It was reasonably sunny, and, unsurprisingly, most of the passengers were foreign visitors. Besides absorbing the occasional fact and factoid from the overly-energetic tour guide through their microphone, I was primarily focussed on drowning out the noise with the help of Jack Johnson and other mellow tones. (I blame this on having to babysit my nephew several months earlier, who was very into the Curious George film.) I wouldn’t say I was lonely at the time, as I ended up making friends in the following weeks and months, but I was glad to have had a natural moment of reflection that wasn’t entirely self-absorbed....

The Yakuza protagonist is a playable character, free and unlockable through normal gameplay on all platforms at launch, Sega said. Trailer is below: The news comes hot on the heels of confirmation Sonic and Tails are playable in Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania. Like, Kazuma Kiryu, Sonic and Tails are free and unlockable via normal gameplay. Selecting them also switches the game’s bananas to rings, with the Sonic series’ classic sound effects included....

Forgotten Land has players taking control of Kirby across a wide range of stages while platforming, flying and copying enemy abilities, much like prior games. However, the shift in perspective allows for a shake-up in its level design that is very welcome. It’s still a retro style of game design but this new entry brings a lot of fresh ideas to the table with elements like the new ‘mouthful’ objects that directly influence mechanics....

The future of the Silent Hill series will be unveiled this week - on Wednesday at 10pm here in the UK. “In your restless dreams, do you see that town?” the official Silent Hill Twitter account teased this evening. “The latest updates for the Silent series, will be revealed during the #SilentHill Transmission on Wednesday, 19th October at 2pm PDT.” The announcement was retweeted by Masahiro Ito, who has worked on numerous entries in the Silent Hill series as a monster designer and art director....

To be fair, those older games are some of the most technically outdated in developer TT Games’ portfolio. Time, console hardware and game design have all moved on, and The Skywalker Saga now stands as very different beast. After a lengthy and somewhat troubled development, TT Games has at last completed its nine-film compilation - but that is only half the story. For as long as you spend on the game’s main film storylines, you can also spend just as long aimlessly wandering through the game’s expansive array of planets, undertaking in the series’ largest collectible hunt ever....

NFT Doom, a mod by Ultra.Boi, allows you to race through hell with demons replaced by those demonic apes from Bored Ape Yacht Club often sold as NFTs. Instead of shotguns, chainsaws and BFGs, Doomguy now sports a camera with which to screenshot those pesky primates. It’s a fun nod to “right-clickers”, people saving and screenshotting NFTs to undermine their value. And with each screenshot, the apes disappear with a hugely inflated price tag as their value is shot to pieces....

This version was originally set to arrive last month alongside the game’s other console and PC editions, but was pushed back at the end of August. The Life is Strange: Remastered Collection, which includes the original game and Before the Storm, was also delayed for all platforms including Switch to “early 2022”. Square Enix announced the Switch version’s new date via Twitter, in a post which also includes a look at protagonist Alex Chen in this new build of the game: I called the game “a beautiful return to small-town mystery and young adult drama” in Eurogamer’s Life is Strange: True Colors review....

“We are aware of an issue within the Tytalos Guardian Raid that makes defeating Tytalos in the time frame alotted extremely difficult for the power level required to participate in the Guardian Raid, creating a blocker for progression,” the team explained in a brief update shared over the weekend. “We are working with Smilegate RPG on a hotfix to address this issue which we are aiming to release on Monday....

During its Magic Showcase 2021 event, Wizards of the Coast announced Fortnite gets two Secret Lair drops next year that “encapsulate iconic Fortnite in-game locations and characters”. Secret Lair is a sub-brand of Magic: The Gathering that revolves around collectible sets with unusual themes and new art styles. There are a number of crossovers already available, including with The Walking Dead and Godzilla. There’s no release date for the Fortnite expansion, but we do know its cards will be reprints of existing cards, and we have a first glimpse at some artwork by Caroline Gariba: Meanwhile, Magic the Gathering also gets a Street Fighter Secret Lair drop in 2022....

This sequel to the excellent Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle takes place in a “whimsical” and gorgeous new galaxy, that’s a curious blend of both Mario Galaxy and Rabbids universes. Within its orbit float worlds of autumnal colour, frozen snow and sandy beaches, like a Mario Galaxy game in miniature. The story here revolves around Cursa, a dark entity that wants to absorb this hybrid galaxy’s energy and capture the Sparks - cute creations that are a mix of Galaxy’s Lumas and the Rabbids....

As announced in the official blog post, Marvel’s Avengers will be available on PlayStation Now until 5th July, while Borderlands 3 will be available until 29th September. It looks like The Long Dark will remain on the service for the foreseeable future, as Sony has not given a removal date for the game. Both Marvel’s Avengers and Borderlands 3 will be released on PlayStation Now in their PS4 versions (thanks, IGN)....

In December, Microsoft claimed the FTC’s lawsuit against its Activision Blizzard buyout was unconstitutional, and specifically violated the Fifth Amendment. However, the company has now gone back on this argument, admitting it “should have dropped these defences before we filed”. “The FTC has an important mission to protect competition and consumers, and we quickly updated our response to omit language suggesting otherwise based on the constitution,” Microsoft public affairs spokesperson David Cuddy said in a statement to Axios....

Xbox boss Phil Spencer tweeted the announcement, which also confirms the company’s commitment to continue to release Call of Duty games on Valve’s Steam platform “simultaneously to Xbox”, if the gargantuan $69 billion offer to buy Activision Blizzard is approved. Call of Duty’s latest releases, Modern Warfare 2 and Warzone 2.0, are already on Steam. The announcement is a direct response to the scrutiny the acquisition has come under from a raft of organisations across the world, chief among them the Federal Trade Commission in the US and the Competition and Markets Authority in the UK....

In an oral history on the creation of the original Xbox published by Bloomberg (paywall), those involved with the console reveal they tried to use Microsoft’s millions to secure Xbox exclusives, and actually met Nintendo to see if they would consider being acquired. But, according to Kevin Bachus, former director of third-party relations, that meeting didn’t go so well. “Steve [Ballmer, ex-Microsoft CEO] made us go meet with Nintendo to see if they would consider being acquired....

The full 40-minute showcase is well worth a watch, featuring developer interviews and player insights across a wide range of accessibility issues, but the freshly announced features coming to Xbox soon and in the longer term are summarised below. For starters, the Microsoft Store for Xbox will be getting a new accessibility panel on each game listing that’s designed to make it easier for players to discover titles that include accessibility features and to quickly identify what those features are....

This is why subway maps make for a perfect video game, and Mini Metro - now Mini Metro+, with a few enhancements made to it for its arrival on Apple Arcade - is the perfect example. This is the mobile game, simple and clear and immaculately well-suited to the platform. It’s what Apple Arcade is all about, selling mobile gaming as something more than a vehicle for toilet-break microtransactions (cleverclogs will tell you it always has been, if you knew where to look, but the volume of guff does make that old attitude forgivable)....

Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst - Release, Reunion and Follow the Red A walkthrough to the opening mission of Faith’s rebooted adventure, including an introduction to combat, wall-running and Dashes. Other pages: Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst - Old Friends Put your new combat prowess into action and learn about Electronic Parts in this second main mission. Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst - Back in the Game Infiltrate the KrugerSec department with the help of Icarus....

The “New Zealand” trick, which lets players trick their consoles into letting them access a game that doesn’t release until midnight in their own region, has been a staple of game releases for many years. But Infinity Ward has issued a statement warning players may experience “connectivity issues” and “may be locked out of the game” until the game is officially released in their region. Infinity Ward has also taken part in the light teasing with a series of tweets....

Good gosh do I love Monster Hunter. The core loop remains unchanged but Capcom’s series has evolved an awful lot since its inception way back in 2004, and after a long run on Nintendo’s console that peaked with the exceptional Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate it was only after 2018’s multi-platform Monster Hunter World that the series found a proper foothold in the west. Here was Monster Hunter at its most accessible - and, with expansion Iceborne, at its most brutal - and for the first time it no longer felt like a niche pursuit....

For comparison, Capcom announced it had shipped 5m copies of Monster Hunter World back in January 2018, though that was released for both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Capcom’s “shipped” figures (rather than “sold”) includes digital copies as well as physical copies sent out to retailers but not yet picked up by punters. Still, there shouldn’t be a great deal of difference here - there isn’t a ton of stock currently sat on shelves, and there have been reports of sell-outs of the game in Asia....