and Sunday are 27 EUR each, which Saturdays are 36 EUR, and various discounted or family package passes are also available here.

Gamescom has a lot to prove this year with one of its biggest competitors in terms of sheer size and volume of content and audience being E3, which was sadly cancelled for 2023 due to a number of challenges.

Organiser ReedPop had said at the time of the cancellation announcement, “This was a difficult decision because of all the effort we and our partners put toward making this event happen, but we had to do what’s right for the industry and what’s right for E3. We appreciate and understand that interested companies wouldn’t have playable demos ready and that resourcing challenges made being at E3 this summer an obstacle they couldn’t overcome. For those who did commit to E3 2023, we’re sorry we can’t put on the showcase you deserve and that you’ve come to expect from ReedPop’s event experiences.”

The post Xbox And Bethesda Will Be On The Show Floor At Gamescom 2023 appeared first on Press Start.

Another day, another series of informational nuggets from the ongoing legal battle between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the former’s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard for $69 billion USD.

Today’s an interesting one, with a number of documents submitted to courts by Sony having been poorly redacted – sensitive details seemingly blacked out with a sharpie which then didn’t hold up against the court’s scanner – and revealing some before-unseen insight into PlayStation’s inner workings, including just how important the Call of Duty franchise is to its bottom line.

According to said documents, which haee since been pulled from records but can still be seen in The Verge’s report here, the Call of Duty series is worth a hell of a lot to PlayStation, reportedly generating over $1.5 billion USD globally for the company through game sales alone. Factoring in the additional revenue it creates through hardware, accessory, subscription and digital content sales you’re looking at potentially (the redacted numbers in this part of the document are a little harder to read) over $13-15 billion USD in created value.

Microsoft’s CEO Wants To Get Rid Of Console Exclusives Entirely

That’s because, according to these same documents, it was revealed that PlayStation users spend a significant amount of time playing CoD. Last year alone, a reported six million players spent over 70% of their gaming time on PlayStation devices playing a Call of Duty title, and a staggering one million players played only Call of Duty on PlayStation in 2021.

The court documents also clarify that the last Call of Duty game to be released under Sony’s exclusive marketing deal with Activision will be released later this year.

Falling victim to the same redaction stumble, it was also revealed that Sony’s own big franchise releases like Horizon Forbidden West and The Last of Us Part II cost over $200 million USD each and five-plus years to develop, so it’s little wonder the company is so concerned with keeping such a ridiculous money-making IP like Call of Duty on its platform.

The post Sony Made A Truckload Of Cash From Call Of Duty Players In 2021 appeared first on Press Start.

Another day, another series of informational nuggets from the ongoing legal battle between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over the former’s bid to acquire Activision Blizzard for $69 billion USD.

Serving evidence in the the most recent round of proceedings was Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, who – among other things – was quizzed on his stance on platform exclusive games, telling the court that he’s not a believer in software being locked to a specific platform.

“I grew up in a company that always believed that software should run in as many platforms as possible, and that’s just the Microsoft I grew up in, I believe in that,” he said [via VGC].

Nadella was asked whether he was aware that despite his views, the Xbox platform currently plays host to a range of exclusive games. He responded by saying that it’s necessary for Xbox to compete with exclusive games because PlayStation has become the dominant player in the market using exclusives as a strategy, and reiterated a stance from the first day of court hearings where Microsoft copped to trailing behind in the console gaming “race.”

Sony Accidentally Revealed Some Of Its PlayStation Exclusive Development Costs And They’re Huge

“If it was up to me, I would love to get rid of the entire, sort of, exclusives on consoles, but that’s not for me to define, especially as a low share player in the console market that the dominant player there has defined market competition using exclusives and so, that’s the world we live in.”

“I have no love for that world.”

Nadella also hit back at suggestions that Microsoft sought to acquire Activision Blizzard with the intention of withholding Call of Duty from the PlayStation platform, saying, “I wanted to make it very, very clear to Yoshida-san, who is someone I have a fantastic relationship with, that there should be no ambiguity in our support for the Sony platform going forward, and that with Activision, our relationship in fact if anything should be, you know, this will help us reinforce our commitment to their platform.”

When asked if he’d commit to keeping the Call of Duty franchise on PlayStation consoles, Nadella responded with “100 percent.”

The post Microsoft’s CEO Wants To Get Rid Of Console Exclusives Entirely appeared first on Press Start.

A third day of the ongoing trial between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has wrapped up, and while not as many massive revelations have come to light around Microsoft’s aggressive acquisition strategy or the inner workings of deals with the likes of Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, we do have some interesting insight into the views of the folks at camp PlayStation.

Speaking to the case via a pre-recorded via deposition, PlayStation boss Jim Ryan was quizzed over comments made in the past about his competitor’s acquisition plans for Activision, which he reportedly claimed to be the result of Microsoft’s push for Game Pass, implying that publishers otherwise wouldn’t be interested in putting their titles on the service because it’s “value destructive.”

“I talked to all the publishers, and they unanimously do not like Game Pass because it is value destructive,” Ryan told Microsoft’s lawyer in the testimony (via IGN).

Ryan also claimed that Game Pass is unprofitable, saying “The Game Pass business model appears to have some challenges, and Microsoft appears to be losing a lot of money on it.”

The PlayStation Boss’s sentiment towards Game Pass’s profitability comes as Microsoft has very recently announced plans to increase the cost of both its Xbox Series X console (by $50 AUD to $799) and Xbox Game Pass subscriptions (increasing from $15.95 AUD per month to $18.95 AUD per month for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

Microsoft's acquisition of Activision will give Sony PlayStation gamers a “degraded” experience, an executive with the Japanese electronics giant testified https://t.co/jl2w4qVwPE

— Bloomberg (@business) June 27, 2023

Ryan also revived his stance that Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision was a direct threat to PlayStation and could lead to Microsoft intentionally damaging the PlayStation brand, even with the promise of keeping Call of Duty a multiplatform title, by offering PlayStation players a “degraded” experience.

Elsewhere in the testimony, Ryan revealed his feelings on the Xbox and PC exclusivity of Bethesda’s upcoming sci-fi RPG, Starfield, admitting he doesn’t see it as anti-competitive but isn’t overly thrilled about it. “I don’t like it, but I have fundamentally no quarrel with it,” Ryan said about PlayStation 5 players missing out on Starfield, “I don’t like it, but I don’t view it as anti-competitive.”

Image Credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE)

The post PlayStation’s Jim Ryan Reckons Publishers Don’t Like Xbox Game Pass appeared first on Press Start.

A new day in the ongoing court hearing between Microsoft and FTC over its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard means a new slate of compelling evidence and previously-unknown knowledge around the inner workings of Microsoft’s activity in acquiring publishers, developers and IP for the Xbox Game Studios family.

In new documents released recently as part of the ongoing trial, a list of proposed acquisitions has surfaced that shows Xbox was closely watching at least 100 different developers, eventually whittling down the list to a selection of candidates that include the likes of Thunderful (SteamWorld series, The Gunk), Supergiant Games (Bastion, Hades), Niantic (Pokémon Go), Playrix (Farmscapes), Zynga (FarmVille, Bungie (Destiny), IO Interactive (Hitman) and Scopely (Monopoly Go!).

Also revealed alongside these was an internal email from Xbox boss, Phil Spencer, to a number of other senior Xbox and Microsoft staff including Microsoft’s CFO, Amy Hood, and CEO, Satya Nadella, requesting strategic approval to seek out another big acquisition – SEGA’s gaming studios. Spencer specifically cites wanting to approach SEGA Sammy Holdings about acquiring just SEGA’s gaming business in the email, which was sent on November 10, 2020, and not the other parts of its business.

In the evidence submitted, Microsoft’s GM, David Hampton, is seen as simply responding with “Game on.”

While there isn’t much more to go off to say if this proposed deal was ever pursued, if it fell through or even if it might still be in discussion, the email does mention that the deal would involve some “complexities.”

“I’m writing to request Strategy Approval to approach Sega Sammy regarding a potential acquisition of their Sega gaming studios. For context, Bill and I have reviewed the business case for acquiring Sega and are both supportive. We believe that Sega has built a well-balanced portfolio of games across segments with global geographic appeal, and will help us accelerate Xbox Game Pass both on and off-console. Please find the attached memo and bullets below for additional detail on our strategy to prioritize our next acquisition target, a brief overview of Sega’s gaming portfolio, and the value drivers for the potential acquisition.

As the Sega gaming studios are owned by Sega Sammy, a publicly-traded Japanese company, we have called out a few deal complexities in the memo. Sega’s gaming has represented roughly half of Sega Sammy’s revenue and operating income, or ~$900M of revenue and $60-90M of operating income, in each of Sega Sammy’s last three fiscal years. The team is coordinating closely with CELA on next steps, if we were to receive SA.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns, or would like us to schedule time to discuss live.

Thanks,

Phil”

Image Sources: Microsoft/IGN

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Back in 2020 Xbox announced its Perfect Dark reboot, a “AAAA” game being worked on at The Initiative, a talent-stacked studio in Santa Monica that Xbox set up in 2018, debuting the game with a sizzling two-minute trailer that had fans uproarious to see a classic franchise make an exciting return.

That trailer, according to one of numerous sources speaking to IGN on the game’s development, was created by an external CG house (as is common with pre-rendered announcement trailers like this) and “very obviously way far ahead of anywhere the game was at.” The source told the outlet, “We hadn’t even figured out any of our core game mechanics. We didn’t even really know what type of game we were making.”

It’s the beginning of a long and very eye-opening piece from IGN where it spoke to 13 anonymous individuals with knowledge on the Perfect Dark reboot’s development and goings-on within The Initiative, revealing that work on the game hasn’t progressed very far in the three years since announcement and that it’s still around 2-3 years out from release.

The report, which you can and should read in full here, describes trouble early on with the “AAAA” vision for Perfect Dark, which saw leadership pitching the game as a best-in-class experience with some incredibly loft goals in what it wanted to bring to players, that resulted in a solid couple of years of the team trying to translate the idea of a spy thriller into a gameplay experience that would suit the creative vision, with work constantly restarted and scrapped along the way.

“It was not that we didn’t know what we wanted, it was that we kept making things that weren’t what we wanted,” one former developer told IGN. “We’d do it over and over again. The…levels we had when I left weren’t the same ones we’d had three months prior, or three months prior [to that]. I don’t know why people just kept hitting the reset button. That was definitely contributing to that feeling that we weren’t making any progress. People kept starting over.”

Another former employee also described challenges associated with low numbers of female staff at the studio resulting in challenges typical of a male-dominated work culture.

As IGN describes further recounts of employees in leadership positions and veterans of the industry leaving in droves, and The Initiative’s original partner studio, Certain Affinity, leaving the project (with Crystal Dynamics brought on in their stead), it’s clear that Perfect Dark’s development hasn’t exactly been tidy and is largely indicative of the kinds of challenges present in attempting to deliver a product of this scope.

Perhaps, like The Elder Scrolls 6, we’re more likely see Perfect Dark launch on whatever next-generation hardware Microsoft has cooking for 2028 and beyond.

The post The Perfect Dark Reboot Is Still In Early Development And Years Away From Release appeared first on Press Start.

With the first day of a week of court proceedings in the ongoing battle between Microsoft and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over Microsoft’s attempts to acquire Activision Blizzard done and dusted, we’re being treated not only to some interesting revelations around the internal workings of some of Xbox’s acquisitions, but some incredibly interesting remarks from both sides.

One of these comes by way of of documents submitted to US courts by Microsoft, which claim that it believes Xbox has well-and-truly lost the “console wars” and has continued to lose them since first stepping into the gaming console space in 2001.

Thanks to IGN’s comprehensive coverage of the whole affair, we can see this in writing (with some redactions included, of course) with the below statement:

“Xbox’s console has consistently ranked third (of three) behind PlayStation and Nintendo in sales. In 2021, Xbox had a share of 16% while Nintendo and PlayStation had shares of [redacted] and [redacted], respectively. Likewise for console revenues and share of consoles currently in use by gamers (‘installed base’), Xbox trails with 21% while PlayStation and Nintendo have shares of [redacted] and [redacted], respectively.”

The reason for Microsoft coming out swinging its fists in self-defeat is seemingly to enforce the idea to the courts that it’s hedging its bets on a different strategy to its rivals, whose businesses as they currently stand rely heavily on loss-leading console hardware sales to grow their respective customer bases. Microsoft says it instead wants to pivot to profiting from sales of games software – and presumably sales of its Game Pass subscription services.

There’s plenty more already to come out of just the first day of this head-to-head between Microsoft and the FTC, including confirmation that MachineGames’ Indiana Jones title will be exclusive to Xbox and PC, and is coming to Game Pass on day one.

The post Microsoft Has Claimed That It’s Already Lost The “Console Wars” appeared first on Press Start.

Thanks to trials kicking off between Xbox and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), we’re rapidly learning a lot more about the inner workings of some of Microsoft’s deals and plans for the future when it comes to its studios and console exclusives.

One such revelation comes by way of MachineGames’ upcoming Indiana Jones game, which was initially revealed over two years ago – before Microsoft’s acquisition of MachineGames’ parent company/publisher in ZeniMax/Bethesda had officially been finalised. During the trial, Bethesda’s Senior VP of Global Marketing & Communications, Pete Hines, revealed that Disney and LucasFilm originally had an agreement with Bethesda for a multiplatform release, which would have included a PS5 release, but that the agreement was altered when the Bethesda acquisition happened to move the Indiana Jones game to be an Xbox and PC exclusive, including a day one release on Game Pass.

“While it is not in our messaging, I think it is important to highlight that Lucasfilm brought up the issue of platforms because we have a signed agreement with them to develop the game for multiple consoles,” reads an email between Hines, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer, Xbox Studios head Matt Booty, and several other executives, shared by IGN.

pic.twitter.com/XSaIwjgiOF

— Bethesda (@bethesda) January 12, 2021

While internally the messaging was seemingly to keep looking at platform exclusivity for Bethesda titles on a case-by-case basis, working with Disney and LucasFilm would have made things trickier. When Hines was reportedly asked why the agreement was amended, he claimed it was about seeking clarity and reducing potential risk.

“You’re dealing with a licensor who is giving a ton of feedback on what you’re making, is going to add a ton of time to your scheduling, these agreements, you don’t get to take as long as you want, you have a window of time in which you’re going to release a game, you immediately have a clock that’s ticking on you,” Hines said. “Truthfully, we also kind of liked the idea of embracing, bringing it to Game Pass and how many players we could get there.”

The post MachineGames’ Indiana Jones Game Has Been Confirmed As Xbox And PC Exclusive appeared first on Press Start.

Update: The FTC’s request for an temporary restraining order has been granted, with a hearing scheduled for June 22nd and 23rd in a Californian court.

VGC was given the following statement from a Microsoft representative:

“Accelerating the legal process in the U.S will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the gaming market. A temporary restraining order makes sense until we can receive a decision from the Court, which is moving swiftly.”

In another development around Microsoft’s campaign to acquire Activision Blizzard to the tune of $69 billion USD, the FTC is reportedly set to file an injunction today to block the deal.

Reuters reports the move based on sources close to the matter, which would see the US Federal Trade Commission take its case to the Northern District of California Court for a temporary order that could keep Microsoft and Activision Blizzard from finalising the acquisition while the FTC’s in-house court continues to discuss the deal.

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The FTC had previously sued in December of last year in an attempt to prevent the deal from happening, with the case set to go to court in August. The deadline for the merger to be finalised is July 18th, after which Microsoft could reportedly owe Activision Blizzard a $3 billion termination payout.

“We welcome the opportunity to present our case in federal court,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a response at the time. “We believe accelerating the legal process in the U.S will ultimately bring more choice and competition to the market.”

US FTC seeks to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision -source https://t.co/LLd1tB4e58 pic.twitter.com/pb066iCSsU

— Reuters (@Reuters) June 12, 2023

This report comes after the merger was denied by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in April, and then approved last month by the European Commission.

In its report last month, the UK’s CMA had cited the following as its concerns over the acquisition as it stood:

• It did not sufficiently cover different cloud gaming service business models, including multigame subscription services.
• It was not sufficiently open to providers who might wish to offer versions of games on PC operating systems other than Windows.
• It would standardise the terms and conditions on which games are available, as opposed to them being determined by the dynamism and creativity of competition in the market, as would be expected in the absence of the merger.

The post The FTC Is Reportedly Filing To Block Microsoft’s Activision Blizzard Acquisition [UPDATED] appeared first on Press Start.

After a huge and exciting 45-minute deep dive into the game following today’s Xbox Games Showcase, Bethesda’s Todd Howard has begun fielding questions around Starfield and how incredibly vast, varied and detailed it looks to be.

Speaking to IGN, Howard has confirmed the resolution and frame rate that players can expect when exploring these deep, simulated galaxies full of a combination of handcrafted places and procedurally-generated planets. The game’s director confirmed with the outlet that, yes, Starfield will be locked to 30 FPS on both Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S. At those frame rates, the game will be running in 4K on the Series X and 1440p on the Series S.

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Howard’s reasoning for the 30 FPS lock across the two console platforms the game will launch on, is to provide a “consistent” experience.

“I think it’ll come as no surprise, given our previous games, what we go for,” Howard said. “Always these huge, open worlds, fully dynamic, hyper detail where anything can happen. And we do want to do that. It’s 4K in the X. It’s 1440 on the S. We do lock it at 30, because we want that fidelity, we want all that stuff. We don’t want to sacrifice any of it.

“Fortunately in this one, we’ve got it running great. It’s often running way above that. Sometimes it’s 60. But on the consoles, we do lock it because we prefer the consistency, where you’re not even thinking about it.

“And we don’t ever want to sacrifice that experience that makes our games feel really, really special. So it feels great. We’re really happy with how it feels even in the heat of battle. And we need that headroom because in our games, really anything can happen.”

It’s perhaps not overly surprising news given the ambitious nature of the game and all of the many, many moving parts required for it to even work at all, especially with Bethesda’s meme status as a producer of less-than-polished RPGs, but it comes after some fairly spicy backlash toward another Xbox exclusive, Redfall, launching with 30 FPS lock on consoles.

The post Starfield Will Run At 30FPS On Both Xbox Series X And S appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox closed out its showcase by rectifying the one complaint that people have with the Xbox Series S, its storage capacity.

The company announced that a carbon black Xbox Series S is coming on September 1st with a 1TB SSD, double the storage of the white Xbox Series S.

The new carbon black colour and bigger SSD will set you back $549 AUD, and is available to pre-order at local retailers like EB Games now.

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Phil Spencer also took to the stage to confirm that they have ramped up Xbox Series X production with shortage no longer being an issue.

@shannongrixti

A new 1TB black Xbox Series S and the Starfield Collector’s Edition have been revealed #Xbox #XboxSeriesX #Starfield #Bethesda #XboxSeriesS #Gaming #gamingontiktok

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

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Bethesda has announced that it is launching a custom Starfield Xbox Series X|S Controller as well as a custom Xbox Series X|S wireless headset.

Both the Starfield controller and headset are out now in Australia on the Microsoft Store. You can grab the controller for $110 AUD HERE and You can grab the headset for $169.95 AUD HERE.

• Starfield Xbox Series X|S Controller – $110 AUD
• Starfield Xbox Wireless Headset – $169.95 AUD

Both the controller and the headset feature transparent features, with the controller having transparent triggers and the headset having a transparent microphone.

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They also feature signature Starfield markings and gold elements, which look absolutely beautiful.

@shannongrixti

A new 1TB black Xbox Series S and the Starfield Collector’s Edition have been revealed #Xbox #XboxSeriesX #Starfield #Bethesda #XboxSeriesS #Gaming #gamingontiktok

? original sound – Shannon Grixti | Gaming & Tech

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Before you even get a chance to wistfully marvel Kerriganly at the serenity, invasion—and one a long time coming—touches down, disturbing the peaceful human nature that Lana and her native kin have long enjoyed. Though what you embark upon is a rescue mission to free the people you care for, much of Planet of Lana is about the world itself. Not yet ravaged by the war on its doorstep, it’s an idyllic, harmonious place and I appreciated the unexpected, lingering moments afforded to really drink it all in and focus on the things worth fighting for, rather than the fight itself. 

As a “cinematic platformer,” Planet of Lana has certainly been shaped by the works of Playdead. It shares the wonderful, and sometimes arduous, sense of discovery that both Limbo and Inside offered while blanketing the adventure in an engrossing atmosphere. 

As Lana, a brave young native, and small pawn in a much larger conflict, you’ll adventure across a violent, sci-fi paradise playing peacekeeper against a cold, inhuman legion of mostly featureless machines. Lana is armed with just her wit, stealthy cunning, and an unwavering sense of bravery in the face of her own crepe-paper fragility, which makes the perilous journey that much more foreboding. 

I can’t fault Planet of Lana from a mechanical standpoint. The platforming is rather sound, effectively signposting what is and isn’t in reach of Lana at any given point. It can be tough to gauge which drops will send Lana to her death but the checkpointing is consistently good enough that there’s little risk in trying.  If I were to pick on anything at all, the ragdoll animation that comes with dying can bug out on occasion. It’s funnier than it is frustrating, but it’s also the only fly in the ointment of an otherwise immaculate presentation. 

One way Planet of Lana sets itself apart from Playdead’s works is in its adorable little companion. A small critter called Mui, not yet corrupted by the rigours of its wild life, takes to Lana and the pair become inseparable. Mui isn’t there just for its cute factor either, it turns out to be a pretty integral part of Planet of Lana’s gameplay loop. It’s almost equal parts exploration and problem-solving, though none of the puzzles offer up anything quite as mind-bending as Limbo’s gravity field, they’re still enough to get the brain ticking over. I always felt a jolt of gratification whenever things would fall into place. And despite being a wildling, Mui can take instruction. It has a surprisingly deep trick bag too—it can sit, follow, and possesses the dexterity to flip switches among other things. 

Similar to Limbo, the game is structured like a linear series of puzzle rooms, often dressed up as lush portions of the still-beautiful planet. As you work your way through, there’ll be occasions when Mui is off-screen—often by design. I did appreciate the team’s forethought to include a visible indicator to show Mui’s stance, which helps to smooth over some of the longer, more complicated sections that often involve going back for Mui, who might be grounded for one reason or another.

New mechanics and puzzle elements are introduced with each biome, which definitely helps to keep the formula fresh throughout what is an admittedly brief runtime of about four or five hours, depending on how efficient your problem-solving is. Being a featured Game Pass title, I don’t expect the length to be a huge setback. You’ll drain and fill riverbeds to manipulate water levels, you’ll get Mui to sever electrical cables to create rope swings, and you’ll even hijack a surveillance drone to utilise against its own kind. It’s hard not to admire the imagination poured into every facet of the game. 

The same applies to Planet of Lana’s art design, which I absolutely love. Especially the juxtaposition of technology and nature, and how the invading machines feel like the perfect thematic antithesis for the almost primitive residents of a peaceful fishing village. The overworld is rich with lively forests, and the iconic, hand-painted crescent moon backdrop seen in all of the key art peeks through the canopy to great effect, whereas the caverns beneath are spattered with historic, and mysterious, carvings and spider eggs—an effective signal for the danger that lies ahead. 

There are a handful of incredibly memorable set pieces that go above and beyond anything most games of this ilk would ever deliver. Although I am not necessarily a believer in the notion that everything has to be playable, contending with a few quick-time events during Planet of Lana’s bigger, cinematic narrative beats isn’t the end of the world.

The design of the machine army itself feels classically sci-fi—smooth, clean, characterless orbs on spider-like legs inject fear through presence alone. There are clear patterns in their patrols, yet they seem hard to predict. They communicate only through their singsong chime, visualised by a kaleidoscopic rainbow of colours within their single “eye”. It’s a small diegetic slice of a beautifully melancholic score from Takeshi Furukawa, who doesn’t put a note wrong in his first game since The Last Guardian. 

In a year that’s already given us Dredge, another phenomenal studio debut, I must declare Planet of Lana to be a pretty special game in its own right. More so than Dredge, I feel Planet of Lana could evolve easily as an IP—whether it be a sequel, a graphic novel, or an animated film, there are the makings of a saga here. As solid as the game is, I’ll have a hard time forgetting the beautiful contemplative moments that make up the moments in between. It’s mournful, hopeful, and bullishly effective at plucking at the heartstrings. 

The post Planet Of Lana Review – Irresistibly Gorgeous appeared first on Press Start.

Kicking off its 10-year partnership with NVIDIA and commitment to bring its games to more third-party streaming services, Xbox has announced the first run of its first-party published PC games to come to NVIDIA’s cloud service, GeForce NOW.

It all starts right now with Gears 5, and continues on May 25th with the introduction of Deathloop, Grounded and Pentiment. Xbox says it’ll continue to add more of its content to the GeForce NOW on a regular basis, which will be highlighted in NVIDIA’s own GFN Thursday blog updates.

This means NVIDIA GeForce NOW subscribers will be able to stream Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda games purchased through Steam or Epic Games Store on their PC, Mac, NVIDIA Shield TV, Android devices, or anything else that supports the service via the play.geforcenow.com portal. Games acquired through the Xbox Store/Game Pass will presumably continue to be offered through Microsoft’s own streaming service.

As for Activision Blizzard games, Xbox says it remains committed to releasing future PC titles from the publisher when (if?) its acquisition closes.

It's a great day to be a @NVIDIAGFN member!

Starting today, you'll be able to stream #Gears5, with other fan-favorites coming on May 25! Learn more: https://t.co/3iQZwrhxpr

— Xbox (@Xbox) May 18, 2023

“This is the first in a series of partnerships we’re activating to make our PC games available to players globally through a variety of cloud gaming services, starting with NVIDIA GeForce NOW, and with Boosteroid, Ubitus, EE and Nware in the future,” the Xbox Wire blog post reads. “We remain committed to releasing current titles from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda, and future Activision Blizzard PC games once Microsoft’s acquisition closes.

“Delivering our content through more partners and cloud gaming services puts players at the centre, empowering them to play the games they want, with the people they want, on the devices they want. NVIDIA has been an outstanding partner for team Xbox over the years, and we can’t wait to see their devoted fans discover and play their next favourite PC games from Xbox.”

The release says that these titles will be available to “NVIDIA GeForce NOW cloud gaming members in the U.K., the U.S., the European Union and around the world,” which presumably includes Australians subscribed through Pentanet, but we’ll keep an eye on how that develops.

The post Xbox Has Announced Its First PC Games Coming To NVIDIA GeForce NOW appeared first on Press Start.

Once PlayStation timed exclusive and Game of the Year nominee, Stray, looks to be headed to Xbox consoles after receiving ratings for Series X/S and Xbox One.

Notable Xbox insider Klobrille shared the news on their Twitter account.

Stray has received an ESRB rating for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One.https://t.co/QugzMsqorq pic.twitter.com/eyISg8DgXj

— Klobrille (@klobrille) May 16, 2023

Although there’s no indication of when the game will be coming to the big green machine, it’s a possibility an announcement could take place during Xbox’s Games Showcase that’s confirmed to be taking place next month.

Once officially confirmed, Stray will join Solar Ash in a shortlist of indies confirmed to be coming to other consoles following a timed exclusivity deal with PlayStation.

The post Stray Looks To Be Headed To Xbox After Being Rated By The ESRB appeared first on Press Start.

Although my Xbox Series X maybe doesn’t get quite the same amount of attention as some of my other consoles, its place as a time machine to transport me back to the glorious days of the Xbox 360 is undeniable and incredibly important.

That’s why a series of current promotions on the Xbox digital storefront is so exciting to me right now, slashing prices on a bunch of bonafide Xbox 360 classics (and a handful of great OG Xbox stuff) that are backwards compatible on the modern Xbox consoles for an even better experience than ever.

Seriously, if you’ve never touched the likes of Spec Ops: The Line, Binary Domain, Rayman Legends, Lost Odyssey or Psychonauts you’re missing some truly underrated masterpieces. You could try trawling through the entire list of back-compat games on the Xbox web store or just cast the balls of your eyes down yonder for a quick list of what stood out to us as worth picking up:

Xbox 360 Backwards Compatible Games On Sale

Note that some of the below titles might already be included in various subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass/EA Play/Ubisoft+. These deals end on May 23rd.

• Rayman® Legends – $14.97 (save $14.98)
• BINARY DOMAIN – $8.38 (save $12.57)
• The Darkness – $6.15 (save $23.80)
• The Darkness II – $13.99 (save $55.96)
• Assassin’s Creed® Rogue – $8.98 (save $20.97)
• KILLER IS DEAD – $4.49 (save $25.46)
• Prey – $5.99 (save $23.96)
• Prince of Persia The Forgotten Sands – $4.98 (save $14.97)
• Zone of the Enders HD – $16.48 (save $33.47)
• ASURA’S WRATH – $5.99 (save $23.96)
• Beyond Good & Evil HD – $2.98 (save $6.97)
• Brütal Legend – $5.98 (save $13.97)
• Skate 3 – $5.99 (save $23.96)
• BattleBlock Theater – $3.73 (save $11.22)
• Lost Odyssey – $9.98 (save $29.97)
• Spec Ops: The Line – $9.99 (save $39.96)
• Stacking – $4.48 (save $10.47)
• Super Meat Boy – $3.73 (save $11.22)
• Blue Dragon – $7.48 (save $22.47)
• Dead Space 2 – $5.99 (save $23.96)
• Dragon Age: Origins – $3.99 (save $15.96)
• Fable II – $15.95 (save $14)
• Fable III – $15.95 (save $14)
• Rayman® Origins – $6.75 (save $13.20)
• Outland – $2.98 (save $6.97)
• Costume Quest – $4.48 (save $10.47)

Original Xbox Backwards Compatible Games On Sale

• Jade Empire – $3.73 (save $11.22)
• TimeSplitters 2 – $3.73 (save $11.22)
• TimeSplitters Future Perfect – $3.73 (save $11.22)
• Psychonauts– $2.99 (save $11.96)
• DEAD OR ALIVE 1 Ultimate – $11.96 (save $2.99)
• Dead or Alive 3 – $15.96 (save $3.99)
• Crimson Skies®: High Road to Revenge– $3.73 (save $11.22)
• Fuzion Frenzy® – $3.73 (save $11.22)

The post The Xbox Store Has A Bunch Of Incredible Backwards-Compatible Xbox 360 Games On Sale appeared first on Press Start.

Although we found out about Starfield’s R18+ rating in Australia a while back, the ESRB – the ratings board in charge of video game classification in the USA, Canada and Mexico – has just published its rating for the game, and divulged some interesting new details in the process.

Starfield has been granted an M rating which, on the ESRB’s scale, positions the game as suitable for players 17 and above. It’s the highest rating before a strict “Adults Only” label, which is not all that unexpected in comparison to our own. The rating summary describes the expecting content, things like combat encounters with guns, explosions, blood splatter and all the rest. It also features swearing and some “suggestive” material in the dialogue, in particular some objectively hilarious pillow talk. Some of it seems pretty benign (if ill-advised), like “Talk about seeing stars, whew… that was amazing.”

Then you get things like “Life is a sexually transmitted disease that’s a hundred percent fatal,” or “I’m all for getting a little wild, but next time let’s try it without the jetpacks”. The usual sexy space talk.

The ESRB’s description also highlights a feature that could possibly have contributed to the Aussie R18+ sticker depending on the final context, explaining a fictional in-game drug called “Aurora” that players can steal or buy and take – which it says results in a distortion effect on-screen but is less clear on whether doing so has any other gameplay implications.

Finally, the addition of a bullet point on the ratings page mentions “In-Game Purchases” on both PC and Xbox Series X|S, which could be anything to do with extra digital goodies, DLC, the potential for paid Creation Club content or (hopefully) Horse Spacesuits.

Bethesda announced a couple of months ago that Starfield will be delayed from its original H1 2023 release window to a solid release date of September 6th, 2023.

It’s also been confirmed that we’ll get an extended look at the game in a special standalone Starfield Direct following the Xbox Games Showcase taking place on Monday, June 12th. Livestreams and in-person FanFest events are planned for both showcases, which you can find out more about right here.

The post Starfield’s ESRB Rating Has Revealed New Details Including Space Drugs And Jetpack Sex appeared first on Press Start.

Update: The Xbox Wireless Controller – Sunkissed Vibes OPI Special Edition is available now! You can grab it for $99.95 from any of the below local retailers:

• Amazon
• Microsoft Store
• JB Hi-Fi
• EB Games

Another day, another special edition Xbox Wireless Controller, right? It’s absolutely become a running gag by this stage, but there’s no denying that Microsoft is serving up some spicy-hot designs of late, and this latest one is sizzling.

In its latest collaboration with the global #1 nail salon brand, OPI, Xbox has unveiled the Xbox Wireless Controller – Sunkissed Vibes OPI Special Edition, a pearlescent and pastel number featuring colours inspired by OPI’s new “Summer Make The Rules” collection. It’s channelling the “Sanding in Stilletos” shade for its front casing, a glossy “Flex on the Beach” for the d-pad, “Surf Naked” for the back case, bumpers and thumbsticks and finished off with “Summer Monday-Fridays” for the Xbox button’s glow and the triggers.

Take a peep at the Sunkissed Vibes OPI Special Edition controller below:

It’s all very summery, which is well and good for the parts of the world where it is summer season, but at least we get to live vicariously through a sexy Xbox controller.

The Xbox Wireless Controller – Sunkissed Vibes OPI Special Edition will be available starting from May 9th for $99.95, and will be available at the Microsoft Store.

For what it’s worth, we still think one of the best Xbox Wireless Controller releases yet is the Remix Special Edition, which is constructed from post-consumer recycled resins made with regrind – the process of turning things like CDs, plastic jugs and even old Xbox One-generation parts into raw materials to be used to create new products – and also comes packaged in with the Xbox Rechargeable Battery.

The Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition is out now and you can pick one up for yourself at any of the below Aussie retailers:

XBOX WIRELESS CONTROLLER – REMIX SPECIAL EDITION PRE-ORDER

• Microsoft Store
• EB Games
• JB Hi-Fi
• Mightyape

The post Xbox And OPI Have Collaborated On This Gorgeous Special Edition Controller And It’s Out Now appeared first on Press Start.

Microsoft has partnered with a number of local organisations, including the Interactive Gaming and Entertainment Association (IGEA), Alannah and Madeline Foundation, Department of Home Affairs and eSafety Commissioner to create the Xbox Gaming Safety Toolkit – a new resource for parents and carers in Australian/New Zealand to better understand the world of online video games, the inherent and best practices for younger players to game safely.

The toolkit is freely available online and covers a number of important topics, from how to most effectively make use of parental control tools – Microsoft’s Global Online Safety Survey reports that 71% of Australian parents use them, which is great – as well as how to correctly set up Xbox user accounts for younger players, have critical conversations around privacy and good cyber habits, manage in-game spending, navigate harmful content and more while still respecting their need for social engagement and autonomy.

Aside from general advice and how-tos, the Xbox Gaming Safety Toolkit also breaks down a number of different age groups with specific advice on how online gaming factors into their general development at key times and what studies have revealed about how gaming and online social interaction affects young people at every age. The ages covered range from 5 to 16+ and the information provided includes resources and advice from official organisations for every step on the road.

At Xbox, our mission is joy and community. With the support of government and civil society organisations, we created The Xbox Gaming Safety Toolkit to help families learn, play and discuss their gaming activities together.

AU: https://t.co/8nDjWoglFL
NZ: https://t.co/OegypE5waZ pic.twitter.com/qBbNuvS0Xt

— Xbox ANZ (@XboxANZ) May 8, 2023

“IGEA is pleased to have supported the development of the Xbox Gaming Safety Toolkit,” said IGEA CEO, Ron Curry. “This comprehensive resource will provide parents and caregivers of gamers to better understand the digital ecosystem and the steps they can take to keep their children safe when playing games online. Whilst this resource focuses on Xbox, it is a useful toolkit that can be used to understand common concerns across any platform.”

You can access the Xbox Gaming Safety Toolkit with specific advice for Australian families here, or New Zealand families here.

The post Xbox Has Released A Free Toolkit To Help Aussie Families Game Safely appeared first on Press Start.

Mr. Xbox himself, Phil Spencer, has boldly appeared on the Kinda Funny Games’ Xcast podcast, where he openly discussed the state of the company and recent developments from the CMA’s block to its Activision Blizzard acquisition and the rough launch of its newest exclusive, Redfall.

Speaking to Redfall, the open world co-op vampire hunting game that launched this week from Xbox Game Studios’ own Arkane, Spencer addressed the game’s incredibly shaky launch which saw mostly mixed-to-negative reviews from critics and players. Spencer claims that internal mock reviews of the game had painted a more positive picture than what eventuated, but attempted to take ownership of the issues surrounding the game.

“There’s nothing that’s more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community,” Spencer said (transcribed by VGC). “I’ve been a part of it for a long time. I obviously work on Xbox, I’m head of the business, I have a lot of friends and get a lot of feedback, and just to kind of watch the community lose confidence, be disappointed, I’m disappointed, I’m upset with myself.”

He added: “We do mock reviews for every game that we launch, and this is double digits lower than where we thought we would be with this game through [those]. That’s one of the disappointing things: we would never strive to launch a game that we thought was going to review in the low 60s – it’s not part of our goals.”

Phil Spencer gets honest about Redfall: pic.twitter.com/JUoqTrlLvU

— Kinda Funny (@KindaFunnyVids) May 4, 2023

Interestingly, Spencer also says that in his opinion and hindsight, Xbox could have done more to work with Arkane on its vision for Redfall earlier in the development cycle – which was already underway when Bethesda and the studio were acquired by Microsoft.

“I do think there’s a different expectation for a game and a team when you’ve been third-party and all of a sudden you become part of first-party,” Spencer said. “There’s a different expectation in terms of how you’re going to perform on our console, and I think there’s a different competitive set when people look at what this game is and… say, ‘hey, I want this game to feel as competitive as this other game on another console platform’.

“And we didn’t do a good job early on in engaging Arkane Austin to really help them understand what it meant to be part of Xbox and part of first-party, and use some of our internal resources to help them move along that journey even faster. We left them to work on the game… they’re a very talented team – I love that team, and I still do, and I will totally bet on them to do another great game.”

Spencer claims that Xbox has done a better job with supporting Bethesda’s own big exclusive, Starfield, due to that game being earlier in development when the acquisition happened.

“We should’ve been there for [Redfall co-creative director] Harvey [Smith] and the team earlier – I think that’s on us,” he continued. “And then through the process, it’s an Unreal [Engine] game: we have a bunch of studios that have done some really great work on Unreal over the years, and I think we were too late to help in that when they had certain issues”.

Elsewhere in the interview, Spencer also quickly addresses the issue of the UK CMA’s block of Xbox’s proposed $69 billion Activision Blizzard takeover, saying ““The CMA decision was disappointing, we’ve been talking to that group for coming up on a year. They’ve defined a market of cloud gaming that, in my mind, doesn’t really exist yet today. But they have a point of view that maybe we have a lead in a market that’s just forming and that this content can somehow prohibit others from competing in that market.

“We’ll appeal; we’ll stay on it. The company remains very, very committed. Activision Blizzard King is not our strategy, but it is an accelerant for our strategy. We’re still heads down and working through regulatory.”

You can watch the full interview below:

The post Phil Spencer Has Addressed The CMA Block And Redfall Reviews In An Interview With Kinda Funny appeared first on Press Start.

If Echo Generation was Cococucumber’s attempt at an eighties-infused Stranger Things send-up, then Ravenlok is their attempt at a faraway fantasy. So far as how it’s presented, Ravenlok is as charming as they come. It falls down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of wonderfully strange, and it finds inspiration in coming-of-age, fish out of water fairy tales like Spirited Away and Alice in Wonderland.

Ravenlok appears to hit on the well worn tropes of escapist fiction, as the game’s heroine retreats into fantasy to deal with her family’s countryside relocation.

I’d argue the game is intended for adolescents and younger and, as such, doesn’t really capitalise on the emotional weight that comes with such life-changing events. As wildly imaginative as the setting and lore seems to be, Ravenlok is handled simply when it comes to its rich-in-cliche narrative and dialogue, which won’t challenge even the most unaccomplished readers. Cliches set firmly aside, toppling the Caterpillar Queen’s harsh reign is a fantastical time and really does have the magical flair you’d want from a game like this. 

After you’re dubbed Ravenlok, prophesied saviour of the troubled realms, you’re given a crash course in defending yourself against all the nasties that wait ahead. The sword and shield you find at the game’s beginning will be the same one you deal your final blow with, and in a sense that simplicity will better suit a younger audience but it also places a lot of pressure on the game’s combat to be fun and dynamic in spite of this. Unfortunately it really isn’t to be, the game does trickle feed four special powers you can use in battle for added control, but it still remains fairly one-note from go to whoa. Ravenlok also resists the urge to implement any kind of skill tree, instead opting for a simple two-currency system of gold and feathers which are spent on potions, bombs, and stat buffs respectively. 

Even if the combat isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, there’s an undeniable joy in the adventure itself. It doesn’t waste a second of its eight-or-so-hour journey with each quest’s ultimate objective seeming to feed into the goal of the next. It was this briskness that helped the game feel moreish despite its shortcomings in other areas.

Ravenlok’s camera is without doubt the game’s biggest frustration. For a modern action-adventure game to not have a completely free camera feels like a sin. With a fixed and rather limited viewpoint in any given area, both exploration and combat can feel cumbersome and clunky.

While there’s an undeniable variety in terms of their designs, pretty much most of the kingdom’s defenders are as threatening as a wet lettuce leaf. Either there’s a glitch that causes stun locking, rendering them relatively inert, or the A.I. is just poor enough that the notion to fight back doesn’t register in their minds until it’s all too late. Judging by some of the oddly handled stealth sections the game has, which literally let me waltz by the guards in plain view, I suspect it’s the latter. 

With only a handful of realms, I did often manage to complete objectives out of sequence—I’d fairly often complete a fetch quest before I’d even been assigned it. It never broke the game, though I did suck the wind out of my sails time and again to have my immersion within this world dented. Inconsistent sequencing was the least of Ravenlok’s concerns as far as its design goes, and all it takes is one glance at the game’s regular, wave-defense ambushes you must survive. Some games will have enemies descend from the sky, or break through the earth’s soil to spring an attack, but Ravenlok simply has them materialise out of thin air.

I can’t overstate how pleasant Ravenlok’s world is, and how many allusions it makes to the fairy tales and fantasies we’ve grown up with. There’s a mirror-laden hedge maze labyrinth to explore, as well as an insanely scaled tea party where toppled tea pots and mouthwatering sweets are the scenery. Whoever was charged with Ravenlok’s art direction certainly read the book on fantasy and has done a fine job recrafting, in a lot of ways, the childlike wonder of these familiar scenes through the developer’s oft-used voxel art style. There are more than a few stunning vistas to take in, I especially loved the giant, cuddly looking Totoro-cat’s cliff side view of the labyrinth. Having enjoyed it in games like Cloudpunk, I feel the choice absolutely serves Ravenlok’s world and even the overuse of bloom throughout can’t stop this from being one of the better looking fantasy titles of the year, even if it doesn’t push the technical envelope.

The game’s score also gets a big tick, rounding out what is a pretty faultless fantasy presentation. As the story can be a tonal seesaw, Ravenlok’s orchestral follows. Elfman-like staccatos punch through the game’s more eerie beats, while I feel like the composer definitely attempts to invoke Hisaishi’s contemplative piano movements to underpin some of the more touching, heartful moments. 

If you’re after an action-adventure game that’ll challenge you with tasks requiring both physical and mental determination, Ravenlok probably isn’t that game—it’s too basic to stand shoulder to shoulder with contemporary fantasy titles that tend to be fuller packages. 

If you’re looking to be flown to a gorgeous, strange world for an afternoon and crudely hack your way through what feels like a greatest hits from the fairy tale annals, then you could definitely do worse.

The post Ravenlok Review – Reverie And Spirit appeared first on Press Start.

In case you missed it, a massive Xbox Games Showcase livestream showcase is planned to go ahead on June 12th that’ll bring trailers, gameplay, reveals and hopefully plenty of surprises, and it’ll be followed up by a massive deep-dive into Bethesda’s next epic RPG, Starfield. It’ll be like E3 was never cancelled!

While fans around the world can watch the event digitally as it happens, Xbox is also hosting select in-person events in much the same vein as it’s done in previous years. This year, Aussie fans can get in on the action with a special watch party happening in Melbourne at Fortress Melbourne, and it’s set to be the biggest one yet. Not only will fans be able to watch the double showcase feature live together, but there’ll be giveaways, playable games, photo booths and more.

Hopeful attendees will need to register or log in to an Xbox FanFest account at xbox.com/fanfest for a chance at a free double pass to the watch party, with entries closing very soon on May 10th.

Enter the sweepstakes during the entry period for your chance to win a pair of tickets for you and a friend.

Date: June 11-12, 2023
Time: Sunday 11PM June 11 – Monday 6AM June 12
Location: Fortress Melbourne in Melbourne, Australia

Not only that, Xbox is also giving away a trip for two to the equivalent Xbox FanFest Watch Party in Los Angeles, including airfares, three nights stay, a content capture kit and other perks. You can enter for your chance at that on the same registration page as the Melbourne event.

Whether you’re keen to try and score an invite to the in-person event in Melbourne, a trip to LA, or content to watch it in the comfort of your home, you can head over to the Xbox FanFest registration page to make sure you’re ready to go in June.

The post Xbox Is Hosting An Exclusive Watch Party In Melbourne For The Xbox And Starfield Showcase appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox really wants people to get around PC Game Pass, and the latest in its efforts to have every person and their grandparents signed up to the service is a new feature called the Xbox Game Pass Friend Referral. Really rolls off the ol’ tongue.

What this newfangled button located right on the Game Pass home screen, titled “Give PC Game Pass”, does is allows anyone subscribed to either Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass to gift up to five of their friends a 14-day PC Game Pass free trial. Doing so will give them two weeks of access to everything that PC Game Pass has to offer, including A Play and all the new bits and bobs for games like League of Legends and Valorant that come with linking a Riot account to your Game Pass subscription.

The usual catch does apply here, where anyone hoping to take advantage of the free offer will need to be a brand-new customer to Game Pass – no cheeky stacking of free weeks for you! Still, it’s a decent way to get your friends to jump in and try some first-party exclusives or jump into that game of Redfall with you without them having to fork over a cent for at least 14 days.

Speaking of Redfall, that’s first cab off the rank for May’s Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass lineup, bringing Arkane’s open world, co-op vampire shooter to as many consoles and PCs as possible. There’s also some great smaller titles like Ravenlok and Weird West headed to the subscription in the first half of May, so make sure you check out the list and start planning your time accordingly.

You can read the full announcement and all the details around the Xbox Game Pass Friend Referral program right here.

The post You Can Now Gift Free PC Game Pass Trials To Your Friends appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox is making an effort to improve its console dashboard – something that’s seen a few iterations and seems to have settled into a recognisable design language but definitely still has some room for tightening and cleaning up.

Rolling out now to certain tiers of Xbox Insiders, the new iteration of the Xbox Home screen gives users a ton more space at the top to admire their backgrounds, mostly by shrinking down the top row of game tiles – which also means you’ll have more games visible at a glance. There’s also a new feature that can dynamically update the backdrop based on the game tiles you’re hovering over.

According to Xbox, in total this new version of Home:

• Provides easy navigation to your library, the Microsoft Store, Xbox Game Pass, search, and settings at the very top of your Home by introducing a new quick access menu.
• Simplifies the layout and makes more space for you to see your background by reducing the size of some of the tiles and moving them to the bottom of the screen.
• Adds a responsive game art feature to update the default background and show off the beautiful art associated with each title when you hover over the tiles.
• Adds a feature to the My Games & Apps tile to alert users when something new has been added to their library or the Microsoft Store.

It’ll be great to see other parts of the Xbox UX updated in the near future, but this first step looks a heck of a lot better than before, and you can see it in action in this video shared by Windows Central below. I’m particularly fond of the svelte little bar of icons at the top that looks like it gives easy access to your library, the store search, Game Pass and settings:

The post Here’s A First Look At The Improved Xbox Dashboard appeared first on Press Start.

After a run of great deals on PS5 SSD expansions, we’ve now got a killer deal for the folks on Team Green with the Seagate 1TB Xbox Expansion Card.

Right now, you can get the expansion card (which is still the only way to expand your Xbox Series X/S storage for current-gen games) in a 1TB capacity for only $252.35 through Amazon.

You can find it at the below link, and in the event the price doesn’t show up you’ll just have to click on the “new from” option on the right side and change the vendor to the Amazon US listing. You’ll still get free delivery internationally, as well.

Should you need an even bigger storage upgrade, the 2TB variant is also going fairly cheap in comparison to its normal RRP, but it’s not quite the best price we’ve seen to date.

• Seagate 1TB Xbox Expansion Card – $252.35
• Seagate 2TB Xbox Expansion Card – $468.60

If you’d like to know more about these cards or expanding your Xbox storage, we have you covered.

Thanks OzBargain!

The post Amazon Has The 1TB Xbox Expansion Card At Its Cheapest Ever Price appeared first on Press Start.

Redfall, Arkane Austin’s upcoming vampire-slaying, multiplayer open-world shooter is nearly here, and Arkane has lifted the lid on the exact time on May 2nd that Aussies (and the rest of the world) can get in on the action.

Luckily for us Aussies, it’s not going to be a matter of waiting until late in the evening or early the next morning as the rest of the world catches up to the date at hand. Instead, it looks like Redfall is going to start unlocking on May 1st in some regions, with the local equivalent nutting out to a cruisy 10AM on Tuesday, May 2nd for those of us on AEST time.

You can start pre-loading the game on Xbox and PC now, ready for when it all kicks off. Here’s a breakdown for all of the Aussie timezones:

REDFALL AUSTRALIAN UNLOCK TIMES – Tuesday, May 2nd

• 10.00 AM AEST (Melbourne/Sydney/Hobart/Canberra/Brisbane)
• 09.30 AM ACST (Adelaide, Darwin)
• 08.00 AM AWST (Perth)
• 12.00 PM NZDT (Wellington)

Arkane has also revealed the game’s system requirements for PC players, which are unsurprisingly asking for some fairly beefy hardware to play the game in its upper configurations. You’ll need an i7-9700K and RTX 3080 or AMD equivalents to hit that Ultra spec, as well as a huge 32GB of RAM and exclusively Windows 11, and even on the low end you’re looking at a baseline 100GB of SSD storage. On Xbox it looks like you’ll be getting away with just a touch over 80GB of storage required.

There’s no mention of target resolutions or framerates for these configurations, which is odd but given the kerfuffle around the Xbox version’s lack of a 60FPS performance mode at launch it’s also not overly surprising.

Redfall arrives exclusively on Xbox Series X|S and PC on May 2, 2023. Amazon has copies for $94 with free shipping, but the game will also be included with Game Pass subscriptions from day one.

The post Redfall’s Aussie Unlock Times And PC Requirements Have Been Revealed appeared first on Press Start.

In one of the biggest setbacks to Xbox’s $69 billion bid to acquire Activision Blizzard to date, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has decided to block Microsoft’s deal.

The body’s concerns were that the takeover would have an unfair impact on Xbox’s biggest rival in the industry – PlayStation.

Earlier reports had suggested that things were looking positive towards the CMA allowing the deal, but that’s evidently not been the case. In the accompanying press release, the CMA said, “The final decision to prevent the deal comes after Microsoft’s proposed solution failed to effectively address the concerns in the cloud gaming sector, outlined in the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) provisional findings published in February.

Microsoft entered into a $68.7 billion deal to buy Activision, one of the most popular video games publishers in the world, in January 2022. The CMA launched an in-depth review of the deal in September 2022, and in February 2023 provisionally found that the merger could make Microsoft even stronger in cloud gaming, stifling competition in this growing market.”

We’ve prevented @Microsoft from purchasing @Activision over concerns the deal would damage competition in the #CloudGaming market, leading to less innovation and choice for UK #gamers. ??https://t.co/SdXt1rYAkZ pic.twitter.com/prWcDI7Evt

— Competition & Markets Authority (@CMAgovUK) April 26, 2023

The CMA also outlined some of what it considered the shortcomings of Microsoft’s proposal, stating:

• It did not sufficiently cover different cloud gaming service business models, including multigame subscription services.
• It was not sufficiently open to providers who might wish to offer versions of games on PC operating systems other than Windows.
• It would standardise the terms and conditions on which games are available, as opposed to them being determined by the dynamism and creativity of competition in the market, as would be expected in the absence of the merger.

“We remain fully committed to this acquisition and will appeal,” Microsoft president Brad Smith has reportedly said in response to the decision. “The CMA’s decision rejects a pragmatic path to address competition concerns and discourages technology innovation and investment in the United Kingdom.

“We have already signed contracts to make Activision Blizzard’s popular games available on 150m more devices, and we remain committed to reinforcing these agreements through regulatory remedies. We’re especially disappointed that after lengthy deliberations, this decision appears to reflect a flawed understanding of this market and the way the relevant cloud technology actually works.”

Update: Activision Blizzard has also now issued a statement on the decision, promising to appeal the decision alongside Microsoft, with current CEO Bobby Kotick saying, “Today, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), a regulatory agency in the UK, decided not to approve our merger with Microsoft. This isn’t the news we wanted – but it is far from the final word on this deal.

“Alongside Microsoft, we can and will contest this decision, and we’ve already begun the work to appeal to the UK Competition Appeals Tribunal. We’re confident in our case because the facts are on our side: this deal is good for competition.”

The post The UK’s Competition Authority Has Denied Xbox’s Acquisition Of Activision Blizzard appeared first on Press Start.

With Earth Day coming up on Saturday April 22nd, EB Games is once again partnering with non-profit organisation One Tree Planted to run a special trade promotion where a single tree will be planted for every game or other item that customers trade in during the promotional period.

The event runs this week from Wednesday April 19th to Tuesday April 25th with the usual EB trade policies in place.

Last year the event saw 29,000 trees planted in Australia, an increase over the previous year’s 25,000. It’s enough to cover over 300 tennis courts or over 6,500 carparks – two things we could probably do with less of anyway. It’s a huge effort, and hopefully one that the Aussie community can rally around again and outdo by an even greater number this time around.

For more on the Trade 1 Plant 1 promotion, head over here.

Trade 1 Plant 1 is BACK! To celebrate Earth Day, we’ve partnered once again with One Tree Planted, to plant a tree for every item traded until Tuesday! T&Cs apply. See staff for details. ??

Be sure to stay tuned for more preowned offers to be announced! https://t.co/pOb5lOBceC pic.twitter.com/10yw66EakF

— EB Games Australia (@EBGamesAus) April 18, 2023

Hey! You could even trade your old games and accessories towards the new Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition, a snazzy green-coloured version of its standard Xbox controller that’s made from one-third recycled materials, continuing the company’s efforts towards reducing its impact on the planet.

The controller – which also comes packaged in with the Xbox Rechargeable Battery for obvious reasons – is constructed from post-consumer recycled resins made with regrind, the process of turning things like CDs, plastic jugs and even old Xbox One-generation parts into raw materials to be used to create new products. Like the EB Games Trade 1 Plant 1 promo, it’s all in the name of Earth Day and thinking about how we use and reuse what we take from the Earth and the efforts we’re making to ensure our stay on this planet is long and sustainable.

The Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition is out now and you can pick one up for yourself at your local EB Games.

The post EB Games Is Bringing Back Trade 1 Plant 1 This Week And Turning Your Games Into Trees appeared first on Press Start.

Update: The rest of the Xbox Game Pass additions for April have been revealed.

All told, it’s a solid month with a variety of titles from sports to AAA ghost hunting sims to indie darling sequels and beyond. There are quite a few day one launches onto the service this month, including The Last Case of Benedict Fox and Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly. Of course, we also know that Arkane’s vampire-slaying first-person shooter, Redfall, is due right on the cusp of May so that’s included in the below list as wel.

COMING TO XBOX GAME PASS IN APRIL

Loop Hero (Console and PC) – Available Now

The Lich has thrown the world into a timeless loop and plunged its inhabitants into never ending chaos. Wield an expanding deck of mystical cards to place enemies, buildings, and terrain along each unique expedition loop for the brave hero.

Iron Brigade (Cloud and Console) – Available Now

Join The Mobile Trench Brigade and protect humanity from the evil Monovision menace in this Tower Defense Shooter from Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions. Use a combination of mobile firepower and stationary defenses to turn the tide of war in our favor.

Ghostwire: Tokyo (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available Now

Tokyo is overrun by deadly supernatural forces as a dangerous occultist causes the city’s population to vanish in an instant. Join forces with a powerful spectral entity on their quest for vengeance and master a powerful arsenal of abilities to unravel the dark truth behind the disappearance as you face the unknown in Ghostwire: Tokyo on April 12, including the new Spider’s Thread update.

NHL 23 (Console) EA Play – Available Now

Game Pass Ultimate members can experience breakthrough hockey on April 13 in EA Sports NHL 23 via EA Play. It’s time to grab your friends, hit the ice, and make history. Experience the most connected Chel yet with the addition of women’s players in Ultimate Team and cross-platform matchmaking.

Minecraft Legends (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available Now

The piglins are threatening to consume the Overworld. Are you the hero this gentle land needs? Explore lush biomes to make alliances with new friends and familiar mobs, then face the piglins in epic battles. But be warned – they always fight back.

Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus & Butterfly (Cloud, Console, and PC) – April 20

It’s time to return as everyone’s favorite late-night coffee shop barista, ready to lend a sympathetic ear and create the perfect beverage for a host of fantastic customers. Turn on the chilled lo-fi beats, listen to their tales and influence their hearts with a warm drink or two.

Medieval Dynasty (Xbox One) – April 20

Available now on PC and Xbox Series X|S and coming soon to Xbox One! Take on the role of a young man who has fled from war and wants to take his fate into his own hands. From being alone, inexperienced, and poor, you will develop into a master of many skills, a leader of your community, and the founder of a prosperous dynasty which is meant to last and prosper for generations to come.

Homestead Arcana (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – April 21

Become a farming Witch and pioneer the range that has been mysteriously corrupted with Miasma. Discover the secret behind its appearance, grow plants to power up your spells, and use nature’s magic to heal the land.

Cassette Beasts (PC) – April 26

Bring your cassette player and get ready to press play! Collect awesome monsters to use during turn-based battles as you adventure into the open-world RPG, Cassette Beasts. Get ready to experience an incredible retro vibe with unique innovations to the genre.

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle Special Edition (Cloud, Console, and PC) – April 27

BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle lets you create your own cross-over dream team with the beloved characters from a total of 8 titles! Fight with your favorite characters from the popular titles BlazBlue, Persona 4 Arena, Under Night In-Birth, RWBY, and more. Get ready for a dream tag battle crossing series lines!

The Last Case of Benedict Fox (Console and PC) – April 27

Take on the last case of Benedict Fox and dive into a twisted world of secret organizations, forbidden rituals, and cold-blooded murders. Explore the memories of deceased victims as you search for clues and fight demons in this fantastical Lovecraftian Metroidvania.

Redfall (Cloud, PC, and Xbox Series X|S) – May 2

The town of Redfall is under siege by a legion of vampires who have cut the island off from the outside world. Trapped with a handful of survivors, slay alone or squad up in open-world FPS action.

LEAVING XBOX GAME PASS APRIL 15TH

• Life is Strange: True Colors (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Moonglow Bay (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Panzer Corps II (PC)
• Rainbow Six Extraction (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• The Long Dark (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• The Riftbreaker (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Bugsnax (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Destroy All Humans! (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)
• Tetris Effect Connected (Console and PC)
• Unsouled (Cloud, Console, and PC)

The post The Next Batch Of Xbox Game Pass Games For April Has Been Revealed appeared first on Press Start.

Redfall, the exciting vampire-hunter shooter out of the talented team at Arkane, is for all intents and purposes the beginning of the “new” Xbox first-party. The old Xbox first-party, ushered in during the Don Mattrick era, effectively set Microsoft back a generation. Although high-profile failures still exist like Halo Infinite’s much-maligned post-launch efforts, the acquisition of Zenimax and Bethesda was, if nothing else, a promise of a brighter future for those who align with the big, green machine.  

With honoured marketing deals like Ghostwire: Tokyo and Deathloop in the rearview, Redfall feels like the first opportunity for Microsoft and Xbox to affirm its intentions to bare its fangs and become more of a contender in the console space while PlayStation and Nintendo have things on their terms. 

It needs to hit because Xbox, as an entity, needs a win. 

Despite having monster hits like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout, it’s probably safe to say Bethesda and its studios have never experienced the level of scrutiny levelled at Xbox and its own. It’s a whole new ball game for Bethesda as the burden of soft-launching the new vision for Xbox, along with all of the strategies that go with that, is being shared and mostly shouldered by them. 

Of course, there have been critical victories and stepping stones along this journey, like Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment. However, when it comes to the roll-out strategy of a big game every quarter, when one looks to the future, Redfall feels like the first cab off the rank.  

The unfortunate thing here is that Redfall, despite being a game I had fun previewing and am still excited for, has become something of a bad press headache for all involved. Whether it’s host-only progression that forces one to question whether it’s worth playing together, the drama surrounding the game’s need for a persistent connection, or the latest revelation that the game would launch without a performance mode on Xbox consoles—an unforgivable faux pas for the world’s most powerful console. Admirable as it appears, these repeated efforts at transparency are beginning to scupper any modicum of excitement that surrounds the game and, for the vocal and “hardcore” echo chamber online, is drumming up cries for delay. 

Whether this is the right call or not is debatable, though it’s certainly going to be damning should Redfall not put its right foot forward. 

It isn’t a live-service game, so it can’t win favour back long-term like Destiny has. First impressions are golden, and while it’s a game that previewed well, if players boot up in May and it isn’t the game we’ve been sold, it could conceivably miss its moment in time—another game with huge expectations reduced to a middling shambles from a stable of extremely talented and accomplished studios now under a banner that just can’t find the firing spark.

Of course, Redfall could strike a chord with the silent majority that don’t count frames or place stock in variable refresh rates. It might serve as the lightning rod Xbox wants for Game Pass, bring in another few million subscribers, and be checked off as a pass mark. Their strategy is so unorthodox and unlike that of PlayStation and Nintendo that the metrics for success aren’t black and white and focused solely on units moved. Whatever the benchmark is, there’s no denying that Redfall has had a bit of a mare on the public relations front and it’ll sow doubt, give mindshare to other mammoth games releasing either side of it, and derail Xbox’s first-party renaissance from its tracks—which would place incredible strain on Starfield, a game that’ll already be held to near-impossible expectations.

Is it a storm in a teacup? I wouldn’t go that far, as hitting 60fps should be the bare minimum for a next-gen release that’s meant to showcase the world’s most powerful console. 

That said, as someone who has spent time in Redfall, Massachusetts, I know how fun this game will be. Without losing any of what makes an Arkane game special, Redfall is an exciting direction for the team and it’s a shame that this omission, paired with the hopes pinned to the game by the suits at Xbox, might be the straw that cripples the camel.

Simply put, Redfall can’t afford to fail. It’s time to curb people’s enthusiasm, there’s too much at stake.     

The post There’s Too Much At Stake For Redfall To Fail appeared first on Press Start.

With the inherent success of Minecraft, we were always going to get plenty of spin-offs of all kinds that explore a diverse array of genres and experiences within the IP. 2015’s Minecraft: Story Mode and 2020’s Minecraft Dungeons have marked the beginning of this with varying levels of success, but there’s no denying their originality in comparison with vanilla Minecraft. The next title in this slew of spin-offs is Minecraft Legends, a self-described action strategy game that’s most comparable to the Dragon Quest Builders series, with a unique Minecraft flavor.

After my brief hands-on preview with the game in Tokyo, I mentioned that I’d had a good time with Legends, despite being worried about game length and how it would keep things fresh throughout its runtime, and that my brief hands-on with the multiplayer mode was a blast. After spending much more time with both of these modes, it’s clear that the preview I played had barely scratched the surface of what Legends has to offer. The end result is the best Minecraft spin-off yet that, despite some niggling issues, offers a satisfying and moreish gameplay loop and an intensely engaging versus mode.

The narrative here is about as deep as you’d expect from a Minecraft experience, but it is positively bursting at the seams with the charm the IP is known for. A dangerous threat from the Nether known as the Piglins have been spilling over into the overworld with plans of conquest and domination. Their bases poison the natural landscape with noxious gasses and Netherrack creeps further out as more Piglins pour in from protected Nether Portals found within each bastion. It falls to you to expunge the Piglin threat and send the three distinct factions back to the Nether.

Overall, it’s a feel-good narrative that employs plenty of slapstick humor and Minecraft trademarks to get you onboard. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t chuckle at a few of the visual gags, and the cutscenes on offer here have incredibly high production values that expand the sense of scope within Legends and mythos of Minecraft. It’s ultimately a good time, one that kids will likely get more of a kick out of, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing here for older fans.

Gameplay is where Minecraft Legends differs the most from its source material, offering the same core tenets of mining and crafting, in an entirely different format. Everything you do in Minecraft Legends comes back to the Allays, which are your main tool for gathering materials and building structures. A quick button combination can send these little guys out to harvest resources like wood, stone, coal, and more. Gathered materials can then be used by Builder Allays to form structures, mechanisms, and much more.

It’s a more passive way to engage with what’s effectively the core loop of Minecraft, but this is only to make room for all the extra stuff Legends brings with it. It’s through the gathering and utilization of these resources that you can push back the Piglin threat. From setting up defences around liberated villages to constructing a Redstone Launcher to blow open the gates of a Piglin base, everything eventually comes back to mining and building.

This core loop of gathering resources in order to bolster your own defensive and offensive capabilities is incredibly moreish. Where flexibility isn’t afforded in the structures you create, it is in the way you place them, the way they interact with each other, and in the way you pick and choose how best to use certain materials when trying to overthrow a particularly difficult Piglin base. It helps greatly that there’s an immense variety of things to build here that steadily unlock over the course of the campaign, constantly offering up new strategies and game plans to employ against the Piglins.

Your main method of siege comes in the form of Golems. These little guys can be amassed from crafted spawners, and brought along with you to tackle Piglin outposts. Each one specializes in different abilities, from healing and de-buff cleansing to stunning enemies or bringing down structures. You have to consider what kinds of Golems you want to bring with you on a siege given the obstacles, and that’s without talking about the ability to employ hallmark mobs.

Creepers, Skeletons, and Zombies are here in full force, united against the Piglin threat. You can also spawn these mobs alongside Golems, each one costing a little bit more in terms of resources in trade-off for extra power. The Skeletons, for example, excel at ranged combat and taking out enemy units, where Creepers make incredibly short work of enemy structures, making them useful in a pinch if you need a last ditch assault to bring down a Piglin base. While your army is initially limited to a total of 20 units, you can expand that number further, and simple commands can be issued in combat to have them focus on particular enemies or structures.

THE CHEAPEST PRE-ORDER: $64 AT AMAZON WITH FREE SHIPPING.

Clearing Piglin outposts and liberating villages rewards you with Prismarine, a resource that’s key to upgrading your capabilities, resource capacity, and total army count. Prismarine is doled out often enough that there’s always something new to invest in upon returning to the Well of Fate, which almost always leads to meaningful player progression. It’ll have you constantly eyeing your Prismarine count so you know when you can get your next upgrade.

The general flow and progression of the campaign is also something I really enjoyed. After a brief tutorial and some opening objectives to get you to grips with the many systems of Minecraft Legends, you’re let loose to tackle the Piglin threat as you see fit. Three unique factions have setup three bases throughout the overworld, each one varying in difficulty and rewards. You’re encouraged to tackle the easy ones first, but there’s nothing stopping you from knocking on the doors of the most fortified of forts if you really want the challenge.

It’s this non-linear structure in combination with some extra-curricular open world activities that makes Legends so easy to play. You’ll stumble across mob outposts that have been taken over by Piglins, abandoned towers that can be deconstructed and tucked away for later use, and huge golems that’ll join you in your fight should they be resurrected. There’s always incentive and reward to explore outside of just gathering resources.

It comes to a head when all three of a faction’s bastions have been felled, and one final outpost makes itself known. These provide some of the best strategy Minecraft Legends has to offer, and are punctuated with explosive boss fights that test every skill you’ve learned during the campaign. It makes for a solid difficulty curve if you tackle bases in the right order, though I’m sure you can circumvent that order with some cheeky tactics and ample use of the game’s more powerful structures and minions.

Another thing to consider is the way that Piglins will launch attacks on allied villages when night falls, incentivizing you to build up defences around each one once liberated. You’re always warned in advance which village is going to be attacked, and it’s rewarding to see all your efforts pay off when a village successfully pushes back the Piglins without your help. One irk I had with this, though, is that if a village does fall, you have to retake it from the Piglins, which got tiresome in the second half of the game, especially when it means rebuilding defences.

While the campaign mode is able to be played in co-op, where I think Minecraft Legends is really going to take off, is in its versus mode. It’s a simple 4 versus 4 affair with either team trying to siege the other’s base and destroy their Fountain. All of the systems from the campaign are intact here, from Prismarine progression and Piglin outposts to resource harvesting – it’s all here in full force, and is of great importance.

While you could absolutely band together and launch an all out assault on the enemy base, there’s just as much value in spending time gathering resources and Prismarine to gain access to more structures. I can’t begin to fathom the kinds of long-winded matches that will come out of this mode once players jump into it. It has a MOBA-esque quality to it that instils an inherent tension in the experience, and it’s easily some of the most fun I’ve had with Minecraft Legends so far. While it’s a great time with friends, the mode does struggle with the inherent limited communication brought by matchmade games, as a lot of the enjoyment comes from planning and collaborating with allies.

As mentioned in my hands-on preview, everyone knows what they’re getting into when it comes to the visual presentation of anything related to Minecraft. Legends doesn’t shock or surprise in this regard, offering a tried-and-true art style that’s bolstered by a diverse range of biomes and some snazzy particle effects that tie the whole experience together. There’s plenty of new stuff to see here in the broad scope of Minecraft and the game always looks great, but don’t expect Legends to reinvent the wheel in this regard.

Performance on PC is similarly reliable, and I experienced very few technical issues aside from one notable audio bug. I’m not sure if it was something to do with the mixing, but some sound effects and dialogue lines were extremely quiet during my time with the game. This made it hard to get properly invested in cutscenes and did create a bit of a disconnect in battle as my sword swipes didn’t yield much feedback. It wasn’t enough to rip me out of the experience entirely, but the absence is notable enough to mention it here.

I’ve come away from my time with Minecraft Legends pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. The campaign is a tightly paced jaunt through a new Minecraft experience that doesn’t outstay its welcome and offers a fresh spin on the strategy genre with a distinct Minecraft flavour. Despite having my fill of the campaign, I have no doubt I’ll be returning to Legends over the coming months to play its outrageously fun versus mode with friends, and I can’t recommend enough that you check it out to do the same.

The post Minecraft Legends Review – Building A New Kind of Strategy appeared first on Press Start.

Despite real life cooking not requiring me to go out and forage, mine and hunt for raw ingredients to make my meals, I’d hazard a guess that I’m still a far better chef in the Minecraft world than I am in the actual one.

Thankfully, an official cookbook inspired by Mojang and Microsoft’s global phenomenon is on the way from author Tara Theoharis to help fans make over 40 Minecraft-themed meals to delight and confuse their friends and family. Familiar eats like the Suspicious Stew are included as well as block-shaped fudge desserts and game-inspired recipes like Baked Potato Bites and Buried Treasure Pie.

You can read the release announcement on the official Minecraft website, which also includes two example recipes to get you in the mood for Minecraft cooking – Flower Forest Greens and Blocks of Clay Fudge.

If this sounds like something you’d be keen to get around (or give as a gift) it’s available to pre-order on Amazon right now at the discounted price of $33!

USER-FRIENDLY CONTENT FOR ALL SKILL LEVELS: With step-by-step directions and beautiful photos, learn to make iconic in-game dishes, in addition to an abundance of recipes inspired by the limitless world of Minecraft.

PERFECT FOR EVERY HOME COOK (AND PLAYER TYPE!): Featuring a variety of vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free recipes, this cookbook has something for everyone!

BRING THE GAME TO LIFE: Build fun-focused dishes inspired by iconic biomes, fan-favourite creatures, and the items that shape this colourful world!

40+ RECIPES FOR EVERY OCCASION: From quick snacks you can enjoy during a Minecraft play session, to decadent desserts and meals fit for the pickiest adventurer, this book contains recipes for both simple and celebratory fare.

A GREAT GIFT FOR MINECRAFT FANS: This exquisitely detailed hardcover book is the perfect addition to your kitchen library! Complete your collection with The Official Minecraft Colouring Book and Minecraft stationery from Insight Editions.

The post This Official Minecraft Cookbook Will Teach You To Make “Suspicious Stew” And Edible Clay Blocks appeared first on Press Start.

Despite how incomprehensibly big Minecraft has gotten on a global scale over the last decade, it’s impressive how committed Microsoft are to delivering new experiences in the franchise. First, with Minecraft: Story Mode, and most recently with Minecraft Dungeons. It goes without saying that these games, in one way or another, have totally flipped the idea of Minecraft on its head, offering something entirely different from the original game.

Minecraft Legends is the next foray into trying something new, aptly labelled as an action strategy game, it takes the core tenants of Minecraft and reshapes them into something its own. Courtesy of Microsoft, we were able to go hands-on with both the PVE and PVP sides of the game to get a feel for what it’s all about.

VIDEO PRESENTED BY PLAYSTATION VR2. CLICK TO LEARN MORE.

Minecraft Legends has a key difference in comparison to other Minecraft titles in that it’s got a keen focus on narrative and characters intertwined with its gameplay loop. While my limited time with the story mode didn’t expose much of anything, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a good time. This is the kind of experience clearly built for kids, with fun, larger than life characters doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

It goes a long to way to establishing the overall tone of adventuring, with a slick coating of Minecraft’s trademark visual style and quirks that has a remarkably distinct feel. The gist of it is that a new type of enemy, the Piglins, are invading the overworld from the Nether, and it falls to you as the hero to form unlikely alliances in order to push back the imminent threat of the Piglins. It’s a fun setup for a narrative that’ll undoubtedly get deeper as time goes on, while also fulfilling the fantasy of becoming a legend within Minecraft’s expansive mythos.

While Minecraft Legends is less of a departure from the original game as Dungeons is, its similarities lie in concept as opposed to execution. Mining, crafting, battling mobs, building structures – it’s all here, just reworked to fit into a top-down perspective built around an action strategy framework.

As you roam the overworld, you’ll deploy Allays to mine resources and build structures. It took a moment to wrap my head around the controls, but I quickly get into a rhythm of dropping Allays in the midst of resource deposits as I carried on my way to the next destination. Allays will always continue their jobs no matter how far away you get from them, but a limited number of each type of Allay ensures you aren’t haphazardly dropping them all over the place in the hopes to stock up on resources. It never gets in the way of your progression or exploration, but isn’t mindless to the point where it requires little to no strategy.

THE CHEAPEST PRE-ORDER: $64 at Amazon with free shipping.

During my PVE preview, I only had access to three materials, wood, stone, and iron. Each one allowed me to build numerous structures, from archer towers and defensive walls, to gates, bridges, and stairways. You can also spend resources to craft Golem Spawners, which are pretty self-explanatory. What’s neat about this, is that you can call Golems to your aid in a manner most comparable to Pikmin.

I only managed to get access to three unique golem types, though I’m sure there are many more to unlock across the course of the story. You have a limited number of total Golems you can bring with you at once, so picking and choosing different types depending on their strengths and weaknesses is important. The Plank Golems, for example, are great at taking out enemy units with their ranged attacks, where Stone Golems make short work of enemy structures, which is pivotal to bringing down Piglin bases. You’ll issue commands to Golems in combat, which is where the Pikmin comparison becomes more apt.

That brings us to the final part of the equation, the reason you spend time gathering resources, building structures, and amassing Golems to begin with – overthrowing the Piglins. Throughout Minecraft Legends’s procedurally generated world, Piglins have taken control of villages, imprisoning the usual residents and taking the land for themselves to expand their conquests. It’s through the use of Golems and building that you’re able to stand against them.

There were quite a few of these Piglin strongholds to bring down during my time with Minecraft Legends, each one bringing something slightly different to the table. One saw me storm the gates and free the villagers, while another had me do the same, only to setup defences against another incoming wave of Piglins. Walls, gates, archer towers and the like, are built in a manner not dissimilar from the fire and forget nature of mining. It makes for rather chaotic yet enjoyable skirmishes, as you dart from different ends of the village to setup new defences in potential blind spots.

The tail-end of my time with PVE had me taking the fight to the Piglins themselves, as I set out to destroy three of their bases to halt reinforcements in the area. These are much more challenging than liberating villages as it just comes down to you and your army, so smart use of the commands system alongside a thought out collection of Golems goes a long way to achieving success.

Clearing out Piglins awards you with Prismarine, a limited resource that can be used to build powerful structures. While I was only able to procure a small amount of Prismarine, it’s clear that this is the main incentive behind clearing Piglin bases, allowing to build a bigger army, and more versatile structures. Open world exploration yields rewards also, with chests and rare resources scattered in harder to reach areas.

While I had a good time with the fleeting hour of PVE, part of me is worried about the longevity of it all. An hour is hardly enough time to get a feel for overall progression, but it’s clear that building up your crafting capabilities as well as your army is going to be a big part of the reason you come back to Minecraft Legends’s PVE mode. Hopefully the momentum I experienced during my time with it carries forward through the rest of the single player experience.

Minecraft is known for its multiplayer roots, so it only makes sense that Legends has its own PVP mode to boot as well. This was another relatively brief hands-on, with around 45 minutes to go head to head with an enemy team, The core gameplay loop is the same as that of PVE, with the end goal of destroying the enemy team’s base. Naturally, it quickly becomes a race to gather resources as you build towards an inevitable confrontation with your adversaries.

It’s no understatement to say that this mode was a blast, and will no doubt be the reason so many become interested in Legends to begin with. Coordinating with your teammates is key to victory, having people take on different roles so you can acquire all the necessary resources to bulk out your defensive and offensive capabilities. It’s a constant push and pull of defending and attacking, and after only one game, it’s clear that there’s so much potential strategy to engage with here.

The game I played in didn’t end during the allotted preview time, it was only after 40 minutes of prep that the teams started truly going head to head in a bid to win the game. It’s easy to see these matches could go much longer when players have a firmer grasp on the mechanics and intricate strategies are uncovered. Still, though, even without all that, there’s an inherent fun to be had in this mode with or without friends.

PVP also gave a deeper look what I presume are future unlocks for the PVE mode also. Things like Redstone Cannons, being able to spawn hallmark Minecraft mobs like the Skeleton or Creeper to fight alongside you, Resource Hubs, and so much more. The match I played felt like a microcosm of what I assume is the total PVE experience, coupled with the inherent tension of sharing the same world as your enemies.

When it comes to Minecraft, I think most people know what they’re getting when it comes to visuals and art styles. I’d say Minecraft Legends plays it fairly safe in this regard – it’s unmistakably Minecraft, but there’s a few wrinkles here that keep things fresh and varied. This game is chock-full of different biome types, from frosty tundra to desolate badlands, alongside all the Minecraft staples. The cutscenes are also a visual spectacle when they pop up from time to time.

It’s hard to say if I got lucky with my instance of procedural generation or if the game is just that varied as is, but there’s plenty of visual variation keeping things fresh. Performance is also remarkably solid on the Series X which bodes well for the imminent release date.

A telltale sign that a preview has gone well is when you don’t want to put the controller down once your time is up. While I wouldn’t say I was chomping at the bit to see where the PVE mode would take me next, the controller had to be peeled out of my hands when it came to the PVP, and this was much the same for the other players in my game.

There’s a lot of potential for the PVP to really take off here, especially with Game Pass and cross-play compatibility at launch. I’m a little hesitant on the PVE side of things, if only because length in games like these are often their achilles heel. Still though, we won’t have to wait much longer to find out when Minecraft Legends launches later this month on April 18th.

If you want to learn more about Minecraft Legends, you can read our interview with executive producer Dennis Ries right here!

Minecraft Legends is coming April 18th, 2023 to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Switch and PC. It will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one.

Amazon has the Deluxe Edition starting from $64 with free shipping.

The post Minecraft Legends Hands-On Preview – Crafting A New Legend appeared first on Press Start.

Alongside having the opportunity to go hands-on with Minecraft Legends in Tokyo, we were also fortunate enough to be able to interview the game’s executive producer, Dennis Ries. It was a short and sweet interview that yielded plenty of insight on where the team got their inspirations from, and how they went about crafting a Minecraft-focused narrative.

With Minecraft being as well known as it is, you’d think it’d be daunting to come up with a new idea within the IP that’s so drastically different from anything before. From reveal to getting the game into players hands, there’s an inherent anticipation imbued in something related to Minecraft like Legends.

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Dennis touched on new experiences, “It is daunting to take on a new idea and put it out to players. Minecraft is on every platform, and the user-base is so massive because of this. When creating new Minecraft experiences, the team really wants to make them well-worth playing, not just for fans but also newcomers.”

It’s clear that Legends and Dungeons before it are trying to bring in new types of players that wouldn’t usually engage with Minecraft’s typical suite of offerings. It’s easy to see why many are drawing comparisons between the popular Dragon Quest Builders series, from the perspective and overworld to overall progression, there’s more than a few similarities. Dennis mentions that the comparison has been made before but the team didn’t pull much inspiration from other games.

“When we were concepting, we weren’t thinking about games other than Minecraft. A lot of our inspiration and the things we pulled from come from vanilla Minecraft, and it became more about how we translate that experience into an action strategy framework. It was little things from vanilla and Minecraft Dungeons that we pointed to as our core influences.”

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Bouncing off of this response, I asked Dennis what core tenets the team were leaning into when it came to designing Minecraft Legends, and how those tenets were adapted to fit an action-strategy framework. He specifically mentioned three core elements of vanilla Minecraft’s gameplay loop foresight, action, and knowledge, which are actually three of the key characters in Legends’s story mode.

“There were 3 core things so important to Minecraft that we made them into characters for Minecraft Legends; Foresight, Action, and Knowledge. When players play Minecraft they engage with these things all the time, so it was something the team wanted to translate over and make work in this new style of gameplay. The other thing we lean on quite heavily is vanilla mobs like Creepers, Skeletons, Zombies etc. We want them to be familiar so that players realise what kind of strategy they fit into, but if you don’t recognise them, that’s also okay.”

Constructing a whole narrative for a game like this is something of a fickle task for a few reasons. Minecraft canon/lore/mythology is important to so many people around the world. You have to be careful about the things you poke and play with in new stories like this. There also isn’t much to pull from in the way of characters for obvious reasons.

When asked about this, Dennis made a point that Minecraft’s story is more of a mythology, and players create their own narratives through play; “It was a challenge to build a narrative in a game like this but a fun one. To quote our narrative lead, there is no canon or lore in Minecraft, it’s all mythology. This is part of the reason we landed on the name Minecraft Legends, you’re forging a story in that mythos that may or may not be canon.”

“Minecraft’s story is made by the players themselves, but taking the mythology angle on Legends allowed for some creative liberties and freedoms we otherwise wouldn’t have had. The way we see is that this would be one of many stories told within the world, passed down between generations in the same way we do with fairy tales and the like.”

It’s an interesting and totally unique way of exploring the narrative space within the world of Minecraft. Each game serving as part of a collection of stories that may or may not be true. It runs parallel to the way players create and foster their own stories in vanilla Minecraft and share them with one-another.

If you want to learn more about Minecraft Legends, you can check out our hands-on preview with the game right here!

Minecraft Legends is coming April 18th, 2023 to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Switch and PC. It will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one.

Amazon has the Deluxe Edition starting from $64 with free shipping.

The post Minecraft Legends Interview – New Ideas, Inspirations, And Building A Minecraft Narrative appeared first on Press Start.

Look, I love to smash a box of Chicken Crimpy during a heated game of Peggle 2 as much as the next person, but this is taking things a little too far if you ask me.

Not content simply to produce Xbox Wireless Controller-shaped Shapes, or give away regular Xbox Series S consoles to Shapes customers, Arnotts and Xbox have taken things a step further (too far?) with this Shapes Chicken Crimpy-themed Xbox Series S console and Xbox Wireless Controller.

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Just look at it:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Shapes (@arnottsshapesau)

Of course, after designing this thing both companies have quickly realised that it’s an absolute eyesore and are trying to offload it as quickly as possible, so they’re giving “fans” the chance to win it for themselves.

The giveaway is being conducted through Instagram, where punters will have to follow the Shapes and Xbox accounts, and tag a friend before entries close on April 13th. Alternatively, 10 more will be given away to lucky winners who purchase any box of Shapes at a Woolworths and submit an entry with their proof of purchase.

The full terms and conditions for the Instagram giveaway can be found here, and for the Woolworths competition here.

The post You Can Win This Horrendous Chicken Crimpy Xbox Series S Console, I Guess appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has announced the new Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition, a snazzy green-coloured version of its standard Xbox controller that’s made from one-third recycled materials, continuing the company’s efforts towards reducing its impact on the planet.

The controller – which also comes packaged in with the Xbox Rechargeable Battery for obvious reasons – is constructed from post-consumer recycled resins made with regrind, the process of turning things like CDs, plastic jugs and even old Xbox One-generation parts into raw materials to be used to create new products.

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This actually isn’t the first time Microsoft has done this either, it says that the Daystrike Camo and Electric Volt Xbox Wireless Controllers are also made from 30% PCR resins on the external hardware and 50% PCR resins for the internal componentry, and the Xbox One S console has PCR resins incorporated into the manufacturing of its body and internals.

Of course the other part of the Remix Edition controller is its suitably snazzy look, which Xbox says was intended to create a “vibrant yet serene vibe” with its earthy tones and pops of colour on the d-pad and bumpers with inspiration from the Pacific Northwest Forest. The result is probably one of my favourite designs to date – the topographic pattern texture on the grips is an especially classy touch, if you ask me.

A controller that is green… in more ways than one?

Preorder the Remix Special Edition controller today: https://t.co/x3cvDc9dAr pic.twitter.com/LgCPB7gQ0M

— Xbox (@Xbox) April 4, 2023

Lastly, the $119.95 controller includes the Xbox Rechargeable Battery + USB-C kit that normally sells separately for $29.95, making the whole package decent value and furthering the goals of this particular controller by doing away with disposable batteries.

The Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition is launching on April 18 and you can pick one up for yourself at any of the below Aussie retailers:

Xbox Wireless Controller – Remix Special Edition Pre-Order

• Microsoft Store
• EB Games
• JB Hi-Fi
• Mightyape

The post Xbox’s Latest Controller Is Partially Made From Ground-Up Xbox One Parts appeared first on Press Start.

Update: This one may be too good to be true, as additional reports have claimed that a modding enthusiast had originally listed this controller on a resale app and has since removed it out of fear of repercussions – meaning that, while this could still be an early manufactured product gone AWOL – it’s more likely a custom job, albeit an incredible one.

Images of a special edition Starfield Xbox Wireless Controller have appeared online in a potential leak, first via Chinese websites and then eventually making their way to the likes of Reddit and Resetera.

The controller could very well be an elaborate fake, but it’s an incredibly convincing one if so, and honestly the kind of superbly-done design that I would expect as a tie-in to a game of this importance to Xbox. You can take a look at the images via the below Imgur gallery (while they remain online).

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Starfield Limited Edition Xbox Wireless Controller

View post on imgur.com

Some of the notable features on this controller design are the stark white and grey body with splashes of Starfield’s recognisable coloured stripes, with spaceship control motifs around all of the controller’s grayscale buttons, a chrome d-pad, red back panel with “PROPERTY OF CONSTELLATION” on the outer battery casing and “FOR ALL, INTO THE STARFIELD” on the inside battery casing.

Again, if this turns out to be a hoax, I’d hope Xbox hires whoever designed it because this thing is beautiful. If it’s real though, I sure hope there’s an equally-gorgeous special edition Xbox Series X console to go along with it.

Starfield’s release date was recently pushed back from a H1 2023 window to a firm date of September 6th, 2023, so there’s every chance that matching hardware was already well into production before the delay was decided on.

Our next major look at the game should be coming via a special showcase in June, following the Xbox Games Showcase on June 11th/12th.

Save The Date: June 11th we have a DOUBLE FEATURE planned with our Xbox Games Showcase + Starfield Direct. Excited to see the work our studios and partner teams are doing to bring this to life! Fan Art By: @klobrille ??????U pic.twitter.com/nEKeDSAmi5

— Aaron Greenberg ??????U (@aarongreenberg) March 31, 2023

Starfield will be available for Xbox Series X|S and PC on September 6th, 2023. It’ll be included with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass subscriptions on day one and carries an R18+ classification rating in Australia.

The post UPDATED: A Special Starfield Xbox Wireless Controller May Have Leaked appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has announced the Xbox Games With Gold line up for April 2023.

After a slightly bigger line-up last month, where we got Trüberbrook, Sudden Strike 4 and Lamentum, we’re back to just two titles in the Xbox Games With Gold offering for April, though they’re a couple of decent little gems that you might not have checked out yet. The games are.

Xbox Games With Gold April 2023

• Out of Space: Couch Edition – Available April 1 – April 30
• Peaky Blinders: Mastermind – April 16 – May 15

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Out of Space: Couch Edition

There is no place like home, especially when you’re drifting through outer space. The challenge is that a deadly alien infestation has also settled in. It will take all your strategic skills to keep each newly generated spaceship house creating resources and recycling alien goo by automating tasks to help keep it clean and comfy. Play with friends to build a sustainable environment that you can all enjoy together.

Peaky Blinders: Mastermind

A plot is afoot to put the family out of business and it’s up to you to uncover it. Set prior to season one of the hit show, you can control six key members of the Shelby family, each with different strengths and weaknesses. If you need to bribe a cop, use Polly, but if you need to bust down a door or knock a few skulls, take control of Arthur. By using the right person at the right time and leveraging the game’s unique mechanics to move backwards or forwards through time, you can be the mastermind that puts everyone in sync to help unlock the puzzles.

As a refresher, these games are available to anyone with an Xbox Live Gold subscription to download and play for as long as it’s active, which also includes any Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members, who get all the benefits of Gold included in their subscription.

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Citizen Sleeper was, and still remains, one of my favourite releases of last year. It had one glaring problem though, at least on a personal level – it wasn’t available on PlayStation. My patience in waiting for all three of its free DLC episodes to launch before diving back into the game has paid off though, with the release of the final episode, Purge, coinciding with the game’s debut on PS5 and PS4.

I’m going to abstain from re-explaining what Citizen Sleeper is – you can read my full review of the game’s original release right underneath this write-up – and speak strictly to the new stuff, namely the PlayStation release and the full run of story DLC.

The long and short of it all is this; If you’re a PlayStation player and haven’t played Citizen Sleeper yet, please do. It’s an intoxicating mix of sci-fi flavoured capitalism critique aboard a diverse and characterful space station, tabletop mechanics, time management and branching narrative that’s deceptively simple with a powerful mechanical underbelly. There’s not much to say about the game’s port to PS5 and PS4 specifically, it’s by and large the same game available on other platforms, but it’s (hopefully) a whole new community of players given the chance to experience this indie masterpiece.

Returning as someone who’d played the game on another platform, I did find Citizen Sleeper a lot less daunting this time around, and felt a lot more confident in my ability to establish myself on the Eye and game its systems to pull myself out of poverty. I’m not sure that’s the right angle of attack for this game, but I kind of appreciated it.

The other side of the coin here, of course, is the availability of the three episodes making up Citizen Sleeper’s DLC sequence, which sees players navigate a spot of turmoil as a flotilla of interstellar refugees arrives at Erlin’s Eye, the station’s proprietors at Havenage unwilling to take a few thousand new souls into the already-struggling ecosystem. This trio of chapters arrives toward Citizen Sleeper’s “late game” with a simple item exchange requiring some degree of progress acting as a gate to entry, and definitely brought me back down to Earth (heh) when it came to my confidence as a veteran Sleeper.

The first episode, titled Flux, introduces players to Eshe and Peake, two new arrivals along with the refugee ships that act as a catalyst of sorts for the player, as the titular Sleeper, to understand that the plights of these people mirror much of your own. It’s an interesting shift in perspective after having worked and scraped and sacrificed everything to make a place for yourself on the Eye, only for thousands more to arrive looking to you to help them do the same. This 1-2 hour first chapter is a stressful one too, giving players a tight window of time to achieve quite a few tasks to make sneaking the refugee ships through quarantine and onto the Eye possible.

The next episode, Refuge, turns the attention to the flotilla itself and the three subgroups of people aboard its ships. Hailing from three different moons of a larger, inhabited planet, these groups have come from a three-way political tension to wind up displaced in unison. Thus, most of this episode focuses on getting to know each of the groups’ leaders and the individual needs of their crews to establish some degree of understanding. It’s a far more relaxed and text-heavy chapter, with plenty of new and well-written characters to get to know.

The final of these DLC episodes, Purge, is a special one and it’d be remiss of me to spoil just about any of it, suffice to say the tension and time critical panic of Flux returns here, and culminates in a hell of an ending, using all of the groundwork and character building established in the previous two episodes to great effect and tying up a bundle of threads from the base game in the process. I came away feeling the best I’ve felt about any of Citizen Sleeper’s prior possible resolutions, and I would absolutely urge anyone that’s played the main story portion to come back and play through all three new episodes.

Read my full review of the game’s original release below:

It was right around the point that I made the choice to go foraging for rare mushrooms over helping a stranded father and daughter get their one shot at a fresh start, that I realised Citizen Sleeper had made an arsehole out of me. I don’t know what it is about tabletop or tabletop-like games that does it, perhaps it’s the combination of high stakes and low odds that triggers a certain response, but I wind up looking out for me and myself alone. The dozens of names and faces aboard the doomed company-town-on-a-space-station-turned-intergalactic-refuge, Erlin’s Eye, became little more than stepping stones on my path to freedom but now that I’m on the outside I can’t say I care to look back in.

How did we get here, though? That’s the blank chapter in Citizen Sleeper’s slice-of-life narrative that you’ll be filling in. This bold new title from In Other Waters developer Jump Over The Age (Gareth Damien Martin) casts you as a ‘Sleeper’, a digital copy of a human consciousness in an artificial body, that has escaped the clutches of corporate ownership and found themselves aboard the Eye without so much as a plan to hang onto life let alone start a new one. Thanks to a built-in planned obsolescence, time is ticking before your physical form falls apart and so every moment and every decision counts as you explore the station, make allies and enemies and do what you must to survive, thrive or leave alive.

To say I fell in love with the world this game presents would be an understatement – I’m obsessed. Here’s a genuine sci-fi adventure game packed with intrigue, drama and challenge, but one that eschews putting a stick in your hand in favour of putting the world in your mind. Or is it your mind in the world? Citizen Sleeper tackles the heady subject matter of the coalescence of biological and synthetic life and the blurring of the lines between nature and data. Then it imagines how we might fuck even that up in the name of greed, putting your synthetic arse to work for scraps in the shell of a corporate space station like the data-digging equivalent of a hard-rock miner in a company town.

All of this is put together through the lens of a tabletop RPG, the world around you barely more than a top-down map of Erlin’s Eye adorned with icons representing places, people and tasks. The game plays out in Cycles that represent the passage of time – within a Cycle, you’re able to explore the Eye and take various actions, most of which require a roll of a dice to perform and determine their level of success. The number of dice you have at your disposal each Cycle depends on the current condition of your physical form, which degrades as your progress time and also as a result of work done. You’ll be able to take measures to ensure your energy levels stay high and your condition gets better before it gets worse, but it’s a careful balancing act between keeping yourself alive and using your time constructively.

The actions you’ll take aboard the Eye, things like undertaking work in a scrapyard, extracting data from terminals or navigating tricky social interactions, are all means to fulfil your Drives. Drives are your goals, they unlock as you meet new people and uncover new mysteries and they’re what will eventually see your story through to some kind of conclusion. Some can be treated with a certain degree of leisure, but others are at the mercy of Clocks – meters that count up as you perform certain actions or simply as Cycles pass. Between trying to achieve your Drives and manage the various Clocks around Erline’s Eye it almost feels like juggling pins and spinning plates at the same time. The juggling part is fine on its own, but those plates are a constant, looming threat to your ability to keep the pins up in the air. Also some of the plates will cause intergalactic bounty hunters to come and shoot you in the face if they stop spinning.

The result though is a game that hinges on two things – hard choices and bold risks. Not only will you need to gripe with your own time management, forethought and conscience when deciding what to focus your limited efforts on each Cycle, but even once you’ve formulated a plan there’s an element of chance that can completely undo everything. Actions that work on a dice roll can have positive, neutral or negative outcomes that are dictated by both the value of the dice you choose to play for it and your character’s own affinities. At the beginning of the game you’ll be asked to choose one of three classes with their own stats and unique buffs that can then be augmented with upgrade points earned from completing Drives.

The way that all of these different systems interweave and feed into the vast many narrative possibilities is an incredibly slick feat of design, especially once you get over the initial sense of being overwhelmed by them and start to understand how to focus on the outcomes you genuinely want to see. After that it’s just a matter of praying things work out – if you’re anything like me trying to leverage my Interface skill to score a job on a colony ship as a Junior Tech you’ll learn that part the hard way. It can all be quite stressful initially, but also just forgiving enough in the early hours that your failings feel more like new forks on your road to success than genuine disasters.

Citizen Sleeper is also a game that feels genuinely replayable. It can easily be finished in around five hours or less if you can stomach leaving friends, enemies and answers behind for a quick getaway. Or you can push yourself, play the long game, explore deeper and deeper into the Eye and seek out everything the game has to offer. Luckily, finishing the game creates a return point right beforehand so you can easily go back and forge an alternate path ahead should you want to, but it’s just as rewarding to start completely fresh and see how differently it can all go.

Life aboard Erlin’s Eye is presented with a clean and stylish aesthetic that works far harder than its combination of mostly static environments and text-based narrative would imply. For starters, the character portraits from acclaimed comic book artist Guillaume Singelin that accompany story beats are gorgeous and add incredible dimension to the game’s already-fantastic writing. When it kicks in, the game’s soundtrack from returning composer Amos Roddy swings deftly between ‘illicit underground fetish club in the year 2090’ and ‘metaphysical contemplations on a Korg MS20’ and it honestly slaps fucking ass. For a game where the most important bits are delivered mostly in text and numbers, Citizen Sleeper is an absolute vibe

The post Citizen Sleeper (Complete) Review – A Sleeper Hit Made Even Better appeared first on Press Start.

The folks over at the Xbox controller division must be smashing their KPIs at the moment because here we are again with not one but two new colourways, this time for the Elite Series 2 Core Controller (the cheaper one that doesn’t come with all of the doodads and knickknacks).

In a striking new red or blue body, these are the same Elite Series 2 Core that previously released in white, with all of the regular Elite Series 2 features sans the separately-sold Component Pack that retails for $79.95. These new colours also cost a very slight $10 more than the white version, at $199.95.

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The Elite Series 2 Core red and blue versions are set to release locally on April 28th, and they’re both available to pre-order now at local retailers. As usual, you can technically create your own red and blue elite controllers in Xbox Design Lab, if you want to, but it’s a more expensive route.

Just don’t go taking your old black or white Elite Series 2 into EB Games to trade in, they’ve stopped accepting them.

Xbox Elite Series 2 Core Red/Blue Australian Pre-Orders

• JB Hi-Fi – $199 each – Red / Blue
• EB Games – $199.95 each – Red / Blue

Learn more about the new controllers here.

The post Xbox Is Releasing Two New Elite Series 2 Core Controller Colours appeared first on Press Start.

Updated: Microsoft has confirmed in a statement to The Verge that the days of $1 Xbox Game Pass are indeed done and dusted.

“We have stopped our previous introductory offer for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass and are evaluating different marketing promotions for new members in the future,” said Kari Perez, head of global communications at Xbox.

It looks like the days of pressuring your mates into jumping on Xbox Game Pass with the promise of their first month costing the same as a Macca’s Frozen Coke might be over.

Users have discovered that, seemingly across the globe and with no exceptions, Microsoft has pulled the plug on its famous $1 Xbox Game Pass Ultimate deal, which allowed first-time signups to get a month of “the best value in gaming” at that ridiculously cheap price. We’ve verified this for Aussies, attempting to sign up to a new subscription with a fresh account no longer prompts any mention of the $1 deal and simply shows us the full price of the subscription.

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Reportedly, the other trick to getting a great-value Xbox Game Pass subscription, signing up to the cheaper Xbox Live Gold and “upgrading” it to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate at the cost of one month, is still valid for anyone new to Xbox Game Pass – just at a slightly higher cost to make the conversion. We won’t elaborate on that one here, but it’s something you could certainly Google if it you wanted to.

The lineup for Game Pass in 2023 is quite substantial, with some super heavy hitters in the forms of Starfield, Redfall, Forza Motorsport and Ark II all pegged to release this year and coming day-and-date to the subscription service, among a ton of other really exciting smaller titles, so if Microsoft was ever going to start charging the full the amount this would definitely be the year. Still, with zero warning it’s sure to turn a few heads.

(FYI) Microsoft have ended the $1 deal for #XboxGamePassUltimate

The subscription can now only be purchased at full price from the store.

At the moment, it is not known whether this is just a temporary or has gone forever.

Source:https://t.co/xYe3Oafebo pic.twitter.com/HWtS1DcWHv

— Idle Sloth?? (@IdleSloth84_) March 26, 2023

Of course there’s always the chance that this is temporary, or a mistake, so we’ll patiently await any changes or statements from Microsoft and update this article if necessary.

The post UPDATED: The Xbox Game Pass $1 Deal Is Over For Good appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has announced at GDC 2023 that it’s now the first console platform to give game developers access to dedicated tools to measure the energy and carbon emissions of their projects.

The company says that, as part of an ongoing commitment to sustainability in the gaming industry, it’s tapping into the expertise of game creators to not just reduce power consumption from a hardware perspective (like it’s doing with new power saving modes for Xbox consoles) but to look at it from a game design point-of-view as well. To that end, it’s introducing the Xbox Developer Sustainability Toolkit.

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The Xbox Developer Sustainability Toolkit will allow developers to use precise feedback and analytics to determine when and where energy consumption can be reduced in their games without it negatively impacting the player experience. Using these, developers will be able to consider things like thermal load, frame rate, pixelation, latency, the size of assets they need to upload, or how frequently software updates are released all in order to reduce the overall carbon footprint of the games they create.

Xbox says that it’s already working alongside studios from Ubisoft, and its own 343 Industries, to measure the impact of their games and lay the foundations for incorporating energy emissions and carbon awareness into their game design philosophies.

As an example, 343i discovered that on an Xbox Series X running Halo Infinite at 4K/60FPS, the average GPU usage was about 92%, which represented an average power consumption of 67.5%. The studio noted that, even when the game was paused and blurred to display the settings menu, a 4K image was still rendered in the background that a player could not see, so by lowering the resolution in the Pause menu, 343i was able to decrease energy usage by 15% with no negative impact to the player experience.

It’s great to see a continued commitment to deeper thinking from Xbox on how and where its devices and software use power and how it can reduce those numbers across the board without disrupting the user experience. You can read more about the Xbox Developer Sustainability Toolkit here.

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Redfall isn’t out until May 2nd, but thanks to a recent round of hands-on previews (you can read our own here) and interviews with the folks at Arkane, we now know a little more about the game than we have before.

One thing that’s stuck out as an exciting new bit of information relates to the game’s current always-online requirement, meaning that players can’t play the game at all – even in single-player – without an active internet connection. While that might not seem like an issue for most, it definitely drew some ire when it came to light a couple months ago, with consistent internet access still not a given for absolutely everybody.

Now, speaking to Eurogamer, Arkane’s game director Harvey Smith has confirmed that the studio has heard the feedback and is actively looking at ways to revisit that requirement.

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“We do take it with a lot of empathy,” Smith told the outlet. “We listen. And we have already started work to address this in the future. We have to do some things like encrypt your save games and do a bunch of UI work to support it. And so we are looking into – I’m not supposed to promise anything – but we’re looking into and working actively toward fixing that in the future.”

Smith also explained to Eurogamer that the online-only restriction has nothing to do with the uglier side of live service gaming, saying “There’s no store in the game, and there’s no microtransactions.”

“You can find costumes and things like that in the world, those are yours. We do have a DLC plan – a couple of times we’ll sell a bundle of stuff like guns, costumes, characters, you know, whatever. We’re very excited about those things but it’ll just be like DLC that you buy through Xbox or whatever. And there’s the Bite Back Edition where you get some of that stuff for free. We had that plan with Dishonoured, we have that with every game we make.

“It allows us to do some accessibility stuff. It allows us for telemetry, like – if everybody’s falling off ladders and dying, holy shit that shows up. And so we can go and tweak the ladder code. There are reasons we set out to do that that are not insidious.”

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Although it was in development prior to the acquisition, Redfall checks a lot of the boxes for games handcrafted for the Game Pass era. It isn’t essential, but the game can be played as a collaborative four-player vampire hunt throughout a checklist open-world. A clear conceptual departure from their other works, including Dishonored and Prey, Redfall is still very much an Arkane game. Like Dunwall and Talos I before it, the titular town of Redfall is far and away the game’s most pivotal character with the developer’s penchant for delivering on a rich world remaining a strong focus.

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While the game is assumed to be designed around character synergy and running down vamps with your buds, our hands-on session had us take in the game’s single-player offering. Things picked up just a few missions into the main game, in a quest called House of Echoes, which tasked us with seeking out and ransacking the abandoned manor of Dr. Addison—whose link to the emergence of the town’s vampire infestation, which is interestingly born of in-world science, is of keen interest. Starting out from Redfall’s fire station, which is serving as a headquarters for the town’s remaining survivors, I feel Redfall showed its hand as far as its mission structure goes.

The ultimate goal in Redfall appears to be ridding the town of the vampire infestation, which has spiralled out of control after an experiment gone awry. A byproduct of said catastrophe are the vampire gods, who’ve hunkered down in the town’s four corners and act as the all-powerful vampires pulling the strings. The aforementioned Dr. Addison has also transformed himself into a vampiric, god known as The Hollow Man. I expect the story to follow an almost “monster of the week” formula, focusing on a god at a time, taking the time to explain their place in Redfall, their ambitions, as well as the human cost of achieving them. Either way, what’s evident from our ninety minutes with the game is that there is a story which, admittedly, I’d be concerned about given how much this departs from Arkane’s past work.

There’s so much personality to Redfall, a fictional, sea-locked island town in Massachusetts and likely a stone’s throw from Salem. The four hero characters have big personalities and interesting back stories given Layla’s ability to call upon her vampire ex-boyfriend for help, while Redfall feels like another achievement in world-building from one of the best to do it. Spots of interest are fairly scattered as solo-trawling of the map felt too evenly split between eventful and the uneventful. With a lot of empty space, lone wolf locomotion felt a bit like work—I expect when you’re shooting the shit with friends, it’s a different ball game.

Like any good open world, there’s plenty to do. The firehouse might serve as home base for the main quest, but the safe houses scattered throughout Redfall serve as avenues to the game’s side content. As time was limited, I didn’t get to explore many of the side distractions, but the side quests I did try were lean in terms of objective but went a long way to fleshing out the world and therefore felt worthwhile. The main one I recall involved a house call to a friend’s apartment to perform a welfare check only to discover a grisly scene, another involved triangulating a signal but I ran out of time to see that one through.

There are town monuments to mark on your map, spiritually charged gravelocks that can be collected to record the town’s notable history, and vampire nests to clear out like pouring boiling water into an ant colony. It’s in these nests, which are incredible, distorted iterations of the town’s landmarks such as the Overton Theatre and the United Church of Christ, that I noticed the greatest spikes in both numbers and difficulty. Fortunately, the game is forgiving in where it respawns you, as well as respecting the progress you’d made, after each death.

When you do attempt to vanquish your fanged foes, Redfall’s gunplay is rather tight. I’d say there’s parity with their previous games, as there’s a deliberate, almost sluggish heft to using these guns. Shotguns are predictably powerful and popping heads from half a klick will never disappoint, but getting your mitts on an ultraviolet beam is a must. With the power to swiftly petrify a vampire and pulverise their rock-hard bod, it feels like something Arkane might yet balance.

Playing as Layla, I found her powers to be functional without being entirely useful. Her projected hard light elevator lift is cool, but all rooftops of interest have other access points simply due to the fact not all heroes have her particular power. And the same kind of goes for her umbrella parry, meant for reflecting bullets, as I never quite felt threatened by any gun-toting zealots on the recommended difficulty, but I don’t doubt both of these abilities—in tandem with the other heroes—will be a lifesaver on the more extreme settings. I did love the ultimate power-up which sees Layla summon her vampire ex-boyfriend, Jason, to knock a few heads before sending him straight back to hell, to the point that I poured any skill point I unlocked right into it. 

I do regret not being able to experience the other players, but the reception to Jacob, Devinder and Remi on the day from those who took on the content as them seemed exceptionally positive.

One thing that’s evident from combing through the Hollow Man’s corner of Redfall is that the team has challenged themselves to ensure the day-walkers you fight have an array of abilities to strategise against. Of course, cultists serve as the human fodder and I expect each god to have their devotees, but there’s a host of special vampires that disrupt your flow in and out of combat.

Watchers perch themselves in gargoyle posture on eaves around town as a means of surveillance, but they’re especially weak and are perhaps the most disposable of the specials. Shrouds will blanket you in a veil of darkness, lowering visibility as the ads close in around you, and Bloodbags are sickly mines full of claret, extracted from the husks around town. Although it’s in your interest to use prejudice against these specials, their deaths draw the attention of the gods who’ll send the Rook after you—it’s a real “fuck around and find out” kind of deal, and I was too chicken shit to call on that kind of whooping during my session.

Redfall, as a setting, definitely commands your attention with its attentive world-building and familiar visual language that has constantly set Arkane’s games apart from their contemporaries. Again, I expect the sample we got is perhaps a quarter of the town’s map and I was still floored by some of the inspired design. It didn’t matter the direction I looked, I kept spotting things that beckoned me. I saw a dried quay resting at the foot of tidal waves that had been suspended in midair courtesy of vampiric magic, and I saw affluent, and now overrun, hillside manors. In an effort to encourage exploration, the  team deliberately scaled back the reach of the player’s radar so that objectives wouldn’t appear from range, which does seem like an inspired choice—I’m sure we all recall the lure of the undiscovered in games like The Elder Scrolls and Fallout that’d tug at our sleeve and pull us from the main path. 

Of course, as our session focused on proving that  single-player is certainly a worthwhile way to experience Redfall, several questions still remain. How will the game hold up and scale to challenge four players, will powers synergise as nicely as trailers suggest, and will progress make sense for all involved? I expect we’ll get these answers soon enough, but it’s a relief to know there’s a game here for those looking to escape solo into Redfall.

Redfall launches on May 2nd for Xbox Series X|S and PC, and will be launching into Xbox Game Pass on day one.

The post Redfall Hands-On Preview – Fangs For The Memories appeared first on Press Start.

Update: Xbox has now revealed the remaining games coming to Game Pass this month, as well as the games leaving the service at the end of March:

All up, it’s been a half-decent month with the heavy hitters like Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and the console release of Valheim hitting early, followed now by Day One launches for MLB The Show 23 and Infinite Guitars.

Check out everything announced for Xbox Game Pass this month, below:

COMING TO GAME PASS IN MARCH

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available Now
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty is a dramatic, action-packed story of a nameless militia soldier fighting for survival in a dark fantasy version of the Later Han Dynasty where demons plague the Three Kingdoms. Players fight off deadly creatures and enemy soldiers using swordplay based on the Chinese martial arts, attempting to overcome the odds by awakening the true power from within.

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Guilty Gear -Strive- (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available Now
The cutting-edge 2D/3D hybrid graphics pioneered in the Guilty Gear series have been raised to the next level in Guilty Gear -Strive-. The new artistic direction and improved character animations will go beyond anything you have seen before in a fighting game. Let’s rock!

Dead Space 2 (Cloud) EA Play – Available Now
Three years after the Necromorph infestation aboard the USG Ishimura, Isaac Clarke awakens from a coma, confused, disoriented, and on a space station called The Sprawl. Fight new enemies and explore this open world’s massive zero-gravity environments to discover the truth with Xbox Cloud Gaming via EA Play.

Dead Space 3 (Cloud) EA Play – Available Now
Journey across space to the icy planet of Tau Volantis with Isaac Clarke and Sgt. John Carver to destroy the source of the Necromorph outbreak. Overcome avalanches, ice climbs, violent wilderness, and an army of deadly, evolved enemies to save mankind from the impending apocalypse with Xbox Cloud Gaming via EA Play.

Valheim (Game Preview) (Console) – Available Now
Available now with PC Game Pass and coming soon to Xbox consoles! Valheim is a brutal exploration and survival game for 1-10 players set in a procedurally generated world inspired by Norse mythology. Craft powerful weapons, construct longhouses, and slay mighty foes to prove yourself to Odin!

Sid Meier’s Civilization VI (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available Now
Civilization VI offers unique ways to interact with your world, expand your empire across the map, advance your culture, and compete against history’s greatest leaders to build a civilization that will stand the test of time.

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom – The Prince’s Edition (Console and PC) – Available Now
Once upon a time, there was a world torn by endless war. But then came a great king who would change this world forever. Join the young king Evan to found a new kingdom in the Prince’s Edition, which includes all DLCs.

MLB The Show 23 (Cloud and Console) – March 28
MLB The Show 23 gets you closer than ever to living your baseball dreams on the diamond. Shock the game and own the show with your favourite players, your favourite rivalries, and all your favourite MLB moments. Want to hit the field early? Game Pass members can get four days early access on March 24 including additional in-game items with the purchase of the Early Access Bundle. Read more about the new updates and features coming to MLB The Show 23 here.

Infinite Guitars (Cloud, Console, and PC) – March 30
The metal war machines have reawakened—and only your electric guitar can turn their technology against them! Gather up your party, tune up your favourite axe, and get ready to rock in Infinite Guitars, a rhythm RPG featuring vibrant anime-inspired art, adrenaline-fueled Mech battles, and a blazing original soundtrack.

GAMES LEAVING XBOX GAME PASS ON MARCH 31st

• A Memoir Blue
• Chinatown Detective Agency
• ClusterTruck
• Double Dragon Neon
• Kraken Academy!!
• MLB The Show 22
• Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid

The post The Next Batch Of Xbox Game Pass Games For March Has Been Revealed appeared first on Press Start.

Bethesda and Tango Gameworks have announced that 2022’s bold first-person, open-world spirit hunting game, Ghostwire: Tokyo, officially lands on Xbox Series X|S next month on April 12th, and will be included as part of Game Pass for both Xbox and PC.

The Spider’s Thread update will contain a brand new roguelite mode called The Spider’s Thread (naturally), an all-new Middle School area, new cutscenes, new quests within the main game, enhancements to Photo Mode, new combat moves, quality-of-life improvements, and more. It’s coming to all existing platforms alongside the game’s fresh Xbox/Game Pass release.

You can see a teaser trailer for the update below:

Return to the supernatural streets of Tokyo with all-new content on April 12.

Something different is looming in Tokyo – new otherworldly threats, strange occurrences and ghostly sightings have been spotted in the city – are you ready to dive into the unknown and save the day??

Ghostwire: Tokyo’s Spider’s Thread Update adds tons of new content to the game: A challenging new roguelite mode, The Spider’s Thread, where players must fight floor-by-floor to reach the end, while uncovering a mysterious new story Haunting new areas to explore in the main game—including the eerie Middle School—and new missions to unravel. New and expanded main story cutscenes. Deeper combat: avoid enemy attacks with the new Quick Dodge and Perfect Block Counter-Attack; strike from above with new aerial abilities; master powerful new Charge Rush Ethereal Weaving techniques; and utilize new talismans to aid you in battle. New enemy Visitors to test your skills. Expanded Photo Mode: add stamps to your screenshots, and use Meika to unlock figures at capsule machines to add their models to use in Photo Mode.

We gave Ghostwire: Tokyo a 7.5/10 in our original review, saying “A compelling concept and a beautifully realised world, Ghostwire: Tokyo leverages Japanese folklore and a unique combat system to provide a unique open-world experience.”

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You know that Shape dust that’s always getting all over your Xbox Wireless Controller? Just me? Well, either way, the folks over at Xbox ANZ and Arnott’s have teamed up to turn the tables and make it so your Shapes are covered in Xbox Wireless Controller!

Yep, a very limited run of BBQ Shapes in the shape of little Xbox controllers is a real thing that’s happening and you could win yourself one of just 10 boxes by heading to the Xbox ANZ Instagram and giving them a follow, then doing the same on the Arnott’s Instagram page and tagging a friend in their post (entries close March 23rd):

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Shapes (@arnottsshapesau)

Okay, so even though we said our Xbox Shapes weren’t real… we went ahead and made a limited batch anyway! ??

Run, don’t walk. Follow Xbox (@xboxanz) and Shapes (@arnottsshapesau) and tag a friend in the comments below for your chance to win 1 of 10 Limited Edition Xbox Controller BBQ Shapes – the perfect gaming snack.

The post Xbox Controller-Shaped BBQ Shapes Exist And You Could Win A Box Of Your Own appeared first on Press Start.

A dataminer with a track record of reporting on addition’s to Microsoft’s various digital storefronts before they’re officially revealed has uncovered a mysterious listing for an unannounced EA title in the Xbox Store backend.

Aggiornamenti Lumia on Twitter uncovered and shared the listing, which was submitted to the store under the title “Lorem Ipsum 70” with a filesize of 20.45GB and slotted into the Racing & Flying category. That last fact had initially led some to believe this might just be related to F1 23, but that game reportedly has its own, separate place in the Store.

New EA Game submitted to the Xbox Store:

Codename: Lorem Ipsum 70
Category: Racing & flying
Size: 20.45 GB pic.twitter.com/5Z87mgmo5Y

— Aggiornamenti Lumia (@ALumia_Italia) March 13, 2023

No, F1 has a different listing

— Aggiornamenti Lumia (@ALumia_Italia) March 13, 2023

F1 23 is yet to be shown off to the world, with nothing much outside of a teaser website to go off. The company recently announced that it’s signed a partnership with Formula 1 World Champion, Max Verstappen to create content with the Oracle Red Bull Racing driver across its portfolio. The EA SPORTS logo also features on the chin of Max’s helmet for the 2023 F1 season, which kicked off in Bahrain earlier this month.

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After early reports suggested that none of the “Big 3” console platform holders in PlayStation, Xbox or Nintendo would be attending this year’s freshly-returned E3 event, we now have our second official confirmation of a no-show on the show floor.

Speaking to IGN, Microsoft has revealed that it will definitely not have a presence on the E3 show floor this year, though its Xbox Games Showcase in June will be co-streamed at E3 Digital.

A spokesperson told the outlet, “We can’t wait to host our Xbox Games Showcase on June 11 and will share more details later. We also look forward to co-streaming our event as part of E3 Digital and will not be on the E3 show floor.”

The last in-person E3 event was in 2019, an event which Microsoft did have a presence at, and marked the company’s first reveal of the Xbox Series X – at the time codenamed Project Scarlett. This year, Xbox is holding its own livestreamed showcase, as well as a dedicated Starfield Direct on June 11/12 (pending timezones).

The Hype starts now. ?#E32023 will take place in person from June 13-16 in the Los Angeles Convention Center with separated business and consumer days and areas.

More details here: https://t.co/VJc1R7gvrB pic.twitter.com/cHiNgYHjok

— E3 (@E3) September 26, 2022

In response to the original story around the lack of major console vendors, new E3 organiser ReedPop had said:

“E3 is such a significant event for the game industry and being entrusted with an important cultural touchstone is not a responsibility ReedPop takes lightly. Since ReedPop took on the contract to run E3 six months ago, we’ve worked diligently with ESA members based on their feedback to create a new type of E3 that supports their goals and needs.

“This process has taken time due to the tremendous amount of stakeholders offering input, though we appreciate that we could have been more transparent to questions for which we were still finalizing the answers. We continue to work tirelessly to create a show that brings together the global gaming industry. We believe we’ve created a new format for the event that serves the needs of both the industry and its fans, and are committed to building and growing it in the coming years.

“As we spent much of 2022 refining how E3 2023 would take shape, reflecting on the feedback we solicited, we did not send a single contract to an exhibitor until the start of this month. We have received a tremendous amount of interest and verbal commitments from many of the biggest companies in the industry, and when we are ready to announce the exhibitors we are confident it will be a lineup that will make the trip to Los Angeles well worth it for the industry and consumers alike.”

The post Microsoft Has Confirmed It Won’t Be Attending E3 2023 appeared first on Press Start.

This year’s Xbox Games showcase will take place on Sunday, June 11 (US time).

That’s as confirmed by Microsoft in tandem with the reveal that a special “Starfield Direct” will be taking place on the same day, following the larger Xbox Showcase.

The company hasn’t announced a firm time or given any hints to content, but we’re still a few months out at this stage.

Join us for #StarfieldDirect following the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday, June 11 https://t.co/Igj84qH7AT

— Xbox (@Xbox) March 8, 2023

Last year’s Xbox Showcase was a roughly 95-minute affair stacked with extensive looks at upcoming titles, although it famously made some promises around when *certain* games would be launching that have evidently not been kept (but these things happen).

Following that, a special Extended Showcase also aired with deeper dives and even more announcements.

The post The Xbox Games Showcase 2023 Has Been Given A Date appeared first on Press Start.

After its existence was leaked a couple of weeks ago, Xbox has officially lifted the lid on the next in its ever-growing line of Xbox Wireless Controller colourways with Velocity Green.

The controller seemingly joins the family of not-quite-limited coloured Xbox controllers like Shock Blue, Deep Pink, Electric Volt and Pulse Red, sporting a very striking green front with white back and black d-pad, bumpers and face buttons.

While you could feasibly design a controller in Xbox Design Lab with the Velocity Green shell, you won’t get the matching view, share and menu buttons or the green lettering in the face buttons, and it’ll likely cost you a little more.

"Touch grass" they said. So we did!

Get our new Velocity Green controller, available now: https://t.co/zhD6re4JEc pic.twitter.com/Z7gZh0ShI2

— Xbox (@Xbox) March 7, 2023

The Velocity Green Xbox Wireless Controller will be releasing locally on March 24th, with pre-orders available now at the below retailers:

• Microsoft Store
• JB Hi-Fi
• EB Games

Iconic “Xbox Green” colour, the seventh colour for the evergreen colour series!

Experience the modernized design of the Xbox Wireless Controller, featuring sculpted surfaces and refined geometry for enhanced comfort during gameplay. Stay on target with a hybrid D-pad and textured grip on the triggers, bumpers, and back case. Seamlessly capture and share content such as screenshots, recordings, and more with the new Share button. Use the Xbox Accessories app to remap buttons and create custom controller profiles for your favorite games. Quickly pair with, play on, and switch between devices including Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Windows 10 PCs, and Android. Plug in any compatible headset with the 3.5mm audio jack.

The post The Xbox Velocity Green Controller Is Real And Available For Pre-Order Now appeared first on Press Start.

You’ve seen the Xbox Series X fridge, now get ready to for the Xbox Series S toaster.

Yep, it seems as though the folks over at Xbox have taken the idea of theming kitchen appliances after their current-gen gaming consoles and run with it, at least if French website Xbox Squad has their facts straight.

The outlet posted images of what it reports to be officially-licensed new Xbox gear, from a range of Xbox-themed mousepads to Halo toolboxes and lamps, and even a Series X pencil holder. The flagship piece being the almighty toaster, which apparently looks like this:

The Series S Toaster reportedly features 2-slice toasting with 1-6 levels of browning, anti-jamming, anti-slip feet, a removable crumb tray and three modes including “bagel” and “cancel.”

Other products reportedly coming as part of the licensed collection include a Halo-themed toolbox, Series X and Series S deskmats, Halo Energy Sword lamps, a Series X pencil holder and various other kitchenware.

We’ll be sure to keep an eye out for if and when these make their way to Aussie retailers.

The Xbox Series X Replica Mini Fridge is still available at local retailers like EB Games and JB Hi-Fi for a crisp $149:

Introducing the Xbox Series X Replica Mini Fridge Thermoelectric Cooler made by Ukonic! The sleek matte-black tower holds up to 12 cans of your favourite beverage and with two door-shelves you’ll be sure to have your favourite snacks at the ready. With LEDs and surface features made to resemble the Xbox Series X, your friends will be amazed! Power your dreams – includes both AC and DC power cables and has a USB port for charging devices.

FEATURES:

• Plugs into either standard AC wall outlet or DC 12V automobile jack (cables included)
• 10L capacity thermoelectric cooler for home or vehicle use
• Thermoelectric Technology – Reliable and efficient for cooling with no CFCs
• Holds up to 12 soda cans + 2 snack shelves inside the door
• Two removable interior shelves and two removable door shelves for snacks
• Top of fridge and Xbox logo light up with individual on/off switches
• Cools items up to 36°F (20°C) below ambient temperature
• LED light-up Xbox logo with on/off switch
• Top of the fridge lights up with on/off switch
• 2.1A USB Port on the front of the fridge which allows you to charge devices

The post An Xbox Series S Toaster Might Be On The Way appeared first on Press Start.

The Mandalorian Season 3 has premiered on Disney Plus this week, and to celebrate Xbox is doing its usual thing and kitting out its hardware in some nice-looking designs for a special giveaway.

Fans can get a chance at winning these custom Xbox Series X/S consoles complete with a Grogu-green controller in its own adorable little outfit/holder by heading over to the Xbox Twitter account and retweeting the below:

Bring the ultimate bounty home!

RT with #TheMandalorianXboxSweepstakes for a chance to win a custom Xbox Series X & S.

No purchase necessary, ends 8pm 5/11/23. Open only to Xbox supported regions. Must be 18+ to enter. Official rules: https://t.co/Sp0qAHim5H pic.twitter.com/QhHnrncey2

— Xbox (@Xbox) March 1, 2023

Luckily for us Aussies, the giveaway is open to all “Xbox supported regions,” you can find the full official rules and conditions here.

If you’re hungry for more excellent giveaways, head over to our own Competitions page for everything we’ve got going at the moment!

The post Xbox Is Giving Away These Gorgeous Mandalorian-Themed Series X & S Consoles appeared first on Press Start.

While its ongoing battle to acquire Activision Blizzard continues to rage, CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, has reiterated Xbox’s planned stance on platform parity for the Call of Duty franchise going forward.

Speaking in an interview with Xbox On, Spencer responded to a line of questioning around Call of Duty and his understanding of “exclusivity” with the reassurance that Xbox wasn’t interested in keeping players on other platforms from having the full and complete COD experience.

“We want to increase the places where people can play Call of Duty,” Spencer begins.

“With Call of Duty, I think we’ve made some specific agreements with Nintendo and with Nvidia to ensure the game can show up in more places and you obviously don’t make the game bigger by taking it away from anybody.”

The CEO stressed that, as in the past with franchises the company has acquired like DOOM or Fallout, the goal is to ensure that games in its portfolio that release on PlayStation, PC or Nintendo are to the level of quality that players on those platforms expect.

“And so when we say available everywhere or not exclusive, we want to make absolutely the best version of Call of Duty for any player on any of those platforms.”

“Because, like, I sit here today with a great game that’s come out in the last couple of weeks, Hogwarts Legacy. And yes, there is a quest that’s available on PlayStation. It’s not available on Xbox. And I know this is part of the industry,” Spencer admits.

“That’s not the game we’re trying to play here, either. It’s not about a skin on a gun. It’s not about a certain kind of mode in the game. The same version of the game will be available on all platforms, which is really what we do today.”

The post Xbox Wants Call Of Duty To Have The Same Content And Features On All Platforms appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has announced the Xbox Games With Gold line up for March 2023.

Things are heating up very slightly on the Games With Gold front, with an increase to three included titles for the month over the previous two. Last month we got For the King and Guts N Goals, while in March we’ll have the following:

• Trüberbrook: Available March 1 to 31
• Sudden Strike 4 – Complete Collection: Available March 1 to March 31
• Lamentum: Available March 16 to April 15

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Live Gold members can enjoy Trüberbrook, Sudden Strike 4 – Complete Collection, and Lamentum as part of March's Games with Gold! Details here: https://t.co/y1w2f8BZ4J

— Xbox Wire (@XboxWire) February 28, 2023

Trüberbrook

Explore the charming 1960s German village of Trüberbrook where not all is as it seems. Get trippy in this single-player Sci-Fi mystery adventure game. The world of the game is beautifully built using meticulously handmade miniature scenery. Discover reality rifts, encounter crazy scientists, and fight for true love as you step up to save the world!

Sudden Strike 4 – Complete Collection

Play the original World War Two RTS classic and all five previously released DLCs. Command forces from all sides in iconic battles including on the Road to Dunkirk, across the snowy landscape of Finland, the rugged deserts of Africa, or engaging in the naval battles of the Pacific. You can play single-player or multiplayer leading over one hundred different units into battle across eleven campaigns.

Lamentum

Delve deep into nightmare-fueled madness. How far would you go to save the one you love? For young aristocrat Victor Hartwell the cost to save his ailing wife might be unthinkable. Explore the mystery and encounter horrific creatures. Who will you choose to trust? How will you ever hope to survive? Spending one night in Grau Hill Mansion may be the last night you ever see.

The post March’s Xbox Games With Gold Have Been Revealed appeared first on Press Start.

To celebrate this week’s release of Destiny 2’s massive new expansion, Lightfall, Bungie and Xbox have teamed up to offer some special, pre-configured Xbox Design Labs controller customisations for eager fans to play in appropriate style.

The tools of the trade make all the difference.

Grab a Lightfall-inspired @Xbox controller to call your very own, from Xbox Design Labs.

? https://t.co/GDXa14PLwA pic.twitter.com/6aRo4NlXtl

— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) February 25, 2023

The Elite Series 2 variant as customised by Bungie and Xbox will set you back a cool $304.85, which is inclusive of an added customised carry case and set of coloured thumbstick caps and d-pad. The standard Xbox Wireless Controller design will run you a more palatable $105.90.

You can look at both of them at the below:

• Xbox Elite Series 2 Wireless Controller (Destiny 2: Lightfall pre-configured design) – $304.85 at Xbox Design Labs
• Xbox Wireless Controller (Destiny 2: Lightfall pre-configured design) – $105.90 at Xbox Design Labs

Destiny 2: Lightfall launches on March 1st. For more on Lightfall, check out our extensive preview of the expansion and keep an eye out for our full review next month.

The post Two Destiny 2: Lightfall-Inspired Xbox Controller Designs Have Hit Xbox Design Labs appeared first on Press Start.

It feels like we’ve written this story multiple times already this year, but yet another upcoming new Xbox Wireless Controller colourway has leaked.

Thanks to the ever well-informed billbil-kun, it’s been revealed that the “Velocity Green” Xbox Wireless Controller will launch in at least some regions next week on February 28th, at the standard price point for these limited colour offerings.

Although the leak came with images presumably from the product box, billbil-kun has chosen to obscure them. It’s not overly difficult to get an idea of what the controller will look like, though:

PREMIERE
Another controller in less than a month ?#Xbox Wireless Controller Velocity Green
??Release date: Feb 28th, 2023
?Price: 59,99€ pic.twitter.com/P1eGtXN8Fl

— billbil-kun (@billbil_kun) February 21, 2023

“PREMIERE

Another controller in less than a month ?

#Xbox?Wireless Controller Velocity Green

??Release date: Feb 28th, 2023

?Price: 59,99€”

Unlike the recently-released Stellar Shift design, Velocity Green is a colour already available when customising one of these controllers in Xbox Design Lab, but it looks to have at least some matching face button colours in this version.

We anticipate that Microsoft will officially announce this one shortly.

In other Xbox news, the company said this week that it had signed “a binding, 10-year contract with Nintendo to bring the full Call of Duty experience to Nintendo players.”

You can read about that here.

The post Another New Xbox Controller Colour Has Leaked appeared first on Press Start.

It’s taken us a while, but as of now, you can officially start putting faces to our beautiful voices and watching The Press Start Podcast in video form.

You can watch the podcast at the same time it goes live in audio form on our YouTube channel.

On this week’s episode, we talk about Atomic Heart, Wild Hearts, Octopath Traveller 2 and also dissect the news of Nintendo signing a deal with Xbox and Returnal not doing bumper sales numbers on PC.

If you’re wanting to listen in audio, you can still do that below too:

• Listen on LiSTNR
• Listen on Apple Podcasts
• Listen on Spotify
• Listen on Omny

The post The Press Start Podcast Is Now Available in Video Form appeared first on Press Start.

Microsoft announced in December that it was working on an agreement with Nintendo to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo Switch consoles and it has now followed through and signed that agreement.

In a tweet published moments ago, Xbox said that it had signed a binding 10-year contract with Nintendo to bring the full Call of Duty experience to Nintendo players. Interestingly enough, the Tweet mentions bringing “Xbox games” to Nintendo Switch, without mentioning Call of Duty at all, so it’s unclear if this also extends to Xbox games that aren’t Call of Duty.

We’ve now signed a binding 10-year contract to bring Xbox games to Nintendo’s gamers. This is just part of our commitment to bring Xbox games and Activision titles like Call of Duty to more players on more platforms. pic.twitter.com/JmO0hzw1BO

— Brad Smith (@BradSmi) February 21, 2023

Obviously at this stage, it’s a little bit meaningless as Xbox doesn’t own Activision-Blizzard yet, so until this passes through the respective governments, we can’t expect to see Call of Duty on Nintendo consoles.

The full statement reads:

“Microsoft and Nintendo have now negotiated and signed a binding 10-year legal agreement to bring Call of Duty to Nintendo players – the same day as Xbox, with full feature and content parity – so they can experience Call of Duty just as Xbox and Play Station gamers enjoy Call of Duty.

We are committed to providing long term equal access to Call of Duty to other gaming platforms, bringing more choice to more players and more competition to the gaming market.”

The post Xbox Has Signed A 10 Year Agreement With Nintendo To Bring Call Of Duty To Nintendo Switch appeared first on Press Start.

Microsoft has announced that the February Xbox update is now available to all users, bringing with it the new power saving and “carbon aware” download options that were made available to Insiders last month.

The update also adds a couple of other handy new features, like the ability to stop the home screen from displaying game art when hovering over a title, or control simple actions like navigating menus and playing media using a virtual remote in the Google Home app.

Take a look at the details on each new feature (from the Xbox Wire website) below:

Carbon aware game downloads and updates

• Xbox is now the first console to offer carbon aware game downloads and updates. When your console is plugged in, connected to the internet and regional carbon intensity data is available, Xbox will schedule game, app, and OS updates for your console at specific times during the nightly maintenance window that may result in lower carbon emissions because a higher proportion of electricity is coming from lower-carbon sources on the electric grid. This decreases fossil fuel dependency and CO2 emissions and could potentially save you money.
• You can choose what works best for you and adjust your settings at any time. Shutdown (energy saving) cuts power use by up to 20x when it’s off compared to the Sleep power option. For every two consoles that switch to Shutdown (energy saving) for one year, we will save the equivalent amount of carbon removed by one tree planted and grown for a decade. This is based on an average of Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One consoles on Shutdown (energy saving) for 20 hours per day for 1 year.

Hide game art when selecting tiles on Home

Some players find game art distracting or prefer a more simplified background while navigating their Home screen. With this new feature gamers can hide game art so it will no longer replace the Home background each time you move to select a game tile. Instead, the Home background will always remain the solid colour of your choice. To adjust your background, navigate to Settings > General >  Personalization > My background > Solid colour and game art. On this page you can choose to show or hide game art with the toggle in the bottom right of the screen.

Use the Google Home app as a touch remote control for your Xbox console.

Since 2019, you’ve been able to control your Xbox console using voice commands with Google Assistant. Now, you can use the Google Home app as a touch remote control for your Xbox console. When you add your Xbox console to your Google Home app, you’ll be able to easily turn your console on and off, navigate on-screen, control media playback, and more. You can use the Google Home app to command your Xbox like you do for other Smart Home devices.

To get started, go to the Google Home app on your phone. Pull down to refresh your devices and tap on your Xbox console to bring up the touch controls. Remote control features include: power on/off, directional navigation, navigate home, navigate back, play/pause, skip/previous, volume up/down, mute/unmute, and record game clip.

Jump back into a party with your friends

Xbox is experimenting with some different experiences to make it easy to jump back into a party with your friends. As this happens, a random subset of users will be able to give it a try. To get started, go to the “Parties & Chats” tab in the guide on your Xbox console. Click on the “Party” or “Party History” button. You’ll see a list of your previous parties, which you can use to restart one of those parties or create a new one. You can also easily select which friends you want to invite.

The post The February Xbox Update Rolls Out Carbon Aware Game Downloads And Google Home Controls Today appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has revealed the first wave of new games hitting the Xbox Game Pass service for February 2023.

The line-up for the first half of the month is a pretty decent mix of titles and genres, including at least one big hitter with the excellent Atomic Heart, and new-gen updates to both Shadow Warrior 3 and Cities: Skylines.

As we reported, one of the games being removed from Game Pass this month is CrossfireX, which has been completely cancelled.

Check out everything announced for Xbox Game Pass this month, below:

COMING TO GAME PASS IN FEBRUARY

Darkest Dungeon – Available Now
Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike turn-based RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring. Recruit, train, and lead a team of flawed heroes through twisted forests, forgotten warrens, ruined crypts, and beyond. Not only do unimaginable foes await, but stress, famine, disease, and the ever-encroaching dark.

Grid Legends (Cloud) EA Play – Available Now
Buckle up for high-octane racing as Grid Legends comes to Xbox Cloud Gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate via EA Play. Experience edge-of-your-seat motorsport action, an immersive story mode in ‘Driven to Glory’, and stunning racing variety, as recurring EA Play events keep the wheel-to-wheel action alive.

Hot Wheels Unleashed – Game of the Year Edition – Available Now
Get ready to drift, boost, jump and crash on the iconic orange tracks with the most beloved Hot Wheels cars! Hot Wheels Unleashed – Game of the Year Edition is out now on Xbox Game Pass. Let’s ignite the fun!

Madden NFL 23 (Console and PC) EA Play – February 9
Madden NFL 23 is coming soon to PC Game Pass & Ultimate via EA Play! Give your Ultimate Team a boost and show you’re here to win. EA Play and Ultimate members can score a Supercharge Pack by logging into Madden Ultimate Team between February 9 and March 9, 2023.

SD Gundam Battle Alliance (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 9
Strange phenomena are twisting legendary moments from Gundam history, and you’re in charge of fixing them. SD Gundam Battle Alliance is a multiplayer Gundam action RPG where you can smash foes solo or with friends in thrilling mechanized combat. Acquire new mobile suits, power them up, and take them into battle in various missions!

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 14
Set forth on an epic adventure in a fictional Dark Ages sandbox that combines strategy and action-RPG gameplay. Carve out your own kingdom or champion another’s cause as you explore the vast, reimagined continent of Calradia in this prequel to the critically acclaimed, Mount & Blade: Warband.

Cities: Skylines – Remastered (Cloud and Xbox Series X|S) – February 15
Cities: Skylines is an award-winning, best-selling management game, now remastered for Xbox Series X|S with all of its robust city-simulation gameplay and unique charm along for the ride. Design, build, and manage the city of your dreams, from public services to civic policies, and challenge yourself to grow from a simple town to a bustling metropolitan hub.

Shadow Warrior 3: Definitive Edition (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 16
Trek across a mythic Asian land infused with the magic and technology of ancient samurai, now overrun by the demonic yokai from Japanese folklore. Experience the Definitive Edition of Shadow Warrior 3 with tons of new features and modes with fast-paced gunplay, razor-sharp melee combat, and a spectacular free-running movement system.

Atomic Heart (Cloud, Console, and PC) – February 21
In a mad and sublime utopian world, take part in explosive encounters. Adapt your fighting style to each opponent, use your environment and upgrade your equipment to fulfill your mission. If you want to reach the truth, you’ll have to pay in blood.

LEAVING GAME PASS IN FEBRUARY

• Besiege (Game Preview)
• CrossfireX
• Infernax
• Recompile
• Skul: The Hero Slayer
• The Last Kids on Earth

The post The First Batch Of Xbox Game Pass Games For February Has Been Revealed appeared first on Press Start.

Update: Xbox has now officially unveiled this new controller colourway, which launches locally on February 21st.

Interestingly, the company has revealed that plugging the Stellar Shift controller into your Xbox Series X|S console will also immediately grant you this gorgeous, cosmic dynamic background:

We know, it's pretty. That's why we turned it into a Dynamic Background that you can get just by plugging your new Stellar Shift into your Xbox Series X|S console. Get the details here: https://t.co/cRFhTwPJjc

You're welcome ? pic.twitter.com/eMT3dg82rM

— Xbox (@Xbox) February 7, 2023

So far only JB Hi-Fi and EB have made the Stellar Shift controller available for pre-order but we’ll keep updating this as more comes:

• Xbox Wireless Controller Stellar Shift – $99 at JB Hi-Fi
• Xbox Wireless Controller Stellar Shift – $99.95 at EB Games

The existence of a new Xbox Wireless Controller variant has leaked, first spotted by the legendary billbil-kun (who’s responsible for those rock-solid PlayStation Plus Essentials leaks every month).

Dubbed “Stellar Shift” the controller looks to be a new, purplish hue of the gorgeous Lunar Shift controller that Xbox released last year. The idea is the same in that it “changes colour with light and motion” and features a swirling pattern on its grips.

The info has come from Amazon Italy, where the controller is currently still live and shows a release date of February 14th, but pricing and release information for local regions has not yet been announced. We’d expect to know more once Xbox makes an official announcement of the Stellar Shift controller itself.

RELEASE DATE PREMIERE#Xbox Wireless Controller Special Edition Stellar Shift
??Announcement date: TBD
??Release date: From Feb 14th, 2023
?Price: 64,99€

Already spotted on some Amazon EU sites

ES: https://t.co/Ft41hDX7Af
IT: https://t.co/DTpibXrqro

— billbil-kun (@billbil_kun) February 3, 2023

At least one punter already has the controller in-hand as well, as seen in a response to the tweet revealing the Stellar Shift Xbox Wireless Controller:

On l’a déjà ici elle est magnifique pic.twitter.com/RkisDr9PM3

— foufoune magique (@souljahgreen) February 3, 2023

Nine months after it was initially released, the Deep Pink Xbox Wireless Controller is also finally set to hit ANZ stores on February 10th.

It’ll set you back $95 when it lands in stores, and you can pre-order it now at the below:

• Xbox Wireless Controller Deep Pink at Amazon
• Xbox Wireless Controller Deep Pink at Microsoft Store
• Xbox Wireless Controller Deep Pink at EB Games
• Xbox Wireless Controller Deep Pink at JB Hi-Fi

The Xbox Series X Forza Horizon 5 console bundle is also in stock now at Amazon.

The post Xbox Has Officially Announced The New Stellar Shift Wireless Controller appeared first on Press Start.

Update: Nine months later, the Deep Pink Xbox Wireless Controller is finally set to hit ANZ stores on February 10th.

It’ll set you back $95 when it lands in stores, and you can pre-order it now at the below:

• Xbox Wireless Controller Deep Pink at Amazon
• Xbox Wireless Controller Deep Pink at Microsoft Store
• Xbox Wireless Controller Deep Pink at EB Games
• Xbox Wireless Controller Deep Pink at JB Hi-Fi

The Xbox Series X Forza Horizon 5 console bundle is also in stock now at Amazon.

Although there’s currently no local listing or pricing for it, the next colour variant of the Xbox wireless controller is going to be Deep Pink.

The controller is currently only listed for pre-order on the US Xbox Store for $64.99 USD, making it once of the more premium controllers we’ve seen out of Microsoft, their Elite models withstanding.

As is usually the case, the controller is expected to be compatible with the Xbox Series X/S consoles, as well as Xbox One, PC, iOS and Android devices.

We’ve seen plenty of different controllers out of Xbox and while this isn’t nearly as eye-grabbing as the furry Sonic controllers or the Aqua Shift variant, the Deep Pink controller certainly looks nice.

We’ll update you as soon as we receive news of local listings.

The post The Deep Pink Xbox Controller Colour Is Finally Coming To Australia This Week appeared first on Press Start.

First announced over a year ago, the gaming world is still patiently waiting for Ubisoft to bring its subscription service, Ubisoft+, to Xbox consoles.

Now, it seems as though that day is drawing closer, with achievement tracking website TrueAchievements having discovered a list of over 60 titles on the Microsoft Store that have quietly had an “Ubisoft+” tag added to them.

All up, 63 games and over 100 DLC items have been discovered, which lines up with the Ubisoft+ model of offering subscribers access to its most comprehensive versions of each game including expansions and other additional content. Check out the full list of what games TrueAchievements has unearthed (so far) below:

Ubisoft+ Games Coming To Xbox

• Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China
• Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: India
• Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: Russia
• Assassin’s Creed III Remastered
• Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
• Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
• Assassin’s Creed Origins
• Assassin’s Creed Rogue Remastered
• Assassin’s Creed Syndicate
• Assassin’s Creed The Ezio Collection
• Assassin’s Creed Unity
• Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
• Battleship
• Boggle
• Child of Light
• Family Feud
• Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon Classic Edition
• Far Cry 3 Classic Edition
• Far Cry 4
• Far Cry 5
• Far Cry 6
• Far Cry New Dawn
• Far Cry Primal
• Fighter Within
• For Honor
• Grow Up
• Hungry Shark World
• Immortals Fenyx Rising
• Jeopardy!
• Monopoly Madness
• Monopoly Plus
• OddBallers
• Rabbids Invasion: The Interactive TV Show
• Rabbids: Party of Legends
• Rayman Legends
• Riders Republic
• RISK
• Risk: Urban Assault
• Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game – Complete Edition
• Scrabble
• Shape Up
• South Park: The Fractured but Whole
• South Park: The Stick of Truth
• Steep
• The Crew
• The Crew 2
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Breakpoint
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands
• Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Extraction
• Tom Clancy’s The Division
• Tom Clancy’s The Division 2
• Trackmania Turbo
• Transference
• Trials Fusion
• Trials of the Blood Dragon
• Trials Rising
• Trivial Pursuit Live!
• Trivial Pursuit Live! 2
• Uno
• Watch Dogs: Legion
• Watch_Dogs
• Watch_Dogs 2
• Wheel of Fortune
• Zombi

The full Ubisoft+ service is currently available solely on PC and features over 100 Ubisoft titles available to download and play for a single monthly cost starting at AUD $19.95 per month. With no formal announcement from Xbox, we don’t yet have a confirmed total list of content or pricing.

There’s also no new timeframe for the service launching on PlayStation, though the PlayStation Plus Extra/Deluxe subscription tiers contain a selection of “Ubisoft+ Classics” titles.

The post Ubisoft+ Looks To Be Launching On Xbox Soon With Over 60 Games appeared first on Press Start.

Smilegate has announced that CrossfireX, its Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One exclusive shooter, is being shutdown on May 18th, 2023 and has already been removed from the Xbox digital storefronts.

“Attention Mercenaries,

It is with the deepest regret that we are informing you of our decision to end support for CrossfireX on May 18, 2023. Since the launch of the game, we have worked tirelessly to bring it to a point where we can all be proud, and throughout it all we have had the honor and pleasure of supporting our players.

Coming to this decision was not easy, however, we can proudly say that our players have been amazingly active, passionate and enthusiastic in working with us to create a game that would be fun and enjoyable by all. We want to thank each and every one of our players for playing CrossfireX and being a part of this journey with us.”

In the accompanying FAQ, its confirmed that both the multiplayer modes and the Remedy-developed single player campaigns have been affected, with neither available for purchase and any purchases made in the last two weeks reportedly eligible for a refund.

It is with deepest regret that we must inform you of our decision to terminate our service for CrossfireX. We want to thank each and every one of our players for playing and being a part of this journey with us. For full details, please visit: https://t.co/Kx03nYOmLA pic.twitter.com/Gl790Tn38T

— CrossfireX (@PlayCrossfireX) February 3, 2023

Disappointingly, once the game’s servers have been switched off on May 18th, the single player campaigns will also become unplayable alongside the online multiplayer component.

As for why it’s decided to close the game up just a year after its February 2022 release, Smilegate says “While our team worked hard to push out numerous content updates including fixes,  new maps, modes & in-game events, the game was ultimately not where it needed to  be. As a result, we have made the difficult decision to close the game.”

CrossfireX and its single player campaigns launched to mostly-negative reviews, a full three years after their initial announcement and after suffering delays. While the multiplayer component didn’t land and likely won’t be missed terribly in its absence, the two campaigns from Alan Wake and Control developer, Remedy, were short and sweet shooter experiences that will now no longer be playable.

The post The Xbox Exclusive CrossfireX Is Being Shut Down Just A Year After Launch appeared first on Press Start.

Bloomberg’s Jason Schrier has published a new report, detailing new developments around the recent mass layoffs at Microsoft, how they’ve affected Halo studio 343 Industries and what the future of the Halo franchise might look like.

For starters, Schrier says that Bloomberg has seen a spreadsheet of the names of employees at 343i that have been let go, which reportedly includes at least 95 names from temporary contractors all the way to studio veterans and directors. Early claims that the studio would be put on some degree of “curator” role over being the core developer for the series going forward have apparently been refuted by Head of Xbox Game Studios, Matt Booty.

Microsoft's 343 Industries is undergoing a massive reorganization and strategy shift to revive the acclaimed Halo video game franchise. https://t.co/5dsMgibQGR

— Bloomberg (@business) January 31, 2023

Elsewhere in the report, Schrier says that while many would have assumed that 343i was working on new single-player content for Halo Infinite, the team is actually looking toward releasing entirely new games – and these might not be developed using the same internal Slipspace engine as Infinite. Instead, future Halo titles may even pivot towards using the Unreal engine, although it’s claimed that the studio is divided over concerns that changing engines could disrupt the “feel” of Halo’s gameplay.

At least one new Halo title codenamed “Tatanka” which is potentially a battle royale, and is being made in conjunction with Certain Affinity, is already set to use the Unreal Engine.

You can read the full report here (though it its paywalled) for more detail.

The post 343 Industries Has Reportedly Lost Over 90 Employees And Is Switching Engines For The Next Halo appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has announced the Xbox Games With Gold line up for February 2023.

Things are still pretty quiet on the Games With Gold front, with the reduction to just two titles per month making the selection feel pretty thin. Last month we got Iris Fall and Autonauts, while in Feb we’ll have the following:

• For the King: Available February 1 to 28
• Guts N Goals: Available February 16 to March 15

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Live Gold members can enjoy For the King and Guts N Goals as part of February's Games with Gold! Details here: https://t.co/DaezB3FgCv

— Xbox Wire (@XboxWire) January 30, 2023

For the King

The King has been murdered and the kingdom is in chaos. It’s up to you and your makeshift band to help save the land. Play single-player,  local, or online coop and choose to stick together or split your party to cover more ground. Battle in fast and brutal turn-based combat using your unique skills. Survive cunning enemies, hidden traps, and wicked weather as you fight and explore to solve the mystery of the king’s murder and restore order to the realm.

Guts N Goals

Play the world’s greatest game turned on its head and on a skating rink or the beach! Gut N Goals is an arcade-style soccer game where you get to beat up your friends as you try to score. Get your bat and get smack-tastic in multiple crazy stadiums each with their own unique mechanics. Try out lots of fun mini-games. Watch out for penalties…oh wait, there are no penalty cards! Go nuts! Choose from over 30 heroes with character skills and keep on your toes because random mutators can change the way you play at any time.

The post February’s Xbox Games With Gold Have Been Revealed appeared first on Press Start.

Forza fans were excited last week to get a new glimpse at Forza Motorsport, the eighth entry in Turn 10 Studios’ well-respected racing sim series, during the very first Xbox & Bethesda Developer Direct showcase.

Cue some slight confusion when the game did appear in a lengthy video showing off some of its incredible visual features, but missing any indication of a release date or even rough window for the game outside of “2023.”

Given that Forza Motorsport was one of the games included in Microsoft’s suite of games pegged to release in the “next 12 months” during its June 2022 showcase, eager racers were understandably hoping to see some firming up of its launch date, but if claims from Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb are to believed there’s a chance the game is going to miss that initially promised window altogether.

“What I’m hearing—I’m feeling pretty good about this after asking around a couple of times after hearing about it the first time earlier today—it does seem like Forza is going to slip later into the year and probably won’t be the first half of the year,” Grubb said on the podcast (transcribed by VGC).

“The timeframe I’m hearing for Forza is like Q3, and maybe even a little bit later than that.”

Of course, the delay according to Grubb is still unsubstantiated at this stage but it’ll be interesting to see if Forza Motorsport does slip into the first half of this year as promised or if the team at Turn 10 have found themselves needing extra time to put the last coats of polish on.

When it does release, Forza Motorsport will be available on Xbox Series X|S and PC with Xbox Game Pass subscribers getting access on day one.

The post Forza Motorsport’s Release Date May Have Been Quietly Pushed Back appeared first on Press Start.

Update: Xbox has announced the remaining wave of games coming to the Xbox Game Pass service this month (and some for early February). The January line-up continues to be a decent one with the massive addition of GoldenEye 007 plus the just-announced HI-FI RUSH from Tango Gameworks.

Check out the full list for the month below:

COMING TO GAME PASS IN JANUARY

Mortal Shell: Enhanced Edition – Available now
Making a return to the Game Pass library, Mortal Shell is a deep action RPG that tests your sanity and resilience in a shattered world. Your adversaries spare no mercy, with survival demanding superior awareness, precision, and instincts. Possess lost warriors, track down hidden sanctums of the devout, and face formidable foes.

Stranded Deep – Available now
Take the role of a plane crash survivor stranded somewhere in the Pacific. Experience terrifying encounters both above and below an endless environment. Come face to face with some of the most life-threatening scenarios that will result in a unique experience each time you play.

Valheim: Mistlands Biome Update – Available now
It’s time to pick up your Viking shield once more and set sail for the Mistlands! Valheim’s latest biome update promises new ways of both building and fighting, but you’d better make sure to stay on your guard as there are many new dangers as well…

Persona 3 Portable – Available now
If I say there’s an hour “hidden” between one day and the next… would you believe me? Master the power of the heart, Persona, and uncover the tragic truth of the Dark Hour. Experience the iconic, critically acclaimed RPG that reinvented the Persona series!

Persona 4 Golden – Available now
Experience a coming-of-age story that sets the protagonist and his friends on a journey kickstarted by a chain of serial murders. The world-renowned Persona 4 Golden promises unforgettable adventures, meaningful bonds, and heartwarming experiences shared together with friends.

Monster Hunter Rise – Available now
The critically acclaimed action-RPG series returns! Set in the Japanese folklore inspired land of Kamura, players will team up to battle fearsome monsters, craft a wide variety of gear, and prevent the world from falling into calamity. Rise to the challenge and join the hunt!

HI-FI RUSH – Available now
Feel the beat as wannabe rockstar Chai and his ragtag team fight against an evil megacorp with raucous rhythm combat! From Tango Gameworks comes Hi-Fi Rush, an all-new action game where the world syncs to the music.

GoldenEye 007 – January 27
GoldenEye 007 returns to thrill players old and new! The timeless stealth shooter has been faithfully recreated for Xbox consoles, including new achievements, 4K resolution, a smoother framerate and four-player split-screen.

Roboquest (Game Preview) – January 30
Available now with PC Game Pass and coming soon to Xbox consoles! Blast your way through hordes of evil bots in procedurally generated environments in solo or 2 player co-op, upgrade your build as you progress and defeat powerful bosses. Be ready to dive into the futuristic world of Roboquest and help mankind find the mysterious and long-forgotten Haven-City.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – January 31
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is one of the most beloved strategy games ever made and is coming soon to Xbox consoles. Enjoy a new way to play this much-loved game on console including optimizations for playing with a controller and new tutorials to get you into the fun quickly.

Inkulinati (Game Preview) – January 31
An ink-based strategy game straight from medieval manuscripts, where a rabbit’s bum can be deadlier than a dog’s sword. Take your turn in Inkulinati duels filled with unexpected tactical depth (and humor!). Embark on an ever-changing journey, build your own bestiary, defeat medieval superstars and collect perks to unleash special powers.

JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure All-Star Battle R – January 31
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R brings Hirohiko Araki’s masterpiece to life in fighting game form! Battle with 50 colorful characters from the world of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, wielding Stands, Hamon, and more! See how characters who could never meet in the story interact when they come face to face! Even newcomers to the fighting game genre can have fun with one-button combos and ultimate moves.

Darkest Dungeon – February 2
Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike turn-based RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring. Recruit, train, and lead a team of flawed heroes through twisted forests, forgotten warrens, ruined crypts, and beyond. Not only do unimaginable foes await, but stress, famine, disease, and the ever-encroaching dark.

Grid Legends (Cloud) EA Play – February 2
Buckle up for high-octane racing as Grid Legends comes to Xbox Cloud Gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate via EA Play. Experience edge-of-your-seat motorsport action, an immersive story mode in ‘Driven to Glory’, and stunning racing variety, as recurring EA Play events keep the wheel-to-wheel action alive.

Hot Wheels Unleashed – Game of the Year Edition – February 7
Get ready to drift, boost, jump and crash on the iconic orange tracks with the most beloved Hot Wheels cars! Hot Wheels Unleashed – Game of the Year Edition is coming to Xbox Game Pass on February 7. Let’s ignite the fun!

LEAVING GAME PASS IN JANUARY

• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
• Nobody Saves The World
• Pupperazzi
• The Anacrusis (Game Preview)
• We Happy Few
• Windjammers 2
• Donut County
• Taiko no Tatsujin: The Drum Master
• Telling Lies
• Worms WMD

The post The Next Batch Of Xbox Game Pass Games For January Has Been Revealed appeared first on Press Start.

Microsoft held its first Xbox + Bethesda Developer Direct this morning highlighting five games that are coming to Xbox and PC consoles this year. It was a decent mix of release dates, longer gameplay segments and a stealth drop.

REDFALL GOT A RELEASE DATE

We finally know that Redfall is releasing on May 2nd for Xbox Series X|S and PC.

We got to see some gameplay of a mission to recover a lighthouse lamp from cultists, where Arkane explained some of the game’s fearsome vampiric enemies. It looks suitably intense, especially when things get dark and claustrophobic indoors. Procedural encounters and dungeons, surprise attacks from super-strong enemies and more all look to add to the danger and excitement of the Redfall experience.

HI-FI RUSH IS TANGO GAMEWORKS NEW GAME AND IT’S OUT TODAY

Who doesn’t love a good stealth drop. It’s a new game called Hi-Fi Rush from Tango Gameworks and its out today.

HI-FI RUSH is pegged as a “rhythm action game”, where your moves all sync with the music to create an awesome soundscape as you fight, not unlike the excellent No Straight Roads from 2020. Performing more on beat will net you better success in battle, and all of the music and pulsating environments will come together to look superb in the moment.

WE GOT ANOTHER LOOK AT FORZA MOTORSPORT

Whilst we didn’t get a release date, we did get an extended look at Forza Motorsport.

The studio says the game contains over 500 cars with more than 800 unique upgrades, driving physics more advanced than the last three games combined, more realistic paint model than ever, per-car damage and dirt accumulation and a whole bunch of other super impressive technical achievements.

All 20 environments in the game have been built from the ground-up for the new generation of consoles as well, with up to 10 times more detail than previous generations, including fully dynamic time of day and weather.

MINECRAFT LEGENDS GOT A RELEASE DATE 

We now know that the next Minecraft games is launching on April 18th for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Switch and PC.

The team showed off a big chunk of gameplay of Minecraft Legends’ 4v4 PVP battles, talking about the importance of strategy and how skirmishes can turn around in an instant as players get creative with the game’s systems. Of course, there’ll also be a story-driven campaign that sees players reclaim the Overworld from a Piglin invasion.

THE ELDER SCROLLS ONLINE NECROM GOT A RELEASE DATE

ZeniMax Online Studios revealed that The Elder Scrolls Online: Necrom will be releasing in June and take players back to the land of Morrowind.

It was also announced that starting today and for a limited time, you can get ESO Plus which includes all chapters and past DLC for any player playing on Xbox Game Pass.

The post Everything Announced In The Xbox + Bethesda Developer Direct appeared first on Press Start.

During today’s Xbox & Bethesda Developer Direct, Turn 10 Studios took the time to show fans what they’ve been up to with development of the upcoming racing sim, Forza Motorsport.

We also got an in-depth look at the game’s graphics, audio and gameplay in what looks to be the most realistic racing the team has ever produced with 4K/60FPS visuals fidelity.

The studio says the game contains over 500 cars with more than 800 unique upgrades, driving physics more advanced than the last three games combined, more realistic paint model than ever, per-car damage and dirt accumulation and a whole bunch of other super impressive technical achievements.

All 20 environments in the game have been built from the ground-up for the new generation of consoles as well, with up to 10 times more detail than previous generations, including fully dynamic time of day and weather.

No release date was announced but the game is coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC sometime in 2023.

You can watch a recap of the Developer Direct below:

The post Forza Motorsport Looks To Be The Most Realistic Racing Sim The Series Has Seen appeared first on Press Start.

During today’s Xbox & Bethesda Developer Direct, Mojang Studios took the time to give fans a proper look at Minecraft Legends, the new action strategy game based on the massively-popular franchise.

The team showed off a big chunk of gameplay of Minecraft Legends’ 4v4 PVP battles, talking about the importance of strategy and how skirmishes can turn around in an instant as players get creative with the game’s systems. Of course, there’ll also be a story-driven campaign that sees players reclaim the Overworld from a Piglin invasion.

Minecraft Legends is coming April 18th, 2023 to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS5, PS4, Switch and PC. It will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one.

Check out a new gameplay trailer for the game below:

The post Minecraft Legends Has A Release Date And New Gameplay appeared first on Press Start.

During today’s Xbox & Bethesda Developer Direct, Arkane turned up to talk about their highly anticipated upcoming title, Redfall.

The studio showed off the game’s detailed open world setting, including its safe home bases and NPC survivor characters that dole out missions for the player to take on.

We got to see some gameplay of a mission to recover a lighthouse lamp from cultists, where Arkane explained some of the game’s fearsome vampiric enemies. It looks suitably intense, especially when things get dark and claustrophobic indoors. Procedural encounters and dungeons, surprise attacks from super-strong enemies and more all look to add to the danger and excitement of the Redfall experience.

Arkane also explained the game’s suite of player customisation with abilities and weapons, and overall game progression.

Best of all, we now know that Redfall is on its way very soon, coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC on May 2nd, including Xbox Game Pass on day one.

Take a look at the Redfall gameplay deep dive below:

The post Redfall Has A Release Date And It’s Not Too Far Off appeared first on Press Start.

A surprise entry in today’s Xbox & Bethesda Developer Direct today (although we had an idea earlier in the week), Tango Gameworks has announced its next game – HI-FI RUSH.

Right from the get-go it looks to be a massive departure from what we’re used to seeing in Tango’s horror-flavoured output, instead giving us a brightly-coloured, cel-shaded action game with a ton of attitude and larger-than-life characters. As studio head Shinji Mikami himself puts it, he never would’ve thought of a game like it.

HI-FI RUSH is pegged as a “rhythm action game”, where your moves all sync with the music to create an awesome soundscape as you fight, not unlike the excellent No Straight Roads from 2020. Performing more on beat will net you better success in battle, and all of the music and pulsating environments will come together to look superb in the moment.

The best part? HI-FI Rush is available on Xbox Series X|S via Game Pass and PC now! Get it here.

Check out the trailer below:

The post Tango Gameworks’ HI-FI RUSH Has Been Officially Announced And It’s Out Now appeared first on Press Start.

The rumours were true. A new Xbox and Bethesda “Developer Direct” is happening this week to give fans a deeper look at a handful of upcoming Xbox first-party titles.

Airing tomorrow, January 26th, the showcase will offer inside looks at Xbox games that are due to launch “in the next few months” including the likes of The Elder Scrolls Online, Forza Motorsport, Minecraft Legends and Redfall. Starfield is notably absent, of course, but Xbox promises that a standalone show is in the works for that game to allow adequate time to dive into it.

Curious about what's coming to Xbox??
?
Check out Developer_Direct on January 25, featuring news and gameplay from some highly-anticipated games: https://t.co/DvTYGzc85z | #DeveloperDirect pic.twitter.com/5QUbL0OXqA

— Xbox (@Xbox) January 11, 2023

The Xbox Wire blog provides a little more context on how those four games will feature, with presentations from key members of each development team:

• The Elder Scrolls Online: Studio Director Matt Firor will unveil 2023’s major Chapter update, including the latest regions of Tamriel to become playable in ESO, as well as a major new feature coming in the game’s biggest update this year. The Developer_Direct will be immediately followed by the full, standalone ESO Chapter Reveal Event, hosted by Zenimax Online Studios, which will provide all the in-depth details ESO players will be keen to know.
• Forza Motorsport: The team at Turn 10 Studios have been hard at work, bringing fans the next generation of Forza Motorsport, built from the ground up to take advantage of Xbox Series X|S. Forza Motorsport is back, and we can’t wait to share more gameplay and exciting new details.
• Minecraft Legends: Mojang Studios will showcase an insider’s look into the PvP multiplayer experience in Minecraft Legends – the upcoming action-strategy game from the makers of Minecraft. Developed in partnership with Blackbird Interactive and launching this spring, don’t miss exclusive gameplay footage at the Developer_Direct.
• Redfall: The minds behind Dishonored and Prey, Arkane Austin, will showcase several minutes of gameplay from their upcoming FPS. The Developer_Direct will reveal single and multiplayer gameplay, showing more of how you and your friends will take down bloodthirsty Vampires on the picturesque island of Redfall, Massachusetts. Fans can expect to learn more about combat, customization, bosses, the open world, and more.

As for when we can catch the showcase here in Australia, it’s not the worst timing for some of us, and kind of an early start for others:

Xbox and Bethesda Developer Direct Showcase Australian Times – January 26th

• 7.00 AM AEDT (Melbourne/Sydney/Hobart/Canberra)
• 6.30 AM ACDT (Adelaide)
• 6.00 AM AEST (Brisbane)
• 5.30 AM ACST (Darwin)
• 4.00 AM AWST (Perth)
• 9.00 AM NZDT (Wellington)

The post The Xbox And Bethesda Developer Direct Is Happening Tomorrow And Here’s All The Aussie Times appeared first on Press Start.

Update: After being down for over an hour, it looks like services are returning to normal for most users!

Xbox users have taken to social media to report that Xbox Live is currently down.

This means that many gamers are unable to access and play their games, in particular those installed through Xbox Game Pass. Some are reporting issues with accessing friends list or matchmaking while others, ourselves included, are simply unable to sign into their consoles at all.

One look at Down Detector shows that outage reports have spiked this evening from about 6PM AEDT and are still going:

We’ll endeavour to update this post when things return to normal.

The post UPDATED: Xbox Live Is Currently Down appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has announced some changes to the Xbox Series X|S power modes that will allow it to perform similarly whilst asleep, yet use power more efficiently to work towards a more sustainable future.

The first of these is that starting today, Xbox Series X|S consoles on the Xbox Insider program will update to a new Shutdown (energy saving) option that will reduce power consumption whilst your power is off, but will not affect performance, gameplay or your console’s ability to update your system, games or apps overnight. This cuts the energy usage of Xbox consoles by up to 20X when compared to sleep mode.

Xbox has also announced a new “Active Hours” setting. This will allow you to still use the Sleep power option, but now adjust what hours your Xbox remains active. Your Xbox will remain active and ready to boot instantly during the hours your select to be active, whilst fully shutting down whilst in sleep mode. This can be customised to your choosing.

The last bit is a little bit more lost on me, but Xbox has also said that starting today, when your console is connected to the internet and regional carbon intensity data is available, Xbox will schedule your game, app and OS updates for your console at specific times during the night that will hopefully result in lower carbon emissions because of a higher proportion of electricity is coming from lower-carbon sources on the electric grid.

Obviously, we trust Xbox in making this decisions for the environment, so it’s great to see more variety and options, without much of a loss of anything on the console front.

The post Xbox Is Introducing New Low Power Modes On The Xbox Series X|S To Lower Emissions And Power Usage appeared first on Press Start.

As we dive into the third full year of the current generation of consoles, the slate of future game releases is becoming more and more stacked with exciting-looking titles.

We recently ran a list of what we think are some of the biggest games on the calendar for 2023, but we also wanted to break it down and highlight the future Xbox console-exclusive games (at least the ones we know about) that are set to making being an Xbox owner worthwhile over the next year and further beyond. Plus, most if not all of these titles will be dropping on Xbox Game Pass, so it’s also a great chance to look at the immense value subscribers will be getting in the year/s ahead.

STARFIELD

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA 2023

25 years in the making, Starfield introduces an entirely new frontier to explore—space. In 2330, you join Constellation, the last group of space explorers seeking rare artifacts throughout the galaxy. Venture through the stars and get to know a memorable cast of characters on a quest to answer humanity’s greatest question—what is out there?

This is without a doubt the biggest upcoming Xbox console exclusive that we know of, and it’s finally coming this year. Hopefully.

REDFALL

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA 2023

Redfall is an open-world, co-op FPS from Arkane Austin, the award-winning team behind Prey and Dishonored. Continuing Arkane’s legacy of carefully crafted worlds and immersive sims, Redfall brings the studio’s signature gameplay to this story-driven action shooter.

FORZA MOTORSPORT

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA 2023

Forza Motorsport has been built from the ground up to showcase the Xbox Series X|S consoles. The accuracy of the overhauled physics, the beauty of the cars and tracks, the new dynamic time of day, advanced car damage, and real time ray tracing on track lead to a generational leap in immersion. Forza Motorsport is the most technically advanced racing game ever made.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 : HEART OF CHERNOBYL

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA 2023

The Cheapest Copy: $79 at Amazon with free shipping

Discover the vast Chernobyl Exclusion Zone full of dangerous enemies, deadly anomalies and powerful artifacts. Unveil your own epic story as you make your way to the Heart of Chernobyl. Choose your paths wisely, as they will determine your fate and shape the future of the humankind in the end.

ARK 2

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA 2023

Survive the past. Tame the future. Suddenly awakened on a primal world filled with dinosaurs and humans struggling for dominance, you must team-up with legendary heroes to confront powerful dark forces. Saddle up and join the definitive next-gen survival experience with ARK 2!

REPLACED

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC

Release Date: TBA 2023

REPLACED is a 2.5D sci-fi retro-futuristic action platformer set in an alternate 1980s America, with free-flow action combat and a dystopian story wrapped up in incredibly slick pixel art. One look at screenshots and gameplay footage and its easy to see why we’re excited about this one.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition/Age of Empires IV (Console Release)

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One

Release Date: January 31st (Age of Empires II) / TBA (Age of Empires IV)

Two Age of Empires games are finally making their way to modern Xbox consoles! Both games will feature optimised controls with support for mouse and keyboard input, optional cross-play and will be playable through Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition will feature brand new mechanics optimized for controller for both new and seasoned players alike, 200+ hours of historical campaign gameplay, 1,000 years of human history and 35 civilizations all from the comfort of your living room.

Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA

Senua’s Saga, the highly-anticipated sequel to Ninja Theory’s fantastic Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, was among the earliest announced games for Xbox’s new generation of console hardware, so it’s somewhat surprising we’ve still seen so little of it. Every morsel of footage in trailers and teasers has looked bloody brilliant though, so here’s hoping we get a little more clarity around a release date this year.

Warhammer 40,000: Darktide (Console Release)

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S

Release Date: TBA

From the developers of the best-selling and award-winning franchise Vermintide, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a visceral 4-player co-op action game set in the hive city of Tertium. Fight together with your friends against hordes of enemies in this new Warhammer 40,000 experience. Launching to acclaim and popularity last year on PC in early access, it’s coming to Xbox Series X|S “soon.”

Planet of Lana

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC

Release Date: TBA 2023

A young girl and her loyal friend embark on a rescue mission through a colourful world full of cold machines and unfamiliar creatures. Planet of Lana is a cinematic puzzle adventure game framed by an epic sci-fi saga that stretches across centuries and galaxies.

The Outer Worlds 2

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA

The Outer Worlds was an underrated gem from Obsidian in 2019, and the sequel comes following the studio’s acquisition by Microsoft. We still don’t know much outside of the very pretty cinematic reveal trailer, save that we’ll be exploring a new solar system with a new crew. It’s about time we learned more about this exciting sequel, so here’s hoping that’s what we get in 2023.

State of Decay 3

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA

Announced over two years ago, the next in Undead Labs’ series of compelling zombie survival strategy/sims is still shrouded in mystery. Beyond the initial cinematic teaser and the promise of zombie deer, there’s little else to go off of. Hopefully 2023 is the year we learn more about State of Decay 3, if not see it release in some form.

The Last Case of Benedict Fox

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA 2023

Take on the last case of Benedict Fox and dive into a twisted world of secret organizations, forbidden rituals, and cold-blooded murders. Explore the memories of deceased victims as you search for clues and fight demons in this fantastical Lovecraftian Metroidvania.

INKULINATI (EARLY ACCESS)

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC

Release Date: January 31st

Inkulinati is an ink-based strategy game straight from medieval manuscripts, where a rabbit’s bum can be deadlier than a dog’s sword. Take your turn in Inkulinati duels filled with unexpected tactical depth (and humour!). Embark on an ever-changing journey, build your own bestiary, defeat medieval superstars and collect perks to unleash special powers. Become a master of the Living Ink, grab your quill and build your unique strategy time after time.

Ravenlok

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA 2023

Ravenlok’s life takes a turn for the unexpected when she stumbles through a magical mirror into a troubled kingdom. Explore fantastical realms, meet mad characters and defeat dark monsters to end the Caterpillar Queen’s reign of terror. Your destiny awaits in an action-packed, coming of age adventure. This gorgeous-looking adventure with its voxel-esque visuals should be quite a treat when it launches this year.

Everwild

Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PC

Release Date: TBA

Rare’s next big game is a third-person adventure game that we still know next-to-nothing about. The most recent rumours peg it as having some degree of god-game elements and zero combat, and since there’s been absolutely no official indication of a release date we wouldn’t expect this any sooner than 2024. Who knows, though? Miracles can happen.

Indiana Jones

Platforms: TBA

Release Date: TBA

Another incredibly long shot to expect this in the next couple of years, but Bethesda/MachineGames’ Indiana Jones tie-in was announced nearly two years ago, so we’re sure to at least learn more soon. Bethesda Game Studios Director, Todd Howard, reckons the team responsible for the modern Wolfenstein games is the perfect fit for the license, which has us all kinds of excited and waiting (im)patiently to dig up any new info.

Of course, there are plenty more big Xbox exclusives in the pipeline that we’re keen to learn more about, like Perfect Dark, Avowed, Contraband and of course, Fable. Hopefully we’ll hear a lot more about those soon.

The post The Most Exciting Xbox Exclusives Coming In 2023 And Beyond appeared first on Press Start.

It’s not just the PlayStation 5 getting new console bundles in 2023. Microsoft recently revealed a Forza Horizon 5 bundle for their flagship Xbox Series X, and it’s now available for pre-order at most Australian retailers.

The bundle launches on January 24th and contains the Xbox Series X console and everything it normally comes with, as well as download codes for the Forza Horizon 5 Premium Edition, which comes with Forza Horizon 5 and its add-ons including the Hot Wheels expansion, Welcome Pack, VIP Membership, Car Pass, and second expansion when it becomes available.

It’ll set you back a bit more than the standalone console with an RRP of $849.95, which might be a bitter pill to swallow considering Forza Horizon 5 is on Xbox Game Pass, but if you’re keen on all the added extras and prefer to have a copy of the game that doesn’t require staying subscribed to play then it could be a decent proposition.

You can pre-order the Xbox Series X Forza Horizon 5 bundle at the below retailers with:

• Amazon – Xbox Series X Forza Horizon 5 bundle – $849 with free shipping and pre-order price guarantee
• Microsoft Store – Xbox Series X Forza Horizon 5 bundle – $849
• EB Games – Xbox Series X Forza Horizon 5 bundle – $849
• JB Hi-Fi – Xbox Series X Forza Horizon 5 bundle – $849
• The Gamesmen – Xbox Series X Forza Horizon 5 bundle – $849

If you don’t want to wait and don’t need the extras, Amazon still has the standalone Xbox Series X in stock right now:

• Amazon – Xbox Series X console – $749 with free shipping

The post The Xbox Series X Forza Horizon 5 Bundle Is Up For Pre-Order At Aussie Retailers appeared first on Press Start.

A new showcase featuring games from Xbox and Bethesda could be happening later this month, if Windows Central’s Jez Corden, a notable leaker of Microsoft-related news, is to be believed.

Corden says that the showcase will be called “Xbox Developer_Direct” and contain deep dives into Redfall, Minecraft Legends and Forza Motorsport, among other things. The Xbox Developer_Direct will reportedly air on Thursday, January 26th at 7AM AEDT.

Rather than a large-scale presentation that we’d be used to seeing around E3/Summer of Games season this will apparently be a smaller and more focused event that could also be a more frequent occurrence for Xbox going forward, not unlike Nintendo’s Direct showcases. Corden says that it’s unlikely Starfield will make an appearance, but could pop up later for a bigger showing.

EXCLUSIVE: Xbox will host a new Developer_Direct show format this month, featuring ZeniMax titles, Forza, and more.

DETAILS: https://t.co/hmzdSG45Vc #Xbox

— Jez (@JezCorden) January 9, 2023

Although Corden is considered to be a good source of insider information, this is obviously still very much just a rumour at the moment. We’ll keep on top of any more news surrounding the potential for a new Xbox and Bethesda showcase.

The post A New Xbox And Bethesda Showcase Could Be Happening This Month appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox is yet to reveal its full line-up of Xbox Game Pass games for January 2023, but at least one has already arrived on the service with some others previously confirmed and a handful of games set to leave the service mid-month.

We’ll be sure to update this story as soon as more of January’s additions are announced, but for now the first game coming in hot is none other than the Aussie-developed survival title, Stranded Deep.

COMING TO GAME PASS IN JANUARY

Stranded Deep – Available Now

In the aftermath of a mysterious plane crash, you are stranded in the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean. Alone, or with a friend, without any means to call for help, you must do what you can to survive. Explore underwater and on land as you hunt for supplies to craft the tools, weapons, and shelter you’ll need to stay alive. Stay sharp: hunger, thirst, and exposure conspire against you as you brave treacherous elements and the dangerous creatures of the Pacific.

Persona 3 Portable – January 19th

Experience the iconic, critically acclaimed RPG that reinvented the Persona series, Persona 3 Portable, now newly remastered for modern platforms. Shortly after transferring to Gekkoukan High School, the protagonist encounters the “Dark Hour.” Unfamiliar stillness swallows the city, people turn into eerie coffins, and otherworldly monsters called Shadows swarm. When they are attacked by one of these Shadows and all hope seemed lost, the power of the heart, their Persona is awakened.

Persona 4 Golden – January 19th

The world-renowned Persona 4 Golden promises unforgettable adventures, meaningful bonds, and heartwarming experiences shared together with friends. Explore otherworldly dungeons, take down monstrous Shadows, and confront the darker sides of one’s self as you inch closer to the truth behind the serial murder cases. Venture around the town of Inaba, partake in an eventful school year, meet kindred spirits, and forge invaluable bonds with new quality of life features including improved graphics and smoothness.

Monster Hunter Rise – January 20th

Rise to the challenge and join the hunt! In Monster Hunter Rise, the latest installment in the award-winning and top-selling Monster Hunter series, you’ll become a hunter, explore brand new maps and use a variety of weapons to take down fearsome monsters as part of an all-new storyline. Hunt down a plethora of monsters with distinct behaviors and deadly ferocity. From classic returning monsters to all-new creatures inspired by Japanese folklore, including the flagship wyvern Magnamalo, you’ll need to think on your feet and master their unique tendencies if you hope to reap any of the rewards!

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (Console) – January 31st

Explore all the original Campaigns and the best-selling expansions like never before. With over 200 hours of gameplay and 1,000 years of human history, improved experiences await. Head online to challenge other players in your quest for world domination with 35 different Civilizations. You can also experience new Civilizations and Campaigns with the Lords of the West DLC! Recent updates include a Battle Royale game mode, ongoing support for the Scenario Editor, Quick Play for easy social games, enhancements to the game UI, and more!

Inkulinati (Game Preview) – January 31st

Inkulinati is an ink-based strategy game straight from medieval manuscripts, where a rabbit’s bum can be deadlier than a dog’s sword. Take your turn in Inkulinati duels filled with unexpected tactical depth (and humour!). Embark on an ever-changing journey, build your own bestiary, defeat medieval superstars and collect perks to unleash special powers. Become a master of the Living Ink, grab your quill and build your unique strategy time after time so that you can be named the greatest Inkulinati of all time!

LEAVING GAME PASS IN JANUARY

• The Anacrusis (Game Preview)
• Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc Anniversary Edition
• Nobody Saves the World
• Pupperazzi
• Windjammers 2

The post The First Xbox Game Pass Game For January Has Arrived appeared first on Press Start.

It’s been a minute since we heard from the folks at GSC Game World about their massively ambitious new entry in the well-loved franchise, no doubt in large part because the studio was homed in the Ukraine before recently moving development of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl to Prague in the Czech Republic.

It seems as though things are back on track though, if a new trailer drop for the game is any indication. Dubbed “Come To Me”, this new two-and-a-half minute teaser gives us a pretty good look at how the Unreal Engine 5-powered game is shaping up, and it’s looking real good. With glimpses of gunplay, the open world, cutscenes and plenty of weird anomalies and creatures from The Zone it’s a nice little hype piece as much as a reminder that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is definitely still real.

Take a look at the Come To Me trailer below:

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl is currently slated for a 2023 release for PC and Xbox Series X|S, where it’ll also be launching into Game Pass on day one.

Amazon has the Standard, Limited and Collector’s Editions available for pre-order now:

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl Standard Edition – $79 at Amazon
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl Limited Edition – $99 at Amazon
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl Collector’s Edition – $249 at Amazon

The post S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2’s Latest Action-Packed Trailer Shows Off Its Gorgeous And Deadly World appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has announced the Xbox Games With Gold line up for January 2023.

Things are still pretty quiet on the Games With Gold front, with the reduction to just two titles per month making the selection feel pretty thin. Last month we got Colt Canyon and Bladed Fury, while in January we’ll have the following:

• Iris Fall: Available January 1 to 31
• Autonauts: Available January 16 to February 15

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Live Gold members can enjoy Iris Fall and Autonauts as part of January's Games with Gold! Details here: https://t.co/08cj6nqioo

— Xbox Wire (@XboxWire) December 29, 2022

Iris Fall

Enter the dreamlike, stunningly designed world of puzzles and adventure. Play as young Iris who follows a mysterious black cat into a labyrinthian world of light and dark. The deeper Iris delves, the more she will realize that everything holds some kind of connection to her. Clever mechanics and challenging puzzles combined with a unique monochrome look and spectacular soundtrack all help lead to a wonderful adventure.

Autonauts

The world is yours for the building! Find uninhabited planets and transform them. Starting with the absolute basics of harvesting sticks and stones, you’ll begin your foundation. Eventually, you can move up to building workerbots, who in turn can help you build more after you hone their artificial intelligence. Teach them to fish, harvest, cook, tailor, and more. Before you know it, you can create Folk who will need your assistance to survive. This is an adorably designed sim game that is open-ended and provides tons of fun challenges for you to master. Set the world in motion through automation.

The post January’s Xbox Games With Gold Have Been Revealed appeared first on Press Start.

Obsidian Entertainment has announced that the original soundtrack for the excellent Pentiment is now available to listen on leading music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. The soundtrack is also available to purchase on Steam.

Created in collaboration with Alkemie and featuring Lingua Ignota, the game’s soundtrack is an excellent example of Obsidian’s commitment to the 16th century European vibe and is accompanied here by some excellent art by Benjamin Vierling depicting lead character, Andreas Maler.

Be on the lookout for the Pentiment album featuring music by the talented @alkemiemusic and a special epilogue song by @LINGUA_IGNOTA_ on Spotify or iTunes or wherever you stream music! ?https://t.co/tnHsP0LIe4

— Obsidian (@Obsidian) December 26, 2022

That same artwork will also be featured on the cover of the Pentiment soundtrack’s vinyl release, which is set to come sometime next year. Specific retail information hasn’t been announced but we’d expect this one to be pretty limited so we’ll definitely be keeping an eye out.

We gave Pentiment a 9/10 in our review, saying “Although its subject matter might confound and could be too heady for the general audience, Pentiment is a role playing game that has been considered and laboured over to the nth degree.”

Pentiment is available now on Xbox and PC and is included in Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass.

The post Pentiment’s Soundtrack Is Now On Streaming Platforms And It’s Getting A Vinyl Release Next Year appeared first on Press Start.

It’s time for our annual countdown to award the very best games this year had to offer. Over the next ten days, we’ll count down our top ten games of 2022.

As always, the votes of each Press Start team member, weighted from #10 through to #1, were collated to compile our collective very best for the year that was. Games worthy of one’s top spot would be awarded the maximum of 10 points and the values would descend down to their tenth selection, which would receive a single point.

A round of rapid polls were utilised to settle dead heats and finalise the top ten.

With forty-two games receiving votes from our team, there could only be ten in the end.

Obsidian will go down as one of the year’s most productive, without a doubt. While still simultaneously developing both Avowed and The Outer Worlds 2, the developer launched the full 1.0 for Grounded as well as a niche role-playing game about a artist journeyman which became a lock for end of year accolade through fanciful writing, heady concepts, and its ardent commitment to the arts of 16th century Bavaria. 

This murder mystery whodunnit felt like the best kind of period piece, pitting church against the state in a time when skepticism began to bear its teeth toward God’s word. Developed by a small troupe within Obsidian, and headed up by the ever passionate Josh Sawyer, Pentiment is the definition of a passion project and it’s been a joy watching the team’s interactions with fans as the game caught fire post-launch. 

In his review, Brodie scored Pentiment a 9 out of 10 stating: “Although its subject matter might confound and could be too heady for the general audience, Pentiment is a role playing game that has been considered and laboured over to the nth degree. It’s a great reminder that some creatives just get it done, budget be damned. By God’s will, Pentiment is making a late charge for Game of the Year.”

As it stands on Metacritic, Pentiment is currently sitting at an 86 based on 55 critic reviews.

PRESS START’S 2022 GOTY LIST

#10 – Pentiment

The post Press Start’s GOTY 2022 #10 – Pentiment appeared first on Press Start.

High On Life has quickly become a massive success story for both developer Squanch Games and for Xbox Game Pass, with Microsoft announcing that it’s surpassed three huge milestones in the short time following its release.

The game, which comes from Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland’s own studio, has proved incredibly popular thanks to its absurdist humour and genuinely fun Metroid-esque adventure shooter gameplay. Announced in an Xbox Wire blog post, it’s managed to rocket to the top of the Xbox Game Pass charts for 2022, becoming the biggest launch on the service for the year.

That’s a huge achievement in and of itself, but High On Life can also add Biggest 3rd Party Game Pass Launch Of All Time and Biggest Release Of A Single-Player Only Game In Game Pass History to its list of accolades. It’s especially notable that the game is doing as well as it is on Game Pass given it’s a third-party release, but Xbox has certainly been throwing a ton of support at it and it’s going a long way to prove that the service can be especially good for boosting the profile and popularity of games that might not have had the same exposure as a traditional release.

“This was our first time launching a game with Game Pass,” said Mike Fridley, Studio Director and COO of Squanch Games, “and we’ve been blown away by the response from the players who have made us the most popular game on Game Pass right now. When Squanch Games was first created, it was to make the games we wanted to play – and Game Pass is helping us reach the players that want to play those games too.”

We gave High On Life a 7.5/10 in our review, saying “High On Life is the most video game-like video game to come from the minds of Squanch and Justin Roiland to date, and it shows the studio is capable of more than just lightly-interactive experiences packed with fart and cum jokes. Though it has plenty of those, too.”

The post High On Life Has Broken Multiple Xbox Game Pass Records Including The Biggest Launch For 2022 appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox Cloud Gaming launched earlier this year in beta on 2022 Samsung TVs and has now come to almost all of Samsung’s 2021 TVs as well. Whilst I had a chance to go hands-on earlier this year, I’ve spent quite a bit of time testing it on my 2022 QN900B to see how it fares. I wanted to work out whether it is a viable option for AAA gaming, and honestly I’m blown away with not only how good it works in its current state, but also the future prospects and what it means for gaming.

It’s not until you go through the motions of seeing how easy it is open the Xbox app on your Samsung TV, pair either an Xbox or PlayStation controller and either login or sign-up using a mobile device through the QR code on screen that you understand how small the barrier of entry is to playing AAA games on your TV with nothing but an internet connection and a controller.

The actual Xbox Game Pass experience from a UI perspective is incredibly similar to gaming on your Xbox Series X or PC. Almost all the AAA and indie games are available due to the nature of most of these games being available in the Cloud on day one now. If you’re using an account where you game regularly on an Xbox console or other Xbox Cloud device, then you’ll be able to jump back into any of those games and have your progress there, but if you’re totally new to Xbox Game Pass, you’ll be presented with a very welcoming screen that is full of great games to try sorted by popularity and genre.

When it comes to Samsung specific menus, outside of syncing your controller to your TV, there’s a Game Bar-esque popup that allows you to check your synced controllers, turn surround sound on or off, change your game picture based on what type of game you’re playing or choose between AI Upscaling or Low Latency for game performance (I’d probably recommend changing back and forth depending on the game).

I first booted up a bit of High on Life as it’s the hottest new game, and already the most played third-party, single-player Xbox Game Pass ever, and if you’re somebody that plays games on an Xbox Series X, you’ll definitely notice a drop in fidelity, but given I’ve got your standard run of the mill 100/40 internet connection (which is not great compared to most other parts of the world), I was shocked how steady it was able to run. If I was going off pure performance in terms of latency and frame rate, and I was handed a controller with no context, I wouldn’t have immediately noticed that it was running from the cloud. If I didn’t own an Xbox Series X or wanted to boot this up away from home on a Samsung TV, I’d have absolutely no qualms with playing it this way.

Next, I booted up Forza Horizon 5 and just due to the faster nature of the game, both the actual visual fidelity and frame rate did take a bit more of a hit, but again, if I was a casual gamer or a teenager wanting to jump into Forza on my home TV without shelling out $750 for a console, it’s not the best experience, but it’s a totally fine experience that allows you to experience the game and still have a bunch of fun. It feels like the proper console Forza Horizon 5 experience, not a hampered version of it.

Booting into Fortnite was the game that really drove home how powerful of an experience this is. I know that it’s a weird game to try and make that point with given it’s a free title that can be played on almost every device, but it’s a game that I know that a lot of teenagers and casual gamers would be simply amazed with if they knew they could boot into it on their TV and get an almost console-like experience with nothing but a controller. I was able to play through an entire game with zero lag or latency problems and manage 11 kills. I never felt that the cloud experience hampered my match and if I’m speaking honestly, it was a better experience than I’ve had with Fortnite on even the Nintendo Switch for example.

I know that there’s a lot of scepticism around cloud gaming, but I’m more confident than ever that it isn’t going anywhere and it is the way of the future. I don’t think it will be the only platform for gaming anytime soon, but I do absolutely believe that it is the way forward in terms of accessibility of these AAA games that are currently only available on either an $800 gaming console or a gaming PC.

Whilst we might not be feeling the impact when it’s limited to 2021/2022 Samsung TVs, imagine a world where in just 2-3 years that every single smart TV that you come across will have an Xbox app that allows you to jump straight back in your game on a big screen with nothing but a controller. It might never be the best gaming experience, but I can guarantee that even a hardcore gamer, you’ll jump at when presented with the opportunity.

The Xbox Cloud Gaming app is currently available on 2021/2022 Samsung TVs. You can shop the full range HERE.

The post Xbox Cloud Gaming On Samsung TVs Is Super Impressive And Blows The Door To AAA Games Wide Open appeared first on Press Start.

Update: Thanks to everyone who entered, the winners for this competition have been selected and contacted.

Major Winner

• Chris H.

Runners-up

• Tiernan W.
• Rebecca M.
• Denny K.
• Patrick M.
• Christopher P.
• Justin Y.
• Alesha K.
• Barry J.

Don’t forget to follow us on social media and keep tabs on our Competitions page for all the latest giveaways!

To celebrate Xbox ANZ’s PC Game Pass Season of Giving, we have partnered with them to bring you an epic giveaway of our own.

One major prize winner will walk away with the below:

• Razer BlackWidow V3 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard HALO Infinite Edition
• Razer DeathAdder V2 Wired Gaming Mouse HALO Infinite Edition
• 2x 12-month PC Game Pass codes

Eight minor prize winners will each walk away with the below:

• 1 x 3-month PC Game Pass codes

WIN: 12 Month PC Game Pass Codes + Razer Halo Infinite Accessories

CLICK HERE TO ENTER IF THIS FORM DOESN’T LOAD. THIS COMPETITION WILL END ON DECEMBER 19TH AT 11:59AM.

For your chance to win even more PC Game Pass codes and see some epic creators playing a wide variety of PC Game Pass games, you can tune in to the below streams from some wonderful ANZ creators at the below times:

• Monday, December 12, 7:30 PM AEDT: Jenz
• Tuesday, December 13, 6:00 PM AEDT: Rudeism
• Wednesday, December 14, 10:00 PM AEDT: Cuzb0t
• Thursday, December 15, 8:00 PM AEDT: Caaaaate
• Friday, December 16, 9:00 PM AEDT: Jurdman

Good luck and happy playing.

The post The Winners Of Our PC Game Pass + Halo Infinite Razer Peripheral Competition appeared first on Press Start.

Our regular round-up of all the latest and hottest Aussie bargains in gaming, entertainment, tech, collectibles and beyond! Be sure to subscribe to our mailing list at the bottom of the article to have these delivered straight to your inbox and follow us on socials to keep up with new deals as they appear!

Today’s Top Aussie Gaming Bargains

PlayStation

• PlayStation VR2 Standard Kit – $878 at Amazon with no deposit required and free shipping
• PlayStation VR2 Horizon Bundle – $958 at Amazon with no deposit required and free shipping
• PlayStation 5 Console Disc Edition including God of War Ragnarök – $888 in stock at Amazon with free shipping

• PlayStation 5 Console Disc Edition – $799 in stock
• PlayStation 5 Console Digital Edition – $649 in stock
• PS5 DualSense Controllers (all base colours) – $69 at Amazon
• PS5 DualSense Charging Station – $35 at Amazon
• God of War Ragnarok (PS5) – $99 at Amazon with free shipping
• God of War Ragnarok (PS4) – $78 at Amazon with free shipping ($15 digital upgrade available)
• Horizon Forbidden West PS5/PS4 – $39 at Amazon
• Gran Turismo 7 PS5/PS4 – $49 at Amazon
• Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion PS5/PS4 – $73 at Amazon
• FIFA 23 PS5 – $56 at Amazon
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart – $49 at Amazon
• Uncharted Legacy of Thieves Collection – $28 at Amazon
• Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales – $39 at Amazon
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – $79 at Amazon
• Final Fantasy XVI Pre-Order – $85 at Amazon
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Pre-Order – $83 at Amazon

Xbox

• Xbox Series X Console – $749 in stock at Amazon
• Xbox Series S Console – $399 with free delivery on Amazon
• Xbox Wireless Controllers (all base colours) – $69 at Amazon
• Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S 1TB – $349
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – $79 at Amazon
• FIFA 23 – $49 at Amazon
• Star Wars Jedi: Survivor Pre-Order – $83 at Amazon

Nintendo

• POKÉMON SCARLET/VIOLET NINTENDO SWITCH OLED CONSOLE – $370.30 FOR EBAY PLUS MEMBERS WITH CODE PLUSEBTF

The Pokemon Scarlet/Violet Nintendo Switch OLED Is Down To An Insane Price On eBay

• Nintendo Switch Neon Console + Mario Kart 8 Deluxe + 3 months NSO bundle – $399 with free shipping
• Nintendo Switch OLED Model Console – $489 (was $539) with free shipping
• Nintendo Switch OLED Model Console + Mario Kart 8 Deluxe – $553 (was $619) with free shipping
• Pokemon Scarlet/Violet – $65 at Amazon with free shipping
• Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion – $73 at Amazon
• Metroid Dread – $44.99 (55% off) at Amazon with free shipping
• Mario Golf: Super Rush – $44.99 (55% off) at Amazon with free shipping
• The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild – $72 at Amazon with free shipping
• Nintendo Switch Sports – $54 (17% off) at Amazon with free shipping
• Ring Fit Adventure – $89 (29% off)

Boxing Day Sales

Boxing Day is nearly upon us and sales have started rolling in. We’ve included a lot of the best current deals in the rest of this article but we’ll continue to link to our Boxing Day bargain coverage below:

EB Games Has Dropped Some Early Boxing Day Gaming Deals

Our Latest New Release Bargain Guides

Dragon Quest Treasures

Erik and his sister Mia live on a Viking longship, dreaming of the day they can explore the world in search of grand treasure. One night they encounter a pair of otherworldly creatures, Porcus and Purrsula, and are whisked away to a mysterious place known as Draconia – a legendary land full of treasures just waiting to be discovered. The adventure Erik and Mia have always dreamed of is finally underway!

Amazon currently has the best price at $73 with free shipping. Check out the prices at other retailers in our Bargain Guide.

Bargain Guide – Dragon Quest Treasures

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy VII– Reunion is the HD remaster version of the smash hit prequel to Final Fantasy VII.

In addition to all graphics being remastered in HD, fully voiced dialogue and new soundtrack arrangements make for a dynamic new retelling of a beloved classic.

Amazon currently has the best price at $73. Check out the prices at other retailers in our Bargain Guide.

Bargain Guide – Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion

Everything Else

Tech

• Up to 40% off select Beats headphones
• Up to 50% off Fire TV devices

LEGO

• LEGO Bowser – $319 at Amazon
• LEGO NES – $326 at Amazon
• LEGO Optimus Prime – $210 at Amazon
• LEGO Home Alone House – $404 at Amazon
• LEGO Technic Ferrari Daytona SP3 – $629 at Amazon
• LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Millennium Falcon – $1149 at Amazon

WE LOVE BRINGING YOU THE BEST GAMING AND TECH BARGAINS. WE MAY GET A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE SALE THROUGH AFFILIATE PARTNERSHIPS

The post The Best Aussie Gaming Bargains – December 20th appeared first on Press Start.

Microsoft has seemingly been quizzing users on the possibility of introducing new, cheaper Xbox Game Pass tiers, if a survey screenshot posted to ResetEra over the weekend (and reported by Windows Central) is to be believed.

The survey asked for opinions on a new, suggested tier of Xbox Game Pass that would be significantly cheaper (as low as around $5 per month) but would lock first-party game releases behind a six month delay as well as ask users to view advertisements before playing.

It’s worth reiterating that products suggested in a questionnaire like this would purely be for research purposes, to gauge how users feel about certain price points or features, but it’s definitely interesting to see what sorts of concessions Xbox might consider making in order to pull more users onto the Game Pass service.

“Day One” Xbox title releases are a big drawcard for Game Pass and one that sets it apart from most other video game subscription models, but with actual releases few and far between in recent years it could make sense to portion the benefit off to power users.

Is Microsoft exploring an ad-supported Xbox Game Pass "Lite"? ?https://t.co/batVHV7ezd #Xbox #XboxGamePass

— Windows Central Gaming (@WinC_Gaming) December 17, 2022

The post Xbox Has Been Surveying Users About A Possible Cheaper Game Pass Tier Supported By Ads appeared first on Press Start.

In the unfolding saga that is PlayStation vs Xbox over the latter’s bid to acquire Activision-Blizzard and by proxy the mammoth Call of Duty franchise, we’ve seen Microsoft offering up deal after deal to Sony (as well as Nintendo and Steam) to keep the franchise on PlayStation consoles for a promised period of time.

Last we’d heard, Microsoft was attempting to appease US/EU regulators scrutinising the Activision-Blizzard takeover bid by offering to keep the Call of Duty games on PlayStation platforms for a guaranteed 10 years.

Microsoft's offer to make Call of Duty available on PlayStation includes access to Sony's subscription plan https://t.co/Kj3II74jI0

— Bloomberg (@business) December 12, 2022

In a just-published report (paywalled but VGC has the crucial details here), Bloomberg claims that the proposed deal also includes an offer that would allow Sony to include the Call of Duty titles in its PlayStation Plus Essential/Extra/Deluxe subscription tiers. This would presumably take some of the edge off of Sony’s and regulator’s arguments against the deal, which have repeatedly cited Microsoft’s ability to roll the franchise into its popular Game Pass subscription service following the acquisition as an unfair competitive advantage.

Bloomberg reports that Sony has yet to accept the offer and that neither company has responded to requests for further comment.

The post Microsoft Will Reportedly Give Sony The Right To Offer Call Of Duty On PlayStation Plus appeared first on Press Start.

Xbox has announced a partnership with sleep and meditation app, Calm to bring the first ever video game themed soundscapes to the platform.

The new soundscapes are out today today with one containing meditative sounds from the waves and birds from Sea of Thieves and the other containing ambient alien sounds of Zeta Halo from Halo Infinite.

These soundscapes are available for Calm Premium members, and to celebrate the release, Xbox is giving Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members three months of Calm Premium for free and then 50% off first year subscriptions (for new members only).

Xbox is also undertaking a number of other mental health initiatives alongside this:

• Xbox Games Studio, The Coalition will donate 1% of net revenue from all Gears of War games and merchandise to organizations working to prevent suicide and combat loneliness. This year, players can purchase the 2022 Benefit Tee from the Xbox Gear Shop, with all proceeds benefiting Crisis Text Line.
• Microsoft Rewards members can earn and donate points to organizations supporting mental wellness, including Crisis Text Line, The Games and Online Harassment Hotline (Feminist Frequency), and Take This.
• Xbox have also carefully curated a selection of games from Xbox Game Pass that provide an escape from the trials of life and help players connect with their unique identities, including Persona 5 Royal, Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Disney Dreamlight Valley, Unpacking, and Stardew Valley.
• Xbox Ambassadors will share their personal perspective on the role that gaming has played in their mental wellness journey to help support others.
• Throughout the month of December, the Xbox Plays team will host Twitch Takeovers with guest streamers to share their favorite feel-good games, stress relief tips and more.

The post Xbox Has Partnered With Calm To Release Soothing Video Game Sounds appeared first on Press Start.