Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition – Introducing Knights of the Mediterranean

505 Games, the publisher behind games like the yet-to-be-released Payday 3, Control, and the PC version of Death Stranding Director’s Cut, held its first-ever games showcase today. The event revealed three new games and a quick look at Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising.  It began with Among The Trolls, a new folklore survival game, then Stray Blade, a magic combat action RPG, and then a look at Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising, which was released last week, before ending with a quick tease of a game called Miasma Chronicles, developed by Mutant Year Zero developer The Bearded Ladies. Let’s break each of the new games down:  Among The Trolls The trailer for Among The Trolls sets up this survival game as somewhat spooky, or at least mysterious. Your goal is to survive in a forest that’s home to creatures of folklore like, well, trolls. The main character recalls that their grandmother told them every forest, meadow, and lake has its own kind of folk and that you must keep those folk happy by sacrificing something to them. After moving away to the U.S., through specific circumstances, you’re brought back to your grandparent’s house in Finland. Before arriving, though, a giant sea monster crushes your boat and you awaken in a forest, unaware of where you are or why you’re there.  Given it’s a survival game, the first thing you need to do is find a way to survive and that’s where traditional genre elements like crafting come into play. Of course, with the folklore twist in Among The Trolls, simply surviving won’t be enough – you’ll need to keep the creatures that call the forest home happy and you’ll need to figure out exactly how to do that. Among The Trolls is being developed in Unity by Forbidden and will be coming to Early Access on Steam sometime in the future.  Stray Blade Stray Blade was the second game revealed in today’s showcase and in it, you play as an anthropologist from another land who explores the ancient ruins of a mysterious civilization. In doing so, you accidentally break a 1000-year-old spell that blocks a valley to an unknown civilization separate from the plane you currently call yours. There, you encounter a small wolf-man character who becomes your companion. Together, you must uncover and explore Acrea, which has seemingly become your new home since you can’t leave until a bunch of magical shards embedded in your chest are removed.  Acrea features many different biomes – a desert, a forest, a frozen tundra, and more – and you must survive in each while dodging the pointy end of arrows and more from warring factions. There’s crafting and plenty of magic-based combat. You’ll be able to give it a go when Stray Blade goes into beta on PlayStation/Xbox consoles and PC sometime this year.  Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising Since this game is already out, there's really no point going over what was discussed about it today, but hey, you can read Game Informer's Eiyuden Chronicles: Rising review right now.  Miasma Chronicles  Not much was shown or discussed in regards to Miasma Chronicles, which is being developed by Mutant Year Zero developer The Bearded Ladies, save for a nice-looking, cinematic CGI trailer. In it, we see a young protagonist with a fun human-sized robot companion attempting to use magic to either control, contain, or enter, a strange, black portal. Diggs, the robot, warns the protagonist against it, but the protagonist pushes forward anyway, using a special magic-wielding glove from his mom to interact with the portal. As for why, it turns out he believes his mom is on the other side of the portal and that’s why he’s trying to go through it. A release window was not given for Miasma Chronicles.  And that’s everything shown during today’s 505 Games Showcase. Did you watch the 505 Games Showcase? Let us know what you thought of it in the comments below!  

Hey friends, please act surprised, we have even more games coming to Game Pass! For a real surprise – we have five games coming so soon that it’s literally today soon! Charge your controllers, plug in your mouse, fire up your second monitor, and let’s look at what is coming to your playlist for the […]

Things are ramping up for Take-Two Interactive as a new financial report details the publisher's IP plans for the next three years. According to Nintendo Life, many projects are in the works, from those already announced to undisclosed titles. Ultimately, the report revealed over 30 games are in the works, including, but not limited to, new ports and remasters.  The full report, which can be read here, categorizes the upcoming games and provides clear definitions for each: Immersive Core: Titles that have the deepest gameplay and the most hours of content. Examples include our key sports franchises (like PGA 2K and NBA 2K) as well as Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption (to name a few).  Independent: Externally developed Private Division releases.  Mobile: Any title released on a mobile platform. Mid-core: Titles that are either an arcade title (like WWE Battlegrounds) or games that have many hours of gameplay, but not to the same extent as an immersive core title.  New iterations of prior releases: This includes ports and remastered titles. Sequels would not fall into this category. Moreover, a pipeline table in the document states Take-Two is developing 24 immersive core games, including The Quarry for June 10, Marvel's Midnight Suns later this year, Kerbal Space Program 2 (PC) in early 2023, and NBA2K23, PGA Tour 2K23, and WWE 2K23 next year. Ten independent games, 20 mobile games like the GTA Trilogy in 2023, 7 mid-core games, including the long-awaited Tales from the Borderlands sequel, and eight new iterations of prior releases are also on the way. Fans of Take-Two's many development studios undoubtedly have a lot to look forward to.  It's hard to guess the future for some of these categories, but what ports and remasters are you anticipating? Perhaps we'll get to play a modernized Bully port! Let us know what you're positing in the comments below!  [Source: Nintendo Life]

Final Fantasy XIV’s housing lottery is finally fixed after one month of being broken.  On April 16, an FFXIV maintenance update indicated that the latest lottery cycle for housing in-game was broken, so when checking the placard where winners were to be shown, the placard said there were no winners. This meant nobody could obtain a house. Polygon reports the issue has been fixed as of yesterday, and now, winning lottery numbers will be displayed correctly, and land purchases may be finalized accordingly.  “As I mentioned in our previous update, we will be conducting maintenance to restore lottery results data on Monday, May 16,” FFXIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida writes in a new update. “This maintenance will fix identified errors and properly relay lottery results for affected plots to the appropriate servers.” As a result of this maintenance fix:  Winning lottery numbers will be displayed correctly, and land purchases may be finalized accordingly. Temporary suspensions imposed on plot purchases and relocations will be lifted.  Yoshida says that if you have a winning lottery number, you should finalize your land purchase by Thursday, May 26, as the next lottery cycle will begin that day, at which point, you will lose the ability to claim land you won during the current lottery. The next one will start on May 26 and have a typical five-day entry period and a four-day results period.  If you’re a winning participant who has already received a gil refund due to the recent lottery break, you will still be able to finalize a purchase on a won plot of land. Even if you received a refund and have since found out you won the lottery, you’ll still be treated as a winning lottery player.  “In Patch 6.2, we plan to implement an NPC by which you may voluntarily return the deposit you were accidentally refunded,” Yoshida writes. “As these housing lottery issues have been significant and caused great stress and frustration in many players, we have no intention of performing a data rollback to forcibly rescind any refunded gil. We will make an announcement regarding the voluntary return of housing deposits once the NPC in question is ready to be implemented.  “In closing, I would like to thank you all once again for your patience and understanding this past month, and extend my deepest apologies for the trouble and inconvenience these issues have caused. We will do everything in our power to safely restore your data, fix any remaining issues, and bring you all a fair and functional housing lottery system. Thank you for your continued support.”  For more FFXIV, read our exclusive interview feature with Yoshi-P, and then read Game Informer’s Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker review. Read Game Informer’s ranking of every mainline Final Fantasy game after that.  [Source: Polygon] Are you a Final Fantasy XIV housing lottery winner? Let us know in the comments below!

Reviewed on: Switch Platform: Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC Publisher: 505 Games Developer: Natsume Atari Release: May 10, 2022 Rating: Everyone 10+ Summed up, Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising is a simple and straightforward action/RPG. It’s easy to get lost in its tranquil cycle of collecting stamps via fetch quests and combat. However, Rising doesn’t have much substance. The whole experience is bland and commits various RPG transgressions, which is disappointing. Especially as it’s a prequel introducing the Eiyuden world ahead of Eiyuden Chronicle: A Hundred Heroes – a spiritual successor to the Suikoden series. If this is a sign of what’s to come, I’m concerned. Rising’s protagonist, CJ, is a young adventurer who wants to make a name for herself as a treasure hunter. She sets up in a town that attracts adventurers far and wide for its valuable nearby resources; think of the Gold Rush. During her trek, she teams up with a grumpy and feisty kangaroo appropriately named Garoo and a sharp and elegant magic user named Isha. The main story primarily serves to get you moving to your next destination, serving up a few revelations about why mysterious, dangerous threats have appeared. Overall, the narrative is very predictable and generic.   With a dry story, the lack of bonding moments between the characters disappointed me. A few charming interactions play out in CJ and Garoo’s banter, and I took great delight in the appearance of a magical girl named Mallore, which is a clear homage to Sailor Moon. Still, there’s not much depth to these personalities, and they feel more like character outlines than fully developed individuals. Sadly, this makes it hard to feel any connection to them. A huge aspect of Rising is its town-building feature, which lets you help various villagers set up their shops to attract people to the settlement, making it more prosperous. You’re constantly leveling up various stores, such as a tavern, inn, apothecary, weapons shop, and more. At first glance, the town-building seems like a fun additional wrinkle, but its tedious fetch quests make it one of the game’s biggest letdowns. You trek to the same areas and then back again to the quest giver, who usually asks you to obtain a certain amount of a resource or locate a person for them. The town-building quickly turns into a long list of chores. On the one hand, they aren’t all that difficult to complete. On the other hand, they’re mindless and don’t offer much satisfaction for the effort. The shops get some new stock, and the town gets a little more crowded, but it’s such a hollow sense of progression. Every effort earns you stamps, which showcase your town completion level. After doing a chunk of these, I lost interest in prioritizing the side content, but then realized I was under-leveled if I didn’t engage with it since the quests offer a great deal of experience. This is frustrating, as you’re forced into boring pursuits with no substance and very little in the way of storytelling. A side quest should feel optional, not required.   Dungeons are broken up into short romps, which I liked because they didn’t feel bloated and lent themselves well to short play sessions. That was until I had to keep backtracking to the same dungeons, fighting the same minibosses repeatedly. The game is linear overall, which isn’t an issue if the exploration is interesting. That’s not really the case here; dungeons have very minimal hidden paths, and their main appeal is picking up rare items that you can use in crafting, equipment upgrades, and cooking. Their overall design is also very basic, tied to different elements (e.g., ice, earth, fire). At the very least, the final bosses of each dungeon are visually appealing and provide a decent challenge. One of my favorites was the furry ice twins, who could turn the floor to pure ice, forcing you to stay in the air with double jumps and combos until it lifted. The action combat is another area of the game that is just adequate. Your party members and their attacks are tied to different face buttons on the controller, and if you swap to another character at just the right time in the middle of an attack, you can chain powerful combos. As you level up, you unlock newer abilities, such as different jumping attacks like air and quick steps, alongside upward and downward attacks. Unfortunately, I never felt a growing sense of power or satisfaction from these; the link combos were more fulfilling and deadly. Still, everything controlled well, and I didn’t run into any glitches or serious technical issues during my time with the game on Switch. The 2.5D art style deserves its own praise. Rising is a vibrant and inviting adventure, with beautiful hand-drawn visuals that add a nice personal touch. The graphics have this retro vibe reminiscent of Suikoden, while still modernizing just enough to feel like an exciting visual upgrade. The character portraits are detailed and alluring, and the little details in the landscapes pop, such as grass swaying in the wind or blistering snow falling. Rising was created to reward fans for reaching a Kickstarter stretch goal, but it’s not just an add-on, it is a complete game, running around 20 hours. Natsume Atari took point as developer, with input from Rabbit & Bear Studios, the masterminds behind Hundred Heroes. Unfortunately, the experience falls short as every element of it is just passable or run-of-the-mill. However, its art style is a bright spot, making me hopeful for the main game that is still to come. Pretty visuals can only get you far, however, and Eiyuden Chronicle: Rising doesn’t offer enough entertaining or unique content to keep it from being anything more than a passable RPG. At the very least, it introduces the Eiyuden world and some characters involved in Hundred Heroes, but that’s very little incentive for putting up with tedious gameplay and boilerplate characters. Score: 6.75 About Game Informer's review system Purchase