After years of teasing its arrival, Xbox has finally announced a release window for the upcoming Fable reboot. The game is slated to hit Xbox Series X/S and PC in 2025, and will be available on Xbox Game Pass from day one. The company dropped a new trailer during the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday. Fable, which is being developed by Playground Games, was first announced with a teaser back in 2020.
Xbox is billing it as “a new beginning” for the series. The new Fable focuses on a washed-up ex-hero named Humphry, who we see in the latest trailer. He’ll be “forced out of retirement when a mysterious figure from his past threatens Albion's very existence.” In our last glimpse at the game, released during last year’s Summer Game Fest, we were introduced to a character named Dave, who is voiced by Richard Ayoade. The new trailer gives us a bit more of a look at some in-game footage and doubles down on the offbeat tone of the previous teasers.
We'll still have to wait a while for it to actually be released, but at least now there's a timeframe we can cling to.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/xboxs-fable-reboot-will-come-to-xbox-series-xs-and-pc-next-year-181914674.html?src=rss
South of Midnight, first revealed at last year’s Summer Game Fest, will launch on Xbox and PC sometime next year. During today's Xbox showcase, we got a first look at how the third-person action-adventure will play.
Right off the bat, it reminds me of Square Enix’s fun-but-flawed Forspoken. In South of Midnight, protagonist Hazel is apparently pulled into a “Southern Gothic world” where reality and fantasy are blurred. Hazel is able to move around the environment fluidly, with the new trailer showing off gliding skills, double jumps, and some sort of magical grapple hook to speed up level navigation.
We also got even more cutscenes to help flesh out this world, and they still have that Into The Spider-verse jumpy frame-rate trick to separate cutscenes from in-game actionYou’ll be able to fight monsters with close-up magical blade attacks and other midrange weaponry. Oh and you seem to befriend – and ride – a giant catfish around the magical bayou.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/compulsion-games-south-of-midnight-will-arrive-in-2025-174928203.html?src=rss
There's a new Doom in town. Doom: The Dark Ages is heading to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S and PC, day one on Game Pass, in 2025. The game's first trailer showcases a world of hulking monsters in blood-soaked environments, badass new weapons and what looks to be a player-controlled dragon. At one point, the Doom Slayer steps inside a giant mech suit in order to battle a huge demon, buildings crumbling beneath their feet.
The weapons and creatures in Doom: The Dark Ages have a distinct medieval flare, as is expected, with lots of sharpened blades, at least one flail and heavy armor all around. One new weapon that stands out in the game's reveal trailer is an automatic shotgun with a skull in the center of it, menacing and slightly silly at the same time. As is custom in Doom games, the level of gory, gruesome detail on display in The Dark Ages is exceptional, and it looks like the game is leaning into everything that makes this franchise so deliciously disgusting.
Doom: The Dark Ages is a prequel to 2016's Doom and Doom Eternal, developed by series shepherd id Software. Its story will illuminate the origin of the Doom Slayer. Spoiler: He will slaughter a lot of demons.
It's possible this is the rumored Doom: Year Zero that was mentioned in leaked documents related to Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The leak happened in September 2023 and it outlined Bethesda's roadmap over the coming years as part of the Xbox Game Studios brand.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/doom-the-dark-ages-hits-ps5-xbox-series-xs-and-pc-in-2025-172938801.html?src=rss
It seemed like a missed opportunity for Microsoft and Bethesda to not have a new Fallout game ready to capitalize on the TV adaptation's success. However, Bethesda does have Fallout 76 up its sleeve at least, and the latest expansion of the multiplayer RPG is just a few days away.
The publisher revealed the Skyline Valley expansion during the Xbox Games Showcase on Sunday. The DLC expands the map for the first time into a new region called Shenandoah. The telethon-themed trailer offers a peek at some of what's in store. For instance, you'll be able to explore the remnants of Vault 63 and try to discover what happened to its dwellers. As you might expect, there will also be Ghouls to contend with. The trailer ends on a spicy tease, as starting early next year, you'll actually be able to play as a Ghoul.
Fallout 76had a rough debut, but by all accounts the game has gotten much better over time (following in the footsteps of some other Bethesda games). As with other Fallout titles, it had a huge surge in players in the wake of the Prime Video show. On Steam alone, the average number of concurrent players shot up nearly fivefold from 5,975 in March to 25,673 in April.
With so many new and returning players enjoying the game, it’s nice that they won’t have to wait long for more things to see and do. Skyline Valley, which is free for Fallout 76 players on all platforms, will arrive on June 12.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/fallout-76s-next-free-expansion-drops-on-june-12-172003045.html?src=rss
Break out your blankets and settle in, everyone. It’s time for the cozy games.
The latest Wholesome Direct showcase offers an hour-long celebration of innovation and coziness in indie development, featuring more than 30 meditative, calming and absolutely adorable experiences. Some of the titles are brand new, some are getting updates, many of them have demos, and others simply deserve time in the spotlight. One thing they all have in common is an inherent ability to warm your heart.
The entire Wholesome Direct 2024 showcase is worth watching. It’s packed with brilliant indie gems and brand-new trailers, and many of the featured titles already have demos available to download. Here, we’ve collected four games that came out today as surprise drops tied to the showcase: Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge, POOOOL, The Palace on the Hill and Tracks of Thought. I spent some time playing the first three games on this list and each one is lovely in its own way; I’ve left my thoughts with the game descriptions below.
Watch, read about and then play a bunch of cozy, wholesome games — that’s not a bad way to spend a Saturday. Or a summer.
Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge
This one’s for the players who can’t get enough of games like Neko Atsume and Usagi Shima, or for folks who just really love adorable amphibians. Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge is a farming sim about building and maintaining a protected space in the wetlands where wild frogs can thrive, and it gets much deeper than simply buying new poufs for the animals to sleep on. In Kamaeru, players have to dig out the wetlands, harvest ingredients to make jam and other treats for selling at the market, monitor their environmental impact, and purchase items to create an inviting space for all of their frog friends. Players are able to take photos of the frogs, feed them, name them and even breed them, mixing their colorways in a tic-tac-toe Punnett square.
Kamaeru is a relaxed, methodical and surprisingly deep experience that happens to be filled with cute and colorful frogs. It’s much more than a passive animal-observation game, and it takes a fair amount of grinding — but like, in a really cozy, froggy way — for the on-screen rewards to start rolling in. After about an hour of play, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of this game.
Kamaeru is available now on Steam, itchi.io and Nintendo Switch, and it’s verified on Steam Deck. It's developed by Humble Reeds and published by Armor Games Studios.
POOOOL
Count 'em, that’s four Os. POOOOL is a sweet and simple game with infinite replayability, much like the stick-and-ball sport that inspired it. In POOOOL, players fling bouncy balls of various sizes around a contained rectangle, one at a time, in an attempt to make spheres of the same color touch. When two matching balls collide, they instantly combine into a bigger ball, which can then be combined with another of the same size, and so on. It’s kind of like Threes! but with colorful balls instead of numbers. Eventually, the globes reach their limit and they disappear with a pop, leaving plenty of room for new balls to spawn. The round ends and the score is tallied when there’s no more room for the spheres to be flung.
POOOOL is a lovely little physics simulator with a friendly art style and soothing, repeatable mechanics. This is a game that rewards strategy, but it’s also incredibly forgiving of mindless clicking and dragging, and both play styles result in a satisfyingly bouncy experience. Put it in your pile of games to play while killing time or pretending to get work done, and you’ll get plenty of use out of it. POOOOL comes from developer Noah King and publisher digimoss, and it’s available right now on Steam.
The Palace on the Hill
This is a special one. The Palace on the Hill is a thoughtful and robust slice-of-life game set in a fictional town in rural India in the 1990s, starring a young man who’s helping his family earn money over the summer. Players plant, tend to and sell their crops, they work shifts at the local tea shop, and they pick up odd jobs in town, getting to know the residents along the way. The young man is an aspiring artist, and he finds inspiration for new paintings around the village, sharing stories about the area’s past in beautiful watercolor vignettes. There’s a rich history here and plenty of things to do in each moment.
The Palace on the Hill is a sweet surprise of an adventure game, riveting, methodical and illuminating. The rural town where it takes place feels alive and its boundaries expand delicately as the game progresses. Each NPC has a distinct personality and a unique relationship with the protagonist, and their world quickly feels familiar, even as it remains filled with secrets. I heartily recommend this game.
The Palace on the Hill is available today on Steam, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, iOS and Android, and it’s verified on Steam Deck. It comes from indie studio Niku Games.
Tracks of Thought
Tracks of Thought is a game about chatting, managing cards and solving mysteries, and it all takes place on a long-haul locomotive heading to an unknown destination. After passing through a strange tunnel, every passenger on the train forgets where they’re going, and it’s up to the protagonist, an amiable purple ladybug, to figure out what’s going on. The ladybug’s personality is shaped by the player’s interactions with other passengers, and conversations play out as card battles where the goal is to resolve conflict and help everyone get on the same page.
Tracks of Thought has a cartoony art style and a cast of cool, bug-like characters, and it seems to offer a clever blend of conversation and card battles. With today's showing, this game has been featured in a total of four Wholesome Directs (yes, that's nearly all of them), so it's especially great to see it out now on Steam and the Epic Games Store. Tracks of Thought comes from developer Tidbits Play and publisher Freedom Games.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/here-are-the-cozy-games-from-wholesome-direct-that-you-can-play-right-now-170042994.html?src=rss
Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure is due to hit PC, Switch, PlayStation 5 and mobile devices on July 25.
Arranger is an adventure game with a simple and disruptive conceit: The world exists on a grid of sliding tiles. Moving the main character, Jemma, slides the connected row or column of tiles with her, shifting the landscape as she travels. This mechanic turns walking into a puzzle and it forms the basis of the game’s spatial riddles.
Jemma is a misfit who’s venturing outside of her cozy home for the first time, discovering all of the amazing and terrifying things the wider world has to offer. The land is ruled by a strange, static force, and Jemma’s mission is to make the place loosen up (quite literally, it would seem).
Arranger is developed and published by indie studio Furniture & Mattress, which includes Braid artist David Hellman, Carto writer Nick Suttner, Per Aspera composer Tomas Batista and Ethereal developer Nicolás Recabarren. The mobile version of Arranger will be distributed through Netflix, meaning anyone with an active subscription should be able to play at no extra charge.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/arranger-turns-a-slide-puzzle-into-an-adventure-game-this-july-232441365.html?src=rss
And now for a game that’s actually 50 games — at least.
UFO 50, the latest project from Spelunky studio Mossmouth, is due to hit Steam on September 18, about six years after it was originally expected to launch. That’s merely an observation, not a criticism — UFO 50 is an ambitious project that offers 50 full, retro-styled games in a single package, and it’s all coming from a team of just six people.
In UFO 50 lore, UFO Soft was a game developer who was active between 1982 and 1990, peak NES and Genesis years. The games collected in UFO 50 feature recurring characters and sequels from UFO Soft’s fictional past, and they’re restricted in terms of color and audio, as if they had actually been developed for bygone hardware. Mossmouth is manifesting an alternate timeline of video game history here, and it looks like a ton of fun.
“The story of UFO 50 is that the games were all created in the ‘80s by a fictional company that was obscure but ahead of its time,” the game’s FAQ reads. “They're also connected by a unique 32-color palette and other restrictions we decided on to make them feel more authentic. (However, we don't force sprite flickering or slowdown, as we didn't feel that it would make the games more enjoyable.)”
Every game in UFO 50 is unlocked from the start, and the collection features a wide variety of genres, including platformers, RPGs, roguelites and shoot-em-ups. None of the titles are mini- or micro-games, and while they’re all done in an 8-bit aesthetic, their visual and mechanical styles evolve with the years. Every game is playable solo, and half of them include multiplayer elements.
All that said, I think Mossmouth is selling itself short by calling UFO 50 a collection of just 50 games. Sure, it includes 50 individual experiences inspired by classic games of the 1980s, but there’s also one huge, hidden title in the collection — UFO 50 itself. Don’t forget to factor that into your pricing deliberations, Mossmouth.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ufo-50-the-latest-game-from-the-spelunky-team-will-finally-arrive-september-18-231541214.html?src=rss
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, the stunning action and strategy RPG from Capcom, is set to come out on July 19 for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PS5 and PC. It'll be a day-one Xbox Game Pass title.
We've had our eyes on Path of the Goddess for a while now. Even just in early trailers, it seems to offer a beautiful exploration of Japanese folklore, featuring lush settings packed with reactive details and dangerous creatures to battle. In Path of the Goddess, the land is fighting back against the people who have defiled it, spreading blight and spawning monsters called the Seethe. Players have to recruit villagers to their side during the day, and at night, they fight the Seethe, strategizing and managing resources along the way.
Capcom is celebrating Japanese history and culture with this game, similar to its previous titles Okami and Shinsekai: Into the Depths.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/capcoms-kunitsu-gami-path-of-the-goddess-is-coming-out-surprisingly-soon-230516011.html?src=rss
Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, the stunning action and strategy RPG from Capcom, is set to come out on July 19 for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PS5 and PC. It'll be a day-one Xbox Game Pass title.
We've had our eyes on Path of the Goddess for a while now. Even just in early trailers, it seems to offer a beautiful exploration of Japanese folklore, featuring lush settings packed with reactive details and dangerous creatures to battle. In Path of the Goddess, the land is fighting back against the people who have defiled it, spreading blight and spawning monsters called the Seethe. Players have to recruit villagers to their side during the day, and at night, they fight the Seethe, strategizing and managing resources along the way.
Capcom is celebrating Japanese history and culture with this game, similar to its previous titles Okami and Shinsekai: Into the Depths.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/capcoms-kunitsu-gami-path-of-the-goddess-is-coming-out-surprisingly-soon-230516011.html?src=rss
Simpler Times, the game that’s sweet like honey on a summer’s day, is out right now. Simpler Times is a soft and slow exploration game set in a supremely cozy bedroom, featuring a lifetime of memories to uncover and a soundtrack of soothing lo-fi music. Simpler Times is available on Steam.
The game takes place over four seasons, as the protagonist, Tania, clears out her childhood bedroom and looks back on her life. Her room is compact, with a wide bay window, a desk, a bed and a record player, which controls the game’s soundtrack. Players have to physically swap out the vinyl to keep the lo-fi beats going: remove the record, select a new one, slide the arm back and forth, drop the needle down. The process is meditative and rewarding, just like the rest of the game.
Indie studio stoneskip and publisher iam8bit announced Simpler Times’ surprise launch during the Day of the Devs showcase, which is part of Summer Game Fest. We played the demo at last year’s SGF and found it to be the coziest game of the show.
Catch up on all of the news from Summer Game Fest 2024 right here!
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/simpler-times-the-coziest-game-of-summer-game-fest-2023-is-available-now-225927580.html?src=rss