The Best Borderlands 3 Vault Hunter Builds In 2020

Disclaimer: this feature will be updatedÂ  with more builds on a periodic basis.
It’s been a year, and Borderlands 3 is stronger and more packed than ever.
Gearbox announced recently that it will have less frequent hotfixes and updates for Borderlands 3, now that its seeming final DLC for the game’s first season is out and about. The game’s current arsenal and legendary weapons are all out in the open and the game’s level cap is set, at least for now.
With that said, we should share our favourite builds and weapons/mods/artifacts setup you should focus on and what Legendaries to farm. Here are our suggested builds to power through the endgame and make your farming and boss takedown bits a lot manageable on the highest Mayhem level.
Do note that in order to get the most out of these OP builds, you will need ALL the DLC for this game. The game has been out for a year, so it should be discounted on your purchasing platform of choice by now.
Moze The Gunner

All Might Build
This one is named after the My Hero Academia flavour text of the Plus Ultra shield, brand new from the Psycho Krieg DLC. Basically you have high survivability with Shields at full potential and your weapons deal a lot of direct and splash damage.
Skill Tree

Important skills to note: Fire in the Skag Den, Phalanx Doctrine, Short Fuse. You want to cause as much damage and explosions as possible with this build.
Weapons, Mods, & Artifacts You Need
Empowered Plus Ultra: Important for this build. Doubles health.
Bloodletter Class Mod: This will complement with the Ultra shield and the Phalanx Doctrine/Shield of Retribution skill tree. Basically your Shield goes up to the max and is your new lifebar. All skills in the skill points will make sure your Shield is always regenerating and staying on top, while your life is lower than 50% to activate the anoints on your weapons.
Flipper with U-Rad anointment: U-rad anointments are “while under 50% health, deal 150% bonus radiation damage”. When you have the top Shield of Retribution skill tree set up as such, your life will be below 50%, thus activating this anointment on this SMG automatically. You can easily farm the Flipper from the Minosaur in the Bounty of Blood DLC.
Plaguebearer with U-Rad anointment: same as above, but bigger burst damage and a tougher weapon to farm.
Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge: Consecutive hits give you a 1% increased damage per hit up to 15 times. When at max stack, adds an additional +90% damage.
Build credit: Moxsy

Infinite Ammo/No Reloading Moze Build
This Moze build is easy to comprehend: fire bullets until the enemies are dead. Whether it’s a Badass or a Boss, you’ll shred them in no time flat while also getting a temporary aggro-drawing assist from your Iron Bear.
We’ll let this video speak for itself. If you’re not a fan of reloading guns, this is the build for you.

Skill Tree

Important skills to note: The Bottomless Mags tree & Forge, Fire in the Skag Den, Short Fuse, Auto Bear, Grizzled. Not only does your Iron Bear stay around a tad longer than the previous build, you can use it as cover as you unload bullets without any need to reload or worry about losing ammo fast.
Weapons, Mods, & Artifacts You Need
Transformer – Still one of the best shields around. High capacity and makes you immune to shock damage. Try to get one that gives you 50% elemental damage on Action Skill End.
Sapper – Moze Class Mod that gives you lifesteal if you keep firing your gun. Make sure to get the one that gives you +5 to the Iron Bank skill, so it expands your magazine size exponentially.
Mine Sweeper – Moze Class Mod used for killing bosses. Dealing critical damage lets you drop a Micro Grenade that explodes; it’s a 25% chance, but this build lets you fire a gazillion bullets so your chances are very high. Find one that gives you extra points to Fire in the Skag Den and Redistribution.
Weapons that have decent magazines & high firing rate – Examples include the Flipper SMG, the Monarch and Dowsing Rod Assault Rifles, Sniper Rifles like the Lyuda and Septimator Prime, and most Vladof guns. Heck, you can use Lucian and Rowan’s Call for this build as they have good firing rates. The skills from this build will amplify these guns and damage output.
Monarchs will take you a while to farm since they have a low drop rate from Killavolt. So if you’re impatient, just go for Dowsing Rods, Flippers, and Lyudas with good anoints like consecutive hits bonuses.
The Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge – A must for most Vault Hunter builds, especially ones that boost your magazine size and increases fire rate.
Build credit: Ki11er Six

Iron Bear All Day Moze Build
Lets you stay in Iron Bear longer than usual. It also deals double damage than usual, so if you like staying inside Iron Bear for a good amount of time, this is the Moze build for you. Be sure to equip Iron Bear with matching Hammerdown Protocol launchers for big burst damage with huge AoE.
Skill Tree

Important skills to note: Stainless Steel Bear, Auto Bear, Deadlines, Security Bear, Desperate Measures, Dakka Bear. These will help buff up Iron Bear’s health to the millions.
Weapons, Mods, & Artifacts You Need
Flare – The latest Moze Class Mod from the Psycho Krieg DLC. This adds more Iron Bear damage the longer you stay inside.
EXECUTE – A pistol that debuffs enemies when you chuck it to them.
Zheitsev’s Eruption – an Assault Rifle that debuffs enemies.
EM-P5 – An SMG that makes you move faster than usual. Switch to this weapon before you activate Iron Bear so that you can move fast.
Flipper – Your main damage dealer when you’re out of Iron Bear. Still does reasonable damage on its own. Be sure you get one with the U-rad anointment to get the damage bonus since Moze’s health will be low.
Plus Ultra – More health and bullet absorption = good for Moze.
Unforgiven – Best to equip when you’re on the Dakka Bear turret. The +300% critical applies to the turret.
Build credit: Joltzdude139

Season 2 Moze
Thanks to the Designer’s Cut DLC/DLC 5, we now have new legendaries to farm in Arms Race. You’ll need certain weapons like the Vladof Boogeyman Sniper Rifle to make this Moze build work.
Skill Tree

Funny story: the early skill Big Surplus on the 4th purple skill tree acts as a complement to Fire in the Skag Den skill. This equals to mucho damage for this build.
Weapons, Mods, & Artifacts You Need

Boogeyman – You’ll have to farm Arms Race to get this rapid-fire sniper rifle.
Critical Prompt – A nice explosive pistol to have for Moze.
Plasma Coil – Fast-firing burst-laden SMG with multiple element types and splash damage.
Trevonator – This shotgun has a buff in Season 2 now. Make use of its burst fire.
Plaguebearer – A nice game-changer. Make sure its element matches the rest of your weapons, shield, and grenade to take advantage of Harmonious Havoc.
Old God – Still a great shield to have.
Blast Master – The class mod to have. This build will make sure your magazine never goes empty, making you exploit the Splash Damage buff you’ll get with this class mod.
Purple Skill Tree Iron Cub(?) Build

Amara The Siren

Full Frontal Melee Build
Want to go all Star Platinum on your enemies? This is the build you want. The only gun you’ll be firing is the Facepuncher, which uses melee damage values instead of gun damage. Your Action Skill of choice is Reverberation, a Phasecast skill that increases damage if you hit multiple enemies in a line. Coupled with the homing orbs that pop up after every melee kill you pull off (filled with Overkill damage FYI), and you have a whole lot of digital blood on your hands.
Be sure to turn on the Groundbreaker Guardian Rank perk to turn up the melee after-effects to eleven.
Skill Tree

Important skills to note: Remnant, Illuminated Fist, Find Your Center, the majority of the Brawl and Mystical Assault tree. Buff up that melee damage like no tomorrow.
Weapons, Mods, & Artifacts You Need
Muse – This new Siren Class Mod makes melee builds viable. It basically triggers a homing energy orb as long as you’re dealing melee damage. This boosts the Illuminated Fists by 3, which basically amplifies melee damage further. Thanks to the melee scaling that occurs and its interaction with this build’s artifact, you’ll be doing insane damage with it all the way through.
Knife Drain Static Charge – Speaking of artifact, this is the one you need to make the entire build viable. The lifedrain ability will also make sure you’re healing and sustaining yourself while you’re dealing damage.
Knife Drain White Elephant – Switch to this when you’re fighting bosses 1v1, especially if they don’t summon mobs.
Stinger – This Shield Mod buffs up your melee damage to 50%.
It’s Piss/Fish Slap – If you have the Fish Slap Grenade Mod from the Revenge of the Cartel mini-DLC, use it since it deals melee damage. Otherwise, the debuffing P-nade is a good substitute.
Facepuncher – The cherry-maker that puts them on top of this build sundae. Once you spec just right, this is the only weapon you need, apart from your actual melee attacks.
Build credit: Joltzdude139

Ties That Bind 2020 Build
Amara’s special Ties That Bind Phasegrasp skill kills mobs real well. This build makes sure to get the most out of that bonus and just wreak havoc. Switch to Phasecast when you’re fighting bosses though, unless they summon mobs in the fight itself.
Skill Tree

Important skills to note: Laid Bare, Remnant, Indiscriminate, most of the Fist of the Elements skill tree. The biggest priority here is the red and blue skills to maximize damage when pulling off Phasegrasp.
Weapons, Mods, & Artifacts You Need
Hellwalker – The best incendiary shotgun for Amara and this build.
Light Show – The best close-ranged pistol for killing enemies fast. The Consecutive Hits anoint is needed to maximize the damage from this gun while Phasegrasping.
Enhanced Old God – This shield mod from Amach (via the Guns Love Tentacle DLC) will boost your damage output further. Try to farm as many elemental resistance versions as you can (Corrosive, Incendiary, etc.) so that you have many flavours to choose from.
Plaguebearer – A great rocket launcher to get out of FFYL.
Blood-Starved Beast – While this SMG is good, it takes eons to farm from Evil Lilith since its drop rate is criminally low.
Mitosis Hunter Seeker – Homing grenades for this splash-focused Amara build are always a plus. Aiming is overrated, anyway.
Purified Spectral Phasezerker – The perfect Siren Class Mod to go for this stacks-dependant build. Be sure to do “fake Phasegrasps” before a fight to build up your stacks so that you enter the battlefield powered-up.
The Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge – A must for most Vault Hunter builds, especially ones that boost your magazine size and increases fire rate.
Build credit: Moxsy

Phaseball-Tastic Amara Build (Ver.1)

Fl4k The Beastmaster

Deputy Fl4k
Turn invisible, let your pet draw aggro, fire your gun, get crits. Any questions? Action skill-wise, use Fade Away with the Not My Circus enhancement to draw aggro while you’re in hiding.
Skill Tree

Important skills to note: Lick The Wounds (for reviving since Fl4k is squishy as hell), Galactic Shadow and Megavore (for crits), Big Game (boosts Hunter Skills).
Action Skills & Pets: Fade Away with Not My Circus augment, Great Horned Skag
Weapons, Mods, & Artifacts You Need
Hellwalker – Thanks to the recent buff on this weapon, this Jakobs shotgun is your go-to damage dealer when you’re in Fade Away. Get the U-Rad version if possible.
Skullmasher – For long-ranged combat, especially if your targets are far away and can one-shot you. Farm for the U-rad version to take advantage of the Front Loader perk.
Dastardly Maggie – A good pistol that works well with this build. This, alongside Hellwalker and Skullmasher, will take advantage of Head Count. Again, find the U-Rad version.
Bullet Buffet Front Loader – A shield mod that takes 60% of your health and uses it as additional shield energy. Since Fl4k’s ammo usage can get out of hand, farm for the version that absorbs bullets.
Cosmic Stalker – The Beastmaster Class Mod you need for killing mobs since it gives you +25% for all your Hunter Skills. Roll for the ones that boosts Interplanetary Stalker and Big Game. If you can get one that also gives you Shotgun and Jakobs critical damage bonus, all the better.
Bullet Buffet Front Loader – You need to have your Max Health reduced with this Shield Mod to take advantage of the U-Rad setups here. Also, the bullet absorption from this Shield Mod roll helps with your ammo count.
Mitosis Hunter-Seeker – Homing grenades that splits into 3 in flight are always nice.
The Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge – A must for most Vault Hunter builds, especially ones that boost your magazine size and increases fire rate.

5G Fl4k
This build’s purpose is to summon your pet at a location all gamma’ed up, and then kill mobs & bosses while their backs are turned. Your gamma’ed pet is unkillable, so feel free to dish out the damage.
Skill Tree

Important skills to note: Lick The Wounds, most of the Master and Hunter skill tree. You want your pet to survive all onslaughts when you use Gamma Burst.
Action Skill & augments: Gamma Burst, Empathic Rage, Atomic Aroma.
Weapons, Mods, & Artifacts You Need
Red Fang: This build will not work without this Fl4k Class Mod. It allows your pet to draw aggro when Gamma Burst is activated, which means you won’t be targeted at all when dealing damage.
Hellwalker, Light Show, Monarch, and Reflux with u-Rad anoints: We’re stacking up radiation damage in this build to complement Gamma Burst, so these top-tier weapons will help shred mobs and bosses faster.
Bulwark Front Loader with radiation resistance: To activate the u-Rad bonuses, you need the Front Loader’s ability to take out 60% of your health to use as shield capacity.
The Pearl of Ineffable Knowledge – A must for most Vault Hunter builds, especially ones that boost your magazine size and increases fire rate.
Build credit: Moxsy

Zane The Operative

Chain Zane 2020
The ultimate in Operative combat & toolsets. This build gives Zane a speed & damage boost when he has both his SNTNL Drone and Clone out. The Double Barrel skill will give your Clone the weapon you had equipped when summoning it, meaning you have an auto turret of sorts with perfect aim and an OP weapon. Don’t act too shocked if everything around you dies fast.
Skill Tree

Important skills to note: Brain Freeze, Death Follows Close, Seein’ Red, Double Barrel, Supersonic Man, Donnybrook. These and the rest of the skills above are paramount in making Zane move fast and dealing a lot of damage while in motion, as well as keep his enemies grounded and outpaced.
Action skill augments: Clone – Doppelbanger and Which One’s Real?. SNTNL – Bad Dose and Static Field.
Weapons, Mods, & Artifacts You Need
Seein’ Dead – Honestly, this is the only Zane Class Mod you need because every other mod is just complementary or only for specific situations. As an all-purpose mobbing and bossing mod, Seein’ Dead is just too good since it keeps your Action Skills & Kill Skills active for every hit you dish out. The 25% kill skill effect bonus helps too.
Transformer with SNTNL movement speed anoint – Protects you from Shock and has high capacity.
Light Show with 100% damage buff via SNTNL – The best Vladof pistol for Zane since he can catch up to enemies and run away.
Sand Hawk – While we’re not fans of this Sniper Rifle’s handling and firing, it’s a beast on your Clone. You can just equip it first, summon your clone, then switch to your primary weapon like the Light Show. Anything that’s hit by the Clone’s Sandhawk shot will die super-quick.
Blood-Starved Beast – This SMG replaces Redistributor, which was the go-to for Zane and his Clone/SNTNL/speed meta. It’ll take a while to farm, but it’s worth it.
Backburner – This Rocket Launcher still destroys anything in the game. Another weapon your Clone can use since it has pinpoint accuracy. Make sure to get the Shock element version when you have the Transformer on because its AoE will down you.
It’s Piss – A grenade mod that debuffs enemy defenses.
Ice Breaker Victory Rush – This artifact synergizes well with Brain Freeze and all other skills that add Freeze onto your enemies.
Build credit – Joltzdude139
NEXT: If you don’t have time, here’s what you can do.


[Rumour] Square Enix “Slightly Panicking” Over Final Fantasy 16 Pre-Order Sales

Is there trouble going on in Final Fantasy 16 and Square Enix? Maybe, as this latest rumour has surfaced.
Square Enix is presumably not getting enough pre-orders of upcoming RPG Final Fantasy 16 and are “slightly panicking” over it according to game journalist Imran Khan. The game’s preorders, which are “potential Day One sales” and aren’t “guaranteed” sales, are lagging behind the last mothership title Final Fantasy 15. These numbers are seen as low even when taking into account the game’s exclusivity on PlayStation 5. This does lend the theory that there have been recent marketing pushes for the upcoming Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which is a sequel to the hit “remake” title Final Fantasy 7 Remake.
Why Are They Considered Low?
Many factors could be leading to these low pre-order numbers.

Square Enix’s recent track record with triple-A games -Forspoken- made people reluctant to shell out US$70 pre-launch.
The past mothership game in the series, Final Fantasy 15, underwhelmed a lot of fans and RPG players. Thus, they’re hesitant in pre-ordering part 16 despite it looking promising and being under the helm of Naoki Yoshida, the man who brought Final Fantasy 14 back from the brink of death and failure.

Whether Square Enix is just “kan cheong” remains to be seen, but the aforementioned factors are enough to justifiably make publishers a bit more wary. Do stay tuned for our eventual review and thoughts on Final Fantasy 16 later this month of June.


Here’s When Pillars Of Eternity 2: Deadfire – Ultimate Edition Comes Out

If you’re a big fan of isometric RPGs, then you’ve surely heard of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire. Up until now, the game has only been released for PC but that’s about to change with the release of the Ultimate Edition.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfQWy8BOwk0&w=560&h=315]
Publisher Versus Evil has just announced that Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire – Ultimate Edition will be released on 28 January 2020 for the PS4 and Xbox One. Unfortunately, it seems that they’ve made a mistake in the trailer stating that it’s coming out on January 2019. A Nintendo Switch version is also in production but there’s no news on that one yet.
Here’s what’s coming in the Ultimate Edition:

Play in either Turn-Based Mode or Classic Real-Time with Pause: Immerse yourself in a deeper single player RPG game experience – now with both classic real-time with pause and new turn-based combat, Deadfire builds on the foundation of classic tabletop gameplay more than ever before.
A massive adventure: Over 100 hours of gameplay per playthrough.
Play however you want: Detailed character creator character and over 1000 class permutations gives you the freedom to be whoever you want.
Gather your party: Build your party and customize your companions to join you on your quest. Assign multiple classes and deeper abilities for each. Witness their personal relationships, reactions to player choice, and interactions with each other unfold.
Beast of Winter DLC: Heed the call of Vatnir, a priest of the god of death, to halt the tide of destruction encroaching upon the living.
The Forgotten Sanctum DLC: Battle your way through the bowels of a vengeful, sleeping god.
Seeker, Slayer, Survivor DLC: Triumph or die in the Crucible of Kazuwari, where only the mighty reign.

The game isn’t up on either console’s digital storefronts yet so expect pre-orders to open in either late December 2019 or early January 2020. The folks at Obsidian are well-versed in making RPGs and this console port looks like it will do a fine job of showing PS4 and Xbox One players why a lot of PC players consider it one of the best RPGs ever made.


The Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Video Game Is Pretty Fun

Platform(s): PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC
Genre: Fighting Game, Adventure, Anime
Demon Slayer (or Kimetsu No Yaiba) is currently one of the most popular manga/anime in the world, and one that Iâ€™m proud to be a fan of. It has revitalized shonen anime and last year’s Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba The Movie Mugen Train broke a bunch of box office records.
However, games based on popular anime are usually mixed bags that are made just to cash onto the IP’s popularity, and they are rarely decent games, let alone good or great ones. My Hero One’s Justice 2 and One-Punch Man A Hero Nobody Knows, both of which launched in 2020, were both bland and uninspired fighters. Unfortunately, they wasted everything thatâ€™s good about the original manga/anime and squandered their potential.
Does Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba The Hinokami Chronicles suffer from the same problems that plagued those games, or is it actually a decent game after all? My answer may surprise you, unless you saw the headline.
Reliving The Tale Of Tanjiro

Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba The Hinokami Chronicles adapts from the entirety of the anime’s first season and Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba The Movie Mugen Train. It attempts to condense 26 episodes and a movie into approximately 6 to 7 hours or so worth of content in its Adventure Mode, the game’s de facto story mode. Is it successful? I’ve watched all of the source material, and I’d say it does a decent job of adapting them.
Sure, the game’s Adventure Mode unsurprisingly has to gloss over details and cut all the juicy depth, but it covers most of the important bits. This makes the story in Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba The Hinokami Chronicles easier to understand and less confusing for anyone who isn’t familiar with the source material, but it also means that the majority of those 6 to 7 hours in Adventure Mode (almost 60 to 70 percent, I would say) consist of cutscenes and dialogue. You’ll be watching stuff rather than actually playing them more often than not in Adventure Mode.
But let’s not kid ourselves. These games will never be a substitute for the original anime/manga, and it’s clearly catered to the fans who are already familiar with them. These are the ones who will buy the game at launch, not the ones who don’t care about the IP.
If you do want more story details, the game features tons of unlockable viewable shorts called Memory Fragments, which are brief snippets and shots of scenes from the anime to fill in the narrative blanks.

In Adventure Mode, you’ll get to explore areas in each chapter (there are 8 chapters). However, these areas are extremely linear and the map only consists of three markers. One is where to reach in order to progress the story. NPCs are marked with blue exclamation points while the yellow ones will give players Kimetsu Points, which can be used to purchase additional playable characters, cosmetics and additional content like music and profile pictures for online multiplayer purposes.
While there are side missions, they ONLY involve literally finding NPCs or objects with the blue exclamation points and interacting with them. They’re not even hard to find, since everything is marked on the map, which is extremely linear by the way. Oh, and once in a while, you’ll encounter random weak demons to fight in the same repetitive battles in order to continue and make some progress.
Every chapter follows the same formula. Traverse the map to progress the story, fight some goons in between, lots and lots of cutscenes and dialogue, all of which ends in fighting the boss demon as the climax. Each demon fight usually has several phases, and each ends the same way. When the boss demon’s health has been whittled down to around less than 25 percent or so, it will trigger a QTE sequence featuring an authentically recreated scene from the anime and movie.
Fans will love seeing scenes from the anime and movie recreated in the game’s engine and it looks great visually, but not all the time. Most of the game’s recreated anime cutscenes and dialogue are static and stilted. Fortunately, the game does a great job with the particle effects and emulating the aesthetics of the anime, especially elements like Tanjiro’s signature water attacks or Rengoku’s flames. It can’t hope to match the original Ufotable animation, so don’t expect it to.
Slice And Dice

Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba The Hinokami Chronicles features a simple combat system. There are basically only two attack buttons, square and triangle. Square for normal attacks while the Triangle button is for the character’s special attacks like Tanjiro’s water skills. Skills use up a sort of stamina or adrenaline meter (which is located under the health meter), but it can be replenished faster by attacking with the square button or by simply not doing anything. You can chain the normal attacks and skills for longer combos.
At the bottom of the screen, there’s a special meter that will fill up as you deal damage or receive damage. You can stack up to three meters at maximum, which can be used either to activate a Boost mode (where you get stronger and faster momentarily) by pressing L2 or to unleash your character’s Ultimate Art (their super attack, so to speak) by pressing R2. Pressing the Circle button to dash or rush towards the enemy, but tilting the analogue stick while pressing Circle will allow you to side-step or dodge quickly to the side.
You can block by pressing R1 and perform parries by tilting the analogue stick while pressing R1. Last but not least, the L1 button is to summon assists from secondary characters you choose, who will jump in to attack or even save you from an enemy’s attack like Hulk grabbing Iron Man from falling to his death at the end of 2012’s The Avengers. That’s basically it for the controls in this game and how combat works.

I’m not a fighting game expert, but the combat in Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba The Hinokami Chronicles does feel fast-paced and satisfying to pull off. The skills are often flashy and fluid with lots of particle effects. Despite playing on the PS5 though, the game doesn’t seem like it offers full 60FPS support. There are noticeable framerate drops here and there, but nothing as bad as My Hero One’s Justice 2. In fact, my overall experience was smooth and great, so you don’t have to worry about bad performance (on the PS5, at least).
I previously mentioned above that Adventure Mode was mostly filled with cutscenes and dialogue. The highlight is the battles against the boss demons of each chapter, which ends in a scripted QTE sequence that recreates the same scene from the anime. You’ll be repeating the same cycle though, so it gets old fast. Fans will probably appreciate it all, but I don’t think there’s enough here to offer those who aren’t familiar with the anime or manga.
At launch, there will be 18 characters in the roster (many of which you’ll have to unlock via Adventure Mode or purchasing them using Kimetsu Point obtained by playing the game). You’ll practically be able to use almost every Demon Slayer or human character prominently featured in the anime and movie. Disappointingly though, none of those 18 characters is a demon (except for Nezuko but she doesn’t count). A bunch of them are even just gag or parody versions of existing characters (like the Academy counterparts from a spinoff manga).
Although the developer has confirmed that six more characters will be added in free post-launch updates (the first two will be demons Akaza and Rui), we still have no dates for when they’re coming. It’s bizarre that a game with Demon Slayer in its name won’t have playable demons at launch, especially considering that you get to fight them in Adventure Mode. Still, at least the bright side is that they will still be FREE and not paid DLC.
A Cut Above

As anime games go, Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba The Hinokami Chronicles is a relatively good one. It’s not remarkable, nor does it do anything new, but it’s first and foremost catering to fans of the anime and manga anyways. It seems like developer CyberConnect 2 has put a bit of effort into this one, compared to other barebones and horrible anime games like My Hero One’s Justice 2.
This fighting game adaptation will only make you love the source material even more, and it’s fun to play, unlike other anime-to-game titles. That will probably be enough for any fan of the Demon Slayer Kimetsu No Yaiba anime and manga.
Pros

Beautiful visuals that recreate scenes and aesthetics from the anime.
Simple but flashy and fluid combat.
Fan service and easter eggs for fans of the source material.
Free updates are coming, no paid DLC nonsense (yet).

Cons

The cutscenes and dialogue can be static and stilted most of the time.
There’s nothing much to offer those who aren’t familiar with the anime or manga.
Only human characters at launch, no playable demons.

Final Score: 70/100
Review copy provided by Sega. Played on PS5.


Gears 5 Dishes Out 5 Days Of Fast Progression & 600 Scrap For Launch Week Mess

Developer The Coalition admit that they done effed up during Gears 5’s launch weekend. Which is why they’re offering reparations.
The company has announced that it will be compensating all Gears 5 Ultimate Edition players due to the shaky launch last Friday 6th September GMT+8; players couldn’t matchmake and stay on Gears 5 servers too long. That also includes the campaign co-op mode. It was quite a mess.
So what will they be compensating players with a five day XP earnings boost and 600 Scrap. The former is self-explanatory (faster progression); the latter is used to craft skill cards to boost your character in the game’s multiplayer modes.

As a token of our appreciation for your patience and support during this weekend’s Early Access, we’re awarding 5 days of Boost (Faster progression) and 600 scrap (Craft Skills or Supply cards). Look out for it in the next 48 hours.
Thank you so much playing Gears 5!
— The Coalition Studio (@CoalitionGears) September 10, 2019

Even with the online kerfuffles, which is part & parcel for online games nowadays, it doesn’t diminish the fact that Gears 5 is a terrific game. Read our review to find out why it’s a worthy sequel.Â


Esports to Challenge Traditional Sports Viewership Numbers by 2020

Is esports a fad or a trend? Is it simply fated to die out in the next couple of years? According to statistics and predictions, the answer is a resounding no. In fact, esports viewership numbers already surpass Major League Baseball in the U.S. By 2022, that number is set to exceed even the likes of NBA and NFL.
According to Goldman Sachs (via Breaking Views), esports viewership numbers are estimated to reach a whopping 276 million by 2022. Revenue is also set to increase three-fold from 2018’s $900 million over the same period of time, thanks to media rights and sponsorship of brands like Coca-Cola and Toyota.

Meanwhile, the leading company spearheading this esports revolution is none other than Tencent. The Chinese games developer/publisher will be backing 2019’s Fortnite World Cup with a record-breaking $100 million, not to mention its juggernaut League of Legends Worlds Championships which drew approximately 200 million viewers worldwide in November 2018.
However, with the Chinese government announcing their plans to regulate the nation’s games industry, the esports climate will surely be affected as well. All of this remains mere speculation as of now, but the future is indeed looking mighty bright for esports.


Check Out This Chinese Clone of PUBG

Chinese clones are a dime a dozen with knockoffs of popular games popping up almost every other day. In the past, we’ve come across tons of Overwatch clones which were both funny and/or interesting to various degrees. As they say – imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the Chinese are at it again with the newest clone of a commercially successful game; but now available on mobile – a PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds clone – called Terminator 2 3D – or if our Google Translate app isn’t pulling our leg, translates as “Wilderness Battle Royale”Â

We. Kid. You. Not. There’s a trailer too out in the wild and we think it’s quite impressive for a mobile game. The video claims that the graphics are still work in progress and is not indicative of the final product – but we think it looks pretty good so far.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Bx8D3rQJkw&w=560&h=315]
We aren’t huge fans of the crawling simulator in PUBG but we’d play the hell out of this clone simply for them putting Arnold Schwarzenegger on the thumbnail. The graphics (as shown from the trailer) seem decent enough for a mobile game and at certain points even closely resemble PUBG-level graphics.
What do you think of it? Worth a try? Thoughts and suggestions in the comments section below.


Injustice 2 Adds Atom to the Roster

Injustice 2 is getting a huge bump soon with the addition of Atom to its roster. Announced via their official Twitter account, expect some cool moves and combos that include varying degrees of size increase and shrinkage. Ahem.

The version of the Atom that will be featured in Injustice 2 is Ryan Choi, the physics genius who took up the mantle after his mentor, Ray Palmer disappeared. No official word on when the character will be available except for ‘Coming Soon’ as mentioned in the trailer. Check out the full trailer below which sees him beating the crap out of Reverse Flash in Injustice 2:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCGrT-SkClM&w=560&h=315]


Blizzard Announces The Hearthstone Masters Esports Program

Hearthstone esports is going to become more sustainable and accessible than ever as Blizzard officially announces the Hearthstone Masters. The new program will feature three tiers, but full details have only been revealed for the first two.
The Hearthstone Masters’ entry-level competition is Hearthstone Masters Qualifiers, which will be open to all eligible players. Hosted through Battlefy, Blizzard will hold 30 tournaments each week during a Masters Tour qualifying season, where the winners will earn an invite to qualifierâ€™s corresponding Masters Tour event, which is the second tier of the Hearthstone Masters.
Top-performing competitors in the Masters Qualifiers will also obtain Hearthstone card packs. There’s also an alternative way to qualify to the second tier, asÂ players who end the month in the Top 200 Standard Ranked Play Ladder will be invited to participate in a Ranked Ladder Qualifier. Each Ranked Ladder Qualifier follows the same rules of an open-entry Masters Qualifier, except that the top four finishers will automatically earn a spot at the next Hearthstone Masters Tour event.
Check out the full schedule for the Masters Qualifiers here, and players can already register here starting now. The first tournament is slated to begin on 5 March 2019.
The second tier of the program; the Hearthstone Masters Tour will be holding its first tournament at the LINQ Hotel in Las Vegas from 14 to 16 June 2019. It will feature a $250,000 prize pool, which could potentially increase as a portion of all sales a limited-time-only esports bundle will be distributed to the base prize pools of all three planned Hearthstone Masters Tour tournaments in 2019.
The next two Hearthstone Masters Tour events are scheduled to be in Asia and Europe. Players can qualify for the second-tier tournaments by:

Winning an online Masters Qualifier
Placing in the top four of a Ranked Ladder Qualifier
Securing an invitation through licensed third-party tournaments
Finishing as a top-performer at a previous Masters Tour event
Qualifying through the China Gold Series
Finishing out Year of the Raven with at least 120 Hearthstone Competitive Points

Hearthstone Masters Schedule
The third and final tier of the Hearthstone Masters program is the Hearthstone Grandmasters. The only detail revealed about this so far is that players can qualify by consistently finishing top placements at Masters Tour tournaments.
Last but not least, Blizzard has revealed that the 2019 Hearthstone World Championship on 25 April 2019 will be the last to use the Conquest format. A new format called Specialist will be replacing it starting later this year. Here’s how the new Specialist format works:

Players submit three decks from the same class.
Players designate one deck as aÂ primaryÂ deck, then the other two asÂ secondaryÂ andÂ tertiary.
Secondary and tertiary decks may have up to 5 cards different from the primary deck. For the purposes of this modification, two duplicate cards in the primary deck list count as two cards.
Players must play game one of each match with their primary deck.
At the beginning of game two and onward, players may decide to keep playing their primary deck or switch to their secondary or tertiary decks.
Deck decisions for games two and three, if necessary, are performed at the start of each game simultaneously and in secret from the opposing player.
All Masters Qualifier and Ranked Ladder Qualifier matches will be best-of-three. All matches at Masters Tour events will be best-of-three as well, with the exception of best-of-five finals.

If you’d rather watch a video, check out the brief explanation of the new Specialist format below.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80JF8x6n3jc&w=560&h=315]


Rainbow Six Siege Superstar Beaulo Retires From Competing

TSM’s star Rainbow Six Siege player Beaulo released a video announcing his retirement from competitive Siege and will be going back to his roots as a content creator.

Thank You For Everything pic.twitter.com/Vn6vkF4lZK
— Beaulo (@TSM_Beaulo) January 28, 2023

Jason “Beaulo” Doty first entered professional gaming in June 2019 as a member of ex-Excelerate Gaming and was soon recruited by TSM, where he has remained exclusively. In his nearly four years as a professional player, he has established himself as one of the all-time greats in Rainbow Six Siege.
During his time with TSM, the team was consistently a top contender in North America, with Beaulo often leading the charge. He received recognition for his skills, including an MVP Medal at Dreamhack Montreal 2019, TSM’s first victory, and four EVP awards, three of which were earned at the Six Invitational. He was ranked by SiegeGG as the #7 Player in Year 4, #5 Player in Year 5, and a Top Ten Honorable Mention in Year 6.
His crowning achievement was helping TSM win the Six Invitational World Championship in 2022, solidifying Beaulo’s legacy as one of the best to ever play the game.

Aside from competitive play, Beaulo has a thriving YouTube and streaming career, so it is likely that he will continue to be involved with Rainbow Six in some capacity, even if not in professional competition.
In an extensive interview with theScore esports, Beaulo states that it’s very unlikely that he will return to compete as the Siege esports eco-system isn’t what it was. He also goes on to elaborate that, given the current state of Siege esports, it makes more sense for him to switch over to content creation while his brand is still at an all-time high.
Call of Duty also just lost their mascot player, Seth “Scump” Abner as he finally hung up the controller after 14 years of competing. But in light of his retirement, his Call of Duty League Watch Parties have been outperforming the main broadcast and bringing much-needed attention to the esport. So who is to say that Beaulo won’t do the same?


Here’s What Happens Between Black Panther and Avengers Infinity War

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is officially a decade old now, with 17 movies to date. But did you know that Marvel has been publishing tie-in comics since the beginning? These comics reveal new details and extra nuggets of information that expand upon the established continuity of the MCU and even fill in some of the gaps left by the movies. The latest tie-in comic Marvelâ€™s Avenger: Infinity War Prelude shows us the whereabouts and what these superheroes have been up to between the events of Captain America: Civil War (2016) and the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War (2018).

In Captain America: Civil War, we last saw our heroes divided. Steve Rogers leaves his shield behind with Tony Stark and goes on the run, saving the comrades who stood by him by breaking them out of the Raft prison. Tony Stark helps rehabilitate James Rhodes (Iron Patriot) with an exoskeletal leg brace to assist him in walking again while receiving a letter and phone from Steve saying that he will only be one call away if they need him. The movie ends with Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier) agreeing to enter cryogenic sleep until a cure for his Hydra brainwashing triggers is found.
In the first issue of Marvelâ€™s Avengers: Infinity War Prelude, instead of fading out like the film did, the comic shows us Steve Rogers literally dropping from a Quinjet midflight into the ocean and freaking swimming to the Raft prison, infiltrating it and giving the guards there a good beat-down with a WHAM and THWACK!

After being rescued, we see Clint Barton (Hawkeye) and Scott Lang (Ant-Man) finally reuniting with their families while Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) chose to meet up with The Vision.

Weeks later, Steve and Bucky go to Wakanda to discuss Tâ€™challaâ€™s offer to help them. Over the next few pages and a few months in-continuity, we learn that Tâ€™challaâ€™s sister Shuri is the one leading the research that will help remove Buckyâ€™s Hydra brainwashing and that Shuri is arguably the smartest person in the world, smarter even than Tony Stark, which is confirmed by the executive producers of the Black Panther film. Sheâ€™s developing an algorithm that will delete the Hydra trigger words from Buckyâ€™s mind without damaging his personality or erasing any of his vital memories or trauma that makes him who he is. She even takes a hit at Tony. Take that, Tony Stark! She also mentions that this algorithm might improve Wakandan artificial intelligence tech even further, which might not be the best idea, considering what happened with Ultron, even though she says that Tony took a â€˜shortcutâ€™.

As a comic book fan, Iâ€™m a bit miffed because Iâ€™d immediately think to myself, â€œReed Richards is the smartest person in the Marvel Universe!â€ Then, I instantly (and sadly) realize that the Fantastic Four arenâ€™t in the MCU. Yet. Though that could all possibly change after the Disney-Fox deal finalizes, I also know that the process would be long and arduous, if it even results in the Fantastic Four and X-Men properties incorporated into the MCU at all in the end. Fingers crossed.
Now that we know where Bucky and Black Panther is and what theyâ€™re doing, where the heck is the rest of the outlaw Avengers?
Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) and Sam Wilson (Falcon) are in Syria, thwarting some terrorists who are planning to use leftover Chitauri technology (this stuff is still out there? What have the authorities and Avengers been doing all this time?). Natasha asks whether they should be calling Tony and Steve tells her Tonyâ€™s got enough to think about. Then, theyâ€™re off to Lebanon next to their mission.

Finally, we reach the Armored Avenger himself, Tony Stark (Iron Man), all alone in the Avengers Compound. He feels guilty due to the events in Captain America: Civil War and reminisces about a conversation he had with Steve Rogers back during the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron. He contemplates whether to call Steve for help against â€˜real threatâ€™ thatâ€™s coming.Â  He decides not to do so and resolves to prepare for the â€œend of all thingsâ€ all by himself by building a new Iron Man suit (of which we see a full holographic model of). We also see the new ‘Iron Spider’ that Tony built for Spider-Man in the background, which was first seen in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).

Letâ€™s discuss a bit about that armor, shall we? Itâ€™s purportedly based on the most recent Iron Man armor in the comics, Model 51 or the Model Prime Armor. It was introduced by Brian Michael Bendis and David Marquez back in 2015, specifically designed based on the sleek designs of the Lamborghini Aventador as well as the F-22 and the YF-23 fighter jets. I speculate that the movie version will be called Mark XLVIII or Mark 48 since that would be considered the natural progression from the Mark 42 in Iron Man 3 (2012) until Mark 47 in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).

Thatâ€™s all for now, fellow comic book fans but we still donâ€™t know the whereabouts of the other superheroes including Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and the Guardians of the Galaxy. The second issue of Marvelâ€™s Avengers: Infinity War Prelude will be released next month in February and weâ€™ll probably receive even more delicious details and startling revelations to tide us over until the actual movie comes out on 26th April 2017 in Malaysian cinemas.
TLDR;
Bucky Barnes (Winter Soldier) is still in Wakanda and Shuri (Black Pantherâ€™s sister) is developing an algorithm that will help cure him of his Hydra brainwashing.
Clint Barton (Hawkeye) and Scott Lang (Ant-Man) are with their families.
Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch) is spending time with The Vision somewhere.
Steve Rogers (Captain America), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) and Sam Wilson (Falcon) are in the Middle East fighting terrorists with Chitauri weapons.
Tony Stark (Iron Man) is alone at the Avengers Compound, busy designing his new Iron Man armor to combat the â€œreal threatâ€ thatâ€™s coming.
Fun fact: According to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #5, the MCU Earth is designated as Earth-199999, in comparison to the mainline comics where itâ€™s Earth-616 (or Prime Marvel Universe as of 2015â€™s Secret Wars crossover).

The nineteenth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Avengers: Infinity War drops 26th April 2018. Black Panther is in cinemas right now and you can read what we thought of it here.Â


Takeshi’s Castle Is Getting A Reboot At Amazon Prime Video

Amazon Prime Video has announced that they are increasing their slate of Japanese content, including a reboot of beloved Japanese game show Takeshi’s Castle. Many people, including in Malaysia, grew up watching Takeshi’s Castle, which originally ran from 1986 to 1990, with Japanese comedian Takeshi Kitano as the host.
The working title for the Takeshi’s Castle reboot will be Takeshi’s Castle Project and it’s currently unclear if it will feature the return of Takeshi Kitano as the host. More details will probably be revealed leading to its eventual release sometime in 2023.
Other Japanese content recently greenlit at Amazon Prime Video include romantic horror adventure-comedy series My Undead Yokai Girlfriend created by NCIS Hawaii and Grace alums Yalun Tu and Zach Hines; a movie adaptation of Ryota Kosawa’s bestseller Angel Flight; and second seasons of The Masked Singer and The Bachelorette Japan, which will debut this summer. Also, the first season of Bake Off Japan has been set with judges Toshihiko Yoroizuka and Yoshimi Ishikawa, and hosts Maki Sakai and Asuka Kudo, which will premiere on 22 April 2022.
Last but not least, Amazon Prime Video will livestream the WBA, IBF, and WBC World Bantamweight title fight between WBA World Bantamweight Super Champion and IBF Bantamweight World Champion Naoya Inoue, and WBC World Bantamweight Champion Nonito Donaire, on 7 June 2022 from the Saitama Super Arena.


Xbox Game Pass July 2023 Adds GTA V, Exoprimal & More

Microsoft has announced the lineup for Xbox Game Pass July 2023.
Available Today
Grand Theft Auto V (Cloud and Console)
When a young street hustler, a retired bank robber, and a terrifying psychopath find themselves entangled with some of the most frightening and deranged elements of the criminal underworld, the U.S. government, and the entertainment industry, they must pull off a series of dangerous heists to survive in a ruthless city in which they can trust nobody — least of all each other. Includes both the Xbox One and the Xbox Series X|S versions of Grand Theft Auto V.

Sword and Fairy: Together Forever (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Enter a realm that blends ancient mythology with traditional Asian aesthetics in Sword and Fairy: Together Forever! Weaving its tale between the three clans of Human, Deity, and Demon, it puts you in command of a memorable party of characters, each with unique personalities, motives, skills, strengths, and weaknesses.
Coming Soon
McPixel 3 (Cloud, Console, and PC) – July 6
McPixel 3 is a mind-blowing save-the-day adventure that sees the titular wanna-be hero avert one disaster after another at every turn using unconventional yet entertaining methods of mayhem.
Common’hood (Cloud, Console, and PC) – July 11
Common’hood is a squatter settlement simulation game with highly customizable base building tools. Gather salvage materials, grow your own food, research new technology, craft new tools, and build a new home. Common’hood invites you to explore and discover unique characters that will go from strangers to family, helping the community overcome the shortage of food and shelter.
Insurgency: Sandstorm (PC) – July 11
Battle in the war-torn environments of a contemporary conflict through a series of intense co-op and PvP multiplayer modes. Feel every bullet and fear every impact in fierce close quarters combat as your team fights toward victory.
Exoprimal (Cloud, Console, and PC) – July 14
Available on day one with Game Pass: Every month is T. Rex awareness month in Exoprimal! Squad up and take down hordes of dinosaurs in a series of endless wargames run by the artificial intelligence Leviathan. Blending PvE and PvP combat with a variety of objectives and powerful exosuits to pilot, no two matches of Exoprimal play out the same.

Techtonica (Game Preview) (Cloud, Console, and PC) – July 18
Available on day one with Game Pass: Dig into the sub-surface, bioluminescent world of a rogue alien planet as you explore and construct sprawling factories in Techtonica. Work alone or in co-op to master automation, gather resources, research new technologies, mold the destructible terrain, establish a base of operations, and uncover long-forgotten secrets.

The Cave (Cloud and Console) – July 18
The Cave is an adventure game from Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion creator Ron Gilbert, and Double Fine Productions, the award-winning studio behind Psychonauts and Brütal Legend. Assemble your team of three from seven unlikely adventurers, each with their own unique personalities, and then descend into the mysterious depths.

DLC / Game Updates

Race like Barbie and Ken in Forza Horizon 5 – Available now
Barbie… in Forza?? Check your Message Center today to receive the very special 1956 Chevrolet ‘Barbie Movie’ Corvette EV and Ken’s 2022 GMC ‘Barbie Movie’ HUMMER EV Pickup, now available for download! See ‘Barbie The Movie’ only in theaters July 21. For more details, check out Xbox Wire.

FIFA 23 Women’s World Cup – Available now
Experience the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 now in FIFA 23 at no extra cost. Play for the most coveted prize in women’s football, complete with all 32 qualified nations, stadium dressings, cinematics, match presentations, dedicated commentary, and more.
Hi-Fi Rush: Arcade Challenge! Update! – Available now
Hi-Fi Rush fans, get ready to return to the pit: Tango Gameworks’ rhythm-action brawler is getting not one, but TWO new ways to play in the Arcade Challenge! Update! – a free addition for all Hi-Fi Rush players.
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty – Battle of Zhongyuan DLC – Available now
Game Pass members save up to 10%! Conquer new scenarios and face new demons in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty’s first DLC, Battle of Zhongyuan. Take on the demon-plagued Three Kingdoms and overcome the odds of deadly combat!
Sniper Elite 5: Kraken Awakes DLC – July 6
Game Pass members can save 10% on Season Pass Two, which includes the upcoming Kraken Awakes DLC. This final content pack includes a brand-new mission, a new Mod.712 pistol, and skins to complete an all-American look for Karl. Plus, check out the free multiplayer map – The Abandoned Quarry.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate Perks
Madden NFL 23: EA Play Ultimate Team Pack – July 6
Unlock your EA Play Ultimate Team Pack, featuring new players to upgrade your Madden NFL 23 Ultimate Team! Game Pass Ultimate and EA Play members can automatically claim this Pack by entering Ultimate Team from July 6 to July 31.
Sea of Thieves: Obsidian Banjo Pack – July 6
For a limited time, claim items from the prized Obsidian set! This pack contains the Obsidian Banjo, Onyx Compass, and Obsidian Hull. Perk content requires Sea of Thieves to use.
Xbox Game Pass Quests
New July quests are available starting today! Find new Quests by going to the Xbox Game Pass section on your console or on the Xbox Game Pass Mobile app and start earning Microsoft Reward points.
Available Now:

Earn an Achievement (50 Points – Daily) – Earn an achievement in any Game Pass game
Peggle 2 (250 points – Ultimate only) – Hit 100 Orange Pegs
Ghostwire Tokyo (5 points) – Play

Leaving July 15
Don’t let the following games leave without showing a little love! There’s still time to start fresh or pick up where you left off. You can also also use your membership discount to save up to 20% to keep them in your library.

Exo One (Cloud, Console, and PC)
PAW Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Spelunky 2 (Cloud, Console, and PC)


Henry Cavill Officially Confirms His Return As Superman

Henry Cavill has officially confirmed that he is returning and reprising his role as Superman in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU).
On his personal Instagram page, Cavill shared an image of himself in costume as the iconic superhero.
He wrote:
“A very small taste of what’s to come, my friends. The dawn of hope renewed. Thank you for your patience, it will be rewarded. I wanted to make it official that I am back as Superman.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Henry Cavill (@henrycavill)

The reason why Cavill announced this now is because Black Adam is now playing in cinemas, and he appears in the post-credits scene of Black Adam as Superman. Check out my review of Black Adam by heading over here.
It remains when or when Henry Cavill will appear as Superman next, but it’s nice to know that he’s officially back.


This New Sherlock Holmes Games Looks Spiffy!

Frogwares, the folks behind The Sinking City, is working on a new game based on the Sherlock Holmes books and stories from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. IGN has dibs on the exclusive trailer, and it looks pretty decent if you’re into a young and dapper Sherlock Holmes who solves crimes and beats up people for the truth.

The game is called Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, and it’s an open-world action-adventure game where you explore 19th century England, find clues to current mysteries, and do a bunch of action bits here and there like in those Guy Ritchie adaptations starring Robert Downey Jr. Just like comic book characters influenced by Sir Arthur’s work, this young version of Sherlock Holmes can spot enemy vulnerabilities and exploit environment traps during combat, as well as build and form clues in your head to make a deduction or two in a case.
You also team up with a guy named Jon; no, not John Watson, but another mysterious guy who wants to help you out for his own reasons.Â This is perfectly fine with me, but I’m no purist of the series so what do I know?
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One will be out in 2021 for PC (Steam, GOG.com, and Epic Games), PS5, Xbox Series, PS4, and Xbox One.


Subway Surfer Is The Most Downloaded Mobile Game Of The Decade

The biggest gaming phenomenon this decade didn’t happen on PC. Heck, it didn’t even happen on consoles. The biggest gaming tidal wave to wash over the world can be found right in our pockets.
Subway Surfer, the most downloaded mobile game this decade.
According to mobile data and analytics firm App Annie, Subway Surfer is the most downloaded mobile game from 2010 to 2019. It was the first ever game to reach 1 billion downloads on Android alone. In mid-2018, the game even managed to accumulate more than 2.5 billion downloads.
Garena Free Fire is 2019’s most downloaded mobile game.
If we’re just talking about 2019, the most globally downloaded game this year is Garena Free Fire. Competitors PUBG Mobile and Call of Duty: Mobile are placed at the second and tenth spot respectively.
Clash of Clans continues to be the wallet drainer for many gamers. It sits on the throne for being the mobile game with the highest consumer spending in this decade.
In terms of consumer spending in 2019, Fate/Grand Order made the most money. In the same category for the decade, FGO ranks fifth place. Sitting on the money pile with highest consumer spending in the decade is Supercell’s Clash of Clans.
Here are the full rankings:
Top 10 most downloaded mobile games in 2019:

Garena Free Fire
PUBG Mobile
Subway Surfers
Color Bump 3D
Fun Race 3D
Run Race 3D
My Talking Tom 2
Homescapes
Stack Ball
Call of Duty: Mobile

Top 10 mobile games of 2019 by revenue:

Fate/Grand Order
Honour of Kings
Candy Crush Saga
Monster Strike
Lineage M
Pokemon GO
Fantasy Westward Journey
Clash of Clans
Dragon Ball Z Dokkan Battle
PUBG Mobile

Top 10 most downloaded mobile games from 2010 to 2019:

Subway Surfers
Candy Crush Saga
Temple Run 2
My Talking Tom 2
Clash of Clans
Pou
Hill Climb Racing
Minion Rush
Fruit Ninja
8 Ball Pool

Top 10 mobile games of the decade by revenue:

Clash of Clans
Monster Strike
Candy Crush Saga
Puzzle & Dragons
Fate/Grand Order
Honour of Kings
Fantasy Westward Journey
Pokemon GO
Game of War – Fire Age
Clash Royale

To say that it’s been a great decade for mobile games would be an understatement. We’ve even seen titles like Angry Birds and Subway Surfers spawning official film and webseries adaptations. With the battle royale fever still at high pitch, let’s see where the mobile gaming industry takes us in 2020.
Thanks, GamesIndustry.biz.


Firegirl Is Hot Stuff, If You Can Get The Hang Of Its Controls

Platform(s): PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
Genre: 2D roguelike firefighting platformer
We’re lacking quite a few firefighting games in 2021, so it’s good that Thunderful Publishing and developer Dejima are on it with this unique 2D action title.

Part platformer, and part roguelite with random levels and a progression system, Firegirl: Hack ‘N’ Splash Rescue puts you in the shoes of the title character as she saves trapped victims in burning buildings, burning trains, and burning forests. You’re armed with a trusty hose that blasts away fire demons (literal, not metaphorical) and a fireman axe that destroy barricades and debris in the way. You can also use the hose to jettison upward and hover over pits and get to hard-to-reach places.
The more water you spray, the lower the pressure which means less distance and weaker hovering. There’s also a time limit, so if you aren’t careful, you may end up wasting time as you’re navigating a hot and hectic apartment complex. Fortunately, dousing flames will add more seconds, and there are items that can boost time, add more water to your pack, or even heal you. In fact, some places have water spouting out of broken piping; that’s an instant full water refill if you’re lucky to come across it.
Backdraft

And that’s the crux of Firegirl: luck. Some levels may have survivors placed early on in the first complex, while others require you to spend more than a minute going through building upon building to get to your first rescue victim (out of three!). You’ll have to persevere; rescuing people and animals means more fans, and more fans equal bigger cash payout if you complete the rescue mission and survive. Some rescue victims can even offer their services if you have enough money to hire them; you can hire a campaign manager to help garner more fans and fan donations with the right amount of money, for example.
Is Firegirl fun? When you get to a groove of going through many random stages and get the feel for it, then yes. However, Firegirl herself is pretty cumbersome, and purposefully so. Her water hose takes half a second to come out, while her axe smash has a bit of a startup, so you can’t go all hack-and-slash. You also need to look before you leap; I’ve died countless times because I keep forgetting to look down or up to see what hazards are waiting for me either below or above. When Firegirl takes a hit, she will get knocked back which means if there’s a bottomless pit at where she’s landing, it’s an automatic game over.
Firegirl can get tough, but only because you just need to get the hang of the slow methodical pacing and the main character’s way of moving. Once you’re in the zone, you’ll have a frolicking good time rescuing people from burning places, uncovering the game’s fire-related lore, and also powering yourself up with the cash you’ve amassed.
Go take a look at the gameplay we’ve recorded below, and have a good laugh at how much we’ve failed while somehow uncovering the plot doing so.


PSG Esports Joins Arena Of Valor Pro League In Thailand

Recently, Arena Of Valor had successfully held its largest tournament called Arena Of Valor World Cup (AWC) 2021, which had over 118 million cumulative views and a massive number of almost 19 million total watch hours.
French football club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) will take part in Arena Of Valor Pro League competitions starting from August 2021, a league that is owned and run by video game developer and publisher Garena in Thailand. The first season will see a team made up of five first-team Thai players plus one reserve, and the recruitment process is already underway.
In addition, PSG was the first club from France to venture into the esports scene in 2016. The Arena Of Valor Pro League is kicking off its eighth season this summer. PSG Esports will have the opportunity to compete alongside two other teams connected with football clubs: Valencia FC and Buriram United, a local Thai club.
Fabien AllÃ¨gre, Director of Merchandising and Brand Diversification at Paris Saint-Germain, said:
â€œThe creation of the Paris Saint-Germainâ€™s Arena of Valor team ties in with our esport strategy.
It marks an important new phase in developing Paris Saint-Germain Esportsâ€™ mobile games in one of the regions of the world where it has grown fast in the last few years.â€
Sebastien Wasels, General Director Asia-Pacific at Paris Saint-Germain, added:
â€œWe are delighted to enter the Thai esports scene.
It is a concrete step forward that reinforces the clubâ€™s presence in Thailand and throughout Southeast Asia.
Paris Saint-Germain has already developed a strong relationship with millions of fans in Thailand and we are looking forward to strengthen the community, offering them exciting experiences.â€
As part of the clubâ€™s fierce commitment to inclusion, diversity and the fight against all forms of discrimination, the Parisian team is aiming to have a mixed-gender team in the near future. The team will be actively engaging with the local community, hosting Arena Of Valor tournaments to encourage greater female participation and identifying female gamers in the process to join the professional team for subsequent seasons.

We are proud to be introducing, @PSGeSportsRoV in Thailand for Arena of Valor! Sawasdee to all our Thai fans! ?#ICICESTPARIS pic.twitter.com/ZkvbbkgZoz
— PSG Esports (@PSGeSports) July 30, 2021


Shin Megami Tensei 5 Soundtrack Now On Spotify

Last year’s hit JRPG Shin Megami Tensei 5 for the Nintendo Switch features one of the best soundtracks for the genre. With music from Ryota Kozuka and Toshiki Konishi, the OST features a lot of atmospheric open world overtures and battle music aplenty.
You can now hear the full soundtrack on music streaming site Spotify, with about a 100+ songs with their correct names. Now I don’t have to refer to that sweet level up theme as “Monks in the Hood” but instead by “A Rain of Light and Shadow” anymore.
However, if you want the 5-disc version of the soundtrack, you will have to wait until 4th April before you can buy it. Anyways, check it out below. In case you still need convincing on why you should play and buy a Nintendo Switch for Shin Megami Tensei 5, here’s our glowing review.


The New Disney’s Lion King Poster Looks Great

It’s great news today for us 90s kids (or bad news for some). The Lion King remake received a new poster, driving up the hype train.
The movie poster can be seen below, featuring Mustafa Mufasa and little Simba as the highlight of this beautiful photorealistic piece of artwork.

Jon Favreau, the guy most of us know as Happy Hogan in Iron Man,Â tweeted the poster earlier, simply saying “New poster for #TheLionKing”.
The all-star cast introduces:

Donald Glover as Simba
BeyoncÃ© Knowles-Carter as Nala
Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar
Seth Rogen as PumbaaÂ
Billy Eichner as Timon
John Kani as Rafiki
John Oliver as Zazu
Alfre Woodard as Sarabi
Eric Andre as Azizi
Keegan-Michael Key as Kamari
Florence Kasumba as Shenzi
James Earl Jones as Mufasa

The remake’s teaser trailer was also just released revealing a luscious African landscape full of semi-realistic CG animals that can talk. You can watch the teaser trailer below
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQN75AKDwks]
Look how cute Simba is! With the advantage of cutting-edge animation technology, Disney’s Lion King will come roaring into theatres on 19 July. Or scaring the beejesus out of them. Baboons in real life aren’t quite as cuddly when you think about it.


[Rumour] Leaked Spider-Man: No Way Home Images Confirm A Slew Of Guest Stars

New alleged photos of the upcoming superhero movie Spider-Man: No Way Home have revealed a ton of guest stars and have confirmed some rumours that have been floating around for quite a while. For the record, this is the Spider-Man movie that will feature villains from past Spider-Man films like Alfred Molina’s Dr. Octopus and Willem Dafoe’s(?) Green Goblin.
The following reveals, which are still alleged and not confirmed at all, are very spoiler-heavy, so here’s your massive warning.

So yeah, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Macguire will be guest-starring as their respective Peter Parkers/Spider-Men in this upcoming film. Turns out they’ve been lying/keeping their appearances a secret for obvious reasons. The two will be teaming up with Tom Holland’s Spider-Man to possibly fight against the bad guys in the film.
In addition, Charlie Cox will be reprising his role from the Netflix Daredevil series as Daredevil/alter-ego Matt Murdock. The photos were originally posted by one John Campea on Twititer, though he took them down and stated that the images are legitimate.

Apparently, New leaked photos of #SpiderManNoWayHome, Looks legit to me. pic.twitter.com/QcefcHq7qI
— Spider-Man NWH Updates and Leaks ?? (@Spider_Leaks) November 9, 2021

However, this may line up with what Tom Holland said in a recent interview on Empire about a mystery star:
“It’s four people sitting at a table, having a conversation about what it’s like to be a superhero, and it was amazing. The other day we watched the scene, my brother and I, and our jaws were on the floor.”
Until a new trailer comes out, or until the film releases, these leaks should be treated with a grain of salt.


A New Kingdoms Of Amalur Expansion Is Coming This December

The really fun action RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning is getting a new expansion later this month.
Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning’s Fatesworn expansion will be out for PS4, Xbox One, and PC later on 14th December. The expansion features snowy tundras, deep caverns, new enemies, and a new plot involving the Niskaru and their Chaos brethren. The game also gives players a new Chaos mechanic and a new non-combat skill tree, as well as raising the level cap to 50.
Here’s a breakdown of what you’re getting from the expansion, which costs US$19.99.

Set in a completely new environment called Mithros featuring mountains and snowy landscape.
Face the God of Chaos in an over six hours-long Main quest with a compelling storyline that concludes the game, featuring new and returning characters.
â€œChaosâ€ as a completely new gameplay mechanic connected to weapons, enemies, rifts, and portals.
Level cap raised to 50.
The journey takes you to two entirely new dungeon sets.
Enter Chaos Portals to explore 25 brand new Chaos Realm dungeons strewn across the Fatesworn world and the old world.
New enemies and variations of existing enemies.
New crafting items for weapons, gems, potions with new reagents and components.
Six new unique armor sets with very special and powerful traits.
21 new weapons and shields (nine chaos weapons, 15 unique).
New accessories like rings and amulets with powerful traits.
New music by award-winning composer Grant Kirkhope.
A new mysterious trader selling equipment lottery boxes, offering a new way to complete rare item sets.
New twist of fate cards.
Tons of new sidequests task quests and faction quests to fulfil.
New villages and cities, with new houses and interiors and much more.

It’s more Kingdoms of Amalur action RPG goodness; can’t really complain, right? Check out the 2D renaissance-style art trailer below; it could use a little more in-game footage though.


This Is When The Gran Turismo Movie Premieres In Malaysia

Sony Pictures Malaysia has announced that the Gran Turismo movie will premiere in Malaysia and Malaysian cinemas on 17 August 2023.

Based on the true story of Jann Mardenborough, the film is the ultimate wish fulfillment tale of a teenage Gran Turismo player whose gaming skills won a series of Nissan competitions to become an actual professional racecar driver.
Directed by Neill Blomkamp. Screenplay by Jason Hall and Zach Baylin. Based on the PLAYSTATION STUDIOS video game. Produced by Doug Belgrad, Asad Qizilbash, Carter Swan and Dana Brunetti. Executive Producers are Kazunori Yamauchi, Hermen Hulst, Jason Hall and Matthew Hirsch. The film stars David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, Archie Madekwe, Darren Barnet, Geri Halliwell Horner and Djimon Hounsou.
The Gran Turismo movie will premiere in August 2023.
The most recent game in the franchise was Gran Turismo 7, which launched for the PS4 and PS5 in March 2022 earlier this year. Check out my review of the game by heading over here.
Check out the trailer below:


Total War Warhammer 3 Devs On The Daemon Prince & Improving The Endgame

Total War Warhammer 3Â is the culmination of a trilogy after 2016â€™sÂ Total War WarhammerÂ and 2017â€™sÂ Total War Warhammer 2, and is an elaborate turn-based strategy series shot through with intimate, real-time battles. It builds on Creative Assemblyâ€™s own style of iconic real-time strategy combat and draws upon the rich lore of Games Workshopâ€™s wildly popular tabletop miniatures game, Warhammer.
Thanks to Sega Asia and Creative Assembly, we were given the opportunity to speak with Total War Warhammer 3 Lead Battle Designer James Whitston and Lead Campaign Designer Mark Sinclair.
Total War Warhammer 3 Lead Battle Designer James Whitston.
Total War Warhammer 3 Lead Campaign Designer Mark Sinclair.
Check out our exclusive interview below:
How have you made Total War Warhammer 3 more accessible for newcomers, or even for players who primarily play the historical titles?
James Whitston: There are a lot of parallels with historical titles. For the first game in the trilogy, we had that solid bedrock of all those years of experience making games in that genre and we just added the extra elements on top of that that we needed in order to make the fantasy content work. Adding flying creatures, strong single-entity monstrous creatures, single-entity characters and magic, all of that good stuff.
But it’s been one of our focuses throughout the series to increase the accessibility to newcomers. We needed this content to bring people into the franchise that maybe haven’t tried the historical stuff before and just purely because of the Warhammer content. Throughout, we’ve been working on a lot of quality-of-life features, which makes accessing the fun stuff in the game far more easily.
Features that remember your formation that you dragged out in the deployment phase of the battle and repeat that in the next battle. There’s a whole host of other stuff. In addition, in this game, to go along with the strong narrative element we’ve added to the campaign, the precursor to that is the prologue campaign which really holds the players’ hands and introduces them to the series, how to go about approaching a Total War campaign.
We’re not going into a lot of detail in the prologue today because obviously there’s so much to talk about in this game. This game is definitely the biggest game that we’ve done in the trilogy just purely because of the large number of playable races right from Day One. There’s a lot to get your head around but we have taken steps to make it accessible to players. We’ve got an advisor that regularly interjects throughout the game to explain creatures and how to access them and to get the best out of things. There’s a heck of a lot of fun to have in there, and we think we’ve taken a large number of steps to make it accessible to players that are new to this.
I managed to play a bit earlier and I see elements of the diplomacy system from Three Kingdoms and Saga Troy. What else have you learned from these two games that have been implemented and incorporated into Total War Warhammer 3?
Mark Sinclair: Diplomacy was a really big one. We saw that fans were really receptive to the changes that we made in Total War Three Kingdoms and A Total War Saga Troy. So, it was a no-brainer to incorporate as much as possible from that, but we went an extra step and we added a lot of new features with regards to alliances.
Now, alliances are much more important in Warhammer 3. You can build outposts in settlements that belong to allies that will allow you to recruit their units and also add to their garrison. The allies will issue new missions so you can carry out the tasks that they request. That will increase your allegiance, which means that you can recruit more units and even loan armies from them and play around with them for a few turns, which is really cool.
I think the biggest thing we took from A Total War Saga Troy was more resources on the campaign map. Not just gold, they have things like wood, stone and so on. We didn’t just want to take that wholesale and fit it into Warhammer 3. We decided to really push the asymmetry aspects, so each race plays differently. Each race has its own secondary resource. For example, Khorne has skulls, which really fits that theme of fighting and collecting skulls from fallen enemies and using them to build up your settlements, which makes them really different.
Previous Total War games have been plagued by a tedious endgame. How has Total War Warhammer 3 improved in that aspect?
James Whitston: Yeah, it’s been one of the focuses throughout the trilogy. In the second game, we introduced a core central overarching narrative that kind of drives the campaign. We still retained the open-world sandbox element in the game, and if you wanted to go win the game by conquering the entire world, that is perfectly possible, but woven throughout this is this compelling narrative. We really up-ed the ante on that in the third game, so you’ve probably seen right from the point that you’re choosing a race to play as in the new campaign, you’re introduced to the narrative and each race has its own root into that narrative and motivations for engaging with that.
It provides useful narrative beats within the context of that open-world sandbox campaign. It provides high points and long-term and medium-term goals. The strategy is to present players with a large number of short, medium, and long-term goals, so there’s always something you’re thinking about, something waiting, something you’re climbing for. It provides a much more compelling driven experience that we find a heck of a lot of fun.
Mark Sinclair: As Jim said earlier, we’ve made a few little changes in the campaign game that’s going to help that late-game slog when you’ve got multiple settlements and multiple armies running around, you can now auto-manage the settlements, so the game will build up the buildings for you, so you don’t have to go through all those different settlements. In the same sense, the skill tree will automatically assign the skill points to remove some of that busy work that some players might have been struggling with in the late game.
James Whitston: Another aspect of having these strong narrative elements in the game is now another route to introduce players into that really strong flavoursome IP the game’s integrated. There’s so much breadth and depth there, this is just another way of feeding that to players and really making them feel immersed in that world and the setting that we’ve created.

Can you tell us more about the game’s new Survival Battles? Can they be auto-resolved?
James Whitston: The motivation for putting Survival Battles in was really the setting that we were dealing with this time. We’re dealing with a situation where players are leaving the Mortal world and entering the home realm of one of the other Chaos gods. Each of them is themed appropriately towards that god, both in an artistic sense, sound and all of that stuff.
We felt the scale of that challenge. We couldn’t just end that with our normal land battles, albeit they are already of an epic scale. We felt we had to push that even further, so in these Survival Battles, you’re up against a huge number of enemies. Enemies that are constantly spawning behind you and attacking you and we’ve provided players with a whole new range of gameplay elements.
Towers and barricades that you can build on the fly, reinforcements that you can bring in, upgrades that you can apply to your units. It’s really interesting to see with such a wide range of the different approaches that players take to deal with the scale of the challenge.
Like I said, it’s really to reflect the nature of the challenge that players will be facing at that point. They’re a lot of fun, these battles, they’re quite gruelling in terms of the scale of the challenge you’re facing. So reviewing that, it is possible to auto-resolve these battles, but we thoroughly recommend that people give them a try because they’re a new side of Total War battles and they’re a lot of fun.
Can you tell us more about the advantages of going Chaos Undivided over choosing any of the four Chaos factions? Why would anyone choose any of the four Chaos Gods when the Daemonic prince can gain access to units from all four?
James Whitston: The reason why we included the Chaos Undivided faction led by the Daemon Prince is really that when we sat down to look at the material that we were dealing with in this game, one of the army books is the Daemons of Chaos army book. That’s a strange army book in that it includes four races, one big creature, the gods, a distinct roster of units and spell laws and so on. We felt there was enough content there to support a playable race for each of those and the advantage of that is that it allows us to go really deep and introduce players to each of those gods as they play them.
To really understand the differences, they’ve each got their own sets of very different gameplay features just from the campaign side of the game and the battle side of the game, you need the spell laws, characters, and so on. There was a lot of depth there that we didn’t want players to miss out on so, the disadvantage of that is obviously that it doesn’t allow players to do what you can do with that army book. In the tabletop game, you can just field an army that includes Khorne units standing alongside Nurgle units, Tzeentch units, and Slaanesh units.
So, the Daemon Prince and the Chaos Undivided faction offers us an opportunity to bring it all back together as you can in the army book. You can very much field all those and access all of the campaign creatures as well that go along with that. Alongside that, the Daemon Princes within the tabletop game are all very different to each other, there’s no two alike. This is reflected in the way that tabletop players build their miniatures, they customize each of their Daemon Princes to make them very different to each other.
But we’ve allowed that in our game, you can unlock body parts by dedicating Daemonic Glory to each of the gods that allows you to tailor your Daemon Prince exactly as you see fit. There’s a lot of fun to be had in that.
Mark Sinclair: Yeah, I think the big thing is that it really encourages the player to experiment and try different things. There’s not really a right or wrong way to play the Daemon Prince, you might find out that you start specializing in Nurgle and then getting these very slow-moving units that really bog down the enemy and slow them down and get them into melee combat. And then you might find that you can really boost that by getting some Slaanesh units that run really fast. So you can slow down the enemy units, and then flank them with the Slaanesh units and that really works out well.
I think that’s the really great thing about the Daemon Princes. So replayable, you can try different builds each time and different combinations of units and really have some fun.
James Whitston: Yeah, I think that’s really the embodiment of what we really want to offer players with the entire game and that’s just endless variety. Each faction you play is totally different from the last, each faction you encounter on the campaign map presents whole new units and challenges. We want to be constantly refreshing the players’ experience because this is taking place within the context of a very long epic-scale campaign. So, you want to always be offering new experiences in those.
Which faction is the easiest to start with and which faction is the most challenging?
Mark Sinclair: I think they’re all pretty good as a starter. If you’re a new player that’s not familiar with the lore, I really recommend just clicking through each race on the campaign selection screen and seeing what resonates with you. As we said earlier, we’ve made so many steps to make the game more accessible and easier to understand from the start for new players. Picking what looks cool to you is probably the best way to go, but I personally recommend Kislev or Cathay because they’re closer to real-world factions that are humans, obviously, and you start with the more melee units and archers and things like that, which is easier to understand. You’ll slowly go into that fancy element with elemental bears and flying units. Yeah, I really reckon you can’t go wrong with any of the races.
James Whitston: Yeah, I think I can agree with that, I think Cathay is a really good choice for a first-time player. Like Mark said, the units you’ll have at the start of the campaign are human-based and really understandable while there are lots of parallels with units from our historical games. Very quickly, you’re introduced to the more fantastical elements in that army, such as Terracotta Warriors and balloon artillery units and so on.
And the faction leaders for those factions may seem human at first glance, they’re very strong magic users, but they have a little button on their control panel, which when you click that during battle, they will transform into an oriental dragon.
That’s kind of mixing things up a lot, but they’re very easy to get playing with and introduce yourself to the fantasy elements of the game.

Will there be additional Mortal Empires and Eye Of The Vortex campaigns in Total War Warhammer 3 for owners of the previous two games?
James Whitston: When we started work on the trilogy of games, we took a look at the source material, the huge amount of material from Games Workshop through the years, and we very quickly realized we won’t be able to do that within the context of one game. We couldn’t do justice to the breadth and the depth and the richness of all of that content, so we decided to divide it up into three games and support them throughout with DLC.
One of the objectives within that was to allow players to combine all of the content that they’ve bought in an overall game and we saw that in Mortal Empires after the release of Total War Warhammer 2 where we essentially combine the campaign maps from the first two games and we already stated that as an intention with this third game.
We’ve got an extensive DLC roadmap beyond the release of this game, which we can’t get into detail today but obviously, with the past records of the series, you can see that we supported those previous two games and we properly intend to do that. It’s basically a case of watch this space, but the size of this release is so huge that there’s a lot to talk about in this game, so that’s mainly what we’re talking about today. But like I said, watch this space. In the future, there’s plenty of stuff to come.
[videopress HkNPBRuk]
Total War Warhammer 3Â is slated to launch on PC viaÂ Steam and the Epic Games Store on 17 February 2022.


Overwatch League Transfers: SF Shock Adds Three New Players

The San Francisco Shock squad is finally fully stocked following the addition of three players to the team, taking the total of players in their roster to twelve. They’ve officially announcedÂ  the signing of ex-Toronto Esports support, Grant “moth” Espe and former X-6 Gaming tank, Min-hoÂ “Architect”Â Park earlier today;

The San Francisco Shock are excited to announce the signing of two incredible players. Welcome to the squad @moth_ow & @shock_architect !!! #NewKidsonTheShockâš¡ pic.twitter.com/hLTbu2iYGL
â€” San Francisco Shockâš¡ (@SFShock) March 13, 2018
On top of that, Architect’s former X-6 teammate,Â ChoiÂ “ChoiHyoBin”Â Hyo-bin will be joining the team soon. These additions are indeed a huge boost to the team who finally welcome the additions of ‘Mr 150k’ Jay ‘Sinatraa‘ Won andÂ MatthewÂ “super”Â DeLisi to the team after being sidelined due to age restrictions.
Currently on a 5-11 record, the Shock is a third-tier team but that all is set to change with these significant upgrades which may see them challenge the second-tier teams such as the Outlaws, Valiant and Fusion soon. The playoffs for Stage 2 may be out of reach but assuming everything falls in place, we wouldn’t be surprised to see them pulling off shock results as the Overwatch League heads into the second-half of its inaugural season.


PS5 Southeast Asia Launch News Will Be Announced When Ready, Assures Sony

Yesterday, we noticed that the official PS5 websites for Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines have removed the “Holiday 2020” text. It seemingly implies that the console won’t be released in Southeast Asia in time for the 12 or 19 November 2020 release dates.
However, worry not, gamers.
PlayStation Asia have reassured us that the PS5 will be officially available in those aforementioned Southeast Asian countries and that they are currently preparing for launch as we speak.
In a statement to MP1ST, Sony said:
“We can confirm that the PS5 will also become available in MY/TH/ID/PH/VN and that we are currently in the process of preparation towards the launch.SIES will make an announcement on MY/TH/PH/ID/VN release dates and pricing when we are ready. Please keep a lookout for our local announcements on PS5 release in respective countries.”
However, Sony has yet to confirm if the PS5 will launch on 12 or 19 November 2020 in Southeast Asia, though at least now we know that it’s officially coming. At the very least, Singapore has their pre-order page & local prices all set up.
The only remaining questions are when the Southeast Asian release date for the PS5 will be and when the pre-orders for the PS5 will open in Southeast Asia.
Hopefully, the answer to those questions are soon. Thankfully, we can rest assured that the PS5 is launching in Southeast Asia, latest by 19th November. So stay tuned on Kakuchopurei for all the latest news. In the meantime, check out all our PS5-related news and coverage here.


These Mandalorian Adidas Shoes Need More Beskar

We’re already several episodes into The Mandalorian Season 2, and the hype is at an all-time high again. To celebrate the Disney Plus series, the Adidas The Mandalorian Collection is now on sale in Malaysia.
There are eight shoes in the Adidas The Mandalorian Collection, but most of them look too plain and generic. They don’t exactly scream The Mandalorian or Star Wars when you look at them, though that’s probably what some shoe enthusiasts prefer.
Women’s Nizza Beskar Steel Shoes

Kids’ NMD_R1 The Mandalorian Shoes

Men’s Top Ten The Child Shoes

Kids’ Top Ten The Child Shoes

Men’s ZX 2K Boost Mudhorn Shoes

Men’s The Child Superstar Shoes

Three of the shoes in the Adidas The Mandalorian Collection are for children, and the remaining five don’t exactly look distinctive, with the exception of the NMD_R1 The Mandalorian Shoes.
Coincidentally, that’s also the most expensive pair of shoes in the entire collection, priced at a whopping RM650. It features the Mandalorian ‘Mythosaur’ symbol and a unique armour print that distinguishes it from the other shoes.
Men’s NMD_R1 The Mandalorian Shoes

You can check out the rest of seven shoes as part of the Adidas The Mandalorian Collection on the official website here.
Still, it’s weird that Malaysia’s not getting the Gazelle Darksaber shoes for some reason. It’s available in the US store at US$100 (or roughly RM411+).
Gazelle Darksaber Shoes


You Should Probably Pre-Order This Genshin Impact Venti Nendoroid When You Can

Want a cute version of the already-bishie material drunk tone-deaf bard Venti? You’ve got your wish.
The next Genshin Impact Nendoroid figure series from Good Smile Company (via Weibo) will spotlight the aforementioned Anemo bow user Venti via a Weibo announcement. The Nendoroid figure shows off the figure, its accessories like the Skyward Harp and bow, and faceplates with emotions ranging from smiling with mouth open and a wink, to eyes closed in a meditative state.

The figure will be out on September 2022 in China (via Aitai Kuji), though pre-orders have yet to start on Good Smile Company’s page or any hobby store for that matter. If it’s anything like other premiere Nendoroid figures, the Venti figure will cost you US$50/RM211. A worldwide shipping date has yet to be announced at this point in time.
This is the third Nendoroid figure based on Genshin Impact, with the first two being the two main characters Aether and Lumine (ie: guy and girl protag).


Street Fighter 6 Brings In Ken, E.Honda, Blanka, Dhalsim, & Customizable Protagonists Into The Ring

Capcom just showcased new gameplay and characters for its upcoming 2D fighting game Street Fighter 6.
For starters, there will be four new fighters entering the fray, or at least those from the original Street Fighter 2. We have Ken, Dhalsim, Blanka, and E.Honda entering the fray.
So far, they seem similar to their SF4 and SF5 counterparts, though with some new additions and updated aesthetics. Dhalsim has his bouncing EX Yoga Fire from SF5. E.Honda still has his fast flying headbutts. Blanka can use Blanka-chan dolls and use them as electric projectiles. Ken also has a new Jinrai Kick and Dragonlash Kick that adds more to his rushdown Shoto tactics.
Check out each character’s official description below (via Capcom’s website):
Ken – Accusations of orchestrating a criminal plot have forced Ken, a former US National Fighting Champion and ex-VP of the Masters Foundation, to abandon his family and business to go into hiding. As a legend in the Street Fighter series, Ken packs a classic move set with new additions that keep things fresh.
Blanka – A kindhearted adventure tour guide and defender of nature, Blanka features his signature Electric Thunder and Rolling Attacks, plus brand new Blanka-chan Bombs and the return of his Lightning Beast move.
Dhalsim – A monk and yoga master, Dhalsim channels his familiar fire techniques from past games while also mastering moves like Yoga Fire, Yoga Arch, Yoga Comet, and Yoga Flame.
E. Honda – A globetrotting sumo wrestler, E. Honda combines old with new, bringing back his trademark moves like Hundred Hand Slap and Sumo Headbutt, plus his brand new Sumo Dash where he moves forward with a traditional sumo shuffle.

The video also showcased World Tour Mode, where you create your own character under the mentorship of SF6 character Luke and wander around Metro City doing street fights. Your custom character can use different iconic moves from Hadoukens to Yoga teleports, and the character customization tool itself will be big and expansive. This custom character creation menu is looking to hit the same heights as Saints Row’s create-a-character option back in the day.

There’s even an Extreme Battle mode that adds in stage modifiers/gimmicks to mess up a match, or benefit you, depending on the traps set. There’s a new Battle Hub that lets you match with players in a more elaborate lobby setting.

The all-new Extreme Battle mode enters the Fighting Ground to offer a new way to spice up matches with unconventional parameters. These fast and frantic battles are defined by new Rules and Gimmicks that make every match an experience anyone can enjoy. Rules define the victory condition for players, while Gimmicks add a new level of fun such as a stampeding bull sporadically interrupting a match.
Players can take their customized avatars into the Battle Hub, which serves as the lobby area to find matches against other players from around the world including online tournaments. When two players sit down at one of the arcade cabinets placed back-to-back throughout the Battle Hub, they can kick-off a match with the whole Battle Hub as their audience. Players can also visit the Game Center to play retro Capcom classics like Street Fighter II and Final Fight.
Here’s a screenshot of a stage where a random rampaging bull enters the scene to knock down anyone in its way.

Better yet, there will be a Street Fighter 6 closed beta test session from 7 October to 10th October, with crossplay on PS5, Xbox Series, and PC (Steam). All major modes from Ranked Match to Casual Match to even Training Mode will be available.
As to what the netcode will be like, that’s anyone’s guess until closer to the game’s date. What we do know about online play is this: in Ranked play, your league points are earned on a per character basis. So that means if you’re using Ryu and get to a high Diamond Rank, if you switch to Chun-Li, that Chun-Li is back at the lowest rank. That’s good so that you don’t lose league points just because you switch to a different character.

Street Fighter 6 will be out in 2023 for PC, Xbox Series, Xbox One, PS5, and PS4.


John Wick 4 Final Trailer Teases More Kills For The Baba Yaga

United International Pictures Malaysia has unveiled the final trailer for John Wick 4 or John Wick Chapter 4.
In the new trailer, we see Keanu Reeves’ John Wick doing what he does best: killing people and being a badass.
The synopsis reads:
In Chapter 4, “??John Wick (Keanu Reeves) uncovers a path to defeating the High Table. But before he can earn his freedom, Wick must face off against a new enemy with powerful alliances across the globe and forces that turn old friends into foes.”
Directed by Chad Stahelski, the cast includes singer Rina Sawayama, Donnie Yen (Ip Man, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story), Bill Skarsgård (It, It: Chapter Two, “Castle Rock”), Shamier Anderson (Stowaway) and Hiroyuki Sanada (Mortal Kombat). Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick and Ian McShane will all reprise their roles.
It is slated to premiere on 23 March 2023.


A Space For The Unbound Indefinitely Delayed Due To PQube Games Controversy

The Indonesian indie game scene is facing some trouble from outside parties.
On 24 August, the team behind A Space for the Unbound came out with a statement on Twitter stating the game will be indefinitely delayed until further notice. The game was initially slated to release for PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, Switch, and PC via Steam later this year.
The Indonesian-based development team, Mojiken Studio stated that the reason for this is following a controversy involving the game’s console publishing partners in PQube Games.
In the statement, it is revealed that the devs over at Mojiken were deceived and manipulated by the folks over at PQube in regards to a grant that PQube applied for. The grant was to be given to the developers to help aid development during the height of the pandemic.

We have important news to share with you. pic.twitter.com/O5od8fCp4y
— A Space for the Unbound ? gamescom 2022! (@ASFTUgame) August 24, 2022

“At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in August 2020, PQube Games used our position and heritage as developers from Indonesia to obtain a diversity fund from a well known console platform. The diversity fund was a grant fund intended to help underrepresented game developers, especially during the pandemic. However, instead of giving those funds to the developers as the grant was intended, PQube Games intentionally withheld information about the grant and used it as a leverage for their own commercial gain. Rather than paying the grant money to us, PQube Games hid the facts about the grant’s award and added it as a recoupable minimum guarantee, and then used it to negotiate the increase of their revenue share. We have only uncovered the true amount of these funds and their intended purposes in March 2022.”
PQube has refused to transfer publishing rights for the console versions back to the developers, the companies said.
“It is with a heavy heart that we must hold back the release of A Space for the Unbound so that we can make new arrangements and ensure that it is published as intended and in a way that is consistent with our and our community’s values.”
You can read the statement in full on the game’s official Twitter. PQube Games have yet to make a statement regarding this at this point in time.


Shin Megami Tensei 5 New Story Trailer Revealed

Atlus just revealed the next trailer for its upcoming post-apocalyptic demon-filled JRPG Shin Megami Tensei 5, which is NOT a spin-off of the Persona series.
The game’s new trailer talks about the story, where you and your pals determine if the world is worth saving or sacrificing. Yep, you have a couple of pals who determine whether your Nabihino avatar (neither demon nor man) will align towards Law, Chaos, or Neutral. That’s on par with the series, meaning the game will have multiple outcomes. Those human friends of yours during the school days portion? You will probably have to kill all but one, in their demon/otherworldly forms, of them to determine the endgame.
Gameplay-wise, the trailer showed off a bunch of new and returning demons from past SMT titles like Alice and King Frost, fully animated in 3D on the Unreal Engine 4 and not a semi-static 2D image. Guess all that Persona money is being put to good use.

Shin Megami Tensei 5 is coming out on 12th November for Nintendo Switch. Check out the screencaps of the trailer below.