Table of contents for June 2022 in Edge

Finally, it’s here – for a select group of players, at least. It feels like a long time since May 2019, when E333’s cover story introduced the world to Panic’s yolkcoloured handheld, but then we’ve all endured a pandemic since then. That partly accounts for the holdup, and for a slower-than-planned hardware rollout. But we’re not here to talk about Playdate’s manufacturing issues, which are already well documented – and not unique, as many would-be PS5 owners will attest. We do recognise, though, that while we’re fortunate enough to receive one of the first retail units direct from Playdate’s maker (magazine lead times do have their advantages sometimes), plenty of interested parties will still be waiting for theirs to arrive. At time of writing, the first batch should be on…

Ori’s Gareth Coker is the first game composer to win an Ivor Novello award and his music is now being performed at the Royal Festival Hall. So how does he view game music’s recognition in the wider cultural world? “I think we really need to stop comparing games to everything else, ” he says. “Judging from the listening stats on Spotify and YouTube, the volume of people listening to game music already dwarfs the vast majority of film and television soundtracks, so I genuinely believe the stigma attached to them will naturally erode. Game music comfortably stands on its own, and to me, it’s plainly obvious that some of the most innovative musical writing for media right now exists within games.”…

Nakamura’s development career began at Capcom’s Clover Studio as an environment artist on Okami. When the division was dissolved, she was among the members who left and became part of PlatinumGames, where she was a concept artist on Bayonetta. Her longest tenure, however, had been at Tango Gameworks. On staff since the studio was founded in 2010, she led art and character design on The Evil Within and was the creative director on Ghostwire: Tokyo until her sudden departure in 2019. Before founding Unseen, she also collaborated with Ubisoft to create a few DLC skins for Rainbow Six Siege.…

If you’ve attended before you’ll know that there’s plenty to do at Develop once the conference has wound down for the day. There are all the usual post-event networking drinks – and plenty prepost-event too, as you’ll know if you’ve ever set foot in the Metropole bar in the afternoon – plus the Develop Star Awards ceremony, this year boasting 20 categories. Also on the agenda for 2022 are a charity poker tournament, raising money for GamesAid, and a conference wrap-up party in support of charities SpecialEffect and One Special Day – both excellent ways of totting up a little good karma while socialising.…

Game Sky Riders Manufacturer Ace Amusement It was only last issue that we were ruminating on how few games seem to take risks with their controllers nowadays, and then Sky Riders hoves into view, asking the player to pedal it like a bicycle in order to propel a winged vehicle through a selection of colourful stages, popping balloons to accumulate points along the way. If you frequented arcades in the mid-’90s you might well recall the concept from Prop Cycle, from which Sky Riders borrows unashamedly, and we’re hoping that this new iteration is as robust as Namco’s original, examples of which are still in operation, despite all the pedal-harder-to-go-faster beatings they’ve taken over the years. Created by Chinese company Ace Amusement, the game has been installed in an increasing…

There is something comfortingly familiar about the blood-red YOU DIED message that punctuates one’s bloody adventuring in Elden Ring, as it had done in Bloodborne, and Dark Souls 3, and all the rest unto the beginning of time. Of course, death is not the end, because this is fundamentally a religious system, however bleak; and Elden Ring is one of the most interesting modern examples of how videogames, as a cultural form, exist to re-enchant the idea of religion itself. Of course, many players will require no such re-enchantment, but even for that portion of the audience that is secular, the invocation of a world “abandoned by the Greater Will” – a term, presumably, for God – exerts a peculiar frisson. It is, I’d argue, not mere rhetorical set dressing…

Hyper Light Breaker PC Announced just before we went to press – this is happening too often to be pure coincidence – Heart Machine’s co-op-focused 3D action adventure is set in the same universe as Hyper Light Drifter, and appears to blend that game’s combat with Solar Ash’s traversal mechanics. Naturally, that pitch has rocketed it to the upper echelons of our wishlist. The Dark Pictures Anthology: The Devil In Me PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Supermassive’s horror series reaches its season-one finale, and is clearly keen to go out with a bang. It’s less the story we’re interested in than the casting: the brilliant (and Oscar-nominated) Jessie Buckley plays one of the five protagonists. Starfield PC, Xbox Series Our time in The Lands Between nears its end,…

Inkulinati’s campaign mode will follow the creeper structure of Slay The Spire, allowing for different armies and builds to develop, with minor battles leading to showdowns with the “medieval superstar” bosses. Academy Mode, meanwhile, will offer a series of puzzle-like challenges. “We want different kinds of players to enjoy our game, ” Janas says. “Some of them will be more into the Roguelike campaign and some are more like chess players and just want to have these ‘Eureka’ moments.” We can also expect local multiplayer in Skirmish Mode, and online multiplayer is a possibility. “I can’t tell you for sure, ” Janas says, “but it’s something we have very much in mind.”…

Developer/publisher Total Mayhem Games Format PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series Origin Netherlands Release May The first We Were Here was developed in less than three months. It was a student project, made to fill the requirements of a minor programme at Rotterdam’s University Of Applied Science. “Our objective of the course was to create a 3D platform game within 14 weeks, and to put it on Steam, ” says Lucia de Visser, now co-founder and managing director of Total Mayhem Games. “And we were trying to show off a bit, so we put multiplayer in there.” The students looked around the gaming landscape of the time, de Visser says, “and we saw that there was something missing”. They’d been fans of Portal 2’s co-op mode, but were disappointed…

The contrast between the grim milieu and the soap-opera mundanity of the story – which takes in subplots about unwanted pregnancy, drunken rows and more – is fascinating. With a profusion of northern-English accents among the cast, it invites you to imagine a post-apocalyptic Coronation Street, a feeling magnified by the occasionally shaky dialogue and uneven performances. That’s not necessarily a criticism: we’re reminded that these are ordinary people who’ve suffered an extraordinary fate. It’s there, too, in the everyday items you find: from hospital shift rotas to bottles of antidepressants, they add up to a convincing portrait of real lives cut short.…

Developer WolfEye StudiosPublisher Devolver DigitalFormat PC (tested), PS4, Xbox OneRelease Out now Boulder Creek is a ghost town. The sheriff’s office, the mission church, the blacksmith fed by the nearby mine: these all speak to what was once a thriving and prosperous place. Now, though, the town belongs to the Ridgebacks, former humans with termite nests growing out of their skulls, twitching as the insects guide their movements. The sheriff’s office is buried under weblike growths; the blacksmith’s forge is cold; there is just one sign of life to be found. A literal sign, hung from the front of the church. Painted on it, in hasty capitals, is the word ‘help’. Guiding our character to a nearby rooftop, we plan the rescue. Ridgebacks have a tough carapace and spew poisonous…

We feel a slight sense of fatigue from the numbers that appear on our holoprojector: 140 side missions, 225 minikits, 731 puzzles. By the time we finish al nine films, we’ve unlocked just over half the core upgrades, with an average of 12 per cent across the nine character classes. These are unlocked via Kyber bricks – replacing the traditional gold bricks – which you’re awarded for completing all manner of puzzles, trials, races, shooting galleries, Porg rescues and more (in the space around each planet, you can usually find an asteroid that yields five when blasted apart). Studs, meanwhile, can be used to pay for ‘rumours’, which unlock the location of one of these many asides, though you can also find these out by talking to NPCs.…

Generally speaking, Rigbarth’s inhabitants – such as the obsessively competitive Lucy or innkeeper and werebeast-with-a-heart-of-gold Murakumo – are a charming bunch. Though you’d expect as much, since you’re encouraged to befriend and flirt with them, with the prospect of wedding bells in the post-game. While a patch update was only implemented late last year for the Japanese version, western players have the option to romance characters of either gender from the start, as denoted by the heart icon next to each relevant character in the Friendship level tab. Eligible bachelors and bachelorettes are given a short animated introduction that is designed to make your heart flutter. You can even declare your love for them right away – just prepare for rejection until you’ve put a bit of work in.…

Featuring composer interviews, columnists and soundtrack reviews, Gamemusic Magazine (bit.ly/gmfmag) is the first magazine dedicated solely to music and audio in videogames, and was launched by Game Music Foundation in 2020. Given that this is still something handled in the organisation’s spare time, it’s been limited to three issues so far, only the third of which is available to buy in paper form. “We had been focusing on the festival but we are close to an agreement with a partner, so we will probably start doing it more regularly, perhaps quarterly, ” Mateusz says.…

While Unseen isn’t ready to reveal its debut game yet, Nakamura can tell us that it will incorporate some familiar elements: the paranormal and the occult in the genre of “supernatural action adventure”, an idea that she had been incubating before even deciding to build a studio. “Since it was not possible for me to bring it forth while I was in an organisation, I am very excited to finally give shape to this idea I have been nursing for a while, ” she says.…

Why aren’t we more impatient? People who play videogames are stereotyped as distractible children, in need of constant stimulation and excitement, yet I’ve always been amazed at just how much filler we’ll put up with in order to get to the good stuff. Final Fantasy XIII is famously described as a game that “gets better after 20 hours”, a claim I can’t verify because I only lasted half that long. I understand it, though. I’d crawl through broken glass – or sit through a two-hour cutscene – to play a sequel to Return Of The Obra Dinn or Hades. Some gameplay can be so unique, so enjoyable, so enduring, that it’s really worth the wait. But that doesn’t explain why the wait is there in the first place. The easy…

Developer Stitch Heads Entertainment Publisher Raw Fury Format PC Origin Netherlands Release 2023 Every now and then, a game’s title has you reaching for the dictionary, wondering whether it’s a real word or a neologism cooked up by the marketing team. This is one of those cases – so what, exactly, does ‘superfuse’ mean? As producer Paul Wilson explains it: “It’s a medical term for fusing parts together, putting them together in a way that maybe they’re not supposed to be”. It’s not immediately obvious how this might apply to Superfuse, the action RPG. Wilson offers one explanation: it’s how the game itself is being made. Behind Superfuse is a team of 30, centred on a Dutch studio with one previous release to its name: pinball game Kabounce. This puts…

Tittel has used his film-industry connections shrewdly, attracting an impressive cast of performers for The Last Worker. Isaacs is obviously a major coup as Skew, a character who wasn’t originally in the story, “but we very quickly realised we needed, ” Tittel explains. “We wanted you to feel that sense of loneliness, but we needed someone to potentially direct your eye to things without trying to throw exposition at you.” Kurt is voiced by – and, indeed, modelled upon – Icelandic-American actor Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, perhaps best known for Nordic noir Trapped, and most recently seen in BBC thriller The Tourist (“he’s a huge videogame fan as well, so he jumped at the chance, ” Tittel adds), while Zelda Williams, Clare-Hope Ashitey and Tommie Earl Jenkins play key supporting roles.…

Developer Necrosoft Games Publisher Hitcents Format PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Origin US Release TBA 2022 Dotemu’s fabulous Windjammers 2 might have seemed to have the title of ‘year’s best quasi-sports game’ sewn up by the end of January, but this enhanced edition of 2020 Stadia release Gunsport might just give it a run for its money. Certainly, this early build has us similarly oscillating between fury and fist-pumping delight, and likewise shuffling ever closer to the edge of our seats during extended rallies. The pitch is simple: two-on-two weaponised volleyball. Set in a cyberpunk-adjacent world, presented in crisp, nicely animated pixel art, it’s a future sport that at times seems conceptually counterintuitive. Isn’t technology supposed to make things more efficient? Here, you shoot the ‘ball’, which…

The backstory for We Were Here was cooked up by de Visser to explain why the first game took place in a castle in the Arctic, but has snowballed over time. The story is now a major focus for Forever, so much so that it’s launching alongside a live-action YouTube series, Chronicles Of Castle Rock, based on a story written by creative director Ruud Renting. “It was kind of an autobiographical story for him, but it was also about [series setting] Castle Rock, ” van den Ouden says. “The whole idea grew out of that – from somebody writing something in one night to ‘maybe it’s a podcast’ to ‘let’s go all out, and film it’.”…

Hideo Kojima hired Yoji Shinkawa straight out of college in 1994. Kojima, tasked with bringing Metal Gear into 3D at Konami, recognised in the illustrator an unusual talent. “Shinkawa was born to be a videogame artist, ” he once said. The young artist’s striking, idiosyncratic work reshaped Metal Gear’s aesthetic, infusing Kojima’s world with an identity that, in earlier games, had mostly aped the macho soldiering of ‘80s Hollywood. Shinkawa’s work was unapologetically Japanese, but with its ink brush flourishes and classical poses it more closely embodied the qualities of fine art than the excesses of traditional manga that defined the industry at the time. “[Shinkawa’s] work, ” Kojima later concluded, “as much as anything, defined Metal Gear from there on.” It also provided a star pairing of artist and…

STILL PLAYING Elden Ring PS5 Where in previous FromSoft games an entire session might have been spent bashing heads against a single boss, the open-ended nature of Elden Ring makes it easy to nope out and pursue other threads, a few of which fit neatly into a single evening. Which doesn’t stop that evening stretching out into an entire night, of course, and occasionally into the early hours beyond. That boss will just have to crush our noggins into the dirt again another time. Lost Judgment Xbox Series The best shirt in videogames gets another welcome airing in The Kaito Files expansion, in which the lovable oaf gets embroiled in a case with a surprising personal connection. We manage to cram in a few hours during deadline week – not…

Even putting aside the hybrid genre from which the game takes its name, Weird West’s setting is a strange mash of influences: the Ridgebacks owe a clear debt to The Last Of Us’s Clickers, the pigmen to American Horror Story, while the conflict between an orthodox church and heretical witches is plucked straight from Colantonio’s previous work. But these elements combine in a way that feels fresh, and that adds a touch of spice to some of the game’s more generic elements. A random encounter with bandits suddenly becomes more interesting when their leader turns into a wolf, and it’s harder to begrudge a fetch quest when it starts with you picking up a statue that wants to chat.…

Jack’s determination to find and kill Chaos has already been widely mocked prior to the game’s release, yet there’s the kernel of something more intriguing at the heart of his obsession. Early on, one character suggests that people need evil to have some kind of tangible form, such that we might be able to hope that it can be defeated. Yet as with much of Stranger Of Paradise’s story, this idea is barely developed. Instead we get a plot that involves inter-dimensional trickery as a thin excuse for paying lip service to much-loved Final Fantasy locations (and their musical themes), while most in-game cinematics amount to little more than gruff one-liners, grunts and fist bumps between the group. Things do eventually come to a head, but by this late stage,…

Levels are procedurally generated, presumably with the intention of encouraging multiple playthroughs. Which might be a good idea, if the resulting locations weren’t so lifeless and difficult to parse: identikit rooms that lead to one another with no obvious logic. This makes it difficult to guess where you might want to search for valuables and to remember where you’ve been, leaving us to rely on an in-game map that has its own set of problems. This is without mentioning the technical mishaps with rooms that don’t fit together properly, leaving gaps between them or invisible walls that block progress. Worse, though, is the sense that we’ve been denied the most basic pleasure of virtual burglary: a chance to nose around someone’s home.…

Co-composers Masato Kouda and Kento Hasegawa seem to have been given neartotal freedom in this trippy dreamscape, and clearly revel in the opportunity – not that the soundtrack’s varied instrumentation hasn’t been applied with thought and care. A blend of washed-out synths combine with the echoed voices of a children’s choir as you approach the Tower of Fallen Angels, perfectly complementing the hyper-stylised alien environment you traverse, casting impossibly tall spires against the backdrop of fireworks. Orchestral sections serve to raise the stakes against formidable opponents, while an electric-guitarled rock track lends excitement to your encounter with the ostentatious Armaros. Even the combat theme feels like a statement of intent, using percussive sounds to create a suitably ethereal atmosphere.…

We’ve often said that Develop is a fixture in Edge’s UK calendar but for the past two years, following a certain amount of pandemic-related rescheduling and a move to a fully virtual event in 2019, ‘fixture’ perhaps hasn’t been quite the right word. For 2022, though, it’s business as usual for the conference, taking place from July 12-14 in its traditional home at Brighton’s Hilton Metropole. “There’s no getting away from the fact that, you know, Brighton in July is probably going to be nicer than Brighton in October, ” laughs Andy Lane, managing director of Develop organiser Tandem Events, admitting that part of what makes Develop special is the chance for a summertime trip to the seaside. But what really matters, of course, is what happens out of the…

“The medium is so very different to music and to linear entertainment that I don’t think we’ll see it go to the levels that we see with Spotify and Netflix.” As Sony revises its PlayStation subscription offerings, to the delight of not really anyone, Jim Ryan doesn’t so much shoot for the Moon as the roof of that old shed over there “We didn’t look at the game. We didn’t talk about the game… We talked about the characters…” Blessed with John-117’s complexity, Halo TV series showrunner Steven Kane surely had no other option ”Just ten per cent responded that they’d prefer to work primarily from the office.” In UKIE’s Industry Census 2022 report, Dr Mark Taylor reveals precisely how keen British game developers are to get back to the…

For fox sake Game manuals were once an art form. Unique illustrations, premises and character bios, tips and tricks for gameplay – these have been relegated to game guides or spread across various in-game menus today. I lament how they’ve disappeared over time and the loss of the special relationship they can have with their games. I think the love I have for them has been gently sparked with the digitisation and integration of physical media within games to help solve puzzles (Nathan Drake’s journal in Uncharted 4) or navigate worlds (Henry’s map in Firewatch). Tunic is the latest to incorporate this idea but it does so with a game manual. And it’s not just for flavour; it’s a core part of the experience. Tunic has no tutorial. The controls…

Before the printing press was invented, books were individually made by hand, each volume painstakingly written out and illustrated by scribes. Some took this opportunity to doodle around the edges of the page, often producing profane drawings that subverted sacred texts. There are various theories about the motivations behind medieval marginalia. One is that it was essentially an act of rebellion – perhaps even a protest of sorts. Or maybe it was just an opportunity for bored workers to briefly amuse themselves via the time-honoured tradition of fart gags. Either way, Yaza Games has brought this fascinating phenomenon into the 21st century with turn-based strategy Inkulinati. In a way, it feels particularly well suited to a medium that has long been an effective way to give us a fleeting sense…

The comic-book influence runs through every part of Superfuse. The aim for the cel-shaded visuals was to “always feel like you’re flicking through a graphic novel, ” Wilson says. Meanwhile, Haggis-Burridge cites Watchmen, The Boys and Invincible as story inspirations, as well as one considerably deeper cut: New Statesmen, a late-’80s strip from shortlived 2000AD spin-off Crisis that told a similarly dystopian tale of genetically modified humans. But there’s a big advantage to not using any actual comic heroes, they argue, using as an example discontinued ARPG Marvel Heroes, where multiplayer parties would often consist of four identical Hulks. “We’re not limited by a trademark, ” Wilson says, meaning players are free to customise characters’ looks however they like.…

Developer Yaza Games Publisher Daedalic Entertainment Format PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Origin Poland Release 2022 Once you enter the world of medieval marginalia, it’s hard not to fall for its puerile, violent charms. Sketched around the fringes of old scholarly parchments is a whole fantasy kingdom that subverts reality, where rabbits run amok with swords, oversized snails swallow men whole, and trumpeters bend double to parp a tune from their bare behinds. For Polish developer Yaza Games, this feudal humour was ideal material for some anarchic turn-based strategy. Its philosophy is simple: if there’s anything as timeless as a tactical war game, it’s a good fart gag. As game director Wojtek Janas tells it, the pictures drove the project from the start, when they and their university course…

You wouldn’t necessarily expect it of a sport where both sides are armed (not that you can shoot your rivals) but Hyper Gunsport is played in a good spirit, with the post-match trash talk between the teams tending towards the complimentary, convivial or just plain weird. There’s a light sprinkling of lore for each team (the UWSC duo are cybernetically enhanced while Blue Cambodia’s couple are proud to play without augmentation, and Scrapyard Squad faked their credentials to enter the tournament), but it never feels like it’s holding up the action. Rather, it provides a bit of extra character and narrative context for the eight-round Circuit mode – and a few amusing nonsequiturs at the end of a match.…

Developer Cosmonaut Studios Publisher Secret Mode Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Origin UK Release May Have you ever stopped to think about the many seemingly insignificant events in your life that collectively led you to where you are today? Perhaps this is an inevitable by-product of deadline week, but considering the billions of permutations of choices made and unmade is enough to make your head spin. This branching-narrative adventure posits the idea that time-travel experiments in the future have rippled backwards, causing temporal corruption with devastating effects. As an operative of the so-called Second Chance Project, you’re presented with the opportunity to rectify that mistake: the case you’re given involves six people who died in a house fire in 2015. Since halting the blaze is considered too risky, you must…

Format PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series Developer Studio Pixel Punk Publisher Humble Games Origin Brazil Release 2021 Playing Unsighted, a host of influences jump out at us: our fairy-bot companion Iris, one “Hey, listen” away from spirit-channelling Navi; the ‘Drifter Chip’, a tip of the hat to Heart Machine’s top-down dystopia; mecha bosses that wouldn’t look out of place in Mega Man. But we’ll admit to being blindsided by one of the games co-creators Tiani Pixel and Fernanda Dias cite as an inspiration: Goof Troop, Capcom’s adaptation of the Disney animated sitcom and one of the first games designed by Shinji Mikami. Safe to say, it’s not one of his best remembered works – at least, not for most people. “Here in Brazil, we didn’t have much of…

By any measure, 2022 has had a remarkable start: we can’t recall the last time we had such a glut of exceptional games in such a short span. That things have calmed down has its pluses: one Edge staffer finally has the chance to pick his way through Elden Ring, while another is belatedly treading Tunic’s golden path. We’ve been wondering, however, about the wisdom of releasing so many games in February and March. Already we’re hearing stories of those that have been overlooked: would these have benefited from being postponed, rather than hurried out before the end of the fiscal year? Delays have been occupying our thoughts quite a bit this month. Yet Nintendo confirming that Breath Of The Wild 2 is now due in 2023 may not be…

Developer Tango GameworksPublisher Bethesda SoftworksFormat PC, PS5 (tested)Release Out now Having made a quarter of a million souls disappear, Ghostwire: Tokyo’s villain Hannya sets in motion the next part of his masterplan, which appears to involve uniting our world with the spirit realm. Given how effectively Tango Gameworks establishes a physical connection between the two, we wonder if the studio is in on it. Desperate to reach his hospitalised sister, protagonist Akito can only watch helplessly as a procession of yokai parades through Scramble Crossing, littered with the clothes of the unfortunates who were at the world’s busiest intersection when the fog swept in. Little wonder, then, that the only living boy in Shibuya seems to take things so personally, viciously attacking Visitors (manifestations of human rage). As he slams…

The greatest foe you face in Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is, as ever, the dreaded Borderlands inventory limit. We’ve heard the arguments for capping inventories: working out what to keep is part of the challenge, if not the fun. But in a game defined by its indiscriminate loot drops, capping the inventory has always felt rather mean-spirited. It’s past time that Gearbox found another way of motivating players to keep their enormous arsenals in order. As in previous games, any dropped rare items you miss are invisibly transported to a lost-and-found locker in the world’s hub area, but this also has a cap. Adding insult to injury are the game’s cosmetic outfits, which have to be stored in your inventory before you can actually unlock them.…

Particularly pleasing in Chinatown Detective Agency is the way the depths of its dystopia aren’t introduced with great fanfare, but poured in gradually via conversations and snippets of background information you can access at each new location. Rather than big news, signs of socioeconomic woes, such as a global wine shortage, are an accepted part of everyday life – even a topic of humour for citizens doing their best with what they have. This also means that wider events play second fiddle to the minutiae of Amira’s work and relationships with clients and friends, with space in the script for some jokey banter between case points. Naturally for a cyberpunk plot, you will end up embroiled in techno-corporate conspiracy, but even then the personal stories remain in focus.…

The sense of diving deeper into a multi-layered world is heightened by the stage-select screen, which provides glowing entry points to plunge into small sets of levels. These offer a subtle sense of progression, the first puzzle introducing you to an idea that is developed over the set, while branches provide tests related to the ones you’ve just completed at a higher tier of difficulty. There are unusual offshoots and one-offs besides, and you need only complete a handful of puzzles in each area to move on to the next.…