Canada’s Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards is coming back for its ninth show on December 8th. The show will be held at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.
📣 We have a date! 📣
THE GAME AWARDS Thursday, December 8
Streaming live around the world from Microsoft Theater in LA.
The Game Awards is where fans and those in the media to vote for their choice of favourite games of the year with categories that include Best Narrative, Best RPG and Best Games of the year.
During the ceremony, a variety of games are also announced, so that’s always exciting to look forward to. This year there are plenty of titles that can take the crown of ‘GOTY,’ but I’m hoping for Elden Ring. However, God of War Ragnarok, that’s launching on November 9th, might be able to displace the FromSoftware title.
February’s Elden Ring is one of the highest-rated games of all time. (Image credit: Bandai Namco)
Notable hacker group BlackCat hit Elden Ring publisher Bandai Namco with a ransomware attack, as first reported by Kotaku.
News of the hack comes via a tweet from ‘vx-underground’ (seen below), a group that monitors malware on the internet. Bandai Namco has confirmed the hack and says that it’s still investigating the extent of the damage, including if customer info leaked.
ALPHV ransomware group (alternatively referred to as BlackCat ransomware group) claims to have ransomed Bandai Namco.
Bandai Namco is an international video game publisher. Bandai Namco video game franchises include Ace Combat, Dark Souls, Dragon Ball*, Soulcaliber, and more. pic.twitter.com/hxZ6N2kSxl
Below is Bandai Namco’s full statement regarding the ransomware attack:
“On 3rd July, 2022, Bandai Namco Holdings Inc. confirmed that it experienced an unauthorized access by third party to the internal systems of several Group companies in Asian regions (excluding Japan),” the publisher told Eurogamer in a statement. It continued:
After we confirmed the unauthorised access, we have taken measures such as blocking access to the servers to prevent the damage from spreading. In addition, there is a possibility that customer information related to the Toys and Hobby Business in Asian regions (excluding Japan) was included in the servers and PCs, and we are currently identifying the status about existence of leakage, scope of the damage, and investigating the cause.
We will continue to investigate the cause of this incident and will disclose the investigation results as appropriate. We will also work with external organizations to strengthen security throughout the Group and take measures to prevent recurrence.
We offer our sincerest apologies to everyone involved for any complications or concerns caused by this incident.”
BlackCat is best known for being involved in the Colonial Pipeline hack, but the group has also targeted school districts and other public institutions.
Just when you thought that there wasn’t a more bizarre way to defeat a boss in Elden Ring, things have managed to get a littlecrazier.
Reddit user ‘Omunchkin13‘ (Omunchkin on YouTube) put his talents on the piano to use by making the instrument his controller for Elden Ring. On each key, he set up commands like movement, attacks, and more through software called MDI Translator.
The software helped him set up his key binds so that every move worked in sync. However, every 20 minutes the software closed because he was using the free version, causing him to freeze mid-battle.
Despite these challenges, he still managed to beat every main boss in the game with only his piano over the course of roughly 40 hours.
If you thought a piano was the weirdest way someone finished Elden Ring in 2022, it’s not. Someone also beat the game using bananas — I’m not joking. Another player finished the game using a harp.
Beloved developer FromSoftware has confirmed that one of its upcoming games is nearly done.
In an interview with 4Gamer, Hidetaka Miyazaki, president and main director at FromSoftware, was asked about comments he gave to the Japanese outlet in 2018. At the time, Miyazaki said two unannounced games were in the works at FromSoftware — one of which has since been revealed to be this year’s critically-acclaimed Elden Ring.
Now, Miyazaki has said that the second game is “currently in the final stages” of development. However, he didn’t provide any further details, such as its title or general premise. It’s possible that this game might be a new entry in FromSoftware’s Armored Core mech shooter series, following a leak from earlier this year.
That said, FromSoftware likely isn’t in a hurry to reveal this mysterious new title, given how well Elden Ring continues to perform. In the same interview, Miyazaki confirmed that more updates are coming to the game, which will presumably include some form of downloadable content like most of FromSoftware’s other games have received.
Additionally, Miyazaki said he plans to continue to focus on directing games and is already helming his next project. It’s unclear what this might be, although he is pursuing a “more abstract fantasy” concept than what FromSoftware has previously created.
Tech nerds know October (and September) as “Techtober,” a month full of tech events, but gaming geeks know that June is a month full of gaming keynotes.
With that in mind, this week’s community question is, what gaming news do you hope to see in June?
While we’ve already seen trailers for God of War: Ragnarok and Hogwarts Legacy, it would be great to get official release dates for both titles. My guess is that we might learn more information about the titles on June 9th during Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest event.
Additionally, it would be great to see gameplay footage of Bethesda’s now-delayed Redfall. It’s likely we’ll see this info alongside information about Starfield at Xbox and Bethesda’s showcase on June 12th.
It’s been years since we’ve seen anything from Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II so hopefully, more information about this title will appear in June as well.
And while I doubt we’ll hear anything from FromSoftware, Elden Ring DLC would absolutely make this a great month for me. Oh, and last but not least, I want to learn more about the upcoming Fable reboot.
Let us know in the comments below what you’d like to see from this June’s gaming events.
Now, the Tesla CEO has done so once again by proudly — but misguidedly — sharing his character’s build in FromSoftware’s Elden Ring.
It all started on May 22nd when Musk tweeted his adoration of the critically acclaimed open-world action-RPG. “Elden Ring, experienced in its entirety, is the most beautiful art I have ever seen,” he said.
Elden Ring, experienced in its entirety, is the most beautiful art I have ever seen
Naturally, he quickly got questions about what character build he was running. Musk, without a shred of self-awareness, later responded with the following image:
Quickly, Twitter users noticed that something was… off.
For the uninitiated, a common mechanic in FromSoftware’s games, Elden Ring included, is your Equip Load. Basically, put on too many items and your character will run and roll quite slowly. This is known as a “Heavy Load,” and Musk’s build, with an Equip Load over 67.2/68.8, is a prime example of it.
Of course, deciding whether to prioritize power and defense over speed and agility is part of what a challenging game like Elden Ring is all about. You have to weigh the trade-offs and gear up accordingly. At first, Musk does actually seem to acknowledge this in his tweet through the caption “Equipped load will be lower if fast roll is needed.”
The problem, though, is that there’s no apparent rhyme or reason to the gear Musk had equipped. Many people rather humourously pointed this out to him. That’s because he seemingly misunderstands how equipment actually works in Elden Ring.
If you look at his build, he has two shields and a sword equipped. Cool… except for the fact that your character only actively benefits from whatever swords and/or shields that you’re currently holding. Therefore, Musk has effectively put on a second shield for no reason. It’s not even as if he was dual-wielding shields to create some sort of ultra-defensive “tank” character. He simply gains nothing from this particular build, and is just adding extra weight and encumbering his character instead.
Given that managing Equip Load is such a core principle of Elden Ring (and other FromSoftware games), it’s amusing to see Musk self-own himself by sharing such a wonky build.
While Musk didn’t respond to any of the replies — or multiple news stories that have since been written — pointing any of this out, he did most recently share an updated image of his character’s stats.
With int/dex talismans & physick. Throw moon to lower magic negation, followed by comet takes out almost anything fast. pic.twitter.com/ewP2io199n
And yet, I haven’t yet felt compelled to play most of them, or even tackle my ever-growing backlog.
For me, it can sometimes be overwhelming when there’s so much to play, as my tastes are quite varied. I often want to play almost every big game released in the year, both for personal enjoyment and because I follow and cover the industry extensively. But I’ve also come to realize that this is unrealistic, and my big epiphany came when I was playing Elden Ring in late February. I really enjoyed my 12-ish hours with the game, but seeing so many people I know put insane amounts of time into it — like, 100 hours in the first couple of weeks — honestly made the prospect of playing more feel off-putting. In fact, I soon found myself not really playing much else. In March, I reviewed Ghostwire: Tokyo and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin — two decidedly flawed games that I still enjoyed, largely due to their smaller scopes — and since haven’t played anything, outside of a couple of random Super Smash Bros. Ultimate matches online.
And you know what? I’ve loved my time away. Now, gaming will always be my favourite form of entertainment, but you never want too much of a good thing. Why force yourself to play if you’re just not feeling it? Instead, I’ve spent much more time on other hobbies, and it’s been wonderful. I apparently have watched around 80 movies this year(Everything Everywhere All At Once supremacy!), and I’ve enjoyed using the Letterboxd app to pen more personal, long-form pieces about films that wouldn’t make sense for MobileSyrup.
I’ve also been checking out more TV shows, including Severance (my most pleasant surprise of the yar), the latest season of Better Call Saul (as outstanding as expected) and, for the first time, Kim’s Convenience. It was especially enjoyable to finally catch up on that Canadian comedy series ahead of reading star Simu Liu’s new memoir, We Were Dreamers, which is a thoroughly entertaining, heartfelt, sincere and relatable look at one family’s inspiring immigrant journey and eventual reconciliation. Then, of course, there are all of the non-entertainment activities like going to the gym more (#COVIDWeight) and seeing friends and family. The past two months have been rad.
That’s why I find it so funny when people complain about game delays. If you really want a new game to play, there are still so many others from 2022 and previous years. But better still: why not try taking a break from the medium? I saw someone tweet that they’ve been searching for games to “grab” them, and on some level, I get that. I’m sure I’ll love Elden Ring eventually, but for now, it just wasn’t grabbing me. But what it did do was help me realize that I was just burnt out on games in general, and that’s fine! Taking some time away from something only helps you appreciate it even more.
It’s exactly what Doctor Mario ordered as we approach the crazy, eventful month for gaming that is June. Now, my interest in actually playing games has been completely reinvigorated. I’m excited to finally dive into Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, which I’ve been putting off for months, as well as 2022 releases like Lego Star Wars and Tunic.
So if you’re like me and haven’t quite felt into gaming lately or even just find the number of games to play daunting, maybe try stepping away for a bit. It can be really refreshing, and it makes your eventual return to games all the sweeter.
The short video shows the player starting out in Elden Ring’s ruined chapel and fighting the first boss, the Grafted Scion, and getting very quickly demolished. The character uses familiar rolling and sword attacks, staple Elden Ring combat moves. And like the actual game, after dying, that oh-so-familiar ‘You Died’ screen appears.
Shin is using GB Studio 3.0 to create the demake. They say that they plan to launch the Limgrave area of the demake by the end of May, but you can follow along with the development progress on their Twitch channel.
These six words, as taken from an older man played by Steve Buscemi on 30 Rock, have become a popular meme whenever a person or company does something out of touch.
It’s also what I often think of whenever I see mainstream news outlets covering video games.
Earlier this week, The New York Times lead consumer tech writer Brian X. Chen published a piece about Elden Ring, Japanese developer FromSoftware’s latest action role-playing game. In it, Chen attempts to explain the success of Elden Ring by drawing parallels to overcoming the struggles of the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulties of FromSoft’s game. On the one hand, he makes some salient points about the increased need for communion after the last two years, and the ways in which Elden Ring players can team up and defeat challenging in-game enemies.
Naturally, many people took to Twitter to point out how it’s reductive, at the very least, to pin this on the pandemic. There are many reasons Elden Ring has been successful: it’s the latest game from the beloved studio behind Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro, A Song of Ice and Fire novelist George R. R. Martin helped write the game’s lore, and it offers a refreshing, handholding-free take on the open-world genre, to name but a few. That’s to say nothing of the way the game’s open structure makes it, in some ways, more approachable than previous FromSoft games — a fact that makes it more appealing to someone like me, who has fallen off each Dark Souls entry.
But even leading up to the game, anyone who’s been following the industry over the past few years could have told you that Elden Ring would have been a big hit. Hell, Elden Ring beat out the Breath of the Wild sequel — a Zelda game — to be named the Most Anticipated Game for two consecutive years at The Game Awards.
Adding to Chen’s apparent misunderstanding of games was the fact that his piece hilariously used cellphone footage of Elden Ring, instead of official, publicly accessible assets from publisher Bandai Namco. As Vice’s Patrick Klepeck notes, this likely boils down to how many newsrooms and their legal teams don’t understand fair use, especially in the context of video games. Those who play games even somewhat regularly can tell you that Xbox and PlayStation consoles, two of Elden Ring’s supported platforms, even have dedicated controller buttons to allow you to record and share game captures easily.
“Proper coverage is especially needed because the gaming industry isn’t some niche thing”
It’s frustrating to see pieces like these because they misrepresent the industry. To be clear, there is value in the perspectives of people who don’t traditionally play or cover games, especially if they’re framing it as such. I’m not trying to “gatekeep.” For example, we published a wonderful freelance piece from busy family man James Jackson last year about how he renewed his passion for games by playing on Easy Mode — a refreshingly unique perspective that our regular MobileSyrup writers wouldn’t be able to provide. But for Chen to position his Elden Ring write-up as an explainer for NYT readers who maybe aren’t as familiar with games but rather blatantly miss the point is disappointing, to say the least.
The NYT piece is far from the only offender, though. Around the same time that went up, CoinDesk — an outlet that focuses on bitcoin and other digital currencies — published its own questionable take on Elden Ring. Essentially, Chief Insights Columnist David Z Morris tried to rather bafflingly, draw comparisons to Elden Ring and cryptocurrencies. Yes, a video game and a digital currency.
“And Elden Ring’s hypersuccess came only after a long and sometimes lonely process of building and experimenting, made possible with the support of a small, dedicated fanbase, in the face of a horde of uncomprehending (dare I say maidenless) critics. And these weren’t people who simply disliked the games and weren’t interested in playing them. They were people who regarded the existence of these games as a threat. Their strangeness was a personal affront, an attack on an entire status-quo worldview.”
The notion that FromSoft has had a “small, dedicated fanbase” (at least, since Dark Souls) that’s been fighting off a “horde of uncomprehending critics” is flat out untrue. While any game — or any artistic creation, for that matter — will always have its critics, it’s ludicrous to act like FromSoft is an underdog amid consistently strong selling and universally acclaimed games.
A December 2021 Bloomberg piece (rather questionably) seemed to suggest that a) Horizon’s Aloy is one of the only examples of a well-realized female character in gaming and b) she’s the “ideal” depiction of women in the medium. (Image credit: PlayStation)
Both Elden Ring pieces remind me of another strange take from a non-gaming publication. In December, Bloomberg technology columnist Tae Kim wrote about the “sexist” depictions of women in gaming. He argued that the industry is slowly making improvements through characters like Horizon Forbidden West’s Aloy, but cited Tomb Raider, Genshin Impact and Bayonetta as examples of games with women in “skimpy outfits.” While not without some merit, this simultaneously ignored how the last 10 years of Tomb Raider games haven’t sexualized Lara Croft as much or how women — including, even, singer-songwriter Lady Gaga — actually like Bayonetta and failed to recognize anything besides Horizon. Ultimately, this is a nuanced issue, which was not done proper justice by Kim suggesting only certain kinds of female characters should exist. Naturally, many pointed out the flaws in that mentality.
In all of these cases, people who don’t generally cover games used a medium they don’t fully understand to make a broader argument. (Notably, Bloomberg also employs one of the gaming industry’s best journalists, Jason Schreier.) It’s especially unfortunate since both the NYT and Bloomberg pieces have the right idea in mind — praising the jolly cooperation of FromSoft titles and calling for greater representation of women in gaming, respectively — but they stumbled in making those points due to a lack of knowledge on the subject matter.
How to improve this
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Responding to the NYT feature, Polygon editor-in-chief and co-founder Chris Plante outlined several smart ways in which mainstream/non-gaming outlets can increase this kind of coverage in an effective way.
The @nytimes published another messy video game story. I don't want to dunk on the writer, so I'll list a few things the paper could do right now for little investment to dramatically improve its coverage:https://t.co/PQf909NdSZ
Some of his points include assigning ownership of games coverage to a single desk (noting that many publications have people from various divisions taking stabs at gaming) and contracting writers with experience covering games (which also throws a bone to the many freelancers out there). Some mainstream outlets, like The Washington Post, also have their own (really good) gaming verticals. Or, at the very least, if you’re going to write such gaming pieces yourself, maybe just speak to more experienced people instead of making inaccurate statements?
Bandai Namco and FromSoftware have released a new patch for Elden Ring. Patch 1.03 offers new questlines, a new NPC, and map tracking for characters you’ve met. Additionally, the patch includes a nerf for the Mimic Tear Spirit Ashes (😢) and added bug fixes.
You’ll be able to add an icon and the name of an NPC that you meet on the map. The new NPC is named Jar-Bairn, who you can learn more about here.
FromSoftware also says that it has added some summonable NPCs in multiple situations — hopefully that means you’ll be able to summon an NPC before fighting Malenia, Blade of Miquella because that was one tough battle.
EldenRing has also fixed a bug with stat scaling on some arcane weapons, and added questlines for Diallos, Nepheli Loux, Kenneth Haight and Gatekeeper Gostoc.
Here are the full patch notes below:
Changes
Added a function to record an icon and the name of an NPC on the map when you encounter that NPC.
Added NPC Jar-Bairn.
Added new quest phases for the following NPCs: Diallos/ Nepheli Loux/ Kenneth Haight/ Gatekeeper Gostoc.
Added some summonable NPCs in multiple situations.
Increased the number of patterns of objects player can imitate when using Mimic’s Veil.
Added night background music for some open field areas.
Bug fixes
Fixed a bug that prevented summoned NPCs from taking damage in some boss battles.
Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented the player from obtaining items after a boss battle.
Fixed a bug that causes dialogue to be skipped when talking to NPCs and using custom key configurations.
Fixed a bug that causes the player to freeze when riding.
Fixed a bug that causes arcane to scale incorrectly for some weapons.
In situations where the player cannot obtain more than 2 talisman pouches, added talisman pouch to Twin Maiden Husks shop line up.
Fixed a bug that prevented the user from warping to sites of grace from the map at the end of the game.
Fixed a bug that prevented the player from moving to the next area after the battle with the Fire Giant.
Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to have incorrect scaling after strengthening.
Fixed a bug which causes some weapons to not use stat scaling.
Fixed hang-ups in certain occasions.
Fixed a bug which incorrectly displays multiplayer area boundary when playing online.
Fixed a bug that allows players to activate Erdtree Greatshield’s weapon skill without absorbing an attack using a special combination of item and incantation.
Fixed a bug which causes Fire’s Deadly Sin incantation to have a different effect.
Fixed a bug with the Ash of War, Determination and Royal Knight’s Resolve, where the damage buff will also apply to other weapons without that skill.
Adjusted the visual effect of Unseen Form spell.
Deleted the Ragged armor set from the game which was mistakenly obtainable in previous patch.
Fixed a bug that causes some hostile NPCs to drop Furlcalling Finger Remedy.
Fixed a bug that causes incorrect sound effect to play in some situations.
Fixed a bug which causes visual animation and hitboxes to not be displayed correctly on some maps.
Fixed bugs which cause incorrect visual and behavior for some enemies.
Fixed a bug that causes incorrect stat parameter for some armor.
Text fixes.
Other performance improvement and bug fixes.
Balance changes
Increased the drop rate of Smithing Stone for some enemies.
Added Smithing Stone to some early game shop line up.
Increased shield’s effectiveness.
Increased the damage for all offensive cracked pot items.
Increased the damage for the following items: Spark Aromatic/Poison Spraymist.
Increased the effect duration for the following items: Uplifting Aromatic/ Ironjar Aromatic.
Increased HP healing for Torrent when using the following items: Rowa Raisin/ Sweet Raisin/ Frozen Raisin
Reduced FP consumption and increased the damage of the following sorceries: Glintstone Cometshard/ Comet/ Night Comet
Increased the damage of the following sorceries: Gravity Well/ Collapsing Stars/ Crystal Barrage
Decreased FP consumption of the following sorceries: Star Shower/ Rock Blaster/ Gavel of Haima/ Founding Rain of Stars/ Stars of Ruin/Greatblade Phalanx/Magic Downpour/ Loretta’s Greatbow/ Loretta’s Mastery/ Carian Greatsword/ Carian Piercer/ Shard Spiral
Raised projectile speed and range of Great Glintstone Shard
Decreased Ash of War, Hoarfrost Stomp’s damage and increase cast time.
Increased Ash of War, Bloody Slash’s self-inflict damage while slightly lowering the damage and increasing the cast time.
Decreased weapon skill, Sword of Night and Flame’s damage.
Increased FP consumption and lower duration of Ash of War, Barricade Shield.
Changed FP consumption timing of Ash of War, Prelate’s Charge.
Decreased the damage of spirit summoned when using the item Mimic Tear Ash and changed the spirit’s behavior pattern.
