The Last of Us: Part II opened Sony’s press conference with a bang. Not only did we meet a new character named Dina who’s obviously important in Ellie’s life, but we also saw a slice of the combat. As with any follow-up title, the next game always looks to improve on its predecessor, and true to Naughty Dog, it’s set on taking things to the next level. During E3 2018, I got the opportunity to sit with co-directors Kurt Margenau and Anthony Newman to discuss how combat has evolved and what we can expect from it the highly anticipated sequel.
Proving More Stealth Options
According to Newman, when the Naughty Dog team sat down to think about the game, it explored what worked well and what would be appropriate for this game and expand on what was done previously. “The Last of Us has always been about the natural world and reclaiming society and civilization, so a natural evolution of Last of Us 1 was to increase the vegetation in the world,” he explained. “That obviously plays into the stealth game that’s super important, so that pushed us to create this analog stealth system where based on your stance, whether you’re crouched, standing, or prone in the thickness of the vegetation you’re in, enemies have an easier or harder time seeing you. There’s this sliding scale of how susceptible you are. It’s more appropriate to the tension of the world of The Last of Us.” That means gone are the isolated patches, and instead, the environments offer lush, full forests that provide plenty of opportunities for Ellie to strategize.
Melee Has Been Revamped
In the demo, we saw Ellie dodging left and right as enemies attacked her. Naughty Dog added a dedicated dodge button this time around. “This allows us to do a lot more with melee,” Margenau said. “You can fight multiple enemies at once and [there are] all these cool contextual moves she does like planting off the surface and attacking with various finishers. We also have all the melee weapons, like she’s able to take a hammer off someone and use that.”
“That’s actually a new detail; if you don’t have a melee weapon beyond your switchblade and you’re finishing off someone who does have one, you can smoothly transition and grab that weapon from them,” Newman added.
Historically, melee has been animation-based, but more collision-based elements are being added to it. For instance, if a brute keeps swinging his hammer, he can hit stuff in the environment if he misses the player. “It’s kind of a small detail but it makes the system much more connected to the environment,” Newman explained. This has also enhanced the returning melee weapons, such as the machete and switchblade. Newman spoke to the movesets being more nuanced and complex than they were in the first game.
Taking Care Of Arrow Wounds
In the trailer, we saw Ellie face off against bow-and-arrow enemies. At one point, she gets an arrow stuck in her. This was not scripted for the demo; it’s something else you must consider as you battle menacing foes. When an arrow pierces you, it stays in you until you find a safe place to remove it. “While it’s in you, you don’t have access to listen mode and your aim is all out of whack,” Margenau said. “It’s the first status effect that we’ve introduced in the game,” Newman added.
Making Crafting Matter
Margenau confirmed there will be new craftable ammo for the bow and arrow, such as the explosive arrow we saw in the demo. “When we think about crafting such a core part of that experience in the Last of Us is the choice you make and what you give up when you craft it,” Margenau said. The team is always looking for what makes the experience unique as opposed to giving you a laundry list of items you can craft. It’s important there’s always something at stake. “It is a delicate balance of what options you give the player and what we showed is just a slice of what we’re planning,” Margenau teased.
A Different Fighter With More Enemies To Master
This entry is upping the ante with the weapons enemies use against you, such as bow-and-arrow users alongside different classes of the infected. Margenau spoke to one big adversary, who has a heavy melee attack and can throw Ellie through things and over things. He’s certainly no pushover; he can also block and parry your attacks. This doesn’t mean Ellie is defenseless against him, though. “This is obviously a harsh world and anybody who is going to survive in this world must become a very competent fighter,” Newman said. “Ellie has had five years to pick up some new tricks along the way.”
However, the team also had to think of how she would be a different fighter than Joel and what would make sense for her character. “She’s not as big or as bulky as Joel,” Newman explained. “She’s not going to be able to just overpower enemies with her raw strength.”
To compensate for this difference and to keep combat interesting, Naughty Dog added a dodge for the melee to increase complexity. A new addition is also a jump button to make environments more vertical. “This makes escaping more dynamic and frenetic,” Newman said about the addition. “Escaping is always an option,” Margenau added. “The squeezing through and hiding under things … you don’t always have to kill everyone.”
No Easy Way Out
While I discussed combat with Margenau and Newman one thing that kept coming up was the importance of tension, which they aren’t letting simmer in the slightest. “We’re trying to provide a lot more options for the player,” Newman said. “Overall, the level of threat that you’ll be facing means that you’re not going to be able to take things head on. Whether you want to do stealth or go loud with your combat, you’re never going to be able to do it without putting a lot of careful thought into what you’re doing.” The co-directors assured us they’ve expanded both the stealth and action playstyles. Naughty Dog wants players to have options and different ways to tackle every situation. “We’re not trying to make it more of an action game than The Last of Us,” Margenau assured. “It’s still a survival action game.”
To learn more about The Last of Us: Part II, check out that delves deeper into the narrative.
During PlayStation's E3 2018 press briefing, Remedy wowed attendees and viewers with the first trailer of its upcoming game, Control. The trailer was exciting but left more questions than answers. Thankfully, I met with Remedy to see the game in action and learn more about the company's mysterious new world.
Remedy has always been known for narrative-driven experiences, but creative director Sam Lake says the team wants to expand beyond what the studio is known for. “Coming out of Quantum Break, I was concepting this with Mikael Kasurinen, who is our game director,” he says. “We wanted to, first and foremost, create a deep and mysterious world – a many-layered world that players would be drawn back to even when they have played for a long time to explore, find secrets, and piece things together.”
In Control, you play as Jesse Faden, a person who had a traumatic encounter with the unexplainable as a child. The encounter changed her and left her with questions about what she is and what is possible in the world. In search of answers, she travels to the Oldest House, a massive Manhattan skyscraper where the secretive governmental organization in charge of investigating unexplainable things, the Federal Bureau of Control, resides. However, just as she arrives, a mysterious, supernatural force known as The Hiss attack the Oldest House, possessing the employees of the Bureau and killing the Director.
Not realizing what it is, Jesse picks up the Director’s gun. However, the gun is an Object of Power with the ability to morph and shift its powers. In picking up this weapon, Jesse becomes the new Director, placing a target on her back for the possessed Bureau employees. As Jesse turns a corner, a man holding a gun creepily walks toward her. He slowly looks at her and readies his gun. Jesse realizes what’s about to happen and pulls a portion of the floor up to block the gunfire. Turns out the gun isn’t the only powerful part of the main character. She then blasts the debris at the assailant, stunning him. Using her powers, she grabs a computer monitor from across the room and smashes it into him, knocking him down.
“The thing that we wanted from really early on was to make a really challenging experience.”
Exploring the Oldest House is easier said than done. In addition to the myriad enemies trying their luck at taking down Jesse, you also must deal with shifting walls and rooms. Remedy relies heavily on elements of new weird, a subgenre of science fiction revolving around a normal world being changed by a foreign object that is often unexplainable by human science, as well as dream logic. The building behaves unpredictably, but you can sometimes trigger these shifts by performing abstract rituals that require you to think outside the box.
“It’s a Place of Power on its own… this weird, shifting, strange place that’s vastly bigger on the inside than the outside would lead you to believe,” Lake says. “If you know the rules, if the conditions are right, if you know the right rituals, you can keep on traveling – essentially forever – deeper into this building. And step by step, also, leaving our known reality behind.”
Quantum Break placed a heavy emphasis on story, but Lake says this time around, the studio is more focused on the gameplay. Lake and Kasurinen also wanted to deliver a less linear experience where players would want to dive back in time and again to learn more about the world, complete challenges, and discover new things.
This is evident as Jesse comes to a big, long room with multiple doors. Each door leads to different area, giving the Oldest House sandbox elements. As Jesse continues down the path, she comes to a chasm with seemingly no way across. The demoer says that to pass this gap, she must unlock the Levitate ability. Thankfully, Jesse already has this ability, so there’s no need to backtrack to find it. Jesse effortlessly glides across and continues down the path.
As you play, you encounter multiple side-missions. The optional quest I see is a guy who’s stuck staring at a refrigerator. He tells Jesse he’s been stuck staring for days without rest or food and he’s hoping she can relieve him of his duties. I’m not sure what that would entail, but there’s no time for that. Jesse leaves the poor soul behind and continues along her way.
As the demo nears its end, Jesse encounters Rooney, the head of security. Unfortunately, the Hiss have gotten to him as well, and he is much more powerful than any other enemy she’s encountered at this point in the demo. Rooney possesses similar skills as Jesse, but he seems faster and has more projectiles. After shooting him and smashing him with several pieces of debris, Rooney gives one last-ditch effort, but Jesse expertly dodges it and delivers the killing blow.
Jesse leaves the room and enters a bright, white room. She walks toward a massive upside-down black triangle – The Astral Plane. The demo ends after the impressive boss battle, and I’m left wondering what will await her in the Astral Plane.
Control feels like the ultimate realization of what Remedy has attempted in past games. “I would like to think that with each project, we learn what works and what didn’t work that well,” Lake says. “We always want to bring in new elements and try out new things. Here, I think we’ve done a bit more of that than times in the past. But also, I feel there will be a lot of things that the fans will see the evolution of and where certain things have come from.”
The more open structure, the powers Jesse wields, and the abstract shifting building lead to a complex title to wrap your head around. Control looks to keep players on their toes more than other Remedy games.
“The thing that we wanted from really early on was to make a really challenging experience,” Lake says. “We are dealing with weird concepts, but also from the gameplay side and storytelling side, if you have a linear game, what you end up doing is you are holding the player’s hand and leading them through the experience. ‘Look now, here is the next thing. And you go straight down the hall, and then you see the next thing.’ We decided very early on that this is hands off. We are not helping. We want this to be more player-driven, and the player goes in and pursues the things they are interested in. We are serving fewer things on the platter for you, and leaving you more to piece together for yourself, and try out and experiment, and discover, and learn. We do believe that this will make it more engaging and more rewarding.”
I can’t wait to see what else Control has in store when it launches in 2019.
Avalanche Studios has been delighting E3 ongoers all week with an action-packed demo of Just Cause 4, and if you’re looking for a traditional preview of what they showed, Javy . However, he’s not the only one who saw the tools of destruction that Rico Rodriguez is packing this time around. Jeff Cork and Jeff Marchiafava also sat in on the demo, with a laser focus on the kind of stupid fun in-game pranksters can look forward to. Rather than keep their ruminations to themselves, they decided to memorialize their thoughts about Just Cause 4 in a text conversation, which you can conveniently view below. You’re welcome!
Jeff Cork: Hello, Jeff Marchiafava! Remember when we saw the Just Cause 4 demo together? What was the biggest surprise for you? Personally, I wasn’t expecting to learn that the tornadoes that were highlighted in the reveal trailer are being controlled by various factions in the game through some kind of weird array of high-powered fans. And no, I am not making that up. The tornadoes in the game are, indeed, being controlled through some kind of weird array of high-powered fans.
Jeff M: Conspiracy theorists rejoice – the government really is controlling the weather! I think the biggest surprise for me was that apparently Avalanche can read my mind and decided to tailor-make Just Cause 4 into exactly what I want from the series – a big dumb playground for me to mess with NPCs in ridiculous ways.
Jeff C: Sure, you could shoot them with your guns, but that’s amateur-hour stuff. During the demo, we got to see all kinds of wacky nonsense. I think they know their audience perfectly; rather than focus on the various socioeconomic conditions that have led to the downfall of this region, we got to see a lengthy masterclass about how physics can be fun. Rico’s repertoire has been enhanced with an upgraded grappler, allowing for even more mayhem. We all had fun using boosters to rocket people, cars, and other things away, but Just Cause 4 puts it on a completely different level. We saw it in action as the demoer methodically shot booster after booster at a crane and cargo container and stuck them together with a tether. Moments later, the contraption sprung to life, whirling around like an out-of-control wrecking ball and ruining everything within its radius.
Jeff M: Yeah, I was delightfully surprised to see that you can customize a bunch of characteristics for how your grappler functions, seemingly for the express purpose of causing goofy shenanigans. Some of the options don’t even make sense in any logical circumstance – why would you ever need a tether that continually contracts and expands between to objects? That only makes sense when you’re trying to do something stupid, and I love that they give players the option. Should we talk about the damn balloons now?
Jeff C: Rico can fire off balloons now, which inflate and – you’re not going to believe this – lift whatever they’re attached to into the air. “Whatever” probably includes what you’re thinking about already. You want to pretend you’re a cutrate Snake and whisk people away with your phony Fulton? They won’t be added to your roster, but your victims will float away. Close enough? You can also put them on the corners of the top of a storage container and create a floating mobile platform – one that, when combined with boosters, can fly you around until it probably slams into a mountain or spirals out of control. You can also equip a mod that lets the balloons follow you around, so you can have a conga line of red barrels above you. Why? I don’t know. Maybe drop them and they’ll explode on your enemies? Asking “Why?” seems fairly fruitless, as you said.
Jeff M: Yeah, unlike the Fulton, there really isn’t a point to it beyond “more physics-based fun,” and that’s good enough for me! I’m really looking forward to diving into the grappler customization and seeing what hilarious combinations you can come up with. The biggest news, however, might be that Avalanche even figured out a way to make the weather fun! Apparently the entire island has simulated wind patterns, which make getting around with Rico’s windsuit a little easier – though I doubt it will stop me from smashing into the sides of mountains. Avalanche said Just Cause 4 simulated a number of weather conditions as well, but the one they were showing off was the aforementioned tornadoes.
Jeff C: They seem to spin real good. During the demo, we saw one tear through an enemy outpost, where it tore up nearly everything in its path – including the red chaos objects, which ordinarily reward Rico with points for destroying them. Guess what? You still get credit for blowing up those generators, gas tanks, and towers, even if the tornado is technically doing all the work for you. He’s not lazy, he’s enterprising! Those chaos objects have a little more utility this time around, beyond blowing up nicely when shot at. For instance, you can put balloons on a gas tank, blow out the back of it, and watch as the resulting jet flame propels the tank away like a missile toward some enemy fighters. And then, of course, it explodes because it’s still Just Cause.
Jeff M: It is indeed more Just Cause, which is exactly what I wanted from the series in the first place. The new island seems massive and varied, the destruction physics have been kicked up a notch, and everything is gorgeous. I think the real fun is going to be experimenting – Rico has a new box of toys, and I look forward to playing with them!
Jeff C: Boom.
Mavericks is the next game to compete in the very competitive Battle Royale genre. It is talking a big game, and in some cases, even calling out what will likely be its direct competitor, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds.
The developer, Automaton Games, is made up of folks who have worked on games like Killzone, APB, and Wipeout among a few other impressive titles. It started out its presentation detailing some of the things it hopes will set Mavericks apart from the competition. It promised different weather effects in the environments, like snow and rain, and said it has the technical capabilities to go as high as 400 players in a match. Automaton Games also wants, long-term, to have 1,000 players broken into a collection of five-person teams. The area of play for the battle royale mode will take place on a 10 x 10 km area (as opposed to PUBG’s 6 x 6 km area), and that will only be a portion of its planned larger 16 x 16 km playable area. Basically, Automaton Games is making an MMO shooter that will have missions taking place in this large area and battle royale will just be one mode present in the larger game.
Players will impact the map as they play. One of the small examples Automaton Games offered was when you change bandages out to heal, your old bandages will be discarded on the ground. This way, other players will know someone has been there, and they’re injured. Bullet shell casings will also litter the ground, along with footprints, blood trails, and used med kits. You will also see animals in the world minding their own business.
The environment is also be destructible, with the ability to fire through thin walls, blow down doors with grenades, or even shoot the locks off of doors. You can also quietly pick those locks, too.
An area called The Capital will act as a safe hub where players will be able to collect quests, buy things in shops, or engage in player to player interaction. Automaton Games has a whole story premise for the world in place occurring after a World War III. People compete in the battle royale for a kind of limited immortality, but we didn’t get more details than that.
Automaton Games talked a big game with its long-term plans for Mavericks, and it is undeniably ambitious. It’s more MMO (or maybe Destiny would be the better comparison) than you might think, considering much of the talk surrounding the game has been related to its battle royale mode. After the presentation, we did get a chance to go hands-on with a very early version of the game.
Its built using CryEngine, so it looks sharp. The trailer released during the PC Gamer Show (seen above) uses the game’s engine, but all the animation and choreography is custom. It started raining during our demo, which looked cool, and I used a bandage and saw that I did leave behind a bandage on the ground. The destructibility was also in place, and I was able to shoot through the walls inside a random house, and shoot up into the ceiling to expose the attic. In theory, if someone is hiding upstairs and you can hear them, you will be able to shoot them from below. It had its hiccups in this early build of the game, and there was no option to go prone, but on its shooter merits (there wasn’t much opportunity to explore the larger open world) it felt pretty good.
Mavericks will enter closed beta in August <(a href="https://mavericks.gg/closed-beta">you can sign up for it here), and you can sign up for it now. In late 2018 the battle royale mode will be available, and next year Automaton Games is hoping to integrate its plans for the persistent open world, ongoing player-driven narrative, as well as player choices that will affect the larger world.
I admire Mavericks: Proving Grounds’ ambition. Automaton Games wants to make a massive shared shooter world where people can experience an ongoing narrative and level up their character while participating in battle royale. The promised tech is impressive, but it’s impossible to say if it will be able to deliver. It’s a game I will definitely be watching to see if it is able to live up to its potential.
[Editor's note: I previously listed the developer as Improbable, but the developer is actually Automaton Games. Improbable is developing the game's SpatialOS platform, the tech that makes it all work.]
As part of Microsoft’s massive E3 conference, Phil Spencer introduced a fighting game from Bandai Namco as a way of communicating Microsoft’s commitment to Japanese games. The trailer showed Dragon Ball’s Goku and Freeza, the titular character of Naruto, and Luffy from One Piece all fighting each other in realistic modern environments. Bandai Namco introduced the world to Jump Force, a 3D fighting game celebrating manga magazine Shonen Jump’s 50th anniversary.
The story of the game is that our world – that is to say, the real world – is colliding with the world, or worlds, of various Jump series. Unlike previous Jump crossover games, Jump Force is intended to have a story mode explaining why the various heroes and villains are clashing, though Bandai Namco would not tell us the reason quite yet. They only hinted that it would involve the machinations of Light and the Shinigami Ryuk, who were seen observing the fights from the top of a building at the end of the reveal trailer.
The fights take place, at least from what we were shown, in real-world locations. At E3, the only two levels shown were New York City and the Matterhorn, rendered with fairly realistic graphics. There weren’t any citizens fleeing from Naruto’s Kyuubi super or Freeza’s finger lasers, which is good, because that might have been a bit too much to take in.
The actual gameplay of Jump Force is not dissimilar to 3D fighting games already associated with the respective series. Mashing buttons will often get you exactly what you want to happen, usually a disappearing act as you dart across the arena and use your opponent as a volleyball. Holding a shoulder button and combining it with attacks gets you special moves like Goku’s Kamehameha, Luffy’s Gum Gum Pistol, or Naruto’s Rasengan. In that respect, the ease of execution is very similar to Smash Bros. more than, say, Dragon Ball Budokai or Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm.
The combat at the moment, however, is a little slow and unvaried. Characters all move at about the same speed and seem to have a lot of the same combos, making them feel extremely similar outside of their special moves. Mobility doesn’t seem that different between One Piece’s Zorro and Dragon Ball’s Goku, giving the possibly intentional impression that the game is designed to simply be picked up and played for anyone with any favorite character.
Bandai Namco wouldn’t give up the roster for the game, but hinted that there more than a few surprise characters that fans wouldn’t think of. While fighting ability and popularity are important factors, being able to please fans of more niche series is also a major goal for the development team.
Jump Force is scheduled to release in 2019 on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
Minecraft's Better Together version finally launches today for Nintendo Switch, and a new trailer has dropped to play up its cross-platform capabilities. Xbox One and Nintendo Switch owners can now play Minecraft as if they were on the same platform but notably - as the trailer hammers home - it is just Nintendo and Xbox on board. Not Sony. Minecraft's Better Together Update (which is in fact an entirely new game, although free to existing owners) is also compatible with Minecraft on Windows 10, iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
The Elder Scrolls 6 location possibilities are... pretty vast. Or at least they are on first inspection of that super brief E3 2018 teaser trailer we saw - but we actually think it might be possible to narrow them down. Below, we're going to run through a series of potential locations and settings for the Elder Scrolls 6. We'll rule some out - at least in principle - and highlight some others that we think are particularly likely, and then finally, further below, we'll go through a quick rundown of everything else we know about The Elder Scrolls 6 - like its platforms and potential release date - so you've got all the information in one place. Do bear in mind though that, really, this is a bit of fun - even if we do start to get quite into it as we go...
Minecraft's Better Together version finally launches today for Nintendo Switch, and a new trailer has dropped to play up its cross-platform capabilities. Xbox One and Nintendo Switch owners can now play Minecraft as if they were on the same platform but notably - as the trailer hammers home - it is just Nintendo and Xbox on board. Not Sony. Minecraft's Better Together Update (which is in fact an entirely new game, although free to existing owners) is also compatible with Minecraft on Windows 10, iPhone, iPad and Android devices.
The Elder Scrolls 6 location possibilities are... pretty vast. Or at least they are on first inspection of that super brief E3 2018 teaser trailer we saw - but we actually think it might be possible to narrow them down. Below, we're going to run through a series of potential locations and settings for the Elder Scrolls 6. We'll rule some out - at least in principle - and highlight some others that we think are particularly likely, and then finally, further below, we'll go through a quick rundown of everything else we know about The Elder Scrolls 6 - like its platforms and potential release date - so you've got all the information in one place. Do bear in mind though that, really, this is a bit of fun - even if we do start to get quite into it as we go...
