No sooner has the Black Friday weekend passed than another new sale comes along. Sony has begun an End of Year sale on the PlayStation Store, offering big discounts on a wide variety of PS4 games that sometimes even match the big Black Friday sales.

Some of the most recent releases included in the sale include Indivisible ($28) and Felix the Reaper ($15), alongside big releases like Red Dead Redemption 2 ($30), Hitman 2 ($15), and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night ($26). It even includes some classics like Symphony of the Night and Jedi Outcast for under ten bucks. Some franchises are on sale as well, including large swaths of Persona and Metal Gear games. You can see all of the sale prices listed at the PlayStation Blog, and check out some of our picks below.

This is in addition to the PSN Black Friday sale, ends on Tuesday and offers some other discounts on games like The Outer Worlds and Madden NFL 20. You can also pick up a discounted year of PlayStation Plus for Cyber Monday, and that membership includes free monthly games and additional discounts. The End of Year sale will end on December 23 at 8 AM PT.

The December PS Plus offerings include Titanfall 2 and Monster Energy Supercross. Those will be available starting December 3, which means you still have a little more time to claim November’s games: Nioh and Outlast 2.

PSN End of Year Sale

• Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night — $26 ($40)
• Dead Cells — $17 ($25)
• Gravity Rush 2 — $10 ($20)
• Guacamelee 2 — $7 ($20)
• Knack 2 — $5 ($20)
• Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain — $8 ($20)
• Persona 5 — $10 ($20)
• Prey Digital Deluxe — $10 ($40)
• Shadow of the Colossus — $10 ($20)
• The Last Guardian — $10 ($20)
• Wipeout Omega Collection — $7 ($20)

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/playstation-launches-ps4-end-of-year-sale-alongsid/1100-6471827/

This is the final episode of New Releases for 2019, which means we’re taking an overall look at December. The new month is packed with original games like Wattam and Arise: A Simple Story, remakes like SaGa: Scarlet Grace – Ambitions, and the final two Shovel Knight expansions: King of Cards and Showdown. Nintendo Switch owners get their own port of Alien: Isolation, and those of you looking for some apocalyptic adventure can try out Darksiders Genesis.

SaGa: Scarlet Grace – Ambitions — December 3

Available on: PS4, PC, Switch, iOS, Android

SaGa: Scarlet Grace has never been released outside of Japan, until now. The RPG has been remastered with improved graphics and technical enhancements like faster load times and game speed. It looks to be the best way to experience the story of four heroes adventuring across a shattered empire.

More Coverage:

• E3 2019: Two Classic Square Enix RPGs Headed To The West

• Romancing SaGa 3 + SaGa Scarlet Grace Ambitions Trailer | Square Enix Press Conference E3 2019

Arise: A Simple Story — December 3

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC

Arise is part-platformer, part time-manipulator. It stars a deceased old man reliving key moments from his past life, and as you run, jump, and grapple hook around, you can also fast forward, rewind, and slow down time to control how the stages move around you. It’s playable in co-op too, with one person controlling the man and another in charge of scrubbing through time.

More Coverage:

• Arise Is A Beautiful Collision Of Music And Emotion

• Arise: A Simple Story Gameplay – 9 Minutes Of Giant Sunflowers & Earthquakes

Alien: Isolation — December 5

Available on: Switch

The survival horror game is coming to Switch with every bit of previously released DLC packed in. Isolation stars Amanda Ripley, daughter of Sigourney Weaver’s Eleanor Ripley, protagonist of the Alien films. As Amanda explores the abandoned Sevastopol station, she’ll have to hide from the Xenomorph and craft improvised weapons to fight back.

More Coverage:

• Alien: Isolation Review

• Alien: Isolation Gets A Second Wind On Nintendo Switch Next Month

Darksiders Genesis — December 5

Available on: PC, Stadia

The Horsemen are back: this top-down hack-and-slash game puts you in control of Strife and War. You can swap between the two on the fly, using Strife’s pistols and War’s sword to chop down the horde of enemies on screen. It’s headed to PC and Google Stadia this month, with a console release coming next year.

Shovel Knight Showdown / King of Cards — December 10

Available on: PS4, PS3, Xbox One, PC, Switch, Wii U, 3DS, Vita

Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove is getting its final pair of expansions: Showdown and King of Cards. The former is a Super Smash Bros.-like multiplayer mode where the various knights can duke it out. The latter is a whole new adventure starring King Knight. You’ll get both for free if you own Treasure Trove, which runs $25.

Wattam — December 17

Available on: PS4, PC

Wattam is the latest goofy adventure from Katamari and Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi. It’s all about making friends with personified objects like trees and toilets. You can befriend them in single-player or team up with a friend of your own to play through the game in co-op.

That’s all for New Releases in 2019, but we’ll be back in the new year for a whole new decade of video games. The year 2020 is loaded with highly anticipated titles–Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Cyberpunk 2077, and Marvel’s Avengers, just to name a few.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/top-new-games-releasing-on-switch-ps4-xbox-one-and/1100-6471743/

Death Stranding, Sony’s big holiday 2019 release, is the first game from Hideo Kojima in the wake of his split from Konami. The game received mostly positive reviews (including our own 9/10 review), and seems to have pleased many fans of Kojima’s previous work on the Metal Gear Solid series. In a recently-published discussion, held shortly before the game was released, Kojima has briefly touched on the possibility of a sequel.

In a discussion with Variety, Kojima discusses his friendship with Norman Reedus, and talks about wanting to work with Reedus again. Kojima said that he would consider making a Death Stranding sequel with Reedus, but that he would “start from zero;” it seemingly would not follow on directly from the first game. There are no further details or thoughts given (although Kojima does share a charming anecdote about Reedus’ cat throwing up.)

Another great tidbit casually dropped in this piece is that Helen Mirren attended the game’s launch event because her stepson, Alex Hackford, worked on it as the head of Creative Music Affairs at PlayStation.

Kojima has also hinted on Twitter that he might return to horror after the cancellation of his much-anticipated Silent Hills, which also would have starred Norman Reedus. Nothing specific has been announced about the next game from Kojima Productions, although Death Stranding will receive a substantial update in the middle of December.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/death-stranding-kojima-is-thinking-about-a-sequel-/1100-6471819/

Yet another popular video game is having its music transformed into soothing tunes to help you sleep, study, or just relax. The “Prescription for Sleep” lullaby series expands with a new album themed around Yacht Club Games’ side-scrolling platformer Shovel Knight due out on December 6.

The album, Prescription for Sleep: Shovel Knight, features calming, light, jazzy music performed by Metal Gear Solid and Bayonetta composer Norihiko Hibino (saxophone) and PersonaQ’s Ayaki on piano. They form the group Gentle Love, which also contributed to the previous Prescription for Sleep albums.

This album is notable for being the first time that Yacht Club has collaborated with an outside company for a licensed arranged album. The album also includes music for the new expansion, King of Cards, which launches on December 10. If you want to hear music from the new expansion, the new Prescription for Sleep album is the only way to do so right now.

You can buy the Shovel Knight album through Bandcamp and other digital stores like Spotify, Tidal, and Apple Music. The producers at Scarlet Moon Records are also creating 1,000 physical CDs featuring a number of extras including liner notes, interviews, and comics. Go to the Bandcamp page to learn more.

There are 20 tracks in all on Shovel Knight: Prescription for Sleep. You can listen to a teaser for track six, “Of Devious Machinations,” in the embed above.

Other video games to have Prescription for Sleep albums have included Celeste and Undertale. Scarlet Moon also released an album titled “Prescription for Peace,” which is an tribute to the late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata and renowned Japanese musician Eiki Oshimi.

The Shovel Knight, Celeste, and Undertale Prescription for Sleep albums are marked down 20 percent on Cyber Monday.

Prescription for Sleep: Shovel Knight

1. Steel Thy Shovel
2. Strike the Earth!
3. High Above the Land
4. An Underlying Problem
5. No Weapons Here
6. Of Devious Machinations
7. The Donor’s Despair
8. The Requiem for Shield Knight
9. A Cool Reception
10. End of Days
11. The Fateful Return
12. The Alchemist’s Haven
13. Waltz for One
14. Alchemy
15. Magic Mirror
16. La Danse Macabre
17. Cruise Control
18. Troops, Form Up!
19. Some Blasted Hill
20. A New Dawn

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/shovel-knights-music-gets-smooth-and-jazzy-in-new-/1100-6471817/