Timeline
Saturday31st Aug 2024
News Harry Potter's New PS Plus Game Will Come with a Bonus for Hogwarts Legacy Owners on PS5, PS4
Sleepy Sallow
We wouldn’t describe the cast of Hogwarts Legacy as particularly memorable, but we do recall the sneering face of Slytherin student Sebastian Sallow. And he’ll be returning in upcoming PS Plus game Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions for anyone who’s owned and played both titles and connected them to their WB Games account. You can...
Quiz Test Your PlayStation General Knowledge - Astro Bot Special
A lot about a bot
How much do you know about PlayStation and the gaming industry that surrounds it? If you fancy yourself a walking PlayStation encyclopaedia, then why not put your brain to the test with our PlayStation General Knowledge Quiz? But of course, this is not one of our ordinary PlayStation quizzes. With the release of Astro Bot just...
Poll Are You Happy with Your PS Plus Essential Games for September 2024?
Plus or minus?
Another month, another set of PS Plus Essential games for subscribers to (hopefully) enjoy. September's offering is made up of three PS5 and PS4 titles, one of which is a brand new release in the form of Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions. It's always nice to see a fresh title get dropped straight onto the service, but it goes without...
News Your Astro's Playroom Progress Will Transfer to Astro Bot on PS5
Make sure you collect your Special Bots
Have you found all four Special Bots in Astro’s Playroom yet? They’re all available now, and if you’re stuck, we reveal all Special Bots locations in our guide. There’s not just Trophies and some fun gameplay up for grabs here either: y
News Failing Manufacturers Are Pushing the Narrative That Consoles Are Dying, Says Ex-Xbox Exec
"They'll never die in my opinion"
There’s a strong sentiment among gaming enthusiasts and the industry at large that consoles are a failing product and nearing their death knells. This opinion has been pushed broadly on social media and across specialist websites, despite it never really aligning with reality. It’s true that profit margins have...
News Concord PS5, PC Sales Estimates Are Somehow Even Worse Than We Thought
An unbelievable 25,000 copies
It doesn't take a genius to realise that Concord has bombed. Sony's PS5 and PC hero shooter has, by all accounts, seriously struggled to attract players. At this point, it's common knowledge that the title almost immediately crashed and burned on Steam, where its frankly dismal user numbers are publicly available. It...
News Legendary Devil May Cry, Dragon's Dogma Director Hideaki Itsuno Leaves Capcom After 30 Years
"Please stay tuned for my next creation!"
Hideaki Itsuno has announced his departure from Capcom, over thirty years after he first joined the company. Itsuno is perhaps best known as the guy who got Devil May Cry back on track. He directed the awesome Devil May Cry 3, and much more recently, the superb Devil May Cry 5. He also brought us Dragon's...
Guide Upcoming PS5 Games for September and October 2024
Astro Bot! EA Sports FC! Black Ops 6!
We're truly headed towards the business end of the year now, and if this current list of upcoming PS5 games is anything to go by, we're in for a real treat. As always, we've been busy putting together a list of some particularly noteworthy physical releases headed to PS5 over the next few weeks, as well as a...
Talking Point What Are You Playing This Weekend? - Issue 544
Feverrr
The release schedule has been hotting up for a little while now, but it truly enters overdrive over the coming couple of months. We don't know how we're going to have time to play all of the titles vying for our attention. Khayl Adam: I’ve been on the review train, and still am, so that gets priority. Add to that, Sunday is Father's Day...
Friday30th Aug 2024
Future imperfect
Despite launching just three years later and on the same hardware as TimeSplitters 2, TimeSplitters: Future Perfect looks like a title from a completely different console generation. This is both a good and a bad thing. Visually, things are substantially better, with far cleaner textures, more complex environments, and so on...
Poll Are You Playing Star Wars Outlaws?
Vess or no
Star Wars Outlaws has landed on PS5. Ubisoft's open world adventure — developed by Massive Entertainment — has long promised freeform sandbox gameplay married to typical Star Wars vibes. It's one of the year's biggest releases in terms of potential widespread appeal, but have you decided to pick it up? Admittedly, though, we came...
Start saving
The thorny issue of game prices always proves controversial. There are some, raised in the early 90s, who recall the hundred of notes they dropped on Super Nintendo cartridges like Street Fighter 2 Turbo. There are others, raised on a diet of PS2 in the noughties, who remember getting a full physical game for about $50, and it didn’t...
Life on the Luofu
Unlike Genshin Impact, which just received its massive new sequel-sized update, Honkai: Star Rail is padding time ahead of its next important story update. That’s brought the Trailblazer back to the Xianzhou Luofu, where they’re currently dealing with a prison break involving a particularly problematic enemy. That storyline...
News Let the Astro Bot PS5 Launch Trailer Tide You Over Until Release
Plus a behind-the-scenes gameplay deep dive
To mark next week's launch, Sony has today published the launch trailer for PS5 exclusive Astro Bot alongside a behind-the-scenes look at the platforming gameplay featured in the experience. Here's the launch trailer: And this is the behind-the-scenes deep dive, featuring commentary from studio director...
News Vibrant Magical School MMO Wizard101 Will Enchant PS4
First released in 2008
Kingisle Entertainment’s long-running magical MMO Wizard101 will launch on PS4 in the future, over 16 years after it first debuted on PC. The game, in which you enlist as a new student at the Ravenwood School of Magical Arts, will see you “unlock your inner-magic” as you face off against evil forces which have turned a...
Preview Cairn PS5 Proves Much More Impressive Than Just a Realistic Version of Only Up
See that mountain...
When you work as a journalist, you train yourself to not be too effusive about a preview build of a game. We’re not fanboys, we’re not here to hype your product. We’re professionals. We are here to play your game and evaluate it. That said, by the time we finished playing Cairn and left the tiny booth in the French...
News Dramatic Conflicts as Sony Accused of Signing Secret PS5 Exclusivity with Black Myth: Wukong
First time?
Update #2: An interesting night of conflicting reports has brought no resolution to the idea Sony secretly paid for Black Myth: Wukong exclusivity. Neither the platform holder nor developer Game Science has commented on the speculation, but Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb has gone against the recent round of reports. Grubb said on a podcast...
News Visions of Mana Dev Basically Shut Down Just as the RPG Releases
Chinese companies having doubts over Japan
Ouka Studios, the Tokyo-based team that just brought us Visions of Mana, is reportedly on the brink of being closed down. To be clear, the new Mana title is published by Square Enix, but Ouka Studios — the game's primary developer — is a subsidiary of Chinese colossus NetEase. The outfit was first...
News Final Fantasy 16 Was Temporarily Free on PS Plus Extra, Premium
Reports of downloads from PS Plus members
Update (30th August, 9am): The glitch in question has now been fixed overnight, returning a price point to Final Fantasy XVI on Sony’s digital marketplace. Original article: PS Plus Extra and PS Plus Premium subscribers have in the pa
Thursday29th Aug 2024
News Astro Bot's Free DLC Will Add Speed Run Stages By the End of 2024 on PS5
Hit those leaderboards
Developer Team Asobi has already confirmed its upcoming platformer Astro Bot will receive free post-launch DLC, and now we know a little more about what some of it will entail. Apparently, the game will be updated with speed run stages, much like the ones featured in Astro's Playroom. The news comes via Famitsu magazine...
Review Star Wars Outlaws (PS5) - Open World Pledge Produces a Superficial Space Outing
Villainous to the end
Star Wars Outlaws has been billed as the first-ever open world game set in the Star Wars universe; a claim that immediately puts developer Massive Entertainment on the back foot. Ignoring the fact Star Wars Galaxies did it first over two decades ago, it opens the game up to an extra layer of scrutiny: is it even open world in...
Poll Are You Playing Visions of Mana?
Eyes open
Visions of Mana has arrived on PS5 and PS4. A brand new instalment in the long, long running RPG series, Visions looks to breathe some additional life into the beloved property, providing a sizable adventure across an incredibly pretty fantasy world. We awarded the game a 'good' 7/10 in our Visions of Mana PS5 review, concluding that,...
News More Tales Announcements Incoming for Series' 30th Anniversary
More Tales to tell
Earlier this week, Bandai Namco revealed Tales of Graces f Remastered. But what fans may not realise is that this was actually just one of multiple announcements that the publisher has planned, in celebration of the series' 30th anniversary. Officially, Tales turns 30 in December, so it sounds like we might be getting a staggered...
News Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions' Snitch Has Been Dramatically Nerfed on PS5, PS4
You Snitch
As a competitive sport, Quidditch is broken. Those of you who’ve read the Harry Potter novels will know that catching the elusive, winged ball will earn the Seeker’s associated team 150 points and conclude the match. This effectively renders everything else occurring within the arena irrelevant, and while the books do a good job of...
Mini Review Shadow of the Ninja Reborn (PS5) - Lovingly Restored Classic Shinobi Action
Back to the future
Shadow of the Ninja Reborn brings the classic Natsume side-scrolling ninja action game to modern audiences, and it remains a worthy experience even some 33 years later. It demands the level of challenge that games released in the 90s often do, but if you're okay with that, it looks better than it ever did and offers an enjoyable...
News PS4 Players Won't Have to Wait Long for Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP
Can't stop thinking about the Nayeon song
Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP, the remastered version of Grasshopper’s kitsch character action, will launch first on PS5, from 12th September. However, if you’re yet to upgrade to Sony’s new-gen system, you won’t have to wait long for a PS4 version: it’s due out in November digitally. There’ll be no...
News Astro Bot 2 Hinted at in PS5 Platinum Trophy Description
"See you in Astro's next adventure!"
Ahead of its PS5 release next week, the Trophy list for Astro Bot has been posted to Exophase, and what is noteworthy is the Platinum Trophy description: "Earned all Trophies. Well done and see you in Astro's next adventure!" So, will Astro Bot 2 be out before the end of the PS5 generation? That's a question to...
News Green Ranger Tommy Oliver Joins the Roster of Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind on PS5, PS4
Available to wishlist on PS Store
Green Ranger Tommy Oliver has [Update: apparently not] divided Power Rangers fans for decades, but there was next to no chance he’d be absent from upcoming PS5 and PS4 throwback brawler Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind. You’ll actually unlock the character upon completing the campaign, so he’s...
News Black Myth: Wukong Patch 1.0.8 Promises Loads of Fixes on PS5, But No Performance Boosts
Paint it black
The first post-launch update for Black Myth: Wukong is available to download now on PS5. Patch 1.0.8 weighs in at a reasonable 1.1GB, but players hoping for improvements to technical performance will likely be left disappointed. The update focuses on fixes for a range of more specific issues, many of which are related to gameplay...
News The Witcher 4 Close to Full Production, Next Cyberpunk Progressing as Planned
Slow your role
It's been a good few months since we last heard from CD Projekt, but it sounds like the company's still got everything under control. As has been widely reported, it currently has two separate teams working on the next game in The Witcher series (commonly referred to as The Witcher 4), and the sequel to Cyberpunk 2077. The Witcher 4...
