Smash Jump

With the tagline “fun to play, fun to watch,” developer Broadcast Games is probably not gonna break the world with a unique tagline, but what it is might be seen as some sort of reclaim of the term or, at the very least, disassociating “friendslop” as a bad term like devs seem to feel it is. Spearheaded by Ken Thain, Emmalyn Rynard, and Dimitri Mitchell, the former having worked on Mass Effect while the trio as a whole worked on the dino hatching and raising sim, Dino Hab.

Roguelites continue evolving; we’ve seen tower defense, a plethora of gambling-based ones, plenty of dungeon-focused ones, and now, with Wanderburg, we have walking castles of destruction. Wanderburg is another Survivors-like: you level up, choose upgrades, and get further “evolutions” at milestones, etc. But the most interesting thing is you are quite literally a moving castle. You eat everything from animals to houses, level up, and take on bosses at set intervals.

The use of artificial intelligence within game development has been a huge point of contention, especially within the AAA space. It’s recently surfaced that EA is using AI-generated voices for its in-game commentators for NHL 27. Sports commentator John Buccigross revealed during a discussion with Chirpping Zebas (spotted by Mike Straw) that EA’s “using some AI stuff.” EA Sports used AI to generate John Buccigross voice lines for commentary in NHL 27. He said: "They're using some AI stuff now.

Narrative choice has trained us to look for the machinery. A dialogue wheel appears. Somebody asks whether the prisoner lives, the town burns, or we say the heroic thing, the cruel thing, or the suspiciously flirtatious thing. We choose and wait for the story to react. That model works, and the return of narrative-choice games made a good case for why it is finding new life. Star Wars Zero Company is interesting because it often moves the choice somewhere else.

Despite mixed scores across the board, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey director, Patrice Désilets, has vowed to make a sequel to the survival evolution game. During a talk with Eurogamer at a recent 1666: Amsterdam event, Désilets asserts that the 2019 Private Division-published game was “volume one” and that he wants to make a sequel, which can since he does own the IP. “Yeah. I will. I will.

In the months leading up to Zach Cregger’s live action adaptation of Resident Evil, the same one shown off during the most recent State of Play, he’s received a fair bit of backlash. During a talk with Deadline, Cregger effectively said he’s done with franchise films because in the end, he wants to write what he wants, not to satisfy data points. “I have never been approached by another franchise. Maybe I have, but it would never get to me because I have been very clear that I’m not doing that.

Star Wars Zero Company sees the iconic universe join one of the more niche gaming genres. However, don’t let the turn-based strategy look fool you. Bit Reactor, the developers behind the title, give players a grand new adventure to dive into. Not just with its story but also with the great gameplay that goes hand in hand, players have a strong new Star Wars title to enjoy. Star Wars has always had its narrative at the forefront of the series.

Exodus has a rather complex romance system that spans a decent selection of characters. But one character you won’t be able to romance is Salt, the octopus companion, because, simply put, she thinks “humans are gross.” During a recent preview event attended by Polygon, narrative director Drew Karpyshyn confirmed the octopus is completely off the table. “Salt just thinks humans are gross. It’s, like, ‘They have four legs? That’s weird. That’s not enough legs.

Poised to release with the first update of Chapter 7 Season 4, it seems the anticipated Fortnite-Kingdom Hearts collab has suffered a delay. Several leakers noted (via Polygon) the delay as last minute, noting it was supposed to release on Thursday. It’s not clear why the collab was delayed, but we don’t have that long to wait, assuming it’s going to come with the next update.

After a singular season, the black and white (or in color) Nicolas Cage-starring Spider-Man series, Spider-Noir, is on the chopping block. This was the second show in part of a multi-show partnership between Amazon MGM Studios and Sony Pictures Television to bring Sony’s Marvel Universe characters to the small screen, with the other one, Silk, ultimately scrapped.