Insomniac Games has sent a message to fans following the announcement that Sony Interactive Entertainment has purchased the developer.

“Today we announced that Insomniac has a new home,” says Insomniac CEO Ted Price. “It feels more like a homecoming though. We’ve collaborated with Sony for more than 20 years–spanning all four PlayStation consoles, 20 total games and six franchises. We still work closely today with many of the same Sony teammates as we did when we released the original Spyro the Dragon in 1998.”

The Spyro, Ratchet and Clank, and Resistance franchises have all been exclusive to PlayStation consoles, including last year’s Marvel’s Spider-Man. The only outlier is Sunset Overdrive, an Xbox One exclusive from 2014.

“The decision to join forces with Sony extends far beyond familiarity,” the message continues. “Our studio vision is to create experiences that have a positive and lasting impact on people’s lives. As we look ahead to our future, we know that joining the WWS family gives us the best opportunities to fully achieve that vision on a much larger scale. Further, we believe that Sony shares a similar vision to positively impact players’ lives, their employees’ lives and the games industry at large.

“So today merely marks the beginning of a new chapter in our studio’s growth and evolution. We’re excited to put Insomniac in the best position to deliver fresh experiences for our fans for many years to come. Our structure and approach will remain intact across both Burbank and Durham, NC studios, and we will continue to cultivate our unique culture.

“It’s been a crazy ride for sure. Now, we’re ready for the next phase of our journey, and can’t wait to explore new worlds with our Sony family and loyal fans.”

Sony recently explained why it decided to buy Insomniac, with Sony Games chairman Shawn Layden saying, “We felt that this was the time to formalize the relationship.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/insomniac-sends-a-message-to-fans-following-sony-a/1100-6469306/

Sales tracker Superdata has revealed its monthly sales chart for July 2019, tracking worldwide digital sales across PC, console, and mobile.

Consumers spent $9.02 billion on digital games in July, up from $8.56 billion in the same month last year.

Grand Theft Auto V Online’s Diamond Casino update led to a huge uptick in sales for Rockstar’s immensely popular game. Earlier this month, the developer announced that GTA Online had broken its record for most players in a single day on July 23, and most players in an entire week between July 23 – 29. The company didn’t share specific player numbers, but Superdata estimates the game sold $69 million across console and PC following the Diamond Casino update, so the numbers certainly back Rockstar’s claims up.

The update, which introduced a casino full of games to play, rewards to earn, and new story missions to complete, led to one of the best digital sales months for the game since it launched back in 2013. It also marked the first month of double-digit year-over-year growth since August 2018.

Elsewhere, Fire Emblem: Three Houses had the best digital launch in franchise history, selling 800,000 digital units on Switch in July. This follows NPD Group’s monthly sales chart from July, which showed that Three Houses recorded the highest first-month sales for a Fire Emblem game of all time in the US, good enough to make it the second highest-selling game of the month, behind Madden NFL 20. NPD never shares actual sales numbers, but add on the 800,000 units sold in worldwide digital sales and it’s safe to assume Three Houses had a very successful launch.

Season 2 of Apex Legends kicked off in July, generating $37 million across both console and PC. This is double what Respawn’s shooter made in June, but only roughly half of what Season 1 earned back in March. The Titanfall battle royale game courted controversy this month after its Iron Crown event introduced overly expensive new cosmetics. This led to altercations on Reddit when a thread discussing the event took a turn for the worse once developers began criticizing the community with insulting language and saying most players are “freeloaders.” Respawn CEO Vince Zampella has since issued a statement apologizing for the incident.

Another battle royale title, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, sold a further one million units after a price cut. Superdata estimates PUBG sold 1.1 million units on PC in July, with an average selling price of $18. Sales are still down significantly from last year, however.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-best-selling-digital-games-for-july-2019-fire-/1100-6469303/

The much-anticipated ability to move your Destiny 2 progress between multiple platforms has finally arrived. Destiny 2 cross-save launched a couple of hours later than originally scheduled, but it is here–and it really does work as promised, provided you can get through the setup process in the first place.

Cross-save’s launch coincided with maintenance to Bungie.net. Bungie was forced to delay the launch several hours due to maintenance, which is still ongoing at the time of this writing. Despite that, it is possible to get things working now.

As detailed in Bungie’s cross-save guide, you’ll have to connect each of your accounts and then authenticate them as truly being yours. This appears to be the stage at which most people are being tripped up. Several of us here at GameSpot found that authenticating one platform caused another to become undone. Repeatedly authenticating ultimately worked for me and allowed me to proceed–all platforms have to be authenticated before continuing–but others are still stuck on this step and are sometimes presented with “500” errors when authenticating.

Bungie has said it’s aware of these errors and is thus continuing the maintenance period. There’s no word on how soon this might be resolved, but more players continue to get in and presumably this is a temporary hitch that will soon be forgotten.

And that’s good news, because cross-save seems genuinely great. While it would have been nice to get cross-play (meaning you could play with those on other platforms regardless of you being on PS4, Xbox One, or PC), this is the next best thing. And this is arguably a superior option, setting aside the issue of needing to own content on each platform. As a longtime console player, moving to the PC version almost feels like playing a completely new game. As great as the game looks on an Xbox One X, the 60+ FPS framerate on PC is a sight to behold, and the speed with which Pursuits and other menu screens load is a massive quality-of-life improvement. And luckily, from what I’ve been able to experience so far, progress does seem to transfer seamlessly. I earned some gear and completed a bounty on PC and was then able to boot up my Xbox One and cash in that bounty and dismantle the gear with no apparent delay.

To its credit, Bungie tries to make it clear what you own on each platform

The one key downside to cross-save is that it requires you to own the game on every platform you want to be able to play on–and it makes things rather complicated. Things will change a bit later this year, as Bungie will be releasing Destiny 2: New Light, a free-to-play version that includes the base game and its early DLC expansion. Additionally, Destiny 2: Shadowkeep will launch as a standalone expansion, so you could in theory just buy that on your secondary platforms and play that new content. But going with New Light or Shadowkeep would preclude you from accessing, say, Forsaken’s Raid or Black Armory’s Forges–though gear you earned from those activities on your main platform(s) is still usable. Further complicating matters is that the PC version of Destiny is moving from Blizzard’s Battle.net to Steam later this year. If you want to dive into Destiny 2 cross-save without any restrictions right now, your only option is to buy a bundle of all currently available content on Battle.net, and then transition to Steam later. Furthermore, you can only spend Silver–the game’s premium currency–on the system you purchased it on.

Confusion over what you can access aside, there are sure to be some quirks that pop up. For instance, a friend of mine found that he was able to claim certain bounties on Xbox One before jumping over to PC, where he doesn’t own Forsaken, and also claim replacement bounties. That’s hardly going to upend the balance of the game, though it remains to be seen if players discover any more impactful loopholes.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/destiny-2-cross-save-is-great-if-you-can-get-it-wo/1100-6469299/

As Gamescom kicked off earlier this week, a handful of indie games got official release dates. This includes Creature in the Well, Skellboy, and the action-platformer Blasphemous, which launches on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One on September 10.

Publisher Team17, responsible for games like The Escapists and Yoku’s Island Express, announced the game’s release date in a blog post. According to the post, you play as The Penitent One who must free the gothic underworld of Cvstodia from “a twisted fate and reach the origin of your torment.” Blasphemous will retail for $25 USD / $37 AUD / £21 GBP when it launches in September.

A press release describes Blasphemous as “an action-platformer that combines the fast-paced, skilled combat of a hack-n-slash game with a deep and evocative narrative core.” The press release also bills the game as a Metroidvania with a plethora of genre staples, like character progression, non-linear level design, and backtracking with newer abilities.

Developer The Game Kitchen has created one game prior to Blasphemous–2013’s psychological point-and-click horror game The Last Door. In our The Last Door review, we said, “[It] is all the more engrossing for the ways in which its visuals encourage your own imagination to play a part in creating its horrors.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gruesome-pixel-art-action-game-blasphemous-release/1100-6469298/

New Releases breaks down the biggest games launching each week, and this episode is full of games from developers you might already love. Double Fine has the action-RPG Rad, Gunfire Games is launching Remnant: From the Ashes, and Tokyo RPG Factory is releasing Oninaki. Meanwhile, UnderMine comes to Steam Early Access and Nintendo Switch gets Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution.

Rad — August 20

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, PC, Switch

The “rad” in Double Fine’s newest adventure is short for “radiation,” because you’ll be exploring a post-apocalyptic irradiated world. The deeper you go, the more radiation you’ll absorb, developing crazy mutations that give you special powers. You’ll have to use a combination of mutant abilities and your trusty baseball bat to beat down the nuclear monsters in this world.

More Coverage:

• RAD – Live Gameplay Demo | E3 2019

• Double Fine’s New Game Rad Goes For A Bizarre Post-Apocalypse

Remnant: From The Ashes — August 20

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, Switch

Speaking of defeating monsters, Remnant: From the Ashes is a survival shooter that pits you against all manner of big beasts. The more you defeat, the more you’ll be able to upgrade your armor and weapons. Each of the game’s four worlds–Earth, Raesa, Rhom, and Corsus–is dynamically generated, so you’ll have new quests and events to experience each time you jump in.

More Coverage:

• First 15 Minutes Of Remnant: From The Ashes – Exclusive Gameplay

• Remnant: From The Ashes Is A Post-Apocalyptic Shooter With Shades Of Bloodborne

Yu-Gi-Oh! Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution — August 20

Available on: Switch

For the uninitiated, Yu-Gi-Oh is played by dealing cards that either summon monsters, cast spells, or lay traps as you aim to reduce your opponent’s life force to zero. Link Evolution lets you build your deck from over 9,000 of those cards as you duel characters from the super-popular anime series. You can take on other players in online duels too.

UnderMine — August 20

Available on: PC

UnderMine is a roguelike, which means you’re going to lose lots of characters to the monsters and traps as you dig deeper into each new layer of the mine. Fortunately, new miners retain the upgrades from your previous runs. UnderMine is headed to Early Access on Steam first, with future releases planned on Xbox One and Switch as well.

Oninaki — August 22

Available on: PS4, PC, Switch

Oninaki might still be an RPG, but the team behind I Am Setsuna and Lost Sphear is changing things up this time. Most notably, there’s a lot more action thanks to a hack-and-slash battle system. As far as story goes, Oninaki is about the Watchers, who guide trapped souls into the afterlife.

More Coverage:

• Oninaki: What To Expect From This Fast Paced Action Game | E3 2019

• Oninaki Release Date Trailer | Square Enix Press Conference E3 2019

There’s one more episode of New Releases for the month of August, and it’s the most jam-packed episode yet. Next week, we’ll take a look at World of Warcraft Classic, Astral Cain, Blair Witch, and more.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/top-5-new-games-on-switch-ps4-xbox-one-and-pc-this/1100-6469129/