Today Deep Silver and 4A Games are pleased to announce the launch of Metro Exodus for Xbox Series X|S, the all-in-one games and entertainment system from Microsoft, and the PlayStation® 5 computer entertainment system. Metro Exodus Complete Edition will be available globally on June 18, 2021.
The next-gen version of Metro Exodus runs at 4K / 60FPS with full Ray Traced lighting throughout on Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. The base game and DLC expansions feature both 4A’s ground-breaking Ray Traced Global Illumination (RTGI) and the Ray Traced Emissive Lighting techniques pioneered in the original release of Metro Exodus and The Two Colonels expansion across all content.
The next-gen consoles see dramatically reduced loading times thanks to the use of their SSD storage optimizations, boast 4K texture packs and a range of platform specific features including spatial audio and controller latency improvements on Xbox, and support for the haptic features of the PlayStation 5 Dual Sense controller.
These enhancements are a free upgrade to all current-gen owners, or via the Metro Exodus Complete Edition – a high value physical edition for franchise newcomers. This Complete Edition includes the base game and both DLC expansions: The Two Colonels and Sam’s Story.
Features
Enhanced for the latest consoles – enhanced to utilize to power of Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 including 60FPS, up to 4K resolution a Field Of View slider for the first time in the series along with Ray Traced lighting.
Enhanced for Xbox Series X|S – optimized for platform specific features including spatial audio and Smart Delivery support. Xbox Series X will boast full Ray Traced lighting, 4K 60FPS and Xbox Series S will deliver full Ray Traced lighting, 60FPS and 1080p resolution. Available via Smart Delivery.
Enhanced for PlayStation 5 – optimized for platform specific features including DualSense™ Haptic Feedback support and 3D Audio, alongside full Ray Traced lighting and 60FPS 4K visuals.
The Complete Package – includes Metro Exodus and all DLC content – The Two Colonels and Sam’s Story.
Experience Sandbox Survival – flee the shattered ruins of dead Moscow and follow a gripping story that links together classic Metro gameplay with huge, non-linear levels.
Deadly Combat and Stealth – scavenge and craft in the field to customize your arsenal of hand-made weaponry, and engage human and mutant foes in thrilling tactical combat.
Explore a Hostile World – embark on journey that spans an entire year through spring, summer and autumn to the depths of nuclear winter. Discover the Russian wilderness, brought to life with day/night cycles and dynamic weather.
For an even more detailed breakdown of the new tech and features present in this Complete version of the game, please visit new/updated 4A games blog on the website – https://www.4a-games.com.mt/
For more information on Metro follow us on Twitter and Instagram @MetroVideoGame and on Facebook at Facebook.com/MetroVideoGame.
Exit Plan studio is delighted to announce its debut title will be coming to Xbox later this year and will be among the forefront of games for the new Xbox Game Preview feature. The studio revealed the news along with a new gameplay trailer full of humor during GameSpot’s ‘Play For All’ showcase. Bang-on Balls: Chronicles will be coming to Xbox One, and Series X|S later this year.
Bang-On Balls: Chronicles is an action-adventure 3D single and multiplayer platformer that has you play as a countryball in a vast open-world filled with treasure hunts, epic boss battles, charming characters, and destructible environments.
The team at Exit Plan has also revealed a development roadmap, including the release of two arcade-like mini-challenges that will be added to the game by the end of this month.
Mini-challenges:
Ultimate Bang-On Mega Bricks: Stuck inside a tetroid brick world, you must survive the 99 challenges in order to receive the ultimate reward.
Super Car Banger Turbo: A banging tribute to one of the most famous bonus stages in videogame history, mixed with our own flavor of ball-banging mayhem!
Furthermore, the team has confirmed they are hard at work on the new Space Race Quest – an enormous brand new chronicle featuring the 1960’s space race between the USA and the Soviets that is set to release in October this year. More details will be coming soon!
After the recent reveal of A Plague Tale: Requiem at the E3 2021 Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, Asobo Studio and Focus Home Interactive are thrilled to announce that the critically acclaimed first opus of the series, A Plague Tale: Innocence, will come to Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation®5 on July 6. These versions of the game will be enhanced to feature 4K UHD (only on Xbox Series X and PlayStation®5), 60 FPS, and 3D audio support.
Watch today’s new trailer and witness the award-winning journey through a grim medieval France in unparalleled detail on next-generation consoles.
A Plague Tale: Innocence will also launch for the first time on Nintendo Switch on July 6. The game will be available as a cloud-based title, allowing players to pick it up digitally and play using cloud-streaming technology.
Frogwares have released a detailed video showing new gameplay, a look at the various city districts and how the disguise mechanic plays out in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One.
Getting information out of suspects is a priority for Sherlock. But on the island of Cordona not everyone is so welcoming to outsiders. So hopefully a change of threads will get those tongues wagging.
Similar to Frogwares’ previous investigation themed titles, the game will however not simply tell you what disguise to find and use on characters. It’s up to players to logically conclude what disguise could work based on observation, additional clues and sound reasoning. Similarly, a certain disguise can have the opposite effect and cause a character to be even more tight lipped.
Sherlock Holmes Chapter One will release sometime in 2021 on PC (Steam, Epic, GOG), PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
It is finally time for police fans to take up their badges: Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, the new simulation project of the Munich-based developer studio Aesir Interactive and the successful German publisher astragon Entertainment will become available in early access on Steam™ today at 5 pm (CEST)/11am (EST)! The game is supported by a game-grant of the German funding body FilmFernsehFonds Bayern.
Not only are police and simulation game fans now called upon to patrol the streets of the fictional US metropolis Brighton to protect law and order, they are also able to contribute their ideas and wishes to the ongoing development and to join forces with the Police Simulator in the coming weeks and months. For this purpose, an official roadmap was recently published, which not only provides information about the future content of the game, but also gives gamers the opportunity to vote for their favorite features.
Game modes: Single player from launch; cooperative multiplayer to be added in Q3 2021
Price: 19.99 Euro/USD 24.99/17.99 GBP (RSP) – all future content until the official end of the early access phase are included at no additional cost
In Police Simulator: Patrol Officers, players can choose from a total of 8 different characters and slip into the role of a male or female US police officer. In this role, they go on patrol in the first city district of the fictional US metropolis of Brighton. They start in the neighborhood of North Point, where they collect shift points and duty stars by completing their first shifts and patrols, which in the course of the game will give them access to four more neighborhoods as well as new tasks and equipment. Initially they will patrol the streets on foot to look out for parking offenders, speeders and suspicious persons. With a good work performance officers can soon get behind the wheel of the first patrol car included in the game as well.
Brighton itself offers players a varied urban landscape that exudes liveliness and authentic city flair thanks to a complex city simulation. Here, the players can expect numerous tasks and emergencies in which they have to decide for themselves which action is appropriate depending on each situation. All measures taken should always be proportionate and compliant with the rules of law, as police misconduct or even police violence in Police Simulator: Patrol Officers results in the loss of shift points or even in the immediate end of the game. When working out these individual tasks, developer Aesir Interactive and publisher astragon Entertainment attached great importance to the level of detail in order to let players experience the everyday work of the virtual police officers as realistically as possible.
In the coming months, Police Simulator: Patrol Officers will be expanded through regular updates and will receive even more game depth through the addition of new districts, tasks, equipment, and vehicles as well as a cooperative multiplayer. As it should be for a game in early access, the intensive involvement of the player community will be an essential part of the ongoing development. Interested players can not only exchange ideas with developers and other gamers on Discord, the Steam™ page and of course the game’s official channels on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, they can also use the official Police Simulator: Patrol Officers roadmap to find out more information about the planned next steps, express their wishes for the game, and even vote on their favorite features.
Police Simulator: Patrol Officers for PC is available now via Steam™ and the official astragon homepage for 19.99 Euro/USD 24.99/17.99 GBP (RSP).
Dizzying developer DANG! and airfoil enthusiasts Devolver Digital today announce Boomerang X, an action-packed FPB (First Person Boomeranger), will launch and subsequently return on to Nintendo Switch and PC on July 8. To celebrate, the dynamic duo has revealed a brand new gameplay trailer.
Catapult yourself through the air, use the power drawn from fallen creatures to slow time and cut through the swarms of dark beings with your razor-edge boomerang. Travel through once bustling locales, sacrificed to hide a myth, and descend the Godpath into the lost realms below. Cleanse these halls and ensure that whatever lies beneath doesn’t come back.
“This is one boomerang you nerds can’t return,” commented Devolver Digital CFO Fork Parker.
For more revolutionary revelations, rotate on over to boomerang-x.com and follow @devolverdigital and @videodang on Twitter. Download the playable Boomerang X demo on Steam this very second to unlock instant rewards including extreme happiness and endless joy.
To kick off Steam Next Fest, Improx Games has released a free demo of their upcoming brain-teasing puzzle adventure game The Last Cube ahead of its release later this year on PC, Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation. Set in a series of surreal otherworldly landscapes, it’s up to you to discover the history of this mysterious alien civilization.
This demo features four full levels of the game, which should last players about an hour. Here you’ll get a taste of The Last Cube’s unique sticker system, allowing you to stamp certain abilities onto your cube’s sides, granting all new abilities for that surface. Some will allow you to dash through barriers, others will create makeshift stairs, and some grant the ability to spin in place for easy maneuvering in tight places.
Positioning your cube to acquire the desired stickers on the correct surface can range from pleasingly simplistic, to masochistic head scratchers as you scramble through The Last Cube’s 100+ puzzles. New mechanics are introduced at a breezy clip, rapidly expanding one’s perception of what your cube is capable of.
The full game will take players through a plethora of moody, monolithic chambers ranging from foggy nightmarish abysses, to oppressive lava lit factories, to uplifting natural landscapes full of golden rays of sunshine glistening against mountains. This demo will showcase the first few stages, offering a glimpse at the expansive scope that lies beyond the shrouded horizons of this derelict world.
“We’re really proud of how The Last Cube looks and feels, and can’t wait for players to get their hands on it. To get the full grasp of how the cube’s abilities make the game unique, you really need to play it for yourself,” said Max Samarin, creative director at Improx Games. “That’s why we decided to offer players everywhere free access to its opening levels ahead of launch. We know from playtesting how engaging The Last Cube is, and we want everyone else to experience its tantalizing brain-busting charms for themselves!”
Enhance and The Tetris Company, Inc. announced new details today regarding Tetris® Effect: Connected’s summer expansion plans, including:
Cross-platform play between all current versions of the game (PS4, Epic Game Store, Oculus Quest, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Microsoft Store PC, including Xbox Game Pass), as well as the highly-anticipated Steam version (store page now up for Wishlisting!), all sim-shipping in late July (exact date TBD).
Bonus features include Spectator Mode, as well as PAL and “Slow” speed modes, coming to all versions of the game.
An Owner’s Beta Test, available as a separate download to all accounts who own a copy of Tetris Effect on the Epic Games or Microsoft Stores, Xbox, or on PS4 (schedule found below).
An invite-only Closed Beta Test, starting this week and running through July 5, on some of the same platforms as the Owner’s Beta, but also including invited Steam and Oculus Quest users (schedule found below).
Specifics on each point follow; the final release date will be confirmed based on the results of the Beta Test, but the Tetris Effect: Connected expansion is expected to release in late July.
ABOUT TETRIS® EFFECT: CONNECTED
Among the new modes is the titular Connected, where three players can team up and literally connect their Matrix play fields to fight against A.I.-controlled Bosses; Zone Battle, a one-on-one match of standard competitive Tetris, but with a twist: the time-stopping Zone mechanic (first introduced in Tetris Effect’s single-player game); and Score Attack, a “single-player versus” mode, where two players compete separately to see who can get the best score.
Also included is a special variation on Score Attack mode, Classic Score Attack, which brings back the look and feel of Tetris from when it was first introduced to console gamers over 30 years ago. More than just a nostalgic coat of paint, Classic Score Attack recreates the classic controls and settings, including the removal of Hard Drop and the Hold Queue, Tetriminos Lock Down immediately when they touch a surface, and random Tetrimino generation. The mode also pays homage to a standard of “Pro” Tetris competition popularized by the Classic Tetris World Championship, an annual fan event that brings together some of the top Tetris players from all over the world.
The new multiplayer expansion joins the 10-plus single-player modes already included in the original Tetris Effect. This is Tetris like you’ve never seen it, or heard it, or felt it before—an incredibly addictive, unique, and breathtakingly gorgeous reinvention of one of the most popular puzzle games of all time, from the people who brought you the award-winning Rez Infinite and legendary puzzle game Lumines. Music, backgrounds, sounds, special effects—everything, down to the Tetriminos themselves, pulse, dance, shimmer, and explode in perfect sync with how you’re playing, making all of the game’s 30+ stages something you’ll want to experience over and over again.
Development is being handled by the same team of Monstars Inc. and Resonair as the original Tetris Effect, with additional coding and networking help from Tokyo-based Stage Games.
CROSS-PLATFORM PLAY
Furthering the game’s goal of bringing people together in cooperation and competition, the Tetris Effect: Connected update will allow Friend Match players to invite owners of the game on other platforms to all play together, via a simple, shareable 4-digit alphanumeric “Room ID” code. (Of course players can also invite others on their same platform directly via that platform’s native invite system as well.)
Display of the Room ID can be disabled for those streaming their matches who wish to keep it private, and all platforms have the option of limiting themselves to players of their same platform. (Note: progress and achievements will not be shared across platforms.)
In addition to breaking down barriers between friends, wherever they might choose to play, cross-platform play will maximize the player base for Ranked Matches, ensuring better matchmaking and more equivalent competition for players at all levels.
BONUS FEATURES Spectator Mode (Friend Matches Only): The Tetris Effect community’s #1 most-requested feature! Between 4 and 6 additional players, depending on the multiplayer mode, can join a match to watch as spectators (and emote from the sidelines in real-time), adding flexibility and convenience for anyone hoping to run or stream tournaments, or simply making it easier to drop in and out of games with a group of friends.
PAL Speed (Classic Score Attack Mode, Friend and Local Matches Only): A new option designed to replicate the feeling of the European PAL format of the Tetris game from the Nintendo Entertainment System, including a lower framerate, faster horizontal movement, and faster dropping speed in later levels.
Slow Speed (Zone Battle Mode, Friend and Local Matches Only): The flip-side of the Hyper Fast mode, this option, well, slows things down, with a longer entry delay for new Tetriminos, and slower horizontal movement. Helpful both for beginner players and also for advanced pros who can use the delay for more effective stacking and more devastating Zone Attacks.
BETA TEST
Cross-platform play, together with new platforms and features, represents a significant technical challenge, so Enhance is planning a Beta Test period to help test and improve online play ahead of the official launch of the Tetris® Effect: Connected update.
The Beta Test will be available as a separate download to existing accounts that own Tetris Effect (Owner’s Beta), or to any account with a redeemable code (Closed Beta) sent by Enhance, during the periods listed below.
NOTE: Progress in the Beta Test will not carry over in any way to the final game. Online multiplayer on all Xbox consoles requires Xbox Live Gold or PlayStation Plus on PS4 (subscriptions sold separately).
ALSO NOTE: All dates listed can be thought of as “by 8pm Pacific Time (USA) that day.”
BUT ALSO-ALSO NOTE: THESE DATES ARE TARGETS AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE (this is a test, after all, stuff can go wrong) 🙂
PlayStation 4:
CLOSED INVITE ONLY: June 17 – June 23 Apply here.
OPEN TO TETRIS EFFECT OWNERS: June 23 – July 5
Epic Games Store:
CLOSED INVITE ONLY: June 17 – June 23 Apply here.
OPEN TO TETRIS EFFECT OWNERS: June 23 – July 5
Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Microsoft Store PC (including Xbox Game Pass):
CLOSED INVITE ONLY: June 17 – June 23 Apply here.
OPEN TO TETRIS EFFECT OWNERS: June 23 – July 5
Steam:
CLOSED INVITE ONLY: June 17 – July 5 Apply here.
Oculus Quest:
CLOSED INVITE ONLY: June 23 – July 5 Apply here.
Merge Games is excited to reveal the first official gameplay trailer for their open world, survival, online multiplayer, adventure game SMALLAND. Arriving on PC in early access later this year. In addition to a brand new trailer reveal, Merge is delighted to announce that Smalland will be releasing on the Epic Games Store at the same time! Epic users interested in playing in this giant world can wishlist Smalland right now!
Discover what became of the surface world as you and your comrades explore this vast open world. In Smalland players will be tasked with the expansion of their peoples’ territory across a wild, unforgiving, and ever-changing world where everything is overgrown by plant and animal life. From the perspective of a tiny insect, players will experience life from the bottom of the food chain, foraging for resources from local flora and fauna to survive. Players will climb skyscraper-sized trees, build rudimentary shelters (at the start), craft powerful armor with unique abilities, complete quests to aid their people, and discover seemingly abandoned locations now reclaimed by nature.
Play against the environment solo or with other players, customize your character, build structures and buildings anywhere you like and set out to conquer these lands. You will undertake quests that will grant materials and resources needed to craft more weapons, armor, and buildings. In your travels, you will learn of the varied factions that inhabit the lands, with each faction taking influence from certain creatures such as ants or bees.
Key Features
A huge open, sandbox world to explore from a tiny perspective
Build bases and shelters with a host of upgrades and customisations
Discover the lore behind SMALLAND through quests and the hidden NPCs scattered throughout the world
Dynamic weather and random events organically create hazardous situations or fortunate events
Player upgrades and customisation, craft powerful armor to earn and unlock new abilities
Creature factions: Work alongside creatures, gain their trust, earn allies and mounts
SMALLAND will have its next beta round at the end of July. People hoping for the chance to participate should go to the official Smalland Discord.
SMALLAND is set to launch into early access this year on Steam and Epic. For more information on SMALLAND, visit Merge Games website, or follow on Twitter.
