Month: September 2020

Developer Frictional Games has announced that Amnesia: Rebirth is scheduled to release for PC and PS4 on October 20. Alongside the announcement, a new trailer for Rebirth was released as well.

Embedded below, the new trailer showcases protagonist Tasi Trianon exploring the Algerian desert following a plane crash. Her situation becomes both more unnerving and unsettling as time goes on, largely because Tasi has to resort to lighting her way for most of the trailer with a box of matches. As you can probably surmise, matches do not last very long as a viable light source. Thankfully, it looks like she finds a lantern at some point.

“If you look at SOMA and [Amnesia: The Dark Descent], I’d say [Rebirth] is the game that the studio has made that has the most variety in the environments,” Frictional Games executive producer and creative lead Fredrik Olsson told us in an interview. “So, hopefully you’ll feel claustrophobic throughout the game but there might be other aspects explored outside the closed-in environments. The vastness of a desert could give you a different kind of horror.”

Continue Reading at GameSpot

We are so very close to Xbox preorders for the next-generation Xbox Series X and Series X, I can practically taste it. With a September 22 preorder date, a $299 and $499 price points, and a November 10 release date, that’s pretty much all we wanted to know on Xbox availability and Xbox preorders.

So what does that mean for the Xbox One? Well, in terms of price drops… there aren’t any. The supply of Xbox One and Xbox One X consoles is still constricted, so in spite of the fact most people are ready to move on, those who want to snatch a deal on a current-gen Xbox are out of luck for the time being.

However, there are some good bargains to be had on Xbox games, and since they’re going to work on the Xbox Series S and X, there’s no reason to not snatch up a few now if you’re planning on upgrading to Xbox Series X.

Xbox One Console Deals

Right now, there basically aren’t any deals on Xbox One X or Xbox One S. Again, you’re lucky if you can even find an Xbox for sale at MSRP, as most major retailers don’t have them available online.

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Best Xbox Game Deals

There are some good chances to save on games for Xbox right now, including a preorder discount for the upcoming Far Cry 6 at Amazon and Walmart.

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Best Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live Gold Deals

Even when it’s not on sale, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is an incredible value, combining Xbox Live and Game Pass into one subscription.

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When Will Xbox Series X Be Available for Preorder?

We still have no news on when Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S preorders are going live, but that will change at basically any time now. The release date for the Xbox Series X/S is November 10, and we’re really close to preorders. In the meantime, you can sign up for Xbox Series X preorder notifications.

Can I Play Xbox One Games on Xbox Series X?

Yes indeed, which is why it makes sense to grab yourself some Xbox One games when they’re on sale. You won’t need to bother swapping cables around or hoping you have enough inputs on your home theater or 4KTV, since the release of the Xbox Series X will carry over your Xbox One library. Some games, like Halo Infinite, Cyberpunk 2077 and Far Cry 6, have Xbox Series X upgrades. That means you can buy the game now for your Xbox One and get Xbox Series X performance from it when the console releases. Not a bad deal.

Will Xbox One Controllers Work With Xbox Series X?

The good news is while Microsoft is releasing controllers designed specifically for Xbox Series X, your existing Xbox One controllers will also work with the new system. So in the rare case there’s a new deal on something like the Xbox Elite Series 2 controller, you can go ahead and snap it up and carry it over to your new console, something Sony said won’t be possible with PS4 controllers on PS5.

Vanillaware, the Osaka-based game developer known for its 2D art style, has previously worked mostly on side-scrolling hack-and-slash RPGs. So I imagine a lot of fans will be surprised when they start up 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim and discover it’s a 2D side-scrolling… story adventure.

Okay, so it also has a combat component in the form of real-time tactical battles, but a majority of its 26-hour playtime is spent reading (the voice acting is exclusively in Japanese for now, though an English track will be released as a day one patch) this twisty classic sci-fi revival. And it’s quite a yarn. Let’s just say kaiju (giant monsters) and mechs (giant robots) are only the tip of the iceberg, and it’s been a lot of fun to see a bombastic story where sci-fi concepts like time travel, alternate universes, and cloning are filtered through something other than the superhero lens that’s dominated American sci-fi for the past decade.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=13%20Sentinels%E2%80%99%20characters%20are%20at%20their%20best%20when%20they%E2%80%99re%20allowed%20to%20be%20normal%20high%20schoolers.”]The story follows 13 high school students who pilot giant robots to fight giant monsters, all while they uncover the mystery of their glorious mission – but the story twists and turns and by the end the journey has traveled far away from this initial premise. That is to say, 13 Sentinels is both expansive and surprising in very good ways. As you explore a gorgeous 2D world you’ll have conversations, pick up clues, and make choices that will lead to different outcomes. However, there are no multiple endings or choice-driven story paths because you actually need to play through every branch to reach the one and only true ending. So it’s less about picking your own path as it is playing through a storyline multiple times to find out the full story. It’s a system that, more often than not, serves to stretch out the playtime more than provide insight or clever twists.

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The cast is made up of a mix of both unique personalities and some that rely heavily on tropes, and some are stronger than others. While each character has an important role in the overall story, the two main protagonists are the B-movie-loving Juro Kurabe and Iori Fuyasaki, a sleepy girl with strange recurring dreams. Neither character is defined by their eccentricities, though, which in this case is surprisingly refreshing; Kurabe’s sci-fi geekery and Fuyasaki’s habit of sleeping during class are just things they do rather than their main personality trait.

13 Sentinels’ characters are at their best when they’re allowed to be normal high schoolers. One, for instance, has aspirations of being a livestreaming singer, which is just a nice bit of storytelling. Characters like the delinquent Nenji Ogata and track runner Natsuno Minami are my favorites not because their parts in the story were the most interesting, but because I liked their personalities when they goofed off or developed crushes on the other characters.

Not So Vanilla

Vanillaware games are lauded – and sometimes criticized – for their art style. Although highly detailed, its scantily clad men and women with exaggerated proportions can border on cheesecake. In 13 Sentinels, though, the artists have been reigned in a bit for the character designs. While the results are still unmistakably Vanillaware’s style, these characters, for the most part, look like high schoolers in a typical anime. There’s still fanservice in places, like when a buxom woman appears wearing a cleavage-showcasing motorcycle outfit. Also, the teenage mech pilots are all naked in their Sentinel cockpits… for reasons. (Think: “But once you recognize the secret reason for her exposure, you will feel ashamed of your words & deeds.” – Hideo Kojima.) Other than that, though, I marvelled at the intricate, hand-drawn backgrounds and beautiful work on both the Sentinels and kaiju.

Atlus, concerned with preserving story surprises, has asked reviewers to not talk about anything after the first 30 percent of the story… which I think is a bad move since it limits me to the most boring part, and I wasn’t planning on spoiling anything for you anyway. Either way, the building blocks of the story comprise what I consider classic sci-fi staples like time-travel, robots, and AI, and these well-known and well-trodden concepts litter the opening act without much deviation from cliche. It’s what Vanillaware does with these ideas later on that I found to be most compelling and even exciting.

 

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So perhaps take that as my way of saying that there’s a slow start followed by a lot of story meat to dig into. This is great for readers, but can quickly become confusing. 13 Sentinels relies heavily on made-up jargon (Note the subtitle: “Aegis Rim”) and with a bunch of side-characters across all 13 intertwining storylines, it’s enough to make your head spin. The writers seem cognizant of this and there are some nice summation dialogues every now and then that seem to intentionally lay out the plot, which is nice if you’re coming back after a break and need a refresher.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=It%E2%80%99s%20what%20Vanillaware%20does%20with%20these%20ideas%20later%20on%20that%20I%20found%20to%20be%20most%20compelling%20and%20even%20exciting.”]When 13 Sentinels was first announced I was curious how Vanillaware would tackle the mech vs. kaiju combat, knowing the developers mostly specialize in 2D side-scrollers. But it turns out Vanillaware had something different in mind altogether: combat takes place on a glowing, hologram-style 3D map on which your characters and enemies are represented by small blue and red icons.

Sure, I was a little disappointed when I found out I wouldn’t be taking part in awesomely animated 2D mech-vs-kaiju slug-fests, but these real-time tactical battles have their own unique visual flair, as well as a respectable amount of depth to them. Rather than focusing on the visual spectacle of mechs, Vanillaware chose to emphasize the city-wide scale scope of the fight. You’ll face literally hundreds of kaiju, and there is a specific kind of awe in wiping out entire portions of an enemy horde with a well-placed missile barrage.

Every battle lets you pick six of your 13 Sentinels to take out onto the field, and each has unique specialties such as melee, ranged, flight, and all-rounders – so if you know that you’ll be facing a lot of flying enemies, it’s best to take Sentinels with anti-air capabilities to counter them. Depending on your mech’s specialty there will be unique weapons like long-range missiles or guardian sentries, and there’s room to customize them to your playstyle as well: it’s possible to have a melee unit that can dabble in ranged attacks, or a flight unit that deals heavy melee damage. Pilots will also learn special skills every five levels which are unique to them and give them special buffs.

[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=There%20is%20a%20specific%20kind%20of%20awe%20in%20wiping%20out%20entire%20portions%20of%20an%20enemy%20horde%20with%20a%20well-placed%20missile%20barrage.”]I found a balanced approach works best so my team comps always contained at least one of each type of Sentinel. But however you like to play you’ll want to level up your Sentinels fast, because the difficulty will ramp up quite suddenly – mostly in terms of how many enemies begin showing up at any given time. It’s going to suddenly feel very overwhelming with the number of kaiju on the field, and having more powerful Sentinels will help you clear them faster.

There is an easy difficulty if you just want to clear the required battles and continue reading the story, but I found that to be too easy, to the point of boring. As long as you manage your Sentinels’ stats, normal feels like the best showcase for the combat in terms of difficulty and playability.

A special mention, too, goes to the localization team. There is a lot of text in 13 Sentinels, including loads of sci-fi jargon being thrown around and multiple shenanigans happening at once, and to see it both translated to English and localized so as to feel both natural and modern takes extreme skill. Even the flavor text has its unique charms. (One of the pilots’ special skills, for example, is called “The War of the Worlds.”)

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Xbox Series X and Series S will open for pre-orders at 8am UK time on September 22.

Announced by Xbox UK’s marketing lead on Twitter, the timing is currently only confirmed for the UK timezone. However, that time maps to midnight, September 22 in Pacific time.

Given Xbox headquarters are in the Pacific timezone, midnight feels like a likely time for pre-orders to open in the US.

Pre-orders for Xbox Series X | S go live on the 22nd September at 8AM from the following UK retailers:

Microsoft Store
Amazon
GAME
Argos
Currys PC World
Smyths Toys
John Lewis & Partners
AO .com
Very .co.uk pic.twitter.com/W0zf1bSVda

— Samuel Bateman (@samuelofc) September 15, 2020

The September 22 Xbox preorder date was announced last week, when we learned that Xbox Series X will cost $499 / £449, Xbox Series S will cost $299 / £249, and both consoles will see release on November 10.

Both consoles will join the Xbox All Access program (a subscription service that gets you a console and an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership), with Series X coming in at $34.99 USD / £28.99 a month, and Series S at $24.99 USD / £20.99.

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We’ll likely learn about PS5 preorder plans tomorrow, September 16 at the PS5 showcase, which will “feature updates on the latest titles from Worldwide Studios and our world-class development partners.”

Still not sure if you want an Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, or a PS5? Check out our PS5 vs. Xbox Series comparison chart to get a better sense of what each shiny new box will offer.

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Joe Skrebels is IGN’s Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

We did it, everyone: we finally have price, preorder, and release information for Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.

Xbox preorders go live September 22, and in the UK we know they’ll be popping up at 8 am, which is midnight Pacific Time in the US. We’ve reached out to Microsoft to see if they have a time window for the US and we’ll update this page when we have the info.

If you just came here for the console wars, you can read about where to sign up for PS5 preorder notifications on our dedicated PlayStation page for the subject.

Everything You Need to Know About Xbox Series X Preorders at a Glance

• Xbox Series X and Series S Release Date: November 10, 2020
• Xbox Series X Price: $499/ £449
• Xbox Series S Price: $299/ £249
• Xbox Series X and Series X Preorder Date: September 22, 2020

Xbox Series X Preorder Placeholder Pages

Here are the sites with live placeholder pages for Xbox Series X. NOTE: you can’t preorder Xbox Series X until September 22, but these are the retailer pages where orders will be live:

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UK Placeholder Pages

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Xbox Series X Preorder Information Pages

We’ve known for a while. now the Xbox Series X is coming November 2020, but the exact preorder date, price, and release date were closely held secrets for what seemed an eternity. We now know Xbox Series X preorders go live September 22, with a $499 price tag and a November 10 release date.

When preorders go live, we’re going to update this page, so be sure to add a bookmark.

For more immediate info about Xbox One X and Xbox Series S preorders when they eventually go live, be sure to follow IGN Deals on Twitter.

The info pages on major retailers have changed to reflect the new information, and some of the sites have removed the option to sign up for information:

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Xbox Series S Preorder Information Pages

Retailers have, for the most part, adapted their earlier Xbox Series X pages to include information on preorders for Xbox Series S as well. They’ve also started updating the pages to reflect the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X November 10 release dates.

Xbox Series X Specs

Microsoft released the official Xbox Series X technical specs on February 24, promising 12 teraflops of graphical processing power and backwards compatibility all the way back to the original Xbox console.

Here’s a quick rundown of the Xbox Series X technical specifications:

• Custom-designed AMD Zen 2 and RDNA 2 processor
• A “patented form” of variable rate shading (VRS)
• DirectX raytracing (hardware accelerated)
• SSD storage
• HDMI 2.1
• 120fps support

The console’s Velocity Architecture, Microsoft Says, should mean we’ll see smaller game file sizes, less and faster loading, along with other immediate benefits. Microsoft also showed off the Xbox Series X UI, saying its new interface reduces load times to the home screen on start-up and when returning to it from a game.

Xbox Series X Release Date

The Xbox Series X release date is officially November 10, 2020. It took a long time to get here, but we finally made it.

Are Next Gen Games Going to Be $70?

Pricing on next-gen games is a little complicated. Many Xbox Series X-compatible games launching this fall, including Ubisoft’s fall lineup, will cost $60. Others, like NBA 2K21, will cost $70. But… probably not? Take-Two went back on its initial price point declaration for Xbox Series X and PS5 games, so only time will tell.

But if you check retailer pages for Xbox Series X games, you see $70 all over the place. Ultimately consumer demand will dictate prices, but for now, the $60 game looks like it’s sticking around, but won’t be much longer.

Xbox Series X Games

Thanks to Microsoft’s years-long push for backwards compatibility, Xbox Series X will launch with “thousands of games.” Some of the big launch-window titles that have been announced include Halo Infinite, Cyberpunk 2077, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. Check out our Xbox Series X game list wiki for an up-to-date list of all the confirmed and rumored Series X titles.

Xbox Game Pass Ultimate

 

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