Every month, Xbox brings new titles to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service.
Normally, these come in two waves and now, the company has revealed what’s hitting Game Pass in the second half of August, with notable titles like Immortals Fenyx Rising and Midnight Fight Express included in the batch.
See below for the full list of new titles coming to Xbox Game Pass in the second half of August:
Coffee Talk (Cloud, Console, and PC) – Available today
Midnight Fight Express (Cloud, Console, and PC) – August 23rd
Exapunks (PC) – August 25th
Opus: Echo of Starsong – Full Bloom Edition (Console and PC) – August 25th
Commandos 3 – HD Remaster (Cloud, Console, and PC) – August 30th
Immortality (Cloud, PC, Xbox Series X|S) – August 30th
Immortals Fenyx Rising (Cloud, Console, and PC) – August 30th
Tinykin (Console and PC) – August 30th
Meanwhile, the following 16 games have received Xbox Touch Controls on mobile:
Chorus
Coffee Talk
Dragon Age 2
Dragon Age Origins
Floppy Knights
Matchpoint
MLB The Show 22
My Friend Peppa Pig
Paw Patrol The Movie: Adventure City Calls
Skate
Star Wars: Squadrons
Super Mega Baseball 3
TMNT Shredder’s Revenge
Turbo Golf Racing
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion
Here are the titles leaving Game Pass on August 31st:
Elite Dangerous (Cloud and Console)
Hades (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Myst (Cloud, Console, and PC)
NBA 2K22 (Cloud and Console)
Signs of the Sojourner (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Spiritfarer (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Twelve Minutes (Cloud, Console, and PC)
Two Point Hospital (Cloud, Console, and PC)
What Remains of Edith Finch (Cloud, Console, and PC)
World War Z (Cloud, Console, and PC)
As always, Game Pass subscribers can take advantage of an exclusive 20 percent discount to purchase any game in the catalogue and keep playing even after it leaves Game Pass.
The message behind this purchase was quite clear: more PlayStation games are coming to PC. Fast forward one year and Nixxes is about to release Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, the enhanced version of 2018’s beloved PS4 game, Marvel’s Spider-Man, on PC for the first time. Assisting with the port? Burbank, California-based Insomniac Games, the original developer of the Marvel’s Spider-Man series.
Together, the studios have brought several features to Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on PC, including ray-tracing, Nvidia DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), Nvidia DLAA (Deep Learning Anti-Aliasing), a multitude of display ratios, mouse and keyboard support and the option to use PS5’s DualSense controller for adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.
To learn more about Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, MobileSyrup sat down with Jurjen Katsman, Nixxes founder and senior director of development, and Mike Fitzgerald, Insomniac core technology director. Together, the pair offered insight into the two PlayStation studios’ close partnership, the technical work that went into getting Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered up and running on PC, swinging around New York City on the Steam Deck and more.
MobileSyrup: Jurjen, Nixxes has a long history of PC game development, but you’ve also worked on several PlayStation games. Your first project, even, was a Dreamcast port of Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver, which is a classic PlayStation game, so it’s almost a full circle moment to be part of PlayStation Studios. What’s it been like for Nixxes to make that transition and be welcomed into the PlayStation family over the past year?
Jurjen Katsman, Nixxes founder and senior director of development.
Jurjen Katsman: That’s certainly been really exciting. It’s interesting how you sort of took it all the way back to Soul Reaver — I hadn’t made that link yet. But yeah, [we] certainly worked on that originally as we were putting out on PlayStation back then. And then, in general, we’ve just had a connection with PlayStation for many, many games. We’ve done a lot of ps3 titles. In the past, we’ve got a bunch of PS5, then some other PS5 games, even, in addition to all those PC work. And we knew various people before who worked at PlayStation studios, especially some local ones. So in many ways, it was a sort of break away from the previous home, but certainly also felt like coming home to a new home — a great home. That was a really nice move. So we really excited about it.
One thing I actually was doing a little while before, as we were wrapping some of the projects, I had some discussions with the team about, ‘hey, whatever projects would you guys be excited to work on in the future?’ And it could be a dozen publishers. And it was interesting how many Sony projects came up in the people’s wish list. It wasn’t even a realistic list. Everybody’s going crazy, and it was interesting sometime after that to start working on some of those, including Spider-Man. So that was it was good news for the team. And everybody was really, really excited to join PlayStation Studios, and especially the partnership with Insomniac has been a really, really big part of that.
Q: What’s the collaboration between Insomniac and Nixxes been like, especially considering one team is in the U.S. and the other in the Netherlands?
Mike Fitzgerald: It’s been a great collaboration from my point of view. We’ve tried to get a lot of our tech folks chiming
Mike Fitzgerald, Insomniac’s core technology director.
in and getting Nixxes up and running on our tools and our engine and understanding all the bits and bobs and how it fits together and where the opportunities were to do a bit more on PC. But they’ve also just taken it and run with it and really done a great job bringing it to the PC. So it’s been nice to be involved and have the team understand what Nixxes is doing and why it’s important, but also not have it be a big devotion of our time and we can keep focusing on the other projects that we have in development.
Katsman: To anchor on that, I think it’s really interesting how much, in one way, the teams are really quite independent and working on their own different things, but even though that is true, how much they interact and just chat and talk to each other about technology about things that are going on in the game or going on with the engine. So I think that’s actually been really exciting for me to see and the team is incredibly excited about that.
Fitzgerald: [to Katsman] You mentioned other people’s wishlists of PlayStation games, and I think if we [Insomniac] had a little wishlist of studios to work with to bring our games to PC, Nixxes is at the top of that. So things lined up really, really nicely for us to do this together.
Q: Mike, as someone who originally created Marvel’sSpider-Man and then brought it to PS5, what’s the process been like to bring your work to PC? And for Jurjen, what’s it like from more of an outsider’s perspective to come on board as a fan of Insomniac and Marvel’sSpider-Man and help port the game?
Fitzgerald: For me, I think as someone who makes games — really, at the end of the day, what you want is for people to play it, and have a lot of fun playing it. And so just thinking about [how] we can get our game that has, very thankfully, already seen many, many millions of players in front of many, many more millions of players, hopefully, via the PC is just as exciting. That’s what it is for me.
Katsman: And I think for [Nixxes], it’s really exciting to do, because they’ve played this game, they’ve loved this game, and then being able to go in there, as engineers, to understand that engine, see the clever things they were doing there, maybe, in some cases, even like, ‘oh, that’s how I would have done it, great!’ And that’s the sort of thing that our team really gets to do quite a lot and really enjoys doing — diving into different engines, working with different companies, and just adding another one to that list that they really enjoyed working on.
Q: A lot of people underestimate how difficult game development can be, and for a port, in particular, some people might assume it’s sort of an easy ‘copy-and-paste’ job, which obviously isn’t true. With that in mind, can you give some insight into the behind-the-scenes work that goes into bringing a game, especially one as big as Marvel’s Spider-Man, from PS4/PS5 to PC?
Katsman: I think the first one that comes to mind, sort of thinking through the ‘cut-and-paste’ idea — the Insomniac [proprietary] engine has a history on PC, though it’s been quite a few years ago since they shipped on PC. For example, it has the DX11 Renderer; on the DX11, we can’t do any ray tracing. So we did have to fully rebuild the renderer for DX12. And that’s not just a cut and paste; there’s a lot of real work to do to make sure that aligns well and runs efficiently. So people put in an awful lot of work into that. And then the challenge there that is new to PC is the variation of hardware and features, even, that people are looking for. That just adds a whole other level of complexity. It’s actually quite common for a lot of studios to have a version of their game just as they made it on consoles, but that is not a shippable PC product — it needs a lot of customizations capability, and potentially other features to really turn it into a shippable PC game. We spent quite a while still adding [all of this], even though the original game was already there and already really great.
Fitzgerald: I think supporting a vast array of hardware is something that certainly has taken a lot of work and attention and something that Insomniac isn’t familiar with these days. It’s a luxury on our part to have one console, one configuration of hardware, that it runs on. So that’s been a new one, but for us, this has been an opportunity to learn from a studio like Nixxes that’s done this work and has so much experience there and hoping it rubs off on us.
Q: What were the challenges in adapting the game to PC, be it from translating the experience from controller to mouse and keyboard, variety of hardware (including different screen types and supported resolutions), etc.?
Katsman: The challenge is that all of those you mentioned and quite a few more all have some challenges associated with them, which compounds the challenges. And certainly, as we get closer towards [release], I always start feeling like, ‘oh my god, did we add one too many of those?’ To focus and close all of those things down. For example, you were talking about different screen types. [In Spider-Man], there’s the open-world gameplay, so you have a wide aspect ratio. But it’s a very cinematic game, right? So there are lots of cinematics and scripted things playing out, and then suddenly, if you expand the view on the screen, then that doesn’t always work nicely. The strangest things can happen. So the team has put a lot of work into it, going through all those cinematics and making sure it all looks great on a 4:3 screen, a 21:9 screen, a 16:9 screen, 48:9… The craziest things we try out because we feel gamers will try it out, and we owe them the best experience in all those combinations.
And the same applies for mouse and keyboard. Yes, we’re talking about how DualSense works — it’s great that DualSense works on PC, I love DualSense — but also, mouse and keyboard are what’s unique about PC. How you can quickly use the mouse to swing and look around the world, I think that’s really powerful. And having controls that definitely work for that was a long road with many user tests where we have large groups of players play the game — see how they will configure them, how will they remap things differently, do they want features in our game that will allow them to do things in a different way.
And so intuitively, slowly and slowly, we get to a state that we feel, ‘Yes, this will be great for everybody. And everybody will be able to get set it up just the way they like it and enjoy playing it.’ And then all those categories of things you mentioned have that route to go through, which actually, in some ways, you do on console, but there’s just a far, far larger amount of unique little aspects that play into PC.
Fitzgerald: I’ll add that mouse and keyboard support isn’t just, ‘can you make the mouse and keyboard work?’ But one thing Nixxes noted is that some of our UI-based minigames in the game, like the DNA sequencer and things, they worked with mouse and keyboard, but they didn’t feel natural that you couldn’t drag and drop a thing from one side to the other. Of course, we didn’t even do that with the controller at all — it was ‘choose this thing, then choose that thing.’ And so they spent the time to put in support for some of that type of stuff into the different [minigames] around the UI and things like that.”
Q: The core appeal of Spider-Man is just going through the city with those great Marvel’s Spider-Man swinging mechanics. When you were first playing it on PC and swinging through the city, what were some of the things that caught your eye — that were a step up from the PlayStation versions?
Fitzgerald: I think sometimes [developers] look at games differently than players do. [laughs] Like, for me, I know exactly the level of quality we had in the window reflections on the PS5, and so even the most minor little detail improvement in them is exciting for me. I guess I’ll mention the very high ray tracing settings that Nixxes was able to put in that adds more objects to scenes in the windows and things to eat up people’s GPU power a little bit more. And the ultra-widescreen is probably the other one. I have not personally had the benefit of sitting in front of a triple monitor setup yet, but I’m very excited to do that and see how that feels.
Katsman: Just last night, I was going through the latest build on my system, spending an hour just sort of swinging through the city and hanging on windows. I couldn’t really call out what was the one [standout] thing but I think overall, it just felt really satisfying — just swinging from one side of the city, crossing the park, hanging on another window, looking all the way back across the park, seeing every little thing in there, the detail of some of the buildings as they sort of panned across to the side. And then I was playing with some options, turning off some things that really allowed me to see that we have so many more exciting things that you can enable on the PC that looks so much better. And yeah, I was pretty happy with what I was seeing.
Fitzgerald: And the configurability of the PC means players might also decide, ‘I want to see the different experience, I want to get swinging through the cities, I want to run it at 100 frames per second’ or something like that, and so maybe for some other players, that’s the most salient difference.
Q: Growing up, pretty much all of the portable Spider-Man games were pared down from the console/PC versions, so you couldn’t really swing around the same fully-realized city. But now, we have the Steam Deck, and Marvel’s Spider-Man is Steam Deck Verified, so you can take the full, unaltered experience on the go. What’s it like to have the game, which was originally intended for a TV or, now, a PC monitor, on a small handheld screen?
Katsman: The first time it was kind of exciting because we hadn’t necessarily proven that yet. Before we got Verified, it was quite a while before we fired it up [on Steam Deck] and it actually worked reasonably well. But there was still quite a lot of tuning we had to put in to making it run better on that. But I think it is kind of special in that way, right, how that scales? In some ways, it’s just a small PC, but it also gives you this very different way of controlling it, with the inputs straight in your hand, how you can use trackpads and things like that.
It’s really kind of neat. And [while] weren’t allowed to take it on the train, you can just take the train and play with it there. It’s really cool that PC allows that, and to me, that is the excitement of PC. New devices will come out and the existing games will look better on that and be able to be played in a whole different way. And that’s what you get when you buy a PC — something that will last for a really long time and will play on all these different devices.
Fitzgerald: It’s a different feeling for sure. I think it does come back to just finding more people who get to play this game for the first time that didn’t play it before. And if those people are Steam Deck players, then we want to just embrace that hardware and make the game show it off well and use all the features of it in different ways. And I think we got there. Nixxes did a great job optimizing for it because that was a unique challenge.
Q: We touched on a bit, but do you each have a particular feature or enhancement in Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on PC?
Fitzgerald: It’s the ultra-wide screen for me. I just like seeing it at that ratio.
Katsman: For me, I think it is all the detail in the reflections. That really stands out, to me, as a giant difference. I really can’t get enough of looking out over New York with all that enabled.
Q: It’s been almost four years since Marvel’s Spider-Man was first released, and then Miles Moralescame two years later and we have Spider-Man 2 set for next year. For you, Mike, what does it mean to have seen so much love for this series, and then now to extend that to a larger audience with PC?
Fitzgerald: Really, it’s just something to be grateful for — to get an opportunity to work with a character like that, have Marvel be such a good partner with it and give us the freedom to do some creative things and make the character feel like ours. And it’s amazing how it’s resonated with people and it seems like that excitement hasn’t died down, even as we have this game coming to PC and Spider-Man 2 coming later. [I’m] really just thankful for it and excited about it every day.
This interview has been edited for language and clarity.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered launches on PC (Steam and Epic Game Store) on August 12th. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales will debut on PC sometime later this year.
I’ve always had a strained relationship with my father.
Being primarily raised by my single mother, I often resented him for rarely being around, and for fighting with me whenever he was. There are few things a kid needs more than their parents’ love, and I felt like I was lacking half of that. As a result, there’s this perpetual feeling of pent-up emotions — things that I’ve just wanted him to understand — even though he’d never listen, and we’ve since been estranged for years.
As I played through Hindsight, the latest game from boutique indie publisher Annapurna Interactive, I found myself revisiting many of these thoughts. In the point-and-click narrative adventure title, a young chef named Mary returns to pack up her childhood home in the wake of her mother’s death. Naturally, this stirs up many long-forgotten memories from her earlier years, forcing her to process her feelings and come to terms with her grief.
In this way, Mary’s story — rife with conflicted, unresolved feelings towards a parent — hit surprisingly close to home, and it made the already solid Hindsight even more impactful as a result.
A fresh spin on “cinematic”
Before all of that, though, I was quickly taken aback by the presentation in Hindsight. Developer Team Hindsight, led by creator Joel McDonald (Prune), has opted for an understated, painterly aesthetic, which enhances the overall solemn atmosphere. But it’s how you interact with these visuals that Hindsight becomes downright transformative.
While basic pointing and clicking will get you in and around various parts of Mary’s home, Hindsight employs a novel approach to taking you through Mary’s actual memories. Throughout the environment are “apertures,” which are represented by everything from raindrops and flowers to birds and piano keys, and you’ll have to engage with each of them to segue into the next scene. Sometimes, this is done simply by rotating the camera around the object in question until you line up the next memory within, while other instances require simple, short minigames, like arranging dishware on a table or moving books on a shelf.
This creates a wonderfully refreshing cinematic look — one uniquely accomplished not with photorealistic graphics, but through stylish transitions that move the camera in a wide array of twists and turns. In one instance, I panned into the family’s moving car before pulling back outside to zoom through a horse that Mary distractingly was imagining, snapping me back to their living room. In another moment, a sequence portraying Mary’s rising culinary career continued playing each time I cut a carrot, akin to how a flipbook tells a little story. Admittedly, it could be a bit frustrating to figure out where the next aperture was, given that they could be small at times, and I did occasionally run into some jarring slowdowns with them. On the whole, though, it’s remarkably inventive, and, more impressively, no two transitions are repeated in the three-hour campaign, keeping the whole experience visually engaging throughout.
A thoughtful and personal reflection on longing
On a deeper, more meaningful level, the aperture mechanic also brilliantly ties into the game’s larger themes about memory and perspective. Quite literally having you look at the world from different viewpoints mirrors what Mary herself is doing with her past. And because her mother is now dead, all of Mary’s thoughts about her are presented through an inner monologue, as read by Reiko Aylesworth (24) in an effectively melancholy performance. As such, Mary is aware that she’s having a one-sided “conversation” with her mother, and, therefore, is forced to try to see things from a different perspective. It’s not enough to just think fondly about her father, the parent she did wholeheartedly cherish.
It’s through this framework that Hindsight truly began to resonate with me. While my father isn’t dead, he is, in a similar fashion, gone from my life, and so I related heavily to Mary’s disappointments regarding pouring her heart out to someone who isn’t there to hear it. Writer Emma Kidwell’s script expertly captures all feelings that accompany this. The bitterness over missing all of the family dinners mixed with the warmth you felt with the other parent who was there for you. The confusion that lies in wondering why they’re not around, and the painful thought that this means they might not care about you. The stubborn rejection you give them when they do finally turn up.
Making everything even more personal is the fact that Team Hindsight made the conscious decision to make Mary mixed-race, just like me. There’s a uniquely isolating culture clash that can be felt when you have two completely different backgrounds, which Hindsight explores to great effect. Not unlike how my dad’s side of the family impressed upon me their Indo-Guyanese culture and associated Hindu religion, we see how Mary’s mother repeatedly tried to teach her daughter about her Japanese heritage.
Just like how I viewed this as overbearing and detracting from letting me just be a “regular” child, so too did Mary see her mother’s customs as barriers to everyday activities like playing with other kids. It’s rare to see mixed-race characters portrayed in media in general, and it was especially lovely to see that represented in this game authentically thanks to Kidwell’s own half-Japanese background.
What I found genuinely moving, though, is that Hindsight offers a commendably nuanced take on this dynamic. I won’t spoil what sorts of conclusions adult Mary eventually comes to, but suffice it to say that the narrative has a lot of empathy for both daughter and mother in ways I didn’t know I needed. While I don’t think I’ll be able to find quite the same resolutions with my own family issues, Mary’s ability to more maturely process her feelings as an adult — particularly by learning to take the good with the bad — nonetheless proved touching, cathartic and even inspirational.
An unforgettable trip down memory lane
Hindsight was a game that kept surprising me. The aperture mechanic was a smart means to keep the gameplay simple and approachable yet distinctive and compelling. But moreover, the story about the pain one feels toward an absent parent is layered, heartfelt and eminently relatable. Hindsight can be a sad and difficult journey at times, but it’s ultimately a beautiful and profound one that’s well worth playing.
Hindsight will release on Nintendo Switch (reviewed), iOS and Steam on August 4th.
Where do you go when the last mainline entry in your series had your main character becoming the U.S. president, getting superpowers and thwarting an alien invasion?
That’s the question developer Volition had to ask when rebooting its popular Saints Row series after 2013’s Saints Row IV. After all, how much more outlandish could you get? Even as someone who enjoyed that delightfully ridiculous premise, the series clearly needed a reinvention.
It’s for that reason that I’ve been more open-minded about the reboot, simply titled Saints Row, as others have been skeptical. And after playing about four hours of Saints Row (2022) at a Las Vegas preview event, I’ve come away quite pleased with the new direction.
I don’t have friends — I got family
From left to right: Kevin, one possible version of The Boss, Eli and Neenah.
What’s impressed me the most so far, remarkably, is the storytelling. I’ve always enjoyed the irreverent humour and charming characters of the Saints Row series, but I don’t know if you would call any of that particularly grounded or relatable. Much to my surprise, then, was the fact that Saints Row (2022)’s first mission follows your character — a fully customizable avatar once again called “The Boss” — on their first day at the Marshall Defense Industries mercenary company, begrudgingly taking orders from a superior. Why? To pay rent and student loans. Indeed, this Boss isn’t a gangbanger; they’re practically broke and living with three equally cash-strapped roommates in the fictional American Southwest city of Santo Ileso. “I’m not sure [about] the back story of Johnny Gat but I think these characters might be a little more relatable. I don’t know if [Saints Row fan-favourite character] Johnny Gat had student loans!” quips Cailyn Talamonti, Saints Row UI artist, during a group interview with MobileSyrup.
Early on, there are several scenes between this group, which includes mechanic Neenah, DJ Kevin and entrepreneur Eli, that lend Saints Row more heart than I was expecting. Between Kevin cooking shirtless for the group to give them “dinner and a show,” The Boss busting Eli’s balls for caring about the “carbon footprint” of the car they steal or the ways they try to help a defeated, bed-ridden Boss after they’re fired, each character has a lot of personality that really shines during their rapport.
They also all come from different backgrounds and even belong to the three rival factions of Santo Ileso: The Boss at the aforementioned Marshall, Neenah with the vehicle and fitness-oriented Los Panteros and Kevin from the partygoing Idols. Taking a few hours to develop their camaraderie is important, because it explains the team’s decision to quit their jobs after The Boss is fired to start their own criminal venture. Centring Saints Row (2022) around the formation of a new Saints was quite brilliant; instead of joining a pre-existing gang like in the series’ first game, you get to be there from day one with these scrappy upstarts. They’re not super deep or anything (at least so far), but the characterization has nonetheless been quite pleasurable.
Like a Boss
Making the new Saints Row feel even more personal is its character creator, “Boss Factory,” which is one of the most in-depth I’ve ever seen. For one, it’s refreshingly inclusive — you can tailor your character using different body sizes; races; gender-neutral sliders to let you mix and match “masculine” and “feminine” traits; customizable prosthetics and even skin conditions like vitiligo. “We didn’t want it gender-locked; it’s much more fluid just to have the triangle with the different body types, and then being able to adjust the rest of it,” says Talamonti.
“I think [Volition] wanted to take anything that existed before and just multiply it and make it greater and make it more inclusive. Because we really want ‘Be Your Own Boss’ and to be ‘self-made’ to apply to everybody and to be able to see everybody and have people see themselves in-game. I think that was one of the touchstones of customization in this game: to be for everybody. Of course, there are things in there — candy corn teeth, for example. I’m hoping no one in real life has those! [But] it means a lot to the whole studio to be inclusive, but also take it a step further, and be fucking weird.”
To that point, I’ve also seen hilarious — and exceptionally accurate — recreations of all kinds of recognizable pop-culture figures, like Shrek, Billy Butcher from The Boys, several Time Lords from Doctor Who, Thor from both Avengers: Endgame and Love and Thunder. You also have a lot of freedom to deck out your guns with all kinds of decals or even turn them into other weird objects, like foam fingers. To save time during my demo, I went with a gleefully potty-mouthed English lady who used basic firearms, but I definitely plan to go wild in the final game. And as a nice touch, Volition has even released a free Boss Factory suite to let you sample the robust tools and import your character in the retail version, with the option to freely and fully re-customize your character later on.
Going big in Santo Ileso
The Boss with some Marshalls.
The idea of being “self-made” that Talamonti mentioned is something that’s been brought up a lot by Volition during the promotion of Saints Row (2022). It’s a core theme that runs throughout the game, and it’s what’s ultimately won me over to this take on the series. Not only does this mantra apply to our four leads and the character customizer, but pretty much all other facets of Saints Row‘s gameplay. Sure, at a base level it’s quite similar to previous games in the series. An open-world sandbox? Check. Third-person shooting mechanics that are a little loose and janky? Yup. Arcade-y but solid handling of vehicles? You bet. That’s why it’s odd to me that people are so up in arms about the new game. Even if you don’t appreciate the different approach to story like I do, the core gameplay is still quintessentially Saints Row.
It’s all of that, with just a bit more depth. As you play, you’ll unlock points that can be used towards new skills for The Boss. These include active abilities like a Street Fighter Shorukyen-esque flaming uppercut, and passive ones like increased resistance to flames. The Boss can also perform finishers that mix John Wick-style “gun fu” with good old-fashioned haymakers, dropkicks and more.
You can really see the Saints Row DNA of wacky combat here; there’s nothing quite as ridiculous as a giant dildo bat or dubstep gun, but you still get some over-the-top moves — and more options to customize them, at that. I appreciated having this more varied arsenal since the initial lineup of guns — a pistol, assault rifle and shotgun — are pretty boringly standard. Grenades also still have that goofy, awkward throwing animation from older games. These gripes aside, though, I’m looking forward to seeing what other abilities there are later in the campaign, especially since the early ones are so promising.
Having just been there, I can say this sure does look and feel like Vegas.
The real highlight of the reboot’s gameplay for me, though, is Santo Ileso itself. With so many open-world games set in bustling, New York-esque cities, I admire Volition’s desire to take Saints Row to a Las Vegas-inspired desert locale. On a narrative level, it gives our “heroes” a smaller, rural apartment to start off in that juxtaposes well with the more urban areas they’ll head break out into. But beyond that, this variety just makes Saints Row more enjoyable to explore. Since our event was held in Vegas, I was able to see firsthand how well Volition drew from Sin City. Saints Row (2022) might not be very graphically impressive, but the developer more than makes up for that through a rich, dense setting that features pretty sun-soaked mesas, dusty, tumbleweed-filled streets, dingy motels and wedding chapels and neon-soaked, casino-filled downtown strips. The commendable mission variety — which includes a sandstorm-covered desert convoy raid, small-town police chase and linear saloon shootout — only further highlight the heterogeneity of this world.
If all of that wasn’t enough, Volition has given us some wonderfully entertaining ways to explore said locations. Chief among these: a wingsuit, which you have right from the start. In typical Saints Row fashion, the physicsare hardly realistic, but that just makes it even more of a blast to use. Not since the Batman: Arkham games have I had this much fun gliding around a city, freely diving and pulling up and twisting and turning to maintain altitude. It’s also just a smart way to strike a balance between the crazy superpowers of Saints Row IV and the (slightly) more grounded vibe of the reboot. Meanwhile, you’ve got a diverse vehicle lineup that consists of standard four-wheelers and trucks to golf carts, monster trucks and sports cars. These are all highly customizable in both look and function, and I was particularly happy to see that you can deck your car out with a tow cable, tire spikes and even an ejector seat to quickly get you airborne for some wingsuit action. Specific launching pads and shortcuts to high rooftops are also available for that purpose.
Saints Row’s wingsuit is insanely fun.
But perhaps the coolest feature of Santo Ileso is how you yourself can affect it. And I don’t just mean in a “blow shit up” sort of way, which you can absolutely do, or taking over territory from the other factions, as in previous Saints Row games. No, what Volition has done in the reboot is allow you to dictate what optional content populates the world and where they’re located. These ‘Criminal Ventures’ can be planned out once the Saints find a base of operations (which is itself customizable to a degree with various interior decorations) shortly after they all decide to quit their jobs. These side activities are unlocked through properties you construct on open lots.
It’s a fascinating and clever way to let you tailor the experience; if there are certain gigs you prefer over others, you can prioritize filling Santo Ileso with those. Naturally, I opened a medical clinic to unlock Insurance Fraud, a returning — and absolutely bonkers — mode from previous Saints Row games. In this minigame, you have to cause as much damage to The Boss as possible by letting yourself get run over, blown up and all kinds of other masochistic exploits. Amusingly, the doctor at this clinic even pointed out that there are easier and less painful ways to commit insurance fraud, to which The Boss said “you do it your way, and I’ll do it mine.”
The best of both worlds — so far
Now that I’ve had a few days to reflect on my time with Saints Row (2022), I find myself remembering just how much it kept me entertained. Is it the most technically impressive or mechanically sound game? Definitely not. But it’s an admirable effort by Volition to combine the zaniness of past Saints Row games with a more endearing story and deeper customization of character and setting alike. It remains to be seen how well all of this will hold up over an entire open-world experience, but for now, I’m here for the ride.
Saints Row will release on August 23rd on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Google Stadia.
Microsoft is inviting Xbox Insiders to preview a small selection of classic Bethesda titles on PC. As part of its $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax Media, Microsoft is diving into the well of Bethesda’s catalogue and sparking new life to largely unplayable titles.
As part of this initiative, Xbox Insiders on PC can now preview Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, HeXen: Beyond Heretic, HeXen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel, The Elder Scrolls: Arena and Quake Champions.
Many of the aforementioned titles were originally released in the early to mid-90s. However, severalstill have quite a cult following. This is especially true for The Elder Scrolls: Arena and Quake Champions. Access to the small array of classic Bethesda games appears to be a soft launch to gather feedback from the Xbox Insiders community.
Each game is available to download for free. It appears as though the majority of available titles operate via DOSBox emulation. This system is able to re-create and run software for MS-DOS compatible games. Many don’t consider it to be the most pragmatic solution. However, given that games like HeXen: Beyond Heretic and Quake Champions are available for free, players have little to no excuse to try them out.
Heretic: Shadow of the Serpent Riders, HeXen: Beyond Heretic, and HeXen: Deathkings of the Dark Citadel are all a part of Bethesda’s dark fantasy shooter series. Interestingly enough, Raven Software, which Activision later bought, is behind these titles. However, the studio now works on Call of Duty: Warzone.
The Elder Scrolls: Arena is the first game in the very successfulElder Scrolls series. It originally featured a smaller scope, seeing players travel between towns to compete in a fighting tournament. However, the games evolved into an open-world RPG with side quests galore.
There’s no word on whether these games will be made available to those outside of the Xbox Insiders program.
Led by Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls veteran Caroline Marchal, the London-based studio’s debut title is a choice-based, narrative-driven experience in the vein of such Quantic Dream works. However, it’s even less gameplay-intensive than those titles, so if the lack of deep mechanics — or even much interactivity at all — is an issue, then As Dusk Falls absolutely won’t be your thing. This is definitely more an interactive movie. Those who are fine with that, though, will find As Dusk Falls to a be thoroughly entertaining and unique experience.
An engrossing story full of twists and turns
As Dusk Falls tells the story of two families whose lives become inextricably linked after a harrowing incident in small-town Arizona. Desperate for cash, the Holt brothers attempt to rob the sheriff, only to wind up pinned down at the Desert Dreams Motel. It’s here that Vince Walker and his family has stopped while on a cross-country trip, which results in them becoming hostages as the Holts scramble to hatch an escape plan. But the narrative doesn’t stop there; over the course of 30 years, you get to see more of these characters both before and after the events at the motel.
It’s a strong setup, as it really gives you time to get to know and care about the cast, and it’s through this cast that As Dusk Falls’ greatest narrative strength can be found: empathy. Each character has their own flaws, some much more than others, but the game never condemns any of them for it. Take the Holts; I initially found them to be insufferable but soon discovered that they had a surprisingly sympathetic backstory. Jay, in particular, is easy to root for, as he’s torn between duty to his family and a desire to not hurt anyone. I quickly took a liking to the soft-spoken and kind teen, which made his journey to escape his abusive family and start a new life extremely compelling. Similarly, my early contempt for Vince’s estranged father Jim — no doubt mirroring how I feel towards my own — later softened as I saw how he was consoling his traumatized granddaughter Zoe many years after the motel hostage situation.
Seeing the impact of the traumatic motel events on Zoe as a young adult is one of As Dusk Falls’ most clever story decisions.
Having a group of likable, well-rounded and three-dimensional characters that you’re invested in makes the decisions in As Dusk Falls often genuinely challenging. At times, I would pause to consider my next course of action — something I don’t often do for games like this. For example, after a desperate Jay turns to a friend to help him out of a bind, he finds out that someone did something awful to her. Do you confront him and risk drawing dangerous attention to her and you, or begrudgingly let it slide? Similarly, how should Vince behave during the hostage situation? Are there risks you think he’d take to protect his family? Should he trust those offering him help during all of this? There are no “wrong” responses here; merely those that you feel are reflective of how your Jay and Vince would react. On the flip side, not intervening when people are about to get what they (arguably) deserve could actually lead to undesirable consequences. Thankfully, As Dusk Falls telegraphs “Crossroads” moments to let you know when you’ve arrived at a key decision that will greatly impact the trajectory of the story.
And boy, does the story branch out. At the end of each chapter, you’re shown a ‘Story Free’ that will show a flow chart of all the possible outcomes of each decision. Each and every time, I was stunned to see how many deviations there were if I had done something different — not just characters living or dying, mind you, but also where they start or end off or who may be accompanying them. On the whole, I was impressed at just how much replay value this adds. The game’s structure comprising of six hour-long chapters with recaps in between makes it ripe for smaller nightly play sessions, as well.
Jay’s sympathetic story is the beating heart of As Dusk Falls.
The only real shortcoming with the narrative, however, is that it doesn’t quite manage to balance its rather large cast. In one instance, a decision I made as Vince inadvertently resulted in something horrible happening to one person, but the game oddly never revisited this beat to show how that affected either character. Likewise, there are some story threads that don’t get meaningful resolution, even when both of the involved characters survived in my playthrough. These issues certainly weren’t significant enough to drag down the entire experience, although the game likely would have benefited from being a bit longer to afford them more time to breathe.
Fun for the whole family
It can’t be understated that the actual gameplay of As Dusk Falls is quite minimal. Where titles like Heavy Rain allow you to at least walk around, As Dusk Falls is ostensibly a “choose-your-own-adventure” movie à la Black Mirror: Bandersnatch. In addition to action sequences being relegated to quick time events (QTEs), the bulk of the game is presented via dialogue choices and the occasional instance in which you can hover the cursor across a static environment, point-and-click adventure style. The game’s presentation is also quite minimalist; in place of actual cutscenes, As Dusk Falls adopts a distinct aesthetic that blends still images together to effectively create a motion comic.
Admittedly, this took some getting used to, even as someone who regularly enjoys these types of “interactive dramas,” but I eventually came to appreciate the uniqueness of this visual style. Impressively, Interior Night has rendered the performances of actors into these stills, giving them a sort of timeless, painterly vibe that’s refreshingly different from the photorealism or retro-inspired graphical styles that we so often get nowadays. As Dusk Falls’ excellent voiceovers and solid writing only enhance the cinematic feel. All in all, this approach is a smart and effective way to keep the gameeasy to pick up and play. Interior Night has been clear about wanting to appeal to non-gamers, like those who regularly consume streaming content, and that really shows. The gameplay — consisting of the occasional button tap or mash — is not at all complex, making it remarkably approachable to newcomers.
A simple example of As Dusk Falls’ Override system — in this case, during a conversation between Vince and his daughter Zoe.
In fact, you don’t even have to use a controller or keyboard/mouse. Taking a cue from the popular Jackbox party games, As Dusk Falls lets you connect via your phone using the As Dusk Falls Companion App on Android or iOS. In this way, up to eight people can play together in person or online in one of the most clever approaches to multiplayer I’ve ever seen. How it works is that players must vote for which decision they’d like to make, and the game will go with whatever got the most votes. (A choice will be randomly made should there be a vote.) Adding a fascinating — and hilarious — wrinkle to the mix is the ability to override decisions. Each player gets a limited number of overrides as determined by the host, which they can use at any point, including to counter someone else’s. It’s a brilliant way to engage the whole group, as you can choose whether to work with or against people at will.
(Note: Admittedly, I didn’t get a chance to try this during my playthrough, but I have had a similar experience in games like this. Last year, some friends and I played The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes, which has a “pass-the-controller-around” approach to multiplayer. My buddies and I had a blast making decisions with our characters to try to let the others get killed, and so As Dusk Falls‘ override system should only greatly enhance that thrilling back-and-forth dynamic.)
A new kind of movie night
As Dusk Falls is a fascinating game. On the one hand, it likely won’t have an audience among subsects of hardcore gamers, and it certainly won’t win over those who don’t like Quantic Dream-esque titles. But on the other, it’s commendably been designed to be easily playable for pretty much anyone, especially through innovative multiplayer features. Even those who play alone like I did will find themselves drawn into a well-written and often gripping story about two struggling families. As Dusk Falls is a splendid take on the narrative adventure genre, and one that’s easy to recommend to many.
As Dusk Falls will launch on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC on July 19th. The game will also be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one.
It’s not necessarily uncommon for adventure games to follow characters as they reflect on their lives, but Annapurna Interactive’s Hindsight seems to be approaching the concept in some clever and effective ways.
Primarily developed by creator Joel McDonald (Prune) and narrative designer and writer Emma Kidwell (Half), Hindsight tells follows a woman named Mary as she’s clearing out her childhood home. Along the way, she drudges up memories of her mother, who has since passed away.
“How do we make the most of the time we have on Earth?” says McDonald of the game’s premise during a hands-off media preview. By going through her old home, Mary will have to come to terms with her complicated feelings about her past. “How did I lose touch with what was important?” Mary asks herself during the demo. Over the course of Hindsight‘s three-to-four-hour story, you’ll figure out just that.
Right away, it’s easy to see how Hindsight could compare to emotional narrative-driven adventure games like Gone Homeand What Remains of Edith Finch. But the storytelling techniques that McDonald and Kidwell use appear unique and well-executed. During each of the game’s chapters, you’ll see snippets of Mary’s life play out, and in order to progress, you’ll need to find “apertures.” These objects, which can be part of the characters or environment, will directly lead into the next scene through stylish, cinematic transitions.
According to McDonald, this idea came from taking the concept of mementos, which transport us back in time, and making that literal. As an example, one scene shows a child Mary excitedly asking her mother to spray her with a hose on a warm and sunny day. After her mother enthusiastically obliges, you, the player, must pan the camera around until you can line up another image of Mary through the ensuing water droplets. This segues into a dark and moody scene in which Mary is splashing in a puddle alone in the rain. In another instance, you have to re-arrange broken pieces of a mirror so you can zoom through it into the next segment.
It’s a smart way of creating light “puzzle” mechanics of sorts to engage the player while allowing for smooth jumps between often visually or tonally juxtaposed scenes. McDonald says the goal behind bouncing between these different periods of Mary’s life was to create “that feeling of being in a particular place in time.”
“And just sitting with it,” adds Kidwell, noting that players can their time to just absorb individual moments before moving on. “Because there are going to be a lot of heavy themes that we deal with.” Indeed, without any sort of combat or enemy threat, you’re free to just soak everything in, and it looks to create an appropriately wistful vibe when coupled with the game’s minimalist, painterly aesthetic. Adding to that is the fact that McDonald and Kidwell say Hindsight‘s story draws a lot from their own lives, which should add some authenticity to the subject matter.
On top of Mary dealing with her grief, there’s a larger external narrative at play regarding her job as an accomplished chef. At the start of Hindsight, she’s about to open her own restaurant, so returning home is a way to close one chapter as she’s about to open another. We see this play out during the demo when a phone call in the present day snaps her back to reality as she’s reminiscing. It’s currently unclear how much of a role this side of the story will play, but Kidwell says it serves as “an external force to push the player and remind them why they’re there,” and from that perspective, it seems to be working well.
At the end of each chapter, you’ll also get the chance to keep one object in Mary’s suitcase in what Kidwell says was inspired by an Itch.io game called Packing Up the Rest of Your Stuff on the Last Day at Your Old Apartment. While Hindsight‘s narrative beats won’t change depending on what you pick, McDonald and Kidwell say it’s a chance for the player to reflect on the journey as they go along.
“You as the player choose what you want to value — what matters in your own life or what would matter to Mary,” says McDonald. “Player expression was really important to us,” adds Kidwell. “It acknowledges the player’s journey that they’re having with us.”
In the end, I’ve come away quite intrigued by Hindsight. It’s looking to be a tightly crafted and emotional story told through an engaging presentation style. I’m eager to play it for myself when the game releases sometime later this year on Nintendo Switch, PC and iOS.
Polish engineer Paweł Zadrożniak has created a “PC hardware orchestra” that plays tunes through floppy disks and other computer hardware parts.
The Floppotron 3.0 is a PC-generated musical orchestra comprised of 512 floppy disk drives, 16 hard drives and four flatbed scanners. Zadrożniak, the mastermind behind it all, has been working on several versions of the project since 2011.
Fast forward to 2022, and Zadrożniak now has a full orchestra of computer hardware playing tunes from Michael Jackson, Queen and several other famous artists.
A key aspect of the system is the noise made by the electric motors, followed by the frequency it generates that in turn produces different notes.
Zadrożniak has a more detailed explanation of how the very cool system works on his blog.
Summer Game Fest is here, and with it has come a plethora of game announcements and showcases. Whether it’s called E3 or Summer Game Fest, for years, June has been an exciting time for gamers. The month serves as defacto gaming Christmas morning, where developers and publishers pull the curtain back on what they have been working on, and this year has been no different.
Most of the headlines have been dominated by megaliths like Starfield or The Last of Us Part I, but there are plenty of smaller titles that deserve their time in the spotlight as well.
With that in mind, here’s a list of all the games you may have missed during Summer Game Fest 2022’s opening weekend.
Metal: Hellsinger
Part rhythm game, part Doom clone, Metal: Hellsinger looks to be a shooter unlike any other. This FPS takes fast-paced action and pairs it with some of the best heavy metal artists in the world.
Instead of simply running around slaying demons, Hellsinger forces the player to shoot, melee, and reload on the beat. This creates a zen-like experience where the rest of the world melts away around you. All that matters after that is the end of your shotgun and the shredding soundtrack.
It’s a creative blending of genres that really stands out. Even if you are not a fan of the double kick of bands like Lamb of God or Trivium, this game will have its hooks in you. Overall, it looks to be a head-banging bloody good time.
Release date: September 15, 2022
Skate Story
Skate Story‘s trailer during the Devolver Digital summer showcase hooked me. This is not your typical skating experience. Instead of riffing on the arcade experience of the Tony Hawk franchise, Skate Story offers something a little different.
Developed by one person, this game tasks players with skating through a version of the underworld that looks like some sort of bonkers drug trip. Gone is any semblance of the real world and in its place are geodesic prisms and flashing colors.
That is not to say your environments are not skatable. There are still plenty of ramps, rails, and gaps to conquer. But Skate Story is something a little more ethereal than the cargo short-wearing, Goldfinger-blaring skating fare of yore.
Release date: 2023
Terra Nil
Terra Nil is the anti-SimCity. Whilst most management/simulation games push players into creating industry, using resources, and terraforming the earth, Terra Nil does the opposite. Shown off during the Wholesome Direct, this sim drops players into a derelict, resource-stripped world and forces them to make things green again.
Wind turbines, wells, and greenhouses serve as tools to restore this ecosystem back to its former glory. Developer Free Lives are aiming to create an experience where nature is the currency and success comes in the form of babbling streams and thriving wildlife.
Terra Nil is all about reclaiming a wasteland and making something out of nothing. And in a world where it can feel like the skies are greying more and more every day, experiences like this feel like a breath of fresh air.
Release date: TBA
Super Zoo Story
Super Zoo Story is what would happen if Zoo Tycoon and Stardew Valley had a beautiful pixelated baby. The zoo management RPG debuted a new story trailer at the IGN Summer of Gaming Expo, showing off bits of the game’s story as well as a couple of new features.
For many, this was the first time they had seen Super Zoo Story, and it stunned. While the game does look awfully like Stardew Valley, its adorable character sprites and animals will make this game unique from this farming stepbrother.
Plus, this brightly colored RPG doesn’t stop at rhinos and lions. The latest trailer also showed off some prehistoric additions you can bring into your zoo, allowing fans to live out their Jurassic Park fantasies whilst also playing zookeeper.
It has yet to be announced for Switch (only coming to PC at this point), but it would be the perfect game for Nintendo’s handheld hybrid.
Release date: 2023
The Cub
One of the recurring themes of Summer Game Fest this year was platformers with stunning art styles. The Cub falls into that bucket. This 2D platformer is a spiritual successor to 1990’s SEGA games like Aladdin and The Lion King.
From the brief trailer that debuted at the Guerilla Collective 3, The Cub looks like a marvellous animated movie you can play. Its colorful environments are complimented by fluid parkour and complex puzzles.
It is hard to tell exactly what the story will be in this Demagog Studio-developed title. However, the studio has promised there will be plenty of twists and turns in this post-apocalyptic tale.
Release Date: TBA
Cassette Beasts
As a longtime Pokemon fan, Cassette Beasts got me out of my chair. Also a part of the Guerilla Collective, this monster-collecting adventure looks to be that next step Pokémon fans have been asking for.
The game sports an eye-popping HD-2D art style. It seamlessly combines 3D environments with gorgeous 2D characters and monster sprites. And speaking of the monsters, Cassette Beasts gives players the power to combine any two of these creatures, creating something brand new.
It’s this fusion mechanic, open-world, and Saturday morning cartoon-like character designs that make Cassette Beasts one to watch. Sure, it’s not that name-brand Pokémon experience, but it looks to elevate that, making it a worthy competitor to Nintendo’s iconic IP.
Release date: TBA
Frogun
For those looking to scratch that Nintendo 64 itch, look no further than Frogun. The 3D platformer sports retro-looking polygonal graphics, and an adorable wide-eyed art style.
The gameplay looks just like the collectathons of years passed with a twist. The game’s main character, Renata, comes sporting a grappling hook in the form of a handheld frog. By using the titular Frogun’s tongue, players can swing around and solve puzzles.
It looks like simple platforming fun, but it’s a kind of game that doesn’t get made much anymore. So, Frogun will be welcomed by many.
Release date: Summer 2022
The Last Faith
Speaking of games that just don’t make anymore, The Last Faith looks to recapture the magic of classic Castlevania titles, while iterating on Konami’s gothic formula. Shown off as a part of the Future Games Showcase, this bloody adventure is seemingly proof of concept for what a modern Castlevania game could look like.
Developer Kumi Souls Games describes the title as an “unholy alliance of Metroidvania and Soulslike.” That means this game is just as much Bloodborne as it is Symphony of the Night. Tight Souls-esque combat is paired with adventuring across a sprawling map, with new secrets around every corner.
The Last Faith proves that this formula is anything but stale. Beautiful pixel art and staggering handcrafted environments, make this a worthy SOTN successor.
Release date: 2022
The Plucky Squire
The Plucky Squire might be the most impressive game not called Starfield from Summer Game Fest. This gorgeous platformer really needs to be seen to be believed. Developed by ex-Game Freak employees, this title seamlessly mixes a beautiful 2D storybook world with hyper-realistic 3D platforming sections.
Some gameplay sections shown during the Devolver showcase look like a top-down Zelda title. Others flip the camera, turning things into a 3D action game akin to Ratchet and Clank.
Right now, it is unclear if The Lucky Squire will be anything more than amazing visuals. But when your game looks this good, you get the benefit of the doubt.
Release date: 2023
That’s a lot of games, and there are so many more that we did not talk about here. Whether it’s a massive AAA RPG or the smallest one-person-developed deckbuilding roguelike, Summer Game Fest/E3 (when it’s actually happening) is a magical time.
The Overwatch 2 beta will launch on June 28th on PC, PlayStation and Xbox. Sign-ups for the beta will be available on June 16th, followed by more details on the game.
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