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PS Plus games for July include 'Crash 4' and 'Man of Medan'
Sony has revealed the three games that all PlayStation Plus subscribers can snap up in July. They are Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, Man of Medan and Arcadegeddon — a notable leaker once again got all three games spot on.
Crash Bandicoot 4 arrived in 2020 and was the first new mainline Crash game in 12 years. It was pegged as a direct sequel to the original PlayStation 1 trilogy — meaning that it ignored all the PS2 games. Both the PlayStation 4 and PS5 versions will be available, with the latter supporting features like the DualSense controller's adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.
Man of Medan is the first title in Supermassive's Dark Pictures Anthology series. It's an interactive horror game in which your choices determine whether characters live or die. However, we felt it didn't hold up as strongly as the studio's previous game, Until Dawn. Man of Medan is hitting PS Plus just after the arrival of Supermassive's latest game, The Quarry.
Arcadegeddon, meanwhile, is a multiplayer shooter from Illfonic that has both co-operative and player vs. player modes. You'll search for loot and unlock abilities as you take on the evil Fun Fun Co. megacorp, which is using an arcade for real-world weapons testing.
This is the first time Sony has refreshed the games on the lowest tier of the new-look PS Plus since it revamped the service. The company said it will continue to offer Essential tier users a couple of games a month that they'll have access to as long as they remain subscribers. Sony will also update the Extra and Premium lineups in the middle of each month.
Crash 4, Man of Medan and Arcadegeddon will be available to claim on July 5th. Until then, you can still add the current batch of PS Plus Essential titles — God of War (2018), Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker and Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl — to your library.
'Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope' aims to be a more modern tactical adventure
Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle was a pleasant surprise. A charming game that married Nintendo’s Mushroom Kingdom with the chaos of Ubisoft’s Rabbid mascots and crammed it into a game that was, well, pretty much a cartoon interpretation of the tactical strategy series XCOM.
It was an unlikely early hit on the Switch. Ubisoft was able to offer a different kind of game than Nintendo was offering in its first-party titles. Apparently, that was the seed that led Ubisoft Milan Creative Director Davide Soliani to Mario + Rabbids. Talking to Engadget, he said, “[We] should create something that makes sense from Ubisoft’s point of view, something not happening in Nintendo’s catalog.”
Ubisoft fulfilled that brief with Kingdom Battle. Soliani added: “We can match the aesthetics [of Super Mario], using and misusing the elements…. The contrast is the drive.” That’s the context for this sequel, too.
In Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, Mario et al. (and their Rabbid equivalents) face a shared threat, called Cursa. The blended worlds of Mario and Rabbids are being contorted by darkness, but this time it’s a little more galactic. Expect to see varied worlds, à la Mario Galaxy, with the Lumas of that game being transformed into Sparks, elemental sprites that work like summonable magic attacks in the many, many battles.
That may sound new to anyone that played Kingdom Battle, but there are far bigger changes afoot. We’re yet to play the game, but judging from the new teaser and Davide Soliani’s explanation, it’s going to feel different – less of an XCOM tribute and something between tactical strategy conventions and the manic dashing and leaping of typical Mario games.
Your party of three heroes can now move around in real-time, no more grids. You’ll be able to see how far a character can move within their environment thanks to a white outline, but you’ll be able to figure out cover and optimal attacks on the fly. Each hero will get their turn before the baddies get to, well, return the favor. Soliani says this should help the game to feel more “natural”.
Crucial elements will include where you move your hero (as long as you don’t shoot), utilizing items to extend movement and even using some enemies against other enemies – like hurling a Bob-omb towards some unsuspecting enemies on the other side of an area. Like Kingdom Battle, the synergy with other heroes will be crucial in tackling the biggest enemies.
Alongside companion elemental Sparks, which will grow in abilities as your characters do, each hero will have their own unique weapon this time, running the gamut from melee weapons like swords through to dual pistols and even bows. (You can’t have a game in the 2020s without including a bow.)
You’ll be joined by some new characters, including a Rabbid with a sword called Edge. (Dumb, I love it.) and age-old rival Bowser, who’s apparently a heavy-hitter equipped with what appears to be a bazooka.
More freedom in battles is mirrored in the game too. The worlds you’ll explore should feel more open-ended than the areas of its predecessor. Explore planets, take on fetch quests (this is a Ubisoft game after all), solve the major darkness problems of this specific planet – or just do the bare minimum and move on to the next part of the game.
This should all help Sparks of Hope feel a little more contemporary – aided by a pretty incredible array of musical talent. Kingdom Battle composer Grant Kirkhope, who also contributed to Rare’s epic run of Nintendo 64 games, returns, joined by Gareth Croker (Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Halo Infinite) and Yoko Shimomura (Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy XV). Those are some gaming music heavyweights which should help ensure all these different worlds sound as different as they’ll look.
Judging from the teaser and Soliani’s comments, Ubisoft is evolving Mario + Rabbids at a swift clip, modernizing the battle system and adding further strategic wrinkles and customization to fights. Sparks of Hope could feel like a different sort of tactical battle game, and if they nail the synergy like the first game, it could be just as entertaining.
'Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration' brings together more than 90 games this fall
With Atari turning 50 this year, the brand’s current owner plans to celebrate with a collection that brings together five decades of games. Announced today, the aptly named Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration will include more than 90 titles spanning the Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, ST, Jaguar and Lynx. What’s more, Atari hired Digital Eclipse, a studio that’s best known for its work on The Disney Afternoon Collection and the Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection, to oversee the project.
"When it comes to emulation or bringing classics back or doing really any sort of remastering or reimagining, I don't know if there's anybody who does it better than Digital Eclipse, so they were always our first choice," Atari CEO Wade Rosen told Game Informer.
Atari has yet to share a complete list of the games that will appear on the compilation, but in addition to many classics, the collection will include six new retro-inspired games. One of those is a sequel to 1981’s Haunted House for the Atari 2600. Haunted Houses will feature modern 3D voxel-based graphics and new levels for players to explore. Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration will cost $40 when it arrives later this year on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, PC and Atari VCS.
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Blizzard buys 'Spellbreak' studio Proletariat to speed up 'WoW' development
It's a busy spell for Blizzard, with Diablo Immortal, Overwatch 2 and mobile game Warcraft Arclight Rumble all arriving this year. The studio has another major release lined up in the form of World of Warcraft expansion Dragonflight, which is expected to arrive by the end of 2022. To help get WoW expansions out on time and ensure they meet the bar in terms of quality, Blizzard bought Spellbreak studio Proletariat to bolster its ranks of developers, as GamesBeat reports.
The news comes one day after Proletariat announced it will shut down Spellbreak early next year. The free-to-play game is an intriguing take on the battle royale genre, with players using magical powers instead of guns. The game never took off, though. It had an average player count of 166 on Steam over the last month. Apex Legends, on the other hand, has more than a thousand times as many players at any given time on Steam alone.
More than 100 developers from Proletariat will now be focused on World of Warcraft, though the studio has been working with Blizzard since last month. The Boston-based studio also plans to expand its team.
WoW general manager John Hight has spoken of the difficulties his team has had in hiring to deliver content updates to players more quickly (the publicturmoil at the studio over the last year might have played a role in that). Bringing Proletariat on board should help.
“A big part of caring for our teams is making sure we have the resources to produce experiences our communities will love while giving our teams space to explore even more creative opportunities within their projects,' Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Ybarra said. "Proletariat is a perfect fit for supporting Blizzard’s mission in bringing high-quality content to our players more often.”
Activision Blizzard is itself in the process of being bought by Microsoft for $68.7 billion. Given the ongoing labor and workplace culture issues at the company, there's a bit of irony in Blizzard snapping up a studio called Proletariat.
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