Apple confirmed three more Apple Arcade titles that will get the spatial game treatment for Apple Vision Pro soon: Alto’s Odyssey: The Lost City, Gibbon: Beyond the Trees, and Spire Blast.
26.01.2024 - 19:33 / digitaltrends.com / Tomas Franzese / Ios
Mobile game controller maker Backbone is releasing a limited-edition version of its Backbone One controller themed around Kojima Productions’ Death Stranding. If you pick one up, you’ll get a free code for the iOS version of Death Stranding: Director’s Cut, will launch alongside the controller next week.
Based on the second-gen USB-C Backbone One controller, this limited-edition controller is themed to the game. The grip on the controller features a beige see-through design reminiscent of the BB Pod from Death Stranding. The bridge of the controller features the logos of both Backbone and Kojima Productions. It’s a simple design, yet one that’s instantly recognizable as related to Death Stranding and appealing to those who like translucent gaming hardware.
Death Stranding: Director’s Cut is the ultimate version of Hideo Kojima’s narrative-driven adventure and includes some extra content compared to the original PS4 release. It first launched on PlayStation 5 in 2021. Announced last year, the iOS version of Death Stranding is a port that utilizes Apple’s new A17 Pro Chip to allow this current-gen console game to run on the iPhone 15 Pro and M-series iPad and Mac devices. It will retail for $40 on the App Store, but if you pick up this limited-edition $125 controller, you’ll get a code for the game for free.
The controller will work with both Apple and Android mobile phones, although you’ll only be able to redeem the code and play the game via Apple’s App Store. Death Stranding: Director’s Cut for Apple devices and the Backbone One Death Stranding Limited Edition Controller both launch on January 30.
Apple confirmed three more Apple Arcade titles that will get the spatial game treatment for Apple Vision Pro soon: Alto’s Odyssey: The Lost City, Gibbon: Beyond the Trees, and Spire Blast.
The February additions to the PlayStation Plus Premium and Essential were unveiled by Sony on Wednesday morning, and it’s a great batch of games for RPG fans. Thirteen games will hit the service on February 20, many of which come from Bandai Namco Entertainment’s Tales Off series. The most exciting addition for me is The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition, which is the complete version of a fantastic sci-fi RPG from Obsidian Entertainment.
Most companies like to sweep the bad parts of their legacy under the rug. For Nintendo, that includes some The Legend of Zelda games licensed for the Phillips CD-i platform. Frustrating game design, poor animation, and a terrible controller cemented these games as some of the worst ever made, but that doesn’t mean people have ignored them. Some of the earliest “YouTube Poops” were based on footage and dialogue from those games. And now, the new Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore is full-on spiritual successor — and a Phillips CD-i-inspired controller is coming out to go along with it.
The Official Xbox Podcast episode dropping later this week is going to be a big one. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer, President of Game Content and Studios Matt Booty, and Xbox President Sarah Bond will finally address rumors that have been tearing the Xbox community apart for the past week. After leaks and rumors indicating that titles like Hi-Fi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Starfield, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would come to Nintendo Switch or PlayStation 5 began to circulate, people got very confused about what this all means for Xbox as a platform going forward.
The survival crafting game genre is in the middle of a renaissance. Players have been drawn to mainstays like Minecraft and Terreria for well over a decade at this point, but the last couple of months have seen plenty of new contenders enter the market. Lego Fortnite, Palworld, and Enshrouded all recently launched and became some of the biggest surprise hits in the industry in recent months. Now, Nightingale is launching and aims to ride this genre popularity wave to success.
Palworld took the world by storm following its early access launch on January 19. It peaked at over 2.1 million concurrent players on Steam, selling over 12 million copies on that platform alone and amassing at least 7 million more purchases via Xbox Game Pass. That means you’ve probably played it at this point, even if you aren’t playing many other video games right now. Thankfully, the melting pot — or derivative, depending on who you ask — design of Palworld makes it a gateway game to several other amazing titles.
Director Fatih Akin has compared Death Stranding 2 to The Godfather Part 2.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach’s State of Play trailer was a packed one, and several days on from when it premiered, we’re still diving deep into its nitty-gritties and discovering all the details it’s hiding. And though crafting trailers that are deliberately mysterious and raising a constant stream of questions is very much Hideo Kojima’s MO for marketing his games, during a recent episode of his YouTube show HideoTube (the first in over seven years), he shared some significant new details on the game himself, while providing commentary for the aforementioned trailer.
PlayStation hosted the year's first State of Play games showcase early Thursday, bringing a host of new announcements, reveals and updates on upcoming releases. Sony presented a deep dive into two of its first-party titles, with extended gameplay trailers for Rise of the Ronin and Stellar Blade. The latter also finally received a release date — Shift Up's action-adventure title is arriving April 26. Team Ninja's Rise of the Ronin received a detailed gameplay trailer, showing off sword combat, special weapons, and traversal. We also got to know a bit more about the Edo period setting of the game, which takes right in the middle of the Japanese revolution.
Fortnite is set to come back to iOS in Europe sometime in 2024. This will mark the first time a natively running version of Fortnite will be available on iOS since Apple removed the game from the App Store in 2020.
Apple iPhone was the top-selling smartphone series in China for the first time last year, a surprisingly strong showing in the face of fierce local competition and expanding government prohibitions against the American company's technology. The iPhone ranked first in shipments in the fourth quarter and 2023 overall, market tracker IDC said. It came after several analysts, including Jefferies, said iPhone sales tanked in the fourth quarter due to a lull in enthusiasm for the Cupertino, California company's latest generation of hardware in the world's biggest smartphone market. IDC also noted rising competition from domestic names like a resurgent Huawei Technologies Co., but timely discounts and promotions helped reduce the harm for Apple.
Xbox Game Pass might not be losing a lot of games at the end of January, but the most significant loss is a big one. On January 31, the subscription service is losing Hitman: World of Assassination, which is one of the best stealth gaming experiences out there. Technically, it is a collection of three games’ worth of content, plus an excellent roguelike mode.