Police were investigating domestic violence in a village, and the suspect has now been found dead.
Silent Hill Creator’s New Project Will Be a Horror Action-Adventure Game, Aiming for 2023
Silent Hill and Gravity Rush creator Keiichiro Toyama has shared some details of the upcoming debut game from his new studio, which will be a horror-themed action-adventure, aiming for a 2023 release, that will appeal to Toyama’s fans.
Toyama’s Bokeh Game Studio was founded on August 13 and announced publicly in December. Speaking with IGN Japan, the acclaimed developer explained that he is working on “an action-adventure game that will appeal to fans of my previous work”. He explained that the game will include “battles and story elements” in the kind of richly authored worlds you might recognize from his games at Sony’s Japan Studio and Konami.
When pressed on whether this new title will lean more toward the horror themes of Silent Hill and Siren or the cuter anime-styled paranormal setting of Gravity Rush, he explained, “If anything, this will be more of a horror-oriented game. But we will focus on making this a broader entertainment experience, rather than a hardcore horror game.”
While Toyama has been a first-party Sony developer for the past 20 years or so, he said that this new game will be a multi-platform release. “We are developing with PC as the lead platform, but we hope to release the game on as many console platforms as possible,” he said.
The new title is being developed by a “fairly large” team, and Bokeh cofounder and producer Kazunobu Sato explained that they are still in the early stages of development, with an estimated target release date of 2023. “We’re just entering prototype development, and development will probably take nearly three years. So we hope to get this game into your hands in about three years from now.”
Regarding the studio’s foundation, Toyama explained that a combination of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic and turning 50 prompted him to think about his future, and to answer the beckoning call of independence. He turned to longtime collaborators Sato (producer on the Siren series and The Last Guardian) and Junya Okura (lead level designer on the Siren and Gravity Rush series, whom Toyama credits with giving shape to his gameplay ideas), and the three Japan Studio colleagues set up Bokeh Game Studio together, with Toyama as Creator, Sato as Producer and Okura as Game Director. They initially considered creating smaller mobile games, before eventually building up a team of “mostly veterans” to increase the scale of their ambitions.
“I took a lot of inspiration from genDESIGN,” said Toyama, referring to the studio founded by Ico creator Fumito Ueda, who was yet another Japan Studio alumnus. “Ueda told me so much about his experiences that it inspired me to follow suit.”
While Bokeh’s first game may be a way off, Sato and business development manager Yohei Hart (also ex-Japan Studio) promised that the studio’s newly launched Twitter account and Facebook account will show peeks behind the curtain as the team progresses with development. “When you work at a major studio like Japan Studio, there is a limit to what you can share publicly, so now that we are free from those restraints, we’d like to take the opportunity to share as much as we can … so that the audience can see how the game comes together over time,” explained Sato. “We hope it might help people to not forget about us.”
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Daniel Robson is Chief Editor at IGN Japan – and (full disclosure) also worked for a spell at Sony’s Japan Studio. Follow him on Twitter here.
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Smash Bros. Ultimate Update Adds Sephiroth, Makes Buffs
The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate version 10.1 update is now live, bringing with it Sephiroth and the rest of Smash Bros.’ new Final Fantasy-themed content. The update has also made a handful of fighter adjustments, with Nintendo now releasing the list of fighters that have been tweaked.
The Sephiroth Challenger Pack is now available to purchase and use for players who didn’t already unlock him early, along with a handful of Final Fantasy-themed outfits for Mii Fighters. 13 new Final Fantasy characters have been added as Spirits in the shop, including Tifa, Aerith, Barret, and even summons like Shiva and Ifrit.
Cloud has also received a minor cosmetic tweak, with his Final Smash now triggering Omnislash Ver. 5 instead of a regular Omnislash for P2, P4, P6, and P8 color variants. The effect is the same, with the change being purely aesthetic.
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GameSpot’s Best Of 2020: Editor’s Highlight Awards
Every year at GameSpot, we give a variety of awards to the best games that came out. Aside from our top 10 list, category awards, and overall pick for Game of the Year 2020, we also wax about our favorite games and moments. We’ve already published our Editor’s Spotlight Awards, which features our team’s favorite games that didn’t make it into our main awards. But we also have our Editor’s Highlight Awards, a roundup detailing our favorite moments, game mechanics, and cultural events in the world of gaming this past year.
These highlights encompass a wide range of things that we loved experiencing in games in 2020, whether it was Ghost of Tsushima’s outstanding Guiding Wind mechanic or the first time we celebrated a villager’s birthday in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. This year may have been tumultuous due to the unprecedented impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, it was also one packed with some outstanding moments in games and the joyous community surrounding it.
As a note, there are potential spoilers around the games we’ve discussed below, so be wary as you read through our various highlights. But what were your biggest highlights in games this past year? Let us know in the comments below!
Our Number One Show Of 2020: What We Do In The Shadows
When it came time to decide GameSpot’s top 10 shows of 2020, it wasn’t an easy task. In a year where many of us spent months at home locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, TV was an escape. That should be evident in our top 10, filled with shows that made us think (Devs), scream in terror (The Haunting of Bly Manor), relive past glories (The Last Dance), and simply feel good (Ted Lasso). When it came to deciding our top TV show of 2020, though, the answer was clear.
FX’s What We Do in the Shadows Season 2 was the perfect escape from this year. It made us laugh nonstop, it constantly surprised us, and it managed to take a stellar first season and actually improve on it to create a more interesting world, filled with disco vampires, socially awkward slayers, and a society of the undead that wants nothing to do with the characters we’ve grown to love since the series premiered in 2019.