This Week in Games

ATTACK AND DESTROY GOD

News! We got it! No need for an intro, let's get right into things!

XBOX GAMES SHOWCASE UNVEILS A TON OF NEW GAMES

Once again, TWIG has been oh-so-slightly delayed to keep in step with the hottest, freshest gaming news. This time around, it's the Xbox Games Showcase 2020, the presentation Microsoft arranged after their last “games showcase” didn't go over all that well. I can safely say, however, that this one was far more interesting, as it showed several games that made me say “hey, that's pretty cool!” and “I want to play that!”

Rather than trying to go through almost everything like I did with the PS5 reveal, I'm just going to talk about the stuff that caught my eye. Yes, I know Halo, Forza, and Hellblade 2 are big ol’ deals, but you can read about people getting hype for them pretty much anywhere! I'd rather take this opportunity to get extremely excited about BALAN WONDERWORLD HOLY SHIT YES INJECT THIS GAME RIGHT INTO MY VEINS I WANT IT SO BAD

We've known that Yuji Naka's been working on something at Square-Enix for a while now, but we didn't know he was teaming up with Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator Naoto Ohshima again. The fact that these two are working on a new game together is already exciting, but oh my goodness, just watching the trailer gives me such intense, wonderful vibes of Sega at their best in the Saturn and Dreamcast eras. The visuals look like how I'd imagined a next-gen NiGHTS, wild and colorful and weird… I just hope it plays as good as it looks.

I've long lamented how rare high-budget, kid-friendly whimsical platform games are nowadays, and this could be exactly what the genre needs to get a fresh kick in the pants. Thankfully, Balan Wonderworld isn't a console exclusive – it'll be available on PS5, PS4, XBOne, Switch, and PC as well.

And hey, Dragon Quest XI Definitive Edition is hitting Xbox and PC, too! If for some reason you've missed out on this wonderful RPG because it wasn't on your platform of choice, well, here you go! If you have Xbox Game Pass, even better – you get access to the game as part of your subscription! Hmmm, I wonder if there will be a way for owners of DQXI on Steam to get the Definitive Edition as an upgrade?

Echo Generation is a turn-based RPG from indie studio Cococucumber that looks to combine the general atmosphere of Stranger Things with a voxel-y graphical style. I'll admit, that boxy, floofy dog in the trailer made me more interested in this than I would be otherwise, because goshdangit that's a cute floofer. Game looks neat, too, but let me pet the dog!

Everwild is Rare's new thing, and it looks gorgeous. Rare's aesthetic usually leaves me cold, but I am 100% vibing with the visual style of this game, especially the wildlife designs. Also, it appears to be a game about protecting and coexisting with the weird and wild fauna rather than hunting them down. I'm totally in, especially when it's this pretty!

Ori and the Will of the Wisps will run at 120Hz and 4K on Xbox Series X. That's cool I guess, but, like… does a game like Ori really need that sort of performance? It sounds like a marketing gimmick. I think most of us are fine with the XBOne/PC versions.

Grounded is one of Obsidian's new projects under Microsoft ownership, and it's a neat twist on the “survival game” genre: you're part of a group of kids who have been shrunk and now have to deal with the horrors of a suburban lawn by either working together or going every tween for themselves. I've always felt like “shrunken-down player character facing everyday things that are now huge threats” is an idea that's been rather unexplored in the gaming space, so I'd like to see more of Grounded in the future.

And then there's Avowed, a more typical-looking first-person fantasy adventure set in the universe of Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity. This ought to tide a fair few folks over until Bethesda decides to drop the next Elder Scrolls game.

As Dusk Falls looks neat: it's a story of people living in the Southwestern United States over the course of a few decades. I don't think I've seen a whole game presented in the “motion comic” style before like this. Some folks might be like “this looks cheap, why is this on my shiny new console!” Those people fail to realize just how much work making 2D assets in high resolution actually involves. Frankly, this is extremely impressive-looking to me!

Good to see Psychonauts 2 getting a new trailer – it's been a while since we've heard much about this game. Also nice to see that Tim Schafer can still get his celebrity pals to help him out. Hi, Jack Black!

Tetris Effect Connected: after seeing the success of Tetris Effect (chillaxin Tetris) and Tetris 99 (murder Tetris), Enhance Games is bringing us a combination of the two: cooperative, massive-playfield Tetris with all of your BFFs. How nice :) This upgrade is coming to PS4 and PC as well, so don't feel left out if you're not an Xbox household.

The Gunk looks to have cool style, interesting gameplay, awful name. I associate “gunk” with cleaning out my ears and other inconvenient, slightly gross activities, not an omnipresent threat that must be neutralized.

The Medium! Okay, I'm down with this. I've seen the “dual gameplay” gimmick done before, just not in a psychological horror game. Being able to see and feel the difference of two realities at the same time is an inherently cool and freaky concept I want to see explored.

Heyyyy, did you get PSO2 running decently on Windows 10 yet? Well, if you haven't, you might want to wait (I know, I know, you've waited long enough), because PSO2 New Genesis is on the horizon. It's kind of ambiguous as to what this game is, but it looks like a complete visual overhaul of the now-several-years-old PSO2 to look flashier and shinier on new hardware. Regional trailers show that this one is coming to Switch and PS4, but given Microsoft's deal with Sega that might be a Japan-only thing. We'll see, I guess.

Oh hey, those Fable 4 rumors are real! No gameplay shown yet, but the trailer showcases the franchise's humorous nature… albeit in a rather weird, fetish-y way. You just know there's some guy out there rewinding the part where the frog swallows that fairy over and over and over…

A big thing being pushed in this presentation was Xbox Game Pass: Microsoft made it very clear that all of the featured games would be available to subscribers of the Game Pass service from the day they launch, which is pretty rad. If you're not attached to physical games, Xbox Game Pass really is looking like a better and better value over time, giving you access to a big game library and hot new releases for a relatively low monthly fee. If this is Microsoft's way of fighting the used-game aftermarket, it's a damn good one – much better than the draconian, anti-consumer nonsense that they initially proposed for the Xbox One way back when.

Overall, I think I liked this presentation more than the PS5 unveiling! Yeah, I didn't expect that, either, but there were a lot more games shown here that piqued my interest. Now we just need to hear how much these next-gen consoles are going to cost…

TYPE-MOON STUDIO BB UNVEILS ITS FIRST GAME, AND IT'S ONE YOU MIGHT REMEMBER

A few months back, I wrote about Type-Moon's new Studio BB division, which was established by storied game director Kazuya Niinou to make console- and PC-focused games. I thought that naming the studio “BB” was hinting that there would likely be Fate//Extra-related projects in the works… and hey, I was right on the money! Say hello to Fate//Extra Record!

Fate//Extra, which originally released back on the PSP, was among the first spinoffs in the massive Fate franchise. Extra presented an alternative-universe take on the Master/Servant relationships and the Holy Grail War while introducing players to Fate favorites like Nero and Tamamo-no-Mae. From the trailers revealed so far, the visual upgrade is immediately obvious, and interviews with the staff indicate that there will be more voiceover work (including voiced lines for the male/female protagonists) and new enemies to fight in the time between the big chapter-concluding duels.

Perhaps most importantly, though, the entire battle system has been completely reworked into more traditional “pick the thing you want to do” turn-based combat instead of the horrendous janken-meets-Mastermind guessing game bullshit that was the original Fate//Extra's combat. This is the single thing I wanted most out of a remake. See, Fate//Extra was the first piece of Fate media I really dove into, and while I found the story, characters, and world to be a delight, the combat parts were a miserable chore that made it very hard to see things through to the end. Now that I know it's completely revamped, Fate//Extra Record has zipped up my list of anticipated releases.

I'm sure the coming months will reveal more details about Fate//Extra Record, including any new content Studio BB is adding – you'll probably see a couple of the more popular Servants popping up in new places. Platforms are still undecided (probably PS4, Switch, and Steam), and hopefully it'll get picked up for a Western release pretty quickly.

GOD MIGHT BE DEAD, BUT HEY, AT LEAST SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI V EXISTS

Nintendo had a Mini Direct this week! It was to be focused on third-party games, but despite having “Partner Showcase” in the title and stating “development partners” all over social media channels when promoting it, a bunch of people were somehow still expecting first party reveals and getting angry when they didn't see Mario or Zelda.

Yes, I know, Nintendo's been putting out info more slowly over the summer rather than dumping out the announcement-laden Directs of years past, but so has everybody else because there's a goddamned global pandemic happening. Hell, as far as I'm concerned Nintendo can just take the rest of 2020 off, I've still got a ton of Switch stuff I haven't played yet so I'm okay with waiting.

What makes this extra annoying is that we got some pretty cool announcements in this mini-stream! More Cadence of Hyrule is cool to see, the Japanese Direct announced the leaked Atelier Ryza 2 officially, and we finally, finally got to see more of Shin Megami Tensei V beyond concept art and a nebulous lego!

But first, how about a re-release of Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne? Why yes, that sounds wonderful, I'll take it!

Interestingly, this release will not be the FEATURING DANTE FROM THE DEVIL MAY CRY SERIES version. See, Japan got a re-re-release of the game on PS2 after the two Kuzunoha Raidou games had launched, and since the contract with Capcom had presumably expired, Dante's appearance was replaced with our favorite alternative Taisho-era detective… and that's the version being used as the basis for the remaster. Sorry, memelords, but I kinda want this version more.

Following that came the big first-ever reveal of Shin Megami Tensei V, which wastes no time in telling you how screwed we are: SMT's version of Lucifer hovering next to Tokyo Tower, saying that “the God you worship is dead.” That certainly grabs attention!

One thing that seems to be the subject of much speculation is the assumed protagonist's gender: they appear to we wearing a male school uniform, but have a very feminine appearance. Perhaps Atlus is giving players a non-binary character to interpret however they please? I kinda doubt it, but that would be super-cool. And holy crap, a simultaneous worldwide release? That's never happened before with an Atlus game. Good luck to the localization teams who researching lots of obscure figures from world folklore and religions on a deadline -- they have a very difficult task ahead of them.

YAKUZA: LIKE A DRAGON IS GETTING A STAR-STUDDED DUB

Remember back when the first Yakuza released on PS2? Probably not, but if you did play it, you probably remember that it was dubbed entirely in English. And Mark Hamill was Majima. It was interesting, to say the least.

While Sega has left the mainline Yakuza titles undubbed since then, they did include an English track for the spin-off game Judgment. It kind of felt like they were testing the waters to see how the newly re-energized Yakuza fanbase would respond. Apparently they responded quite well, because Yakuza: Like a Dragon is also getting a dub… with a fairly big name attached, too.

The role of Masumi Arakawa will be played by storied Japanese-American actor George Takei. While he's best known for playing Sulu on the original Star Trek, he's made plenty of appearances in geeky media since, and nowadays is a very prolific crusader for LGBT rights. Kaiji Tang, another well-known Asian-American voiceover artist, is stepping into protagonist Ichiban Kasuga's shoes, too. Perhaps more actors will be revealed as the release date approaches… and maybe Hamill would return in some capacity? It'd be some killer fanservice, for sure.

Also, there's a PS5 version of Yakuza: Like a Dragon coming if you want to play it on a shiny new console but are firmly in the Sony corner… though it likely will be later than the other platforms. However, a PS4-to-PS5 upgrade plan is reportedly in the works.

A collector's edition of the game is now available for pre-order, alongside the *heavy sigh* Day Ichi Edition with extra costumes and a shiny steelbook case. God, I already loathe having ~~DAY ONE EDITION~~ marring my game boxes, but somehow tossing Japanese 101 phrasing into the mix makes it so much worse.

Game still looks rad as hell, by the way.

Okay! That's a lot of announcements, holy hell! What are you most looking forward to out of everything that just got unveiled? Grab a cold one, turn on the fan, and hang out in the forums below to talk about all these awesome games! I'll see you again soon, so until then, stay safe, stay cool, and be excellent to each other!