Can you believe that Final Fantasy VII Remake is happening? After a tech demo of the opening of Final Fantasy VII was teased at E3 2005, fans were ravenous over the prospect that one of the most popular and beloved RPGs of all time would be getting a completely modern remake. 1997, even back then, seemed like an eternity ago.

But Square Enix kept us waiting for a long time–it wasn’t until E3 2015 that Sony officially announced that a full-blown remake was a real thing. It would be co-directed by series veterans Tetsuya Nomura and Naoki Hamaguchi, produced by Yoshinori Kitase (director and co-writer of the original FFVII) and would be released in an episodic nature.

We know that it’s going to be a completely modern overhaul of the original game created from scratch, and will tell the same story with the same characters and locations that fans remember. However, whereas the original game featured a fixed camera and turn-based battle system, the remake will take the form of a third-person game with a free-roaming camera and real-time combat.

For the longest time, we only got quick peeks at remade scenarios, but 2019 gave us a much better look at the highly anticipated game. The game was finally playable at expos, we got an in-depth look at the new battle system, and we now have a clearer idea about how much content we could expect from the first release.

Announcement and Trailers

As stated, Final Fantasy VII Remake was announced at E3 2015 via a cinematic reveal trailer, which showcased Cloud walking through what appeared a market area. Another brief trailer followed during that year’s PlayStation Experience and showed gameplay.

But then it was radio silence for quite some time. We didn’t get a chance to see the game again until Sony’s State Of Play presentation in May 2019 where Square revealed a new trailer of Final Fantasy 7 Remake–the first time we’d seen new footage of the game in quite some time, which gave us the first glimpse of Aerith and the revamped battle system.

During E3 2019, Square Enix detailed Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s combat new combat system and allowed us to go hands-on with a playable demo, which involved leading Cloud and Barret through an early section of the game, culminating in a boss fight with the Guard Scorpion. It impressed us greatly, making us realise that the game was shaping up to give us something better than we wanted.

In a trailer released during Tokyo Game Show 2019, we got a look at Tifa and Aerith in action as party members, as well as a look at a couple of the game’s early summoning creatures, the icy Shiva and the firey Ifrit. We also got a taste of the English voice acting, and a first look at the new iterations of Shinra’s hit squad, The Turks.

Most recently, we got a new trailer at the 2019 Game Awards, which focus on Cloud Strife’s much-loved cool, calm, and collected personality.

Release Date

Final Fantasy 7 Remake will launch on the PlayStation 4 on March 3, 2020. However, we know that it’s only a timed exclusive for Sony’s console until March 2021, at which point it will potentially come to other platforms like PC and Xbox One. Heck, it could even launch on PS5 and Xbox One Series X by then!

Story And Characters / How Much Of The Original Will Be Included In The Remake?

We know that Final Fantasy 7 Remake will be split into multiple parts, each comprising of one part of the original game. Producer Yoshinori Kitase, who directed the original Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation, has previously said that the team doesn’t know how many games the Remake will span.

However, we can expect the first part to involve the first part of Final Fantasy VII that takes place in the city of Midgar, as Cloud meets up with eco-resistance organisation Avalanche. The group is attempting to sabotage the reactors that power the city, owned by the nefarious Shinra Electric Power company. Kitase is quoted as saying, “We decided we’re going to focus this game on Midgar and what happened in Midgar” and “we can’t say anything more about the future games after that, because we don’t know ourselves, really.”

We’ve seen the new interpretations of party members Barrett, Tifa, and Aerith in the trailers released so far, as well as a look at the game’s primary antagonist, Sephiroth. Fans who have played through the original game will probably know what to expect, given all this information.

Battle System

The combat system for Final Fantasy 7 Remake is an entirely new one to the series, combining elements from the original game with real-time mechanics from more recent entries.

How it works is that you’ll essentially be moving and attacking with standard attacks in real-time, which will fill an Active Time Battle gauge. Once that gauge is charged up enough, you’ll be able to slow down the action to cast magic, trigger special abilities, or use items.

However, Final Fantasy 7 Remake includes a “Classic” combat mode, where moving and attacking will be automated, and the ATB gauge will fill up on its own. In this mode, the only real thing you need to worry about is waiting for the executing commands when you’re able to, making this more of a direct interpretation of the menu-based combat system seen in the original game.

How Big Will The Game Be?

While we’re still unclear about how big the download size for the game will be for digital downloads, or how much room the install will take on your PS4’s hard drive, we do know that the physical version will span two blu-ray discs, according to Square Enix.

Box Art

The Western box art for Final Fantasy 7 Remake is an updated version of the original US box art for Final Fantasy VII on the PlayStation, a big nostalgia play that is sure to appeal to fans who were around for the initial release.

In a welcome move, the cover art is reversible, with the Japanese box art on the other side–it features the logo on a plain background, as was the case with the original Japanese and PAL releases of Final Fantasy VII on PlayStation

Pre-Order and Collector’s Editions

There are a bunch of different editions and pre-order incentives for Final Fantasy 7 Remake. All preorders will get the Chocobo Chick Summon Materia DLC, which hopefully is as cute as it sounds. If you pre-order from the Square Enix Store, and you’ll receive double Members Rewards points. Best Buy is offering a $10 reward credit to My Best Buy members, and as usual, the PlayStation Store is offering a free, dynamic FF7 Remake PS4 theme with any pre-orders.

GameStop has an exclusive pre-order bonus that may be of interest to physical collectors–you’ll get a serialized Shinra key card and collectible tin box (shown above). You’ll get this bonus free when you pre-order either the standard or Deluxe edition of FF7 Remake.

Deluxe Edition

The Deluxe Edition will cost $80 and includes:

• Base game and any pre-order bonuses
• Artbook
• Mini-Soundtrack
• Steelbook
• Cactuar Summon Materia DLC
• Carbuncle Summon Materia DLC

Final Fantasy 7 Remake 1st Class Edition

The 1st class edition is exclusive to the Square Enix Store and will cost you $330. This edition includes:

• Base game and any pre-order bonuses
• Play Arts Kai Cloud Strife & Hardy Daytona box set
• Artbook
• Mini-Soundtrack
• Steelbook
• Cactuar Summon Materia DLC
• Carbuncle Summon Materia DLC

There’s now a waiting list for the 1st class edition–you can hop on that and get more information below.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/final-fantasy-7-remake-release-date-gameplay-trail/1100-6472408/

The Witcher series premiered on Netflix last week, and it appears to have put Steam users in a witching mood. The player count of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt spiked sharply, even overtaking the recently released Red Dead Redemption 2.

According to the Steam Stats page, The Witcher 3 is holding steady at roughly 46,000 players at the time of writing, to RDR2’s 45,000. Red Dead 2 still overtook it at the peak for the day with 50,000, but it’s still an impressive feat for a game that’s nearly five years old to keep a dead heat with a more recent and very critically acclaimed game.

The Witcher 3 was GameSpot’s Game of the Year in 2015, and one of the only games to have received a 10/10 score in the site’s history. It also recently released as an included game on Xbox Game Pass for consoles, right alongside the Netflix premiere, so that may have helped it regain word-of-mouth as well.

Unfortunately for Netflix, the series is less than a smash-hit. It has received mixed reviews on GameSpot sister site Metacritic, and GameSpot’s review gave it a 4/10. Editor Michael Rougeau said that while the acting and production values are on-point, the story is delivered in a way that’s unnecessarily confusing.

“But in the end, Netflix’s The Witcher is simply broken. Like the original stories, it begins in media res for Geralt of Rivia, so game fans hoping to learn more about the witcher himself won’t find an origin story here,” Rougeau wrote. “And by trying and utterly failing to cram new and remixed backstories for Yennefer and Ciri in without making any attempts to place each plotline within the larger story, The Witcher completely falls apart. Game fans who haven’t read the books will be totally befuddled, and book readers will be scratching their heads just as frequently. If you’re utterly devoted to the world of The Witcher, you’ll certainly enjoy the familiar aesthetic and characters, but beyond that, this series is hard to recommend.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/witcher-3-steam-current-players-spike-following-ne/1100-6472421/

Google Stadia has finally added achievements to its games. You can now earn achievements in Stadia titles, and they’ll be retroactively awarded to players who have completed the tasks that achievements ask of them, meaning you won’t need to restart games to earn them.

There’s a catch, though–achievements are only live for users on Chrome browser or Chromecast. Mobile app users do not yet have access to achievements; they are coming in 2020, according to the latest Stadia Community round-up.

Players with access to achievements can view their three most recently earned achievements for the last game played on their profiles, or can examine individual games for more detailed pages and descriptions of the achievements they’ve earned, or their progress towards earning them. You can also view other player’s achievements if they have been made visible to you.

Not all games on Stadia are required to include achievements, and there are not associated points or values for each achievement as there are on Xbox. It’s a system more akin to Steam’s achievements.

Achievements are available now across Stadia’s launch line-up. They’re also available in the newly released Stadia versions of Borderlands 3, Dragon Ball: Xenoverse 2, and Ghost Recon: Breakpoint.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/google-stadia-now-has-achievements-but-mobile-user/1100-6472419/

Halo is gearing up for a big year in 2020, with the Halo Master Chief Collection continuing to release for PC and the planned launch of Halo Infinite alongside the Xbox Series X. In a new update on Halo Waypoint, developer 343 Industries has dropped some information about everything on the Halo slate, including the upcoming 2021 Showtime TV series.

First up, The Master Chief Collection and Halo 5 are both offering double XP from now until the end of 2019. You’ll also be able to unlock the Ugly Sweater nameplate in The Master Chief Collection by completing one of these two objectives by January 6, 2020:

• Complete (without quitting) 10 matchmaking (Multiplayer and/or Firefight) matches on snowy maps
• Beat the par score on any two snowy campaign missions

Updates are also coming to improve performance across the PC and Xbox One versions of the game.

343 Industries provides an update on Showtime’s upcoming Halo show, which will star Pablo Schreiber (Orange is the New Black’s “Pornstache”) as Master Chief. Production on the show has begun, and a behind-the-scenes shot makes it clear that Halsey will feature in it.

The show will be directed, at least in part, by Black Mirror’s Otto Bathurst.

An update is also given on Halo Infinite, alongside some new concept art (below). The team currently has split-screen running internally, according to the post, and the game is confirmed as taking place after Halo 5. Forge will also return, and for the first time it will feature undo and redo buttons, making it easier to edit together levels.

Halo Infinite is coming to Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC. It will support LAN play and will feature extensive armor customization options.

The next major Halo release will be the Anniversary edition of the original Halo for PC. It will enter beta in early 2020.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/halo-tv-show-production-has-begun-and-new-infinite/1100-6472417/

Silent Hills, despite having been cancelled back in 2015, continues to serve up new mysteries and reveals years later thanks to the work of one enterprising YouTuber. The town of Silent Hill appears briefly in the final cutscene of the game’s demo, P.T. (short for playable teaser,) and game hacker Lance McDonald has found a way to walk through director Hideo Kojima’s version of it.

McDonald, who previously revealed that Lisa follows you throughout the game and that you’re playing as Norman Reedus the whole time, was able to connect the map for the town to a doorway from early in the demo, but there was an initial problem–because the town was not designed for the player to walk through, there’s no collision, and you fall through the ground immediately.

Incredibly, Lisa pops up and grabs you if this happens, allowing the game to reset any player who manages to clip through the environment (which also gives the video below a proper jump scare.)

To counteract this, McDonald had to patch the game to make the player float slightly above the ground, which allows him to explore the town without issue.

If you’ve finished P.T., you’ll recognize the trail of blood on the ground–McDonald follows it, but it doesn’t lead anywhere too exciting. In fact, Silent Hill, quite eerily, feels like a regular town in many ways. There are a lot of low-poly assets, but also lots of attention to detail–the air conditioners and staircases have been hand-placed on each building to avoid repetition, for instance, and potted plants are placed realistically.

As McDonald notes, the town feels simultaneously under construction and abandoned, which is a hallmark of the Silent Hill series. It also stretches back quite far, and features a mysterious bridge that you can walk under right in the middle of the street at the edge of the map.

There are no major revelations or reveals here, but it’s a very interesting look at how Silent Hill itself might have looked if the game was ever completed. Instead, Kojima and Norman Reedus went on to create Death Stranding.

Kojima has recently hinted at a return to horror, and while we won’t be seeing him work on the Silent Hill franchise any time soon, it’s possible that he’ll return to some of his ideas for the game in the future.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/silent-hills-hacker-finds-their-way-into-the-town-/1100-6472413/