‘We Took A Bold Step This Time’: Final Fantasy XIV Director Addresses The Game’s Sweeping New Changes

Last week, I spent over six hours picking apart Final Fantasy XIV’s new expansion “Shadowbringers” in a lavishly adorned theater space. I played a new dungeon,sampled the new job classes, and examined all the little changes coming to the game. I also had the chance to sit down with producer Naoki Yoshida for a one-on-one…

The Internet Reacts To Pokémon Sleep

At a press conference in Tokyo Tuesday, the Pokémon Company announced some unexpected Pokémon-related games and services, mostly on mobile devices. Pokémon Home is a cloud service that allows players to save and transfer their monsters. Great! There’s also a new Pokémon Go peripheral called the Pokémon Go Plus+. It is pronounced “plus plus.” Sure!…

Nintendo Explains Why Its Official Smash Bros. Tournaments Are So Weird

“We used to have the perception he didn’t care,” said Super Smash Bros. pro Gonzalo “Zero” Barrios at Nintendo’s first tournament for Smash Ultimate last year. “He,” of course, was game director Masahiro Sakarai, the Smashdaddy himself, who was watching from the sidelines. Barrios had just won a glistening crystalline trophy, and holding it in…

Feedback Makes Me A Better Gamer–When You’re Not An Asshole

I’ve begun to think of my weekly, local Super Smash Bros. tournament as a sort of doctor’s appointment for my ego. Regulars tell me that it’s normal to just win one or two games at these things, yet selection bias mandates that the people who attend a lot tend to be confident that they’re really,…

Death Stranding Will Be Out In November

Death Stranding, the bizarre next game from Metal Gear Solid director Hideo Kojima, will hit PlayStation 4 on November 8, 2019, publisher Sony said today. In a strange new trailer that ostensibly contains gameplay but makes very little sense—as you might expect based on previous looks at Death Stranding—Sony revealed the news that Kojima’s next…

Sonic Mania and Borderlands: The Handsome Collection Are June’s PlayStation Plus Games

This month’s PlayStation Plus games feel like an odd combination, but they’re pretty good picks. As always, these games are only “free” if you have an active PlayStation Plus subscription. June’s Playstation Plus games are: Sonic Mania Borderlands: The Handsome Collection

A giant eye with a creepy heartbeat has appeared inside Fortnite’s Polar Peak, following some cracks and creaking sounds in the area recently. The eye follows you when you move. Even though I knew about it, it still scared the crap out of me. What does it mean?

Anthem Gets New Update After Weeks Of Radio Silence

After weeks of saying almost nothing about the multiplayer space shooter Anthem, BioWare has announced a new update, a public test server for PC players, and that new details about its end-game Cataclysm event, originally promised for launch in May, will be arriving tomorrow during a developer livestream. Anthem’s 1.2 update doesn’t dramatically alter the…

Japanese Artists Keep Showing Off Their Work Spaces

A few years back, Japanese artists began posting photos of their work spaces on Twitter. They have not stopped. Thank goodness for that! Professional and amateur artists alike continue uploading photos of their workstations under the tag #絵描きさんの作業環境が見たい (“I want to see artists’ work environments”). The photos show a side array of desks and work…

What Cartoon Sonic Looks Like In Movie Sonic’s Trailer

While we wait to see the official redesign of Sonic the Hedgehog for the upcoming movie, animatorArtur Baranov has gone in and completely changed the film’s trailer, replacing movie Sonic with a more familiar-looking hedgehog. Like Edward Pun’s effort, then, only this one’s actually moving and running and getting shot in the leg. Thanks Bartek!

New Pokemon Games, Hardware & Services Announced

At a press conference in Tokyo today, The Pokemon Company has taken to the stage and showed off a range of new games, services and hardware that are coming over the next year or so. First is Pokemon Home, a new cloud-based service where pretty much every new and big Pokemon game—from Pokemon Go to…

Detective Pikachu is coming to the Nintendo Switch, Nintendo just announced at a press conference in Tokyo. The game was originally released on the 3DS in 2016.