New Shadow of the Beast footage and screens from E3 2015

Hi PlayStation Blog readers. We’ve had a roller-coaster of a time since our last update. Sony invited us to Los Angeles to present Shadow of the Beast as part of the PS4 line-up at E3! For us this was a huge honour, particularly with the game still being pre-alpha; but we were both delighted and excited to have another opportunity to showcase the gameplay.

As a studio we’ve been working hard planning out the other levels for the game, being careful to try and stick to our brief that every level needs to feel different to every other one. We’re still building out these environments, but we wanted to take the opportunity to share some new screenshots – both from the “Arid” level that we showed at E3 and a sneaky early-peek at how some of the other levels are shaping up.

Hopefully it won’t be too long before we can share a more in-depth look at some of the wilder, more exotic locations and creatures that we’re planning to include in the game!

For gamers, one of the great things about E3 is getting to see so many amazing titles in action, and I was lucky enough to be there in-person representing our studio. Whilst I was there I had an opportunity to sit down with the PlayStation Blog team to talk about the game. This was a great chance not only to have a lot of fun talking about Shadow of the Beast but also to show off the game in a live-stream that everyone could see.

For those who didn’t get to attend the show but who are interested in what we’re doing, we’ve included the full interview below – we hope you’ll enjoy this look at a slice of live gameplay and general chat about how we got here:

On a final note, we were really humbled by the positive feedback that readers of PlayStation Blog gave us following our previous post. We just wanted to let you know that it was hugely motivating for everyone here, and we’re still pushing like crazy to try and make sure we build a game that lives up to your expectations and everyone can have fun with. Thanks for reading!

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How online FPS The Division is taking a fresh approach to PvP

First revealed at E3 2013, Tom Clancy’s The Division introduced us to a post-apocalyptic vision of New York City realised in jaw-dropping detail.

Bringing Ubisoft’s vision of a post-pandemic urban battleground to life isn’t a task that the development team are keen to rush, so at E3 2015 there were still plenty of details to be unveiled – and this year was the turn of the Dark Zone.

This in-game PvP realm invites players to take on a variety of missions either as a team, a lone wolf or – as executive producer Fred Rundqvist told me – as a rogue agent hell-bent on securing the Dark Zone’s extra-special loot drops all for themselves.

“Essentially, the Dark Zone is a lawless area where you can go rogue, steal other people’s loot and potentially betray your own teammates”, Fred explains.

As the hands-on demo from the E3 show floor demonstrated, patrolling the Dark Zone is a nervy, tense experience where you’re never quite sure who to trust – whether that’s other player-controlled squads, or members of your own team. But as with much of The Division, your experience and how you choose to play needn’t be restricted by how many friends – from your PSN list, match-made or met in-game – are also playing.

“You can play on your own, absolutely, or as part of a team”, Fred says. “If you want to play alongside others, you can hook up with people inside the game world and form a group, or go through matchmaking and start as part of a team. If you’re playing solo you won’t get totally overwhelmed – enemies scale to give a challenge to just one person or to a larger team.”

So those fears that The Division can only be enjoyable with the level of tactics and comms that we’ve seen in the trailers can be put to one side.

As Fred explains; “It’ll be your choice to work with other players, or against them. The Division is a loot and progression driven game, so the main reason to engage another player in combat within the Dark Zone is to take the loot that they’re carrying and use it for yourself.”

 
Tempting as that may be, greed can easily get the better of you. “By doing that, you’re taking a fairly large risk. As soon as you’re openly hostile to another player, you’ve gone rogue and you’ll be flagged to all the other agents in the area. If they take you out, they’ll gain an extra bounty that’s placed on rogue agents, earn extra XP, and can pick up whatever it was that you stole.

“So the game is more balanced than just being a free-for-all – you have you decide if it’s worth it, who you’ll be up against and the strength of your team before you go rogue and engage another player.”

How you approach life in the Dark Zone, and outside in the wider world of The Division, is likely to depend on how you want to play the game. But, as Fred explains, you won’t find yourself locked in to a specific class, loadout or speciality.

 
“We like to think of The Division as a ‘classless’ game – you’ll unlock stills and talents as you level up and then you can specialise in a specific path. Or you can try to follow them all and level up that way and switch between them,” he says.

“Most people have a preferred playing style, whether you’re the supporting medic, the long range sniper, or if you want to go in aggressively and deal a lot of damage. To me, that’s the beauty of The Division – it’s an evolution of traditional RPGs.”

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Anime brawler J-Stars Victory VS+ hits PS4, PS3, PS Vita today

Whether you’re a fan of niche obscure Japanese manga, legendary anime characters or anything in between, I’ve got just the fighting game for you 😉 J-Stars Victory VS+ is a 1-on-1 or 2-on-2 brawler out today on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita!

The game features over 50 characters from manga and anime, including One Piece, Naruto Shippuden, Dragon Ball Z, Bleach and Toriko, but also Hunter x Hunter, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Medaka Box, Gintama, Assassination Classroom, Kuroko’s Basketball, Haikyuu!! and much more. Watch the trailer above and you’ll get the idea

If none of those series rang a bell, fear not! You can access an in-game encyclopaedia and discover everything about them. Don’t complain to us if this becomes the start of a lifelong expensive passion 😉

And passion is exactly what 11 communities across the world demonstrated for J-Stars and Japanese pop culture in general through our community battle which is ending next Monday! By signing up and supporting their community, thousands of people are getting a chance to win goodies, games, and represent their favourite series. The winning community also offers a chance for its members to win a trip to Japan! More info over at http://ift.tt/1e7Dj88.

The game originally came out in Japan two years ago, but our release is enhanced with an Arcade mode, a Western exclusive PS4 version, and many gameplay enhancements! We look forward to battling you online.

Follow us on twitter @bandainamcoeu and like us on Facebook to get notified of livestreams and upcoming events!

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Gran Turismo celebrates Goodwood Festival of Speed with new update

Today we’re pleased to introduce the latest Gran Turismo 6 update, to celebrate the start of the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the unveiling of a full sized model of the Mazda LM55 Vision Gran Turismo as the festivals centre piece.

Goodwood Hillclimb 2015

In conjunction with the unveiling of the Mazda centre piece at Goodwood, we’re pleased to announce the introduction of the updated “Goodwood Hillclimb” course in Gran Turismo 6, and will include this new monument. The 2014 version will still appear in the Arcade Mode and Free Runs, but the course in the Special Events section will be changed to the new 2015 version.
 

Updated Mazda LM55 Vision Gran Turismo

The Mazda LM55 Vision Gran Turismo, introduced to Gran Turismo 6 in December 2014, has been updated to reflect the changes made to the full scale model appeared at the “Goodwood Festival of Speed” in this year. The main updates include changes to the decals and the colours of the wheel rim, the use of carbon for the brake covers and the change to Dunlop tyres.

If you already have an LM55 Vision Gran Turismo in your garage, the car will be updated automatically to the 2015 version. Please note that those changes will be reflected also in all Replay Data saved prior to the update.

In addition, it is also possible to obtain the updated version of the car by participating in the new Seasonal Event, available only for a limited time.

SRT Tomahawk Vision Gran Turismo

The SRT Tomahawk S Vision Gran Turismo, SRT Tomahawk GTS-R Vision Gran Turismo and the SRT Tomahawk X Vision Gran Turismo have been released.

After the update has been installed, the cars can be purchased from the [Vision GT] option within the [CARS] section in “My Home”. Alternatively, it is also possible to obtain the SRT Tomahawk S Vision Gran Turismo by completing a lap (regardless of the lap time) in the new Seasonal Event, available only for a limited time. The two other models can be won as a prize by obtaining a Bronze award or better in the Seasonal Event.

Furthermore, the SRT Vision GT, SRT Development G-Suit and SRT Race G-Suit matching each of these car will be given out to everyone after the update.

Addition of the new GT Academy 2015 cars

The Nissan Zytek Z11SN Greaves Motorsports from GT Academy Round 3 and the GT-R LM NISMO from Round 4 have been added to the [Dealerships] option of the [CARS] section in “My Home”: they are available for everyone to purchase.

For more details on each of the above features, please refer to the online manual on gran-turismo.com.

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Disgaea 5 release date set for this October

Hey, dood! It’s been a hot and sweaty six months duking it out in the Netherworlds since we announced Disgaea 5, but I managed to find my way back with some awesome news! NIS America is unleashing Disgaea 5: Alliance of Vengeance exclusively for the PlayStation 4 on 9th October! This ridiculously over-the-top strategy RPG will be available in stores and on PlayStation Store.

For those poor souls who have never spent time in the Netherworlds, Disgaea is a turn-based strategy RPG where players use a grid-based system to arrange their characters and perform special attacks, or team up to rain down literally millions of points of damage upon the enemy.

The series is known for the unique casts of characters, which are always beautifully illustrated by Takehito Harada, and its over-the-top and hilarious stories and dialogue written by Sohei Niikawa. Disgaea 5 doesn’t disappoint in the jokes or art department, but it does take things in a new, darker direction. With a story centered on taking revenge on a powerful new Demon Emperor named Void Dark, this title follows our dark, self-assured hero, Killia, and his Overlord allies on their dark and dangerous path to vengeance.

 
With the move to the more powerful PS4, Disgaea 5 is jam-packed with more content than ever before – and all of it looks slick as a whistle! Previous games in the series featured main storylines of 25-30 hours. Disgaea 5 has upped the ante with as much as 45 hours of content for just the main storyline, and hundreds of hours of extra content. Each second of this epic journey is rendered in crisp, HD resolution on the PS4 with up to 100 enemies on a level, brand new sprites, tilesets, and ability effects.

And did somebody say ability effects? The plethora of skills each entry in this title has brought to the table has been nothing to scoff at, but Disgaea 5 isn’t content with ‘enough’ and brings entirely new battle systems into the fray to deliver even more impressive animation and particle effects. Building on the Team Attacks seen earlier in the series, Disgaea 5 will introduce you to new Alliance Attacks which combine the strengths of specific members of the game’s main cast of characters when they have built up a strong enough bond with one another.

And as everyone knows, when you feel strongly about someone, you hate to see them harmed. Well, welcome to another brand new hallmark of Disgaea 5, the Revenge System. Watching your buddies take a beating will slowly build up your characters’ Revenge Gauge, and when it bursts they’ll enter Revenge Mode. This mode enhances a character’s base stats, and allows them to use new abilities called Overloads if they’re Overlords.

Voila! That’s a veritable smorgasbord of new content. I think that’s enough mouth-watering details for now, but rest assured, there’s even more juicy Disgaea 5 info to come! Make sure you check out our newly updated website for a closer look at the value of this vengeful tale before it hits stores on 9th October.

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New video goes behind the scenes with Yakuza 5

Back in April, Gio Corsi from PlayStation’s Third Party Production team visited the SEGA office in Tokyo to interview two of the developers behind the legendary Yakuza series – General Director Toshihiro Nagoshi and Producer Masayoshi Yokoyama.

In this first of three interview videos, Gio goes deep into the details of Yakuza 5 and also gets answers to some of the questions fans sent to #Yakuza5PS.

Since the game announcement at PlayStation Experience, we’ve been working very hard to ensure that this massive game, including all the DLC packs is localised for the western market. We are grateful for all the support we’ve received from our fans so far and can’t wait to share more details with you.

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Watch the new Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 trailer

Greetings PlayStation fans! Not sure if you watched all the news out of E3, but Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 is real – very real! Today we have a new “behind the scenes” trailer with yours truly, a bunch of guys from my team, Tony Hawk himself, and some of the in-game skate pros. Check it out!

In case you need to get up to speed: our goal is to capture the combo-driven energy and tightly designed levels of the Pro Skater games while ambitiously expanding the experience with seamless online play.

The gameplay is in the signature style of classic Pro Skater games in a brand-new set of levels with the same focus on daring objectives, fine-tuned controls and high-score tricks – including manuals and reverts – for stringing together those huge combos.

 
The game’s skateboarding pros include Tony Hawk, Nyjah Huston, Chris Cole, Riley Hawk, Aaron “Jaws” Homoki, Lizzie Armanto, Leticia Bufoni, David Gonzalez, Andrew Reynolds, and Ishod Wair – or customise your own skater.

And of course the soundtrack will be sick! More details on that soon.

Online multiplayer is where Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 truly takes off, letting players drop in and out of ongoing online skate sessions with friends and challengers from around the world; it’s like a skatepark that never closes.

Complete missions, unlock new content and level up online or offline, or go head-to-head on the fly against all takers in competitive matches. You can play with 20 people at once, which is INSANE.

Players can also build their own imaginative skateparks to share with the community. Definitely make note of the fact that these online features are only in the PS4 version – the PS3 version has no online play. We’ve tonnes more to talk about here in the upcoming months, so stay tuned.

Also, we’re starting to roll out various pre-order programs for the game. Check online for pre-order exclusives from your favourite retailers – and, of course, PlayStation Store.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 is being developed by my company Robomodo, along with Disruptive Games. Activision is, of course, publishing it. It will be available for PS4 on 29th September, 2015. The PS3 version is expected to release by Holiday 2015.

We can’t wait to share more over the summer! Shred on.

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