Aksys Games and Arc System Works today announced that XBlaze Code: Embryo is coming to PC via Steam on March 1st. XBlaze Code: Embryo is a visual novel game featuring a story set 150 years before the events of BlazBlue.
The 16th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) has revealed this year’s recipients of the Pioneer and Ambassador awards.
The Pioneer Award, which honors breakthrough tech and game design milestones, will this year honor Markus “Notch” Persson, the creator of the 2011 GDCA and IGF Award-winning indie sandbox title, Minecraft. The Ambassador Award, honoring someone who is helping video games advance to a better place through advocacy or action, will be bestowed upon experimental game designer and educator Tracy Fullerton, in recognition of her work at the Game Innovation Lab, which has produced several influential independent games like fl0w and Darfur is Dying.
The Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony takes place on Wednesday, March 16th at 6:30 pm at the Moscone Convention Center during the 2016 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and will be livestreamed on Twitch at http://www.twitch.tv/gdca.
Bethesda Game Studios today revealed details for the first three Fallout 4 add-ons – Automatron, Wasteland Workshop and Far Harbor – plans for additional content, updates, mods, and more.
Automatron
Price: $9.99 USD
Release: March 2016
The mysterious Mechanist has unleashed a horde of evil robots into the Commonwealth, including the devious Robobrain. Hunt them down and harvest their parts to build and mod your own custom robot companions. Choose from hundreds of mods; mixing limbs, armor, abilities, and weapons like the all-new lightning chain gun. Even customize their paint schemes and choose their voices.
Wasteland Workshop
Price: $4.99 USD
Release: April 2016
With the Wasteland Workshop, design and set cages to capture live creatures – from raiders to Deathclaws! Tame them or have them face off in battle, even against your fellow settlers. The Wasteland Workshop also includes a suite of new design options for your settlements like nixi tube lighting, letter kits, taxidermy and more.
Far Harbor
Price: $24.99 USD
Release: May 2016
A new case from Valentine’s Detective Agency leads you on a search for a young woman and a secret colony of synths. Travel off the coast of Maine to the mysterious island of Far Harbor, where higher levels of radiation have created a more feral world. Navigate through the growing conflict between the synths, the Children of Atom, and the local townspeople. Will you work towards bringing peace to Far Harbor, and at what cost? Far Harbor features the largest landmass for an add-on that Bethesda has ever created, filled with new faction quests, settlements, lethal creatures and dungeons. Become more powerful with new, higher-level armor and weapons. The choices are all yours.
That’s not all. Bethesda plans more than $60 worth of new Fallout adventures and features throughout 2016. Given the expanded DLC plan, the price of the season pass will increase from the current $29.99 to $49.99 USD on March 1st. However, if you already purchased the season pass for $29.99, nothing changes – you still get everything at no additional cost — the full $60 offering of add-on content for the original price of $29.99. In addition, if you didn’t buy the season pass yet, there is still time: Anyone who buys the Season Pass for $29.99 before March 1st will get all $60 worth of content.
Want a chance to play these add-ons early? Bethesda will be running closed betas for each of the add-ons for consoles and PC, and you can sign up right now on Bethesda.net. In order to apply, you’ll need to create a registered Bethesda.net account. Bethesda will be selecting applicants in the upcoming weeks. Players accepted into the beta will receive a code to redeem the content. The beta is the full version (complete with achievements) and those participating will not have to purchase the add-on.
Beyond add-ons, Bethesda will continue to offer free updates to the game, including new features like the recent weapon debris for PC, and increased draw distances for consoles, as well as more optimizations to gameplay and quests. And something to get really excited about, a complete overhaul of Survival Mode that changes how you play the whole game. Food, sleep, diseases, danger and more.
Bethesda is also hard at work on the Creation Kit, which will allow fans to create and play mods absolutely free. More details on both Survival Mode and Creation Kit will be forthcoming.
Capcom today announced the release of Street Fighter V exclusively for the PlayStation 4 and PC. Through a partnership between Sony Interactive Entertainment and Capcom, the latest game in the series offers cross-platform play that unites Street Fighter fans into a unified player base for the first time ever. The game is currently available physically and digitally on PlayStation 4 and as a digital download on PC.
Frontier Developments today launched Elite Dangerous: Arena for PC. Elite Dangerous: Arena brings Elite Dangerous’ Close Quarter Combat PVP game to players as a standalone release for $7.99.
The countdown to launch has commenced for the Early Access departure of Into The Stars, the space simulation game from Iceberg Interactive and indie developer Fugitive Games. Into The Stars will blast off from Steam’s Early Access Program and officially launch on March 4th for $19.99. To mark the occasion, Into The Stars is available this week at 33% off during its final sale in Early Access.
Indie studio Nekki today announced that its rhythm based shoot-em-up, Beat Da Beat, will release for PC via Steam on March 11th.
CD Projekt RED today announced cooperation with Dark Horse and J!NX to create collectibles for Witcher fans.
In partnership with CD Projekt RED, Dark Horse will launch a product line based on The Witcher this fall. Licensed product categories include statues, busts, and action figures; prop and jewelry replicas; and barware, stationery, and other collectibles. This new line of products debuts with a set of new figures.
The first Witcher figures to be released are Geralt, Triss, and Yennefer, followed by Ciri and the Wild Hunt King, Eredin. Each will be designed to the character’s likeness, custom painted, and displayed in deluxe window box packaging with a SRP of $29.99.
Furthermore, J!NX will release a custom designed, officially licensed The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Geralt Vinyl Figure in July. The figure features a variety of removable replica sword accessories, multiple points of articulation and the Witcher’s signature scar.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Geralt Vinyl Figure, and an exclusive variant, will be available for retail and wholesale purchase at witcherstore.com and jinx.com.
Telltale Games today shared an extended preview of the first six minutes of The Walking Dead: Michonne – A Telltale Miniseries.
In this premiere episode, ‘In Too Deep,’ Michonne joins Pete and his crew on the sailing ship The Companion as they cruise the coast for survivors and supplies. When a desperate signal for help draws them to a scene of horrific massacre, Michonne and the crew are lead further to the floating survivors’ colony of Monroe, which may just be harboring the person responsible for the carnage.
The Walking Dead: Michonne – A Telltale Miniseries will premiere its first of three episodes, ‘In Too Deep,’ this February 23rd on PC from the Telltale Online Store, Steam, and other digital distribution services, the PlayStation Network for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3, and the Xbox Games Store for Xbox One and Xbox 360. The second episode in the miniseries, ‘Give No Shelter,’ will follow in the month of March, and conclude with the third episode, ‘What We Deserve,’ in April. All three episodes in the miniseries will be available for purchase at the cost of $14.99 USD or equivalent when the first episode debuts, including access to the second and third episodes as they become available.
The NPD Group has released its retail report for the month of January. Software and hardware sales were down year-over-year in January, by 10% and 15% respectively. Only peripherals saw growth year-over-year by 15%. Overall, total industry sales were down 5% to $605.2 million. Once again, PlayStation 4 was the best-selling platform for the month.
The top selling games of January were as follows:
1. Call of Duty: Black Ops III
2. Grand Theft Auto V
3. NBA 2K16
4. Star Wars Battlefront
5. Fallout 4
6. Minecraft
7. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
8. Madden NFL 16
9. LEGO Marvel’s Avengers
10. FIFA 16
Note: The NPD Group does not track digital game sales, only physical game sales.
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