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Five years of interconnected adventure Square Enix has announced that it will hold a special anniversary live stream next month to celebrate five years of the narrative adventure franchiseOctopath Traveler.The stream will take place on July 13, the same date as the first title graced its presence on Nintendo Switch. Developed by Square Enix and Acquire, theOctopath Travelertitles allow players to follow the interconnecting tales of a party of distinct protagonists, who cross paths under their own respective circumstances....

No more rounds of Push until the game’s out We’re just a few months out from the release ofOverwatch 2‘s multiplayer component. And while there’s been some opportunities to test it out, Blizzard is now confirming there won’t be anotherOverwatch 2beta before the game’s launch. Blizzard VP Jon Spectortook to Twitteryesterday to note thatOverwatch 2was just a few months away. And while players have been anticipating a possible beta happening again, before launch, it sounds like that won’t be the case....

Toss some snowballs at Mei, she deserves it Overwatch‘sWinter Wonderland eventhas just begun, and both PC and console players should now have access to the most recent update. In addition to the expected holiday themed skins, sprays, highlight intros and emotes, there’s also a new Brawl that sees two entire teams of Mei throwing snowballs at one another. The new patch brings some huge changes toOverwatch, including anewly overhauled Symmetra. It’s fairly hefty as a result, and for the PC version it clocks in at 1....

Again ditching Cologne for Paris Here’s an under-appreciated fact about the video game marketing cycle: PlayStation usually holds four press conferences during any given calendar year. E3, Tokyo Game Show, Paris Games Week, and PlayStation Experience all have proper pressers and they all happen within six months of one another. That’s bananas. While E3, TGS, and PSX are all foregone conclusions, it’s always a little up in the air as to what Sony plans for European conventions....

Pikachu Party! Next week marks the 21st anniversary of thePokemonfranchise. To celebrate, Niantic is holding a small event to commemorate “PokemonDay.” From February 26 until March 6, every Pikachu in the game will be wearing a festive party hat. There’s a photo below for anyone interested in what they look like. Players will be able to keep this special Pikachu forever. There was no mention of whether or not Raichu or Pichu will have hats, but I would assume at least Raichu does (since the Christmas variation did)....

Bring it Final Fantasy XIVhas been through hell and back: and its producer, Naoki “Yoshi-P” Yoshida, rescued it from the ninth layer. I’ll never forget my excitement when I walked up to test out the original version ofFinal Fantasy XIVat E3 roughly a decade ago, and the utter confusion I had when I left the booth. “It can’t really be shipping like this?” I thought. It did. But here we are years later and theRealm Rebornexperiment is such a rip roaring success that the act of fixing your game and bringing it back from the dead is now known as “the Realm Reborn treatment....

Put on your best battle dress Well, I called it. Sega has revealed that its previously teased“Project B.L.A.C.K.”is indeed a newSakura Warsmobile title.Sakura Kakumei(orSakura Revolution)is currently in development for iOS and Android platforms and will launch in Japan this fall. Produced by Sega and Delightworks,Sakura Revolutionis a spin-off title set within the melodramatic, mech-battlingSakura Warsuniverse. While story details are still a little thin-on-the-ground, a 20+ minute anime from studio Clover Works gives us our first look at the new game’s cast of characters....

Tit for tat Boobs.Now that I have your attention, I want to tell you what I think aboutthe PC version ofSenran Kagura: Peach Beach Splash, a highly sophisticated simulation representing what happens when you put a group of intricately complex, three-dimensional characters in an arena with water guns to allow them to vent their frustrations on one another. More of a psychological analysis than a video game,PBS, much like the novel Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk is something of a deep character study that dissects the frailty of the human condition....

Sit down, be humble It’s no secret the output of the DC Extended Universe has been less than exemplary. Yes, the movies have all made money, but onlyWonder Womanhas established itself as a box-office, fan, and critical darling. After the disaster that wasJustice League, Warner Bros. is no doubt looking for another win for the franchise.Aquamanhas a chance to set the series back on the right track this winter, but if it fails, something tells meShazam!...

Kyutie Kyo It looks like another classic fighter from the Neo Geo Pocket Color console is making its way to Switch. As revealed in this morning’s New Game+ Expo presentation,The King of Fighters R-2will launch on the Nintendo platform next month. Originally released for the ill-fated handheld back in 1999,KoF R-2is an adaptation of the beloved Neo Geo releaseThe King of Fighters ’98, and sees a bevy of popularKoFcharacters square off in adorable handheld action....

She’s not as dumb as she was developed Games with horror elements have their fair share of women in peril. Although (in my opinion) occurring less frequently than a female protagonist, horror games’ damsels in distress tend to be cute (Ellie fromDead Space 3, Alice Wake fromAlan Wake), already dead (Mary fromSilent Hill 2), or useless (Little Sisters fromBioShock, Ashley Graham fromResident Evil 4) (no offense). For some horror games, kidnapping, killing, or maiming their women is an easy, indeed horrific way to gross players out and motivate their male protagonists....

Extra launchers are like per-channel streaming services: not needed Another launcher bits the dust. The Bethesda launcher is no more by the time May 2022 hits, and you may transfer to Steam a month early in April. Here’s the gist, and the bolded part is important: “We’re saying goodbye to the Bethesda.net Launcher this year. We would like to thank you for your support and assure you that all of your games are safe....

If you’re a Kinect owner, odds are you ownDance Central. After all, it is, arguably, the best piece of software for the device by a mile. Harmonix did a wonderful job of bringing the well-traveled dance genre to Kinect thanks to their experience withRock Bandand a fantastically memorable cast of dancers. With that firm foundation, they’ve got some room to play around with the sequel. In the next episode of Harmonix’s behind the scenes look atDance Central 2‘s development, they’re showing off the game’s crews and dancers....